#5

BEST: National Equality March (Oct. 11)

We were there! We did our part! So did President Gaga! So did Dan Choi and Staceyann Chin! Where’s our equal rights, bitches?! Oh, right, America hasn’t realized what century we’re in yet. But still, you gotta love an event that brings thousands of queers together in one spot! Next time they need a few hot dog vendors though and maybe some beer.

WORST: Rick Warren gives the invocation at Obama’s inauguration (Jan. 20)

Warren has charmingly compared gay marriage to incest, and it took him way too long to condemn Uganda’s gay genocide bill. Because of the current issues in Africa we’re also now learning of how Warren and his cronies have been instrumental in exporting hate to Africa. Obama just wanted to make sure the gays felt really good about his presidency from the start and reach across the aisle to assure the other side that his administration was all about the middle. Unfortunately, there are a lot of crazy people on the other side of the aisle, so he probs should’ve just done what we wanted him to do in the first place and gotten Gene Robinson up there.

warrenobama

#4

BEST: Hate Crimes bill signed to include gender identity discrimination (Oct. 22)

The Matthew Shepard act finally passed, and we couldn’t be happier! Even if being happy and thinking about Matthew Shepard at the same time makes us feel kind of weird! We love Matt’s mom!

WORST: Florida throws out Janice Langbehn’s court case (Sept. 29)

Langbehn sued after she was denied visiting rights while her partner died in a Florida hospital in 2007. The court’s decision to not even hear her case showed us just how bad things are in Florida.

#3

BEST: Washington passes Ref 71 (Nov 3) D.C. passes gay marriage bill.

The D.C. bill still has to go through a few steps, but we really appreciate how the council took a stand on the issue even after the Church’s threat of consequences. Meanwhile …

Washington’s Ref 17, the “everything but marriage” bill, was our consolation for the human rights train wreck of Maine’s Question 1. It turns out that even when it sounds (and is) belittling, “everything but marriage” is still better than “nothing even close to marriage, ever.”

nonmarriage

WORST: Same-sex marriage is voted down in Maine (Nov. 3)

Maine had the chance to be the first state to make same-sex marriage a reality through a vote of the people instead of legislative action, and instead voters chose to make sure we hadn’t forgotten that we’re still second-class citizens. And just like the girl in the bottom left-hand corner there, we’re still not over it.

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#2

BEST: Lesbian is elected mayor of Houston (November-December)

Not only is Annise Parker the most qualified for the job, but her happy smiling face makes us think of rainbows and unicorns and rainbow unicorns. Doesn’t she just look like the nicest lady you’ll ever meet?

anniseparker

WORST: Season 6 of the L Word (January-March)

On the other end of the powerful lesbians spectrum, we have Ilene Chaiken.

If you thought Season 3 was terrible, well it’s got nothing on Season 6. Not only was it hard to watch, it made us all look like fools for still watching it. See; killing our friends is not the way that we live. Ilene managed to completely undermine the potential strength of two complicated, evolving, controversial characters (bipolar rape victim lesbian Jenny and FTM Max) by reducing them to cardboard cutouts. In Max’s case, Ilene failed epically, leaving us with the idea that she wasn’t just a bad writer, but a bad writer with a serious case of transphobia.

She’s since given up on writing “our stories” and decided just to film “our stories” in an artificial environment called “The Real L Word: Los Angeles” which will start filming in January.

#1

WORST: Gay Visibility Struggles Against the Tides of the Recession and the Death of Print

The L Word ended We actually thought Queerty was joking when they said Regent Media was letting go 13 staffers from The Advocate and making it into a 32-page insert in Out, but they weren’t. Other things that weren’t jokes include the shuttering of Window Media, the closing of The New York Blade, the gradual disappearance of lesbian leads on major television shows including on the gay channel … we could go on but let’s move on instead … there’s silver lining …

BEST: You

Remember that time TIME magazine totally copped out on picking a person of the year and just sent you a magazine with a big mirror on it? Well, either way, this ain’t no disco, but this ain’t no copout either.

YOU! Yes, you are one of the best happenings of the year! Go make yourself a necklace and write yourself a comment! Though this year has undoubtedly served up an endless stream of m*therf*cking international suckdom, it’s hard to be so negative when there are so many exciting things happening on The Internet AND SPECIFICALLY RIGHT HERE. We can’t wait for more exciting conversations, more educational moments, more drunken live-blogs of catastrophic gay happenings, and you know, the future. Also we mean the proverbial “you” ’cause there are so many women out there still launching projects, publications, websites, webseries, films and other amazing lesbionic things.