Melissa Etheridge has been a lesbian rock icon since 1988, when audiences who had not heard her at clubs and women’s music festivals grabbed her debut album on Island Records. Defying the odds by succeeding in the mainstream as a woman rocker whose work won coverage on VH1 and MTV, as well as in lesbian publications and Rolling Stone, Melissa came out publicly at Bill Clinton’s inauguration in January 1993, and then performed at the March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights later that spring, wrapping up the year with the fall 1993 release of an album defiantly entitled Yes, I Am.