As others have said, just because she dresses a certain way or has a certain haircut, doesn't mean she's a lesbian. Before the coming out, she dated plenty of different men and was completely comfortable with it. Joe and Spencer did have a bet as to whether she was gay or not, though this bet was not revealed until after she comes out and one asks the other to pay up.
_______ As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.
Except the actress is gay. There have been people who have dated the opposite sex before realizing they are gay as well. Do just a tiny little bit of research.
"It's better to be hated for who you are than be loved for who you aren't."
I definitely got a lesbian vibe from Ellen Degeneres in this series, even when she was playing straight. She had longer hair the first season, but her clothes definitely had a masculine sort of look to them and her demeanor wasn't real feminine.
I knew her as an actress before this premiered in 1994 because I had watched her in a sitcom called "Open House which was on from 1989-1990. She played a man-hungry receptionist in the show which took place in a real estate office. I never suspected she was a lesbian back then. But I read that Ellen wanted the character of Ellen Morgan to be gay from the beginning so I think Ellen Degeneres deliberately gave the character a lesbian vibe, where she played totally straight when she was on Open House. So when Ellen DeGeneres came out I wasn't surprised at all.