When is Out Actually "Out" When it Comes to Covering Gay Celebrities?

Lindsay Lohan with Samantha Ronson at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

Here at AfterElton.com we have a longstanding policy that when it comes to gay celebrities, we only identify them as gay or bisexual if they themselves are open about it. We don't speculate on a person's sexuality or post suggestive pictures or write blind items hinting so-and-so might be gay. In other words, we don't out people.

But yesterday, Sarah Warn, my counterpart over at AfterEllen.com, posted a very thoughtful column on a problem that has confronted that site's writers for quite some time: how do you cover a celebrity who appears to be openly living with a same-sex partner but doesn't discuss it publicly?

In writing about the issue Warn says:

But beginning in the early part of this decade, a new way of being out emerged that was characterized by living openly in a same-sex relationship and not denying or hiding it from the press, but refusing to actually define it with words. ... This is what has changed — both the increased willingness of the mainstream press to actually report on the lives of gay, lesbian and bisexual celebrities who have not openly declared their sexual orientation, and the increased willingness of (some) celebrities to let them.

The most current example of that is Lindsay Lohan and her supposed girlfriend Samantha Ronson. For those who don't follow the latest in lesbian news, rumors have circulated for years that Lohan is dating Ronson. More recently, however, the two have been photographed in public together numerous times, seen holding hands while attending public events, and even spotted kissing. But when Lohan is asked specifically about the nature of her relationship with Ronson, the actress always declines to answer.

So is she out or not out? And how do sites such as AfterEllen.com — and AfterElton.com — cover this kind of story when we have a longstanding policy of not outing public figures? As Warns notes, figures like Lohan put "me and other entertainment journalists with ethics (yes, we do exist) in a bit of a quandary."

Ultimately Warn concludes times have changed and that AfterEllen.com will change along with them. Going forward, that site will cover celebrities who apparently live as openly gay people. But as Warns also notes, this is murky territory. If the standard used to be that a celebrity actually had to use the words, to quote Ellen DeGeneres' famous Time magazine cover, "Yep, I'm Gay" to be considered out, then what is the standard now?

How many times does said celebrity have to bring the person they might be dating to a public event? Must they be photographed holding hands? What constitutes proof they are living together? Must friends and family be quoted discussing them as a couple such as Ugly Betty co-star Eric Mabius did recently when he referred to Ronson as Lohan's girlfriend?

If you don't trade in gossip, it's tricky. But this is also the way more and more gay celebrities are choosing to live. As AfterEllen.com is now doing for female celebrities, AfterElton.com is also considering doing in covering those male celebrities conducting themselves in this fashion. To not do so, the thinking goes, is to ignore the world changing the around us.

But let me be very clear: no matter what happens, AfterElton.com will never start outing people or trafficking in gossip. We would cover only those male celebrities who live their life in a way similar to Lohan. We would exercise great caution. We fully understand that coming out is a very personal issue and can have serious ramifications of all sorts, and a reluctant celebrity wrenched from the closet is not a particularly good role model anyway.

This entire topic raises an interesting point in and of itself: Where are those male celebrities living semi-open lives? Using these evolving standards there are no male couples I can think of that compare to Lohan and Ronson. Or Jodie Foster and her alleged partner Cydney Bernard (with whom she has allegedly broken up). Or Broadway actress Cherry Jones and Sarah Paulson.