Michelangelo Signorile

Michelangelo Signorile is a gay American writer and a radio host.

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 book Queer In America explored the negative effects of gays remaining in the closet, and and provided one of the first intellectual justifications for the practice of outing public officials or their relatives as a political/journalistic tactic.

His magazine articles, newspaper columns and website champion the cause of gay rights. In particular, he 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 marriage for same-sex couples.

Currently, Signorile hosts a radio show, The Michelangelo Signorile Show, which can be heard exclusively on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Biography

Signorile spent his early childhood in the 1960s and 1970s in Brooklyn and Staten Island. He attended the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where he majored in journalism.

A former publicist, Signorile became a gay activist in the late 1980s and ran the media committee of ACT UP in New York. He was a also cofounder of OutWeek magazine. He has also been a contributor and an editor at The Advocate.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Signorile created much controversy over the practice of outing, as he outed billionaire Malcolm Forbes, high-ranking Pentagon official Pete Williams, and conservative political activist Phyllis Schlafly's son John.