Michelangelo Signorile (; born December 19, 1960) is an American journalist, author and
talk radio host. His radio program is aired each weekday across the United States and Canada on
Sirius XM Radio and globally online. Signorile was
editor-at-large for
HuffPost from 2011 until 2019. Signorile is a
political liberal, and covers a wide variety of political and cultural issues.
Signorile is noted for his various books and articles on gay and lesbian politics, and is an outspoken supporter of
gay rights. Signorile's seminal 1993 book ''Queer in America: Sex, The Media, and the Closets of Power'' explored the negative effects of the
LGBT
LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...
closet, and provided one of the first intellectual justifications for the practice of
outing public officials, influencing the debate and treatment of the issue among journalists from that point on. In 1992 ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
'' listed him as one of America's "100 Cultural Elite," and he is included as #100 in the 2002 book, ''The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Gay Men and Lesbians, Past and Present''.
In August 2011, Signorile was inducted into the
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association LGBT
Journalist Hall of Fame.["Journalists Honored for Work in Media, Activism," The Advocate, August 1, 2011] In November 2012, Signorile was included in the ''
Out
Out or OUT may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Films
*Out (1957 film), ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
*Out (1982 film), ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander
*O ...
'' magazine annual Out 100. In April 2015, Signorile's fifth book, ''It's Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia and Winning True Equality'', was published.
Early years
Signorile was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, New York, and spent his early childhood in the 1960s and 1970s in Brooklyn and
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...
. He attended the
S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
, where he majored in journalism. It was in those years that he came to realize his own homosexuality, but remained closeted to many friends and to family.
In the mid-1980s, shortly after graduating from college, Signorile moved to
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
. Among his first jobs, he worked for an entertainment public relations firm that specialized in "column-planting", a term for getting clients into New York City's
gossip columns, such as
Page Six in the ''
New York Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative
daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...
'' and
Liz Smith, then at the ''
New York Daily News
The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
''. This required collecting and trading in gossip, often about celebrities' private lives. Later, he became a gossip columnist himself. It was in that world, as Signorile describes in his book ''Queer in America'', where he saw a double standard regarding how the media glamorized heterosexuality among celebrities while covering up homosexuality. But Signorile was not political at the time. He was somewhat open about his own homosexuality by that time, but he had not looked at it in the broader context of politics and culture in America. His political awakening came as the
AIDS epidemic expanded in the late 1980s and more friends were getting sick and dying.
Activism

In his book ''Queer in America'' and in numerous articles and interviews, Signorile has discussed how he began to see that many in the media, among his circles as well, were either sensationalizing AIDS in the 1980s or running away from it. He also began to believe the government was negligent in the face of the epidemic.
Signorile became a gay activist in 1988, after attending a meeting of the controversial grass roots protest group,
ACT UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...
, in New York. Within days of the meeting he was arrested at a protest at St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church at the
Citigroup Center
The Citigroup Center (formerly Citicorp Center and also known by its address, 601 Lexington Avenue) is an office skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. Built in 1977 for Citibank, it is tall and has ...
, where
the Vatican's envoy and the author of much of the Vatican's recent positions against homosexuality, gay rights and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was to give a major speech. (Ratzinger would go on to become
Pope Benedict XVI
Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...
, succeeding
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005.
In his you ...
upon his death in April 2005.) Signorile has explained that he went to the event solely to watch the protesters who were planning on standing up among the attendees and letting their voices be heard. But he became filled with rage while hearing Ratzinger speak, thinking about the homophobia he'd experienced as a child and the Catholic Church's decrees. (He was raised as a Roman Catholic.) "Suddenly," Signorile wrote in ''Queer in America'' about the protest, "I jumped up on one of the marble platforms, and looking down, I addressed the entire congregation in the loudest voice I could. My voice rang out as if it were amplified. I pointed at Ratzinger and shouted, 'He is no man of God!' The shocked faces of the assembled Catholics turned to the back of the room to look at me as I continued: 'He is no man of God. He is the devil!'" Signorile was pulled down, handcuffed, and carted off by the police.
Signorile soon became the chair of the media committee of ACT UP, organizing publicity for major, theatrical AIDS activist protests of the time, and taking on the
Food and Drug Administration
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respo ...
, the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...
, New York's City Hall and other government agencies in the media, criticizing them for what AIDS activists saw as their foot-dragging while people were dying. Though controversial, ACT UP and its tactics have been credited with bringing more attention to AIDS among politicians and the media, and speeding the development and approval of HIV drugs in the 1990s. Signorile also was a co-founding member, along with three other ACT UP members, of the in-your-face activist group
Queer Nation.
In May 2017, Signorile was criticized for an article that appeared on the Huffington Post. In the piece, he attacked Donald Trump and the Republican legislators supporting his agenda, stating that no Republican congressman "should be able to sit down for a nice, quiet lunch or dinner in a Washington, DC, eatery or even in their own homes", and "should be hounded by protestors everywhere, especially in public ― in restaurants, in shopping centers, in their districts, and yes, on the public property outside their homes and apartments".
The outing controversy
Signorile has been considered a pioneer of
outing (though he believes the discussion has often been distorted by the media, and he opposes using a violent, active verb to define the phenomenon). Signorile has argued in favor of outing from a journalistic perspective, calling for the "equalization" of reporting on gay and straight public figures. He has argued that the homosexuality of public figures—and only public figures—should be reported on when relevant.
[, Chapter 5, "Outing Part I," pg. 69] Signorile was a co-founding editor of the gay magazine ''
OutWeek'', which launched in June 1989, and which was quickly at the center of heated debates inside and outside the gay community, including controversies over outing. Signorile became the features editor at ''OutWeek,'' and eventually stopped working within ACT UP and Queer Nation, though, like most of the staff of ''OutWeek'', he maintained deep ties to both groups.
Signorile saw his role at ''OutWeek'' as one of taking on the media and the entertainment industry. From the start of the magazine he wrote a weekly column called "Gossip Watch," which was just that—a watch of the gossip columns. He began writing about the media's double standard in reporting on gay and straight public figures, and how he believed it made gays invisible in the midst of the health crisis. Among those whom Signorile outed at that time included Hollywood producer
David Geffen (who has long since
acknowledged that he is gay). Geffen, as a record producer, was promoting
Guns N' Roses, a rock group which had been attacked for antigay lyrics ("...faggots...spread some fuckin' disease") and other performers, such as comedian
Andrew Dice Clay, whose comedy routines in the late 1980s were seen by many as homophobic and misogynistic. Clay had said in a 1984 stand-up act that in Hollywood they have "herpes, AIDS and fag-itis." Clay has also mocked pleas for AIDS funding ("get a job, buttfucka"), and used antigay slurs; "they don't know if they want to be called gays, homosexuals, fairies," he has said. "I call them cocksuckers." Signorile saw it as relevant to discuss Geffen's closeted homosexuality in that context. Signorile also outed the gossip columnist
Liz Smith (who also eventually acknowledged her bisexuality), whom he maintained helped celebrities and others to present themselves as heterosexual when they were in fact gay.
The media and celebrity culture that Signorile vilified took notice of his work. The chic fashion industry bible, ''
W'' magazine, put OutWeek on the "In" list, calling it a "must-read" because of its mix of "culture, politics and vicious gossip" (''Queer in America'', p. 73), and Signorile would eventually be profiled in ''
New York Magazine
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, with a particular emphasis on New York City.
Founded by Clay Felker and Milton Glaser in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'' a ...
'' and in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. Signorile was both praised and attacked for his column. He was called "one of the greater contemporary gay heroes," while his work was also called "revolting, infantile, cheap name-calling" (Johansson & Percy, p. 183). New York Post columnist Amy Pagnozzi compared him to the right-wing, anti-communist 1950s senator,
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican Party (United States), Republican United States Senate, U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age ...
, in a column headlined "Magazine Drags Gays Out of the Closet" (''Queer in America'', p. 73). It was ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' that coined the term "outing" at that time, something Signorile has always contended was a biased term. He saw what he was doing as simply "reporting."
The outing controversy became much larger in March 1990, when Signorile wrote a cover story for ''OutWeek'' revealing the homosexuality of the publishing tycoon
Malcolm Forbes within weeks of his death, headlined "The Other Side of Malcolm Forbes." In a subsequent article in ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...
'', Signorile charged a media cover-up of his ''Forbes'' story, claiming that various news outlets were going to report on it, but later decided against it. Eventually, over a period of months, the story was reported in several news outlets, including the ''Los Angeles Times'', but ''The New York Times'' still refused to name Forbes, only referring to him as "a recently deceased businessman" who was outed. (It wasn't until five years later, during coverage of Forbes' son Steve's run for the Republican nomination for president in 1996, that the ''Times'' reported on Malcolm Forbes' gay life.)
OutWeek folded in June 1991. Signorile joined ''
The Advocate'' with a cover story several months later that put him at the center of a firestorm over
gays in the military as well as outing: he outed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
Pete Williams (Williams has since gone on to become a television journalist for NBC News). The outing caused Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American former politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He has been called vice presidency o ...
to call the gay ban "an old chestnut" during an interview with Sam Donaldson on ABC, while then presidential candidate
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
, citing the outing, promised at a gay fundraiser to overturn the ban if he were elected president.
Gay culture debates
Signorile wrote columns and feature stories for ''The Advocate'' for several years, including the groundbreaking two-part cover story "Out at The New York Times"—in which the paper's gay and lesbian staffers, its top editors and its then-new publisher,
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., spoke for the first time, to Signorile, about years of homophobia at the paper of record and how they were charting a new course. In 1994, Signorile left the Advocate for the then new glossy,
Out
Out or OUT may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Films
*Out (1957 film), ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
*Out (1982 film), ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander
*O ...
magazine, which was founded by his friend and ''OutWeek'' colleague
Michael Goff and former ''OutWeek'' editor
Sarah Pettit. In 1995 Signorile published his second book, ''Outing Yourself'', a 14-step program for coming out as gay or lesbian.

At that time, as an ''Out'' magazine columnist and editor-at-large, Signorile soon was at the center of often-heated debates among gay activists, sexual liberationists and HIV prevention experts about gay male sexual culture and the prevalence of unsafe sex and HIV transmission. Signorile wrote a column for ''Out'' that sparked much discussion, titled "Unsafe Like Me," in which he addressed the issue by admitting to have slipped up himself, having had an incident of unprotected sex, and discussed what may have led someone like him—a prominent AIDS activist, immersed in the issues of prevention—to have such a lapse. The column was adapted to the op-ed page of ''The New York Times'' and inspired a CBS "60 Minutes" treatment of the issue in which Signorile was profiled. Signorile followed up that column with several others that focused on what he saw as some unhealthy aspects of gay culture that contributed to low self-esteem and risk-taking. This eventually grew into his 1997 bestseller ''Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles and the Passages of Life'', which was a finalist for the New York Public Library Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. The columns and the book created controversy among some activists; Signorile was criticized by the group
Sex Panic! which believed that he and other writers had inspired government crack-downs on gay sex through their writings. Many other commentators and activists disagreed with Signorile's critics, and fierce debates broke out in both gay and mainstream media. Signorile also inspired much discussion and debate with pieces in Out on
anti-abortion
Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its Abortion by country, legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in r ...
gays, animals rights vs. medical research, gay marriage and high-profile antigay hate crimes.
In August 1998, Signorile left ''Out'' magazine abruptly in a disagreement with the new editor James Collard. Former ''Out'' editor and co-founder, the late Sarah Pettit, a long-time colleague of Signorile's who was also an editor at ''OutWeek'', had been ousted from ''Out'' that year in a shake up (Michael Goff had been pushed out earlier) in which she had charged sex discrimination. The new editor, from the UK, had been a promoter of the "post-gay" sensibility, which seemed to eschew activism. According to Signorile, speaking to gay journalist
Rex Wockner, Collard wanted him to tone down his writing. "We had a heated discussion and he insulted my sensibilities and it made me so angry I threw water in his face," Signorile told Wockner. "They did not want me to write biting commentary and opinion. They wanted me to do more feature-driven work and I refused to do that because my column in ''Out'' has always been a space where I could do commentary, political analysis, features, whatever I wanted. I think it's important to have commentary and solidly researched journalism in the same forum."
The radio years
Several months after leaving ''Out'', Signorile joined ''The Advocate'' once again, in December 1998, as a columnist and editor-at-large; his first article was a cover piece taking on the notion of a "post-gay' society as espoused by ''Out'' editor Collard. (Within a year after Collard took the post and six months after Signorile left ''Out'', Collard left ''Out'' amid reports of a drop in circulation and negative response of a focus group to the magazine.) In 2000, Signorile left ''The Advocate'' again, and became a columnist for global Internet site Gay.com, which had just merged with the pioneering LGBT site PlanetOut.com. Signorile traveled around the U.S. and around the world, writing online columns. He covered the controversy surrounding the Millennium March on Washington for LGBT Rights, which divided many in the community regarding its time and purpose and at which a theft occurred at the festival. Signorile reported from Australia and New Zealand, where his partner had taken a position as a professor, and reported on World Pride in Rome in 2000, where activists butted heads with the Vatican, which tried to get the event canceled. During that time Signorile also pioneered Internet radio, webcasting a weekly show on GAYBC.com beginning in 2000, covering the global LGBT community. In an interview, he has described a machine called a "vector" that he would plug into a phone outlet and which allowed him to webcast live via Gaybc's studios in Seattle
Media Bistro Q & A with Signorile 2002
In April 2003, Signorile began hosting a radio program, ''The Michelangelo Signorile Show'', on
Sirius XM Radio's
OutQ each weekday 2 to 6 p.m. Eastern Time. OutQ, as the only 24/7 LGBT radio channel, broke new ground and Signorile's interviews and monologue
often made news. After a little over 10 years, on July 23, 2013, he moved to the newly launched
SiriusXM Progress (channel 127) from 3 to 6 p.m. Eastern Time. The show airs on satellite radio across North America and is streamed worldwide on the Internet and to the
Android,
BlackBerry, and
iOS (
iPad,
iPhone
The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...
,
iPod Touch
The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...
) handheld devices to over 25 million Sirius XM subscribers. Signorile interviews politicians, activists, journalists, authors and other public figures, analyzes news and cultural events, and takes calls from listeners from coast-to-coast. Signorile's show is one of the highest rated programs on the Sirius XM network with an average daily listenership of more than 8.5 million households.
Often, Signorile brings on those who are on America's right-wing or are opponents of gay rights, with whom he engages in energetic debates. He is also editor-at-large for
The Huffington Post Queer Voices where he blogs opinion pieces and interviews public figures.
Signorile has been an editor-at-large and columnist for ''The Advocate'', and an editor-at-large and a columnist for ''Out'' magazine. He has written for many newspapers and magazines, including ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...
'', and ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', and has appeared on many American television news programs, including ''
Larry King Live
''Larry King Live'' is an American television talk show broadcast by CNN from June 3, 1985 to December 16, 2010. Hosted by Larry King, it was the network's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly.
Ma ...
'', ''
Today'' and ''
Good Morning America
''Good Morning America'', often abbreviated as ''GMA'', is an American breakfast television, morning television program that is broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends wit ...
''. His magazine articles, newspaper columns and website, which "offers his always-intriguing take on the state of gay rights and other political and
cultural
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
topics",
["The Advocate 2009. The site offers, among much else, clips of Signorile's television appearances (like his debate with the conservative pundit Laura Ingraham) and a complimentary three-day pass to listen online to his radio show.] champion the cause of
gay rights. In particular, Signorile has advocated that gay Americans
come out, and has talked about the deleterious effects of the closet both on the closeted individual and on society as a whole. Signorile has been a long-time champion of the right to
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal Legal sex and gender, sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 ...
. Signorile and much of his work over the years were featured prominently in the film
''Outrage'', directed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker
Kirby Dick and which focused on closeted antigay politicians, making a case for why media should report on their sexual orientation.
Books
*''Queer In America'' () 1993.
*''Outing Yourself'' () 1995.
*''Life Outside'' () 1997. (Nominated Lambda Literary Award, Gay Men's Studies)
*''Hitting Hard'' () 2005.
*''It's Not Over'' () 2015. (Finalists for the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction)
Notes
References
* Gross, Larry. ''Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing''. University of Minnesota Press, 1993
*Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A
''Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence''. Harrington Park Press, 1994.
*Signorile, Michelangelo (1993). ''Queer In America: Sex, Media, and the Closets of Power.'' .
*Gross, Larry & Woods, James (1999) "The Columbia Reader on Lesbians & Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics "
Media Bistro Q & A with Signorile 2002The Ethics of Outing by Gabriel RotelloSignorile and Ratzinger, Advocate.com 2005Rex Wockner's "Quote UnQuote" 1998Signorile's Advocate piece, "Out at the New York Times," reprinted in The Columbia Reader on Lesbians and Gays in Media, Society and Politics 1999, Larry Gross and James Woods* ''
The Advocate''. "
ttp://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid88979.asp?page=3 The Top 15 Gay(ish) Blogs" June 9, 2009. (accessed June 14, 2009).
External links
*
The Fales Library Guide to the Michelangelo Signorile Papers*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Signorile, Michelangelo
1960 births
American non-fiction writers
American people of Italian descent
American public relations people
American talk radio hosts
American gay writers
American LGBTQ broadcasters
American LGBTQ journalists
American LGBTQ rights activists
LGBTQ Roman Catholics
LGBTQ people from New York (state)
Living people
New York Press people
Syracuse University alumni