LET'S GET one thing straight. I'm a vegetarian. It's a personal thing, both moral and a matter of taste, but I feel it's importantthatI'mopen about it so you know where you stand.

So, Jodie Foster is probably a lesbian? Hold the front page. I watched Flightplan recently and I wouldn't have thought it was a better movie even if I'd guessed that the star preferred ladies. It's a radical suggestion, but maybe she hasn't come out about her private life because she'd rather we concentrated on what she's actually famousfor:acting,winningOscars, directing films.

If Jodie Foster came out publicly today, would her visibility change the lives of the lesbian community or end homophobia in America?Sadlynot.Wouldshesimply state: "Yes, I'm gay, no more questions"? More than likely. About 10 years ago, Ian McKellen wrote: "There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement, that if all our skins turned lavender overnight the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice for evermore."

Berlin, where I am currently living, is possibly the gayest city in the world. There isn't just a pink triangle, there are full-on pink dodecahedrons. You can - if you're that kind of guy (women have always put less emphasis on the scene) - live in a gay building, eat in gay-owned restaurants, drink in gay bars, exercise in a gay gym, buy your fashions in a gay shop and here's a shocker: hold hands with your lover in the street. In Berlin, gay life is beautiful. Even the mayor is out and proud. Does gaybashing still occur? I understand that, on occasion, it does.

When Ian McKellen came out in the 1980s, it was a very big deal indeed. He's a vegetarian as well, by the way, but what he eats is deemed less gossip-worthy than who he sleeps with. He's also been willing to make massive contributions to the gay rights cause, and in the process has become a worthy role model. Rightly so, for who would we rather hail as a gay idol? A co-founder of Stonewall who's out and proud, orsomeonewho'sbeenhidingtheirsexualityforyears,forwhatever reason, that we only know is gay because they were outed?

Constantlyspeculatingaboutwhich Hollywood star is a closet case doesn't challenge anyone's perceptions about what it means to be gay. I wish everyone in the world had the luxury of being able to be open about who they are and who they love, but winkling out a few reticent queers won'tmakethathappen.Exposing hypocrisy is one thing, outing people who do not wish to be outed is quite another.

A recent issue of Heat speculated that Ricky Martin is gay and Carmen Electra might be seeing Joan Jett. That doesn't bother me. It's a gossip magazine; it's meant to be superficial. But it doesn't do the gay media,andthereforegaypeople,any favours to perpetuate a culture that sees blowing the whistle on the sexuality of public figures as the be-all and end-all. Indeed, there's something rather pathetic about desperately trying to claim someone who doesn't want to say they're gay as "one of ours".

Succeeding in slapping a label that says"lesbian"ontheforeheadofa Hollywood star won't win us 100 pink Brownie points. The world wouldn't be a better place if we knew precisely who was gay, straight or bi, not to mention who'd gotdrunkandenjoyedalittlesexual experimentation. We are far too complex as individuals to ever be primarily defined by just one term.

Any labels we choose to wear should empower us, rather than just making everyone else feel more comfortable about which box to put us in. If, as Michael Musto said of the "glass closet" in Out magazine, "such a device enables the public to see rightin",whydowehaveto smashthe windows to get closer still? Isn't it better to let people come out in their own time, in their own way?

When I meet someone new, I'll refer proudly to "my partner, Louise". Being in a relationship with her is far more important than sporting the more general "lesbian" tag. There are many facets of our lives that are arguably unsuited to indiscriminate public expression; religion is another. I don't walk into university staff meetings and say: "Hi, my name's Zoe and I'm an atheist." It isn't relevant. If the education secretary is a member of Opus Dei on the other hand, that's very pertinent indeed. Naturally my beliefs filter into my work as a writer, as does my sexuality, but my novels are out there in the public sphere (or languishing in library book sales) for people to explore for themselves.

Coming out does not guarantee a happy, well-adjustedlife.Besides,unlessyou have T-shirts saying "hello, I'm gay" for every day of the week, it's something that happens again and again. I've come out to my family so many times that last Christmas was the first at which my great-aunties didn't ask when I'd finally find myself a boyfriend. I've come out to all my friends. Louise and I have even done the soppy We Love Each Other feature in Diva magazine. Here I am, writing a newspaper column about a "gay" issue. But when it comes down to it, I'll still tell people I'm vegetarian before I tell them about my "Lebenspartnerin". In Germany at least, revealing my sexuality comes way behind risking exposure to unwanted sausages.