"... gay and bisexual entertainment-related news is inexorably linked with the issue of visibility," writes Brent Hartinger. If you know anything at all about the history of such entertainment, you know that it’s almost always been “controversial.” As passionate as the creators of these projects have always been, there’s been a similarly strong counter-pressure to keep these themes hidden or under wraps.

As a result, for a website [AfterElton.com] like ours, covering the “news” of these projects inevitably becomes a question of championing the ones of quality (and giving the hook to those who don’t measure up, or that reflect poorly on our community). In short, the AfterElton.com Visibility Awards are partly about quality – think of them as our Best of the Year awards – but they’re also about highlighting those moments where someone or something “gay” had a well-earned moment in the entertainment spotlight, and we think they did the rest of our community proud.

(Incidentally, we’re well aware that this has ended up pretty much being mostly the White Person’s Visibility Awards, but we’d like to believe that that’s a function of society’s continuing institutional racism, not any racial insensitivity on our part. In short, please don’t shoot the messenger!)

AfterElton.com's 2009 Visibility Awards Categories: