When more women like her come out, the teeth of transphobia will fall out. What an amazingly cool decision she made.

Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend has more on the story as it emerged, Lemon’s official statement, and The Grio has a nice piece on why Lemon’s coming out matters:

One thing I know for sure is that there are thousands of young people, black men specifically, who will see Don Lemon, an anchor for “the most trusted name in news” and be inspired. Hopefully, they will hate themselves a little less, love themselves a little more and the blows from the black church will not hit as hard.

Spaulding’s piece on skin color is essential reading, and provides good context for why Lemon’s coming out is vital.

It’s entirely photos & stories of LGBT people in photos from when they were young, kids most of them. Just gorgeous, and the stories are as varied and amazing as you’d expect.

It reminds me some of my friend Doug’s performances Queer Stories for Boys, because there is a whole lotta queer in those photos.

I hope to see a lot more trans people in upcoming days.

Why anyone quash the spirit of such amazing children I’ll never know.

Happy Coming Out Day, everyone.

Dan Savage & his husband Terry talk about growing up gay, the assholes in high school, families you grow up in & families you create. Really beautiful stuff, and please, LGBT teens, watch it.

QUESTION: “But on AIG, why did you wait — why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage? It seems like the action is coming out of New York and the attorney general’s office. It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, “Look, we’re outraged.” Why did it take so long?”

OBAMA: “It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

= the best bit of Obama’s press conference tonight.

Joe.My.God’s reporting that there’s even further acrimony & weirdness coming out of the wrangling that’s been going on in the NY Senate between the “gang of three” anti-gay senators and the rest of the Dems.

For those of you who haven’t read about this before, the brouhaha stems from the Marriage Equality Bill that Gov. Paterson and the Senate Dems back. The three people name – Diaz, Kruger, & Espada – aren’t for the bill.

I always wonder about the embarrassment people are going to feel 20 years from now where the idea of opposing gay marriage seems as lame as being against giving women the vote.

Nevermind that for now. I met a smattering of lovely people who are active in the LGBT blogosphere, some of whom I knew before and some who I didn’t: Dana of Mombian, a whole bunch of the folks at Bilerico, including Bil, Serena, Irene, and Alex; some of the Pam’s House Blend crew, including Pam herself and Autumn Sandeen. Among other I ran into were Allyson Robinson at the HRC cocktail party on Friday night, Mara Keisling of NCTE on Saturday afternoon (at the infamous Mayflower Hotel), as well as Tahlib Disney-Britton of Freedom to Marry, James from gayagenda.com,  and Tobias Packer of Equality Florida.

A more complete blogroll looks like this:

• BlogActive – Michael Rogers – http://www.pageoneq.com/ , http://www.blogactive.com/
• Boi From Troy – Scott Schmidt – http://www.boifromtroy.com
• Blabbeando – Andrés Duque – http://blabbeando.blogspot.com
• Burnt Orange Report – Karl-Thomas Muselman – http://www.burntorangereport.com
• Calitics – Brian Leubitz – http://calitics.com
• (en)gender – Helen Boyd – http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/
• GoodAsYou – Jeremy Hooper – http://www.goodasyou.org
• Greta Christina’s Blog – Greta Christina – http://gretachristina.typepad.com/
• InterstateQ.com – Matt Comer – http://www.interstateq.com/
• Pam’s House Blend – Pam Spaulding – http://www.pamshouseblend.com
• Nathan Strang – Buffawhat – http://buffawhat.com
• The Bilerico Project – http://www.bilerico.com
• UK Gay News – Andy Harley – http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk
• Gay Persons of Color – James Viloria – http://gay-persons-of-color.blogspot.com/
• The Mad Professah Lectures – Ron Buckmire – http://buckmire.blogspot.com/
• Mombian – Dana Rudolph – http://www.mombian.com/
• hunter of justice – Nan Hunter – http://hunterforjustice.typepad.com/hunter_of_justice/
• Project Q Atlanta – Matt Hennie – http://www.projectqatlanta.com/
• Existential Punk – Musings, Thoughts, Rants of Existential Punk – Adele Sakler – http://www.existentialpunk.com/
• Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents – Sue Kerr – http://www.pghlesbian.com
• Rod 2.0 – Rod McCullom – http://www.rod20.com
• JoeMyGod – Joe Jervis – http://www.JoeMyGod.com/
• Michael-in-Norfolk-Coming Out in Mid-Life – Michael Hamar – http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/
• That Gay Girl Tamara – Tamara N. Boynton -http://thatgaygirltamara.blogspot.com
• Get Busy. Get Equal. – Sam Ritchie (ACLU LGBT Project) -http://gbge.aclu.org/content/blogsection/1/76/
• Working Films – Lynn Casper – http://workingfilms.org

Really it was a stunning number of people who have a lot to say on various topics, but especially on LGBT politics & culture. Do go check them out – there’s a lot of people doing very interesting things.

But mostly I wanted to thank my lovely partner Betty, who couldn’t attend because she was in CO, but without whose help I never would have been there. She was the one who encouraged me to blog way back when, and who encouraged me to blog daily a while after that, & who continues to be my loving tech support.