Rachel Maddow: 'It's Better To Be Out'

Our beloved big ole lesbian tomboy Rachel Maddow has encouraged all gay folks to come out. She made the appeal during an interview on Charlie Rose on June 18. The final two minutes of the 24-minute interview were dedicated to “the sexuality issue,” as Charlie phrased it. Rachel explained that coming out is “a different degree of traumatic for everybody,” but, nonetheless, she implied that we must be brave because she said being out is better for the individual and ethically right for the community. Maddow, 36, says she came out at age 17, which means she's been out for 19 years. So, as usual, Dr. Maddow knows what she's talking about.

The entire interview is worth watching, but, for the extra busy lesbians among us, The Sapphist Gazetteer, a master typist, has transcribed the gay bits for you:

Charlie: Was the sexuality issue ever an issue?

Rachel: I wish that I had figured it out earlier than I did.

Charlie: How did you figure it out?

Rachel: I just sort of arrived at it through rational deduction. [Laughs] I literally woke up one day and was, like, ‘Oh, that’s what’s been going on.’ [Snaps fingers and laughs]

Charlie: Was it easy?

Rachel: No. Coming out both to oneself and to one’s family is a different degree of traumatic for everybody. It wasn’t easy. I figured it out when I was about 17, and I wish I’d figured it out earlier. But I am glad; I’m happy for the decision to come out publicly very soon after I figured it out myself. So my time as a closeted person, which I think is a pretty awful place to be, was a very, very short period of time in my life, and for that I’m grateful.

Charlie: And that is the advice you give to every gay person, or do you say, ‘Everybody, find your own way.”?

Rachel: Find your own way, but it is better to be out than to be closeted. And I can say that in terms of quality of life, and in terms of what is ethically right for your community. It is better for other gay people if you’re out. The more people that come out, the better. And so that’s the only thing that I encourage anybody to do, and I certainly live that.