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What does it mean to be a "fag hag" nowadays? The once-derisive label given to the female best friends of gay men was in the spotlight last week when Salon's Thomas Rogers slammed the hangers-on to homos.

Today's fag hag, he writes, "feels like she's throwing around a designer label or telling me she knows a celebrity -- a kind of social conspicuous consumption ... In the past decade, gay men have become less defined and ghettoized by our sexuality than ever before, making terms like 'fag hag' feel as retrograde as, well, 'Will & Grace.'"

Maybe. But considering we're living in the heyday of fag haggery -- the Stonewall riots have given way to the Bravo TV revolution -- we figured we'd celebrate some of the women who are working hard to love the gays who love them back.

The Real Housewives (all of them)
From Jill Zarin in New York to NeNe in Atlanta to Danielle in New Jersey, Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchises prove that there's no reason to have a fabulously overpriced life if you don't have a gay friend cooing over how fabulously overpriced it is.

Katherine Heigl
When the "Grey's Anatomy" starlet rushed to best friend T.R. Knight's defense by condemning Isaiah Washington's on-set gay slur, she began TV's most visible fag hag relationship since "Will & Grace."
Click here for more fab fag hags after the jump.

Margaret Cho
One of Hollywood's first and most outspoken defenders of the fag hag: "Fag hags are the backbone of the gay community!"
Kathy Griffin
What Cho began, comedienne Griffin took to new heights by launching an entire realty TV career off of pandering to "the gays" who also desperately crave her pandering.
Rachel Zoe
Less a hag and more a product of her industry, the diminutive style guru with as many catch phrases as gowns and a marathoner's endurance for shopping was really just fated to be surrounded by gay men.
Tyra Banks
The woman responsible for introducing the world to Miss J. Alexander, Mr. Jay, The Aswirl Twins and the posing expertise of Benny Ninja. She's a gay icon.

Meghan McCain
This senator's-daughter-turned-blogger is leading the charge to expand the identity of Republicans to include women with big bones, big opinions and gaggles of gay friends.
Ana Matronic
The only female in the world's gayest group, this Scissor Sister found solace in the gay culture after her gay father died of AIDS when she was a teenager.
Lady Gaga
Outrageous styles, disco-pop hits and an expanding gay entourage solidify Gaga's position as the heir-apparent to Madonna's fag hag kingdom.
Lily Allen
The Grammy-nominated Brit whose sass and foul mouth has made her a tabloid staple outed herself in the 2009 song "Fag Hag" which says, "Apart from me, you're the only other person I know who reads the travel section."





(All images: Getty Images)