Ex-Miss-Cali Gets In the Mix & Pink’s Been Out Since 2006

Today on Autostraddle: Stef does one of her legendary cartoon recaps about Saturday night’s Lady GaGa concert! More later.

+Ex Miss California is pro gay marriage. (@Desert Dispatch) Best part hands down of this article: “She originally began championing global warming awareness but became more interested in equal rights through meeting pageant people who supported gay rights.” You know, like the boys that did her hair!

+In The High School Comic Chronicles of Ariel Schrag, her four-part series of autobiographical graphic novels, the 29-year-old cartoonist moves year-by-year through her life as a gay teen in 1990s California, tackling puberty, friendship and coming out along the way. (ed. note: Ariel used to write for The L Word, too, when it was good and stuff.) (@npr)12538

Riese Rants Briefly: This “Pink is bisexual” story is driving me insane. Pink comes out as bisexual! Pink says she never said that! Who cares? Back in ’06, I was working on a book about bisexuality, and I routinely cited Pink as one of many popular actors/musicians who’s flexible sexuality had not prevented their mainstream success. We’re all too hung up on labels and linguistics — the way I see it is that Pink’s using her own words to refer to the same concept that the media is implicating when it employs the word “bisexual.” If I had the time, I’d go through all my Pink-is-“bi” sources but I don’t, so! Here’s one!

In addition to her sexy music video where she actually makes out with herself (also female), I’d like to cite this OCTOBER 2006 interview from DIVA magazine.:

We know you married your long-term beau, Carey Hart, last year, but have you had sexual relationships with women in the past?
I don’t like to talk about my private life too much, but I have, yeah. My first girlfriend actually really fucked my head up – she left me for my brother ….

How old were you when you first realised you were attracted to women?
The first time I really noticed another girl, I was 12 and used to go dancing at my local gay club. It wasn’t the best club I’ve ever been to, but the atmosphere was fantastic. I remember just dancing for hours and feeling really free.

What kind of ladies do you go for?
I don’t have a specific type when it comes to men or women. They can be blonde, brunette, butch or femme. The main thing is whether or not they have a great personality and a sick sense of humour.

Do you identify yourself as bisexual or queer?
I don’t like labels; they’re too easy. I’m just about good energy and good feelings. A lot of people feel the need to split the world into heterosexuals and homosexuals, but I really believe we’re all trisexual. The most interesting people I know are ones who refuse to categorise or define themselves by their desires.

UPDATE: My kickass cyberpal Grace the Spot has alerted me that Pink redacted her bisexuality in 2008 in this interview. Hm. Well, but see: as Grace’s AfterEllen article points out, that line of questioning was more than a bit off-topic for the conversation and I’m certain (as this current media hulabaloo clearly suggests) if Pink had indulged the bisexual conversation, none of the politics would’ve ever made it into print. It would’ve been — well — a lot like what we’re dealing with right now. A married woman saying she’s bisexual? OMG. Mainstream America doesn’t understand bisexuality, that story would’ve been a giant mess.

There’s a number of reasons to play down bisexuality, and until we live in a non-patriarchal non-heteronormative society, there’ll be gigantic grey areas of speculation when a bisexual female re-identifies herself as straight. Because we live in such a society, where there are clear advantages to being straight, women who identify as bi and then come out as lesbians cannot be compared or held up as a counterexample to the point that women who now claim to be straight are probs lying, as for a lesbian their self-identified “phase” is often imposed on them by said heteronormative society or a last-ditch attempt to retain power in a society where gays are persecuted by family members, relegated to watch bad television shows and don’t have equal rights. So don’t even get me started on that — it’s not the same, which is why I say that I think Pink is “bisexual,” based on my definition of bisexuality. I also think sexuality is fluid and maybe realizing that would make us one step closer to equal rights.. I think a lot of things. Certainly we are wasting ink. I could rant on this for days. So I will end there.

++ Joy Behar Hosts Gay Marriage Debate on Larry King Live with Shanna Moakler (director, Miss California Pageant), Stephen Baldwin (who’s “being persecuted” for his beliefs), Rev. Nicole LaMarche and Maggie Gallagher from NOM. MY BLOOD IS BOILING, I heart ex-Miss California, I heart Joy Behar, I super heart Nicole LaMarche, I hate everyone, me and Pink are marrying Tinkerbell tomorrow.

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Today your regular “How You Like Us Now” will be replaced by “How Us Like Obama Now” due to the plethora of information on the latter.

ObamaRama:hot

Hey Obama? Here’s What You Can Do RIGHT NOW For Gays (@queerty)

Where’s Our ‘Fierce Advocate’? (@washington post)

+View From the Hill (@the advocate)

+Does Obama have the same view of gay marriage as Miss California? (@the us news & world report)

+Out lesbian a contender for Supreme Court position? (@gay politics)

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Michael Heath of the Maine Family Policy Council announced this week he will work to gather the signatures necessary for a people’s veto of [Maine’s] gay-marriage bill. (@morning sentinel)

+Marilyn French, novelist and feminist, dies at 79. (@NY Times)

+”I don’t follow Tyra Banks. I do not watch her talk show, nor have I ever seen more than 5 minutes of any cycle of America’s Next Top Model.” Anna braves the rainstorm for a Times Talk Panel featuring Tyra’s “many smiles, multiple faces” (sound familiar?), and is still very confused about Tyra’s unique brand of feminism. (@jezebel)

+ Carol Ann Duffy is the UK’s first female poet laureate [@bbc] UPDATED also first open lesbian [@the advocate] UPDATED – her reaction to it all. (@bbc)

+ When Taiwan gays get bored, they want an extra restroom: We suggest that schools change the designation on public restrooms from marking the gender to marking whether it has toilets or urinals or both inside.” (@ Taipei Times)

Our Favorite Lesbian. Also, my favorite lesbian. (@ohnotheydidn’t)

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riese-icon3from Riese: Stephen Dunn is my favorite poet, dontcha know it. The other night I was reading some things (I take out his stuff from time to time just to remember how to be and feel) I read Night Truths again and asked my favorite blogger to do it for me and he did: I haven’t chosen to be alone, but am.

alex-iconfrom Alex: Really cool and eerie eco-art from inhabitat: “It’s a grid of fluorescent light bulbs planted into the ground beneath a series of power lines. When the bulbs glow, it’s not because of a series of buried wires, or a battery – they light up using the ghost power radiating from the wires overhead.

crystal-iconfrom Crystal: Last Graph is a visualisation application that turns your LastFm listening data into pretty wavegraphs. The idea is that you can export high res PDF downloads and turn them into posters, so that everybody can see how awesome your music preferences are.

green-iconfrom Green: Mother’s Day is a fake-feeling holiday propagated by greeting card companies and jewelry stores, but that doesn’t change the fact that your mom probably expects a little something extra on May 10. Impress her this year with a few handmade flowers designed by Natalie Chanin. You’ll need a copy of Alabama Stitch Book if you want to follow a pattern. Or you could always wing it. Be free, little crafters

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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3238 articles for us.

15 Comments

  1. when you and pink marry tinkerbell make sure you register. no point in tying the knot if you don’t get free stuff from your commenters.

  2. Dear Mr. Baldwin,

    It must be terrible being persecuted! I wonder how that feels?

    Also, Bible = literature.

        • what? WHAT??! no one disagrees with me!! roooarrrr!! j/k, asher! where do we disagree? stephen baldwin, the bible, or “comment of the week”? b/c it’s only tuesday, so i could see where you’d think i was jumping the gun a bit there.

        • ‘comment of the week’ solely because it was dethroning me. and i worked damn hard for that crown.

  3. I can’t believe how many people (notably, how many LESBIANS) have been coming up to me since the Pink news “broke,” exclaiming their delight about Pink being bi. I kinda thought EVERYONE already knew that. Aren’t gays always the first to know, and it’s not like it was a secret anyway. Old news. It just shocks me how many people I know who had no idea she was already out. We make such a big deal about it, but a lot of celebrities came out long before mainstream media got hold of it and made it a “story.”

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