Tonda McKay is a long time out lesbian, photographer and blogger who write about lesbian culture and history. 

I find it amusing that the “toaster oven” reference is still around after twenty-four years. It was a casual reference in a sitcom called Ellen, for the now very famous Ellen DeGeneres.  It is a cultural touchstone  and reference in the LGBTQIA+ community.  It is good to know exactly what it means when you reference it and most people are unaware it is from the Ellen show.

I knew that Ellen was gay long before she came out.  Why?  Because of clues in her stand-up including never talking about men or dating, her physical appearance, and she just felt like “family”.  The gay community was excited that someone who was gay had a show and never really thought she would come out. At the time Melissa Etheridge had come out three years prior, KD Lang had not acknowledged her sexuality, although I’m not sure if she was ever truly “in”. Rosie O’Donnell was still semi-closeted and did not come out until 2002.  I remember vividly her saying “Only me or Michelle Pfeiffer should have complete control over my body” at a pro-choice fundraiser.  Is that coming out? I am not really sure. Do straight women even think that Michelle Pfeiffer should have complete control over their body?

There was a lot of press by ABC about the episode that was going to air where Ellen’s character stated she was gay. It was an episode, with Laura Dern, as her love interest that aired April 30, 1997. I remember it so vividly because I was at a watch party (there were many in town) with twenty people who were active in the LGBTQ rights movement in Nashville.  At the pivotal coming out moment, Ellen leaned down to the microphone in the episode and said “I’m gay.”  We all cheered. 

It was a seminal moment and as a person within the LGBTQ community, it is most likely you  remember where you were that day. Similarly when the SCOTUS decision was announced in 2015 for the right to marriage for the gay community. Ellen’s coming out granted us visibility. Not civil rights, just visibility, which at the time meant a lot. I asked one of my friends who has been out a long time if she remembered it and she said, “Yes, it is a clear and joyful memory-everyone I knew was excited about it-it was a huge deal.”

Later in the episode, Melissa Etheridge was stamping Ellen’s “lesbian card.”  She stated that every time a lesbian gets a perceived “straight” woman to turn into a lesbian she gets a toaster oven. That was the joke – because of the ridiculous idea that lesbians want to turn straight women gay. Like the great sex can’t do that in and of itself.  It’s the long time lesbian that gets the toaster oven, not the person who just came out.  Laura Dern got the toaster oven.  You don’t get the great sex AND the toaster oven.

Later in the year I went to Pensacola Pride, where thousands upon thousands of LGBTQIA+ people go to the beach on Memorial Day weekend in Florida.  People were carrying real toaster ovens down the beach. Some gay guys had erected a giant tent and they hung about 20 toaster ovens all around the sides of the tent. It was a whole thing that year………

I am actually still waiting for my toaster oven…it must have gotten lost in the mail.