In Graduation Speech, Gay High School Senior Thanks His Class for Accepting Him: VIDEO

When speaking at Fairview High School graduation ceremony on Sunday in Boulder, CO, speaker Ted Chalfen immediately cut to the chase.

“I’m going to skip all of the clichés I want to rattle off right now, and get right to the point…I’m gay. Many, if not most, of the students here today know this, and most of them don’t really care. That is exactly the reason why I decided I had to give this speech.”

Chalfen then went on to detail the apprehension he felt when he first decided to come out to his peers and teachers, and chronicles the outpouring of support he received as a result. He also congratulates his fellow students and their parents on their open-mindedness, and details precisely how their attitudes will build a better future.

“This generation is never going to accomplish the things I know it to be capable of unless we stop thinking of each other in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’…Like it or not, we’re all in this together.”

You can see Chalfen’s heartwarming speech AFTER THE JUMP...

Jodie Foster Comes Out At Golden Globe Awards: VIDEO

Finally, after years of avoiding any official confirmation, Jodie Foster just came out at the Golden Globe Awards.

Receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for the many, many great films she has made over the past four decades, an obviously nervous Foster first toyed with the audience a little, dancing around the issue before affirming that, yes, she is a lesbian. (She had previously thanked a female partner in a 2007 speech, but it was not an official, direct coming out.)

Well aware that people have been waiting for this moment for years, Foster explained that her delay wasn't based in shame, but in the fact that she came of age when there was a larger premium on privacy.

She was not of the era when gay or lesbian stars held press conferences to discuss their private lives, she said.

I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the stone age. In those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends, and family, coworkers and then gradually, proudly, to everyone who knew her. To everyone she actually met. But now, apparently I'm told, that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a primetime reality show. You guys might be surprised, but I'm not Honey Boo Boo child.

She went on, "If you had been a public figure since the time you were a toddler, if you had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too would value privacy above all else."

But, standing up on that stage, poised and proud, Foster finally did the deed - and, as always, she did it her way. And we couldn't be more happy for her!

Check out the video of Jodie's remarks, AFTER THE JUMP!

And, on a related topic, if you missed our 50 Most Powerful Coming Outs of 2012, check them out HERE.

Wade Davis: Closeted Gay Players Not 'Chicken'

A few weeks ago, just before the new year, I shared a gay history flashback in the form of a post about Gay Comix, the short-lived, late-70s/early-80s periodical that covered, with tongue in cheek, the burgeoning gay rights movement in illustration.

In that post, I mentioned that a few issues have been reprinted in Robert Triptow's Gay Comics, a collection of LGBT cartoons from that era. My copy of Triptow's anthology came last week, but I didn't had a chance to review it until today.

The first illustration I randomly opened to, a mid-70s cartoon by Charles Ortleb and Richard Fiala originally published in the gay newspaper Christopher Street, is posted above. In case the punchline is too blurry, it reads, "Coach Waldman [no relation] passes out xeroxes of an article asserting that only one in ten of his team could possibly be gay."

This gag, sadly, remains relevant today. Despite all the progress LGBT people have made, the mound, the pitch and the rink all remain relatively closed to sexual honesty.

Wade Davis knows this all too well. The former NFL player had to wait until he retired to come out. Since then, he has dedicated his time to making the collective locker room a more welcoming place for gay players. That doesn't mean, however, that he thinks gay players should be chided for not coming out.

In response to ESPN journalist LZ Granderson's claim that closeted players are "chicken," Davis penned a Los Angeles Times op-ed in which he argues that the onus is on straight players and fans to create a more inclusive environment:

Coming out, or as I like to say, "inviting in," is an individual process that requires a level of safety and security. In women's sports, a number of gay athletes have disclosed their sexual orientation, including tennis champion Amelie Mauresmo, basketball great Sheryl Swoopes and soccer star Megan Rapinoe. It was interesting how little fallout there was from those announcements. But I suspect that women's sports fans are more accepting, in part because of misguided societal notions about femininity and masculinity.

I don't believe another athlete would try to harm a gay male athlete, but professional sports is still full of people happy to express their disapproval of homosexuality, and coming out requires a supportive environment.

It's been about 40 years since Christopher Street published the above cartoon, but this very well could have been run this morning.

I'm Gay: The 50 Most Powerful Coming Outs of 2012

2012: GAYEST YEAR EVER

"The fact is, I'm gay." Anderson Cooper's long-awaited announcement sums what it meant to come out in 2012. Again and again we heard the same sentiment — from pop singer Mika's equally anticipated confirmation, "If you ask me am I gay, I say yeah," to actor Andrew Rannells casually remarking about relating to a gay character, "I am gay in real life, so I definitely get it." —  proving that coming out today is in many cases a non-event, and certainly secondary to other achievements.

Yes, a lot has changed in the 15 years since Time magazine ran that cover of Ellen DeGeneres declaring, "Yep, I'm Gay," and even in the six since Lance Bass told People, "I'm Gay." Entertainment Weekly published a cover story this summer called "The New Art Of Coming Out," concluding, "The current vibe for discussing one’s sexuality is almost defiantly mellow."

Yet most of this positive change has happened in familiar territory.

Former NFL star Wade Davis' coming out was a first, as was current professional boxer Orlando Cruz's. And Lee "Uncle Poodle" Thompson from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo helped broaden the overall discussion about LGBT people. But there are a few people on this list who were less valiant, like Republican Sheriff Paul Babeu, and still others who remained quiet about their sexuality to the day they died. The debate over balance between privacy and responsibility is still one worth having, and clearly there are more arenas where LGBT people need space to shine.

All in all, though, 2012 shows that gay people who break down that closet can have it all.

Who had the 50 Most Powerful Coming Outs of 2012?

Find out (in alphabetical order), AFTER THE JUMP...

Anderson Cooper Talks Coming Out, Temporary Blindness On 'The View': VIDEO

Anderson Cooper and the girls from ABC's The View covered a whole host of topics during his brief visit to the morning show today. Among them: temporarily going blind in Portugal, what he tells his mother when he's in dangerous, war-torn lands where they kill people, how he feels now that he's come out and why he's sweating another New Year's Eve extravaganza with perennially controversial countdown host Kathy Griffin.

Watch the gals and Cooper gab it up AFTER THE JUMP.

Stevie Wonder Apologizes For Comments On Frank Ocean

Stevie Wonder has apologized for the rather disappointing quote he gave The Guardian about the coming-out of singer Frank Ocean. When asked earlier this week about Frank Ocean, Wonder said:

I think honestly, some people who think they're gay, they're confused. People can misconstrue closeness for love. People can feel connected, they bond. I'm not saying all [gay people are confused]. Some people have a desire to be with the same sex. But that's them.

Sure -- some people do get confused about sexualty. (I did. My first love was a girl.) But for an honest-to-goodness American national treasure to respond in such a way to the first-time-in-history coming out of a hip-hop/R&B star was dispiriting, and suggested that maybe Mr. Wonder wasn't entirely comfortable with Frank Ocean's gayness.

Mr. Wonder has tried to clear things up with a statement to The Advocate:

I’m sorry that my words about anyone feeling confused about their love were misunderstood. No one has been a greater advocate for the power of love in this world than I; both in my life and in my music. Clearly, love is love, between a man and a woman, a woman and a man, a woman and a woman and a man and a man. What I’m not confused about is the world needing much more love, no hate, no prejudice, no bigotry and more unity, peace and understanding. Period.

Does that settle it?