State of the Autostraddle Union #3: A Letter From Your Editor

Hello friends!

Welcome to the third-ever State of the Autostraddle Union, in which I speak directly about what the fuck is going on around here! It’s been two years since our last State of the Union, and three years since our first. 2013 was wild — surprisingly hard, at times, and exhilarating at other times. We’ve grown and changed and learned and gotten haircuts and made apple damn sandwiches and now there’s so much catching up to do!

We’ve seen our little family evolve from six friends watching The L Word on my bed in March of 2009, to an international operation with an enormous staff (mostly volunteers) and a readership amassing an average of 800,000 unique visitors and over three million views a month. We’ve hosted four A-Camps and numerous International Meet-Up weeks. We’ve printed hoodies, calendars, t-shirts, notebooks, flasks, stickers, totes and underpants. We were nominated for a 2013 GLAAD Award, won the 2012 Weblog Awards and saw Autostraddle Co-Founder Alex Vega make Refinery 29’s 3o Under 30. We’ve spoken, presented or hosted events at venues including Salon LGBTQ, BlogHer New YorkThe StrandBlogHer San Diego, The University of Chicago, New York University, Yale and NetRoots. In February, our Geekery Editor Ali and our Co-Founder/Design Director Alex will be hitting up the Lesbians Who Tech conference in San Francisco, and I’ll be across the country in Washington DC for the 5th Annual LGBT Media Journalists Convening.

This past month, we reached a milestone I thought it’d take another four years to achieve – we got 1.06 million unique visitors in December. You know how many unique visitors that is? OVER ONE MILLION, that’s how many!


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Best Redesign/December Ever

You’ve likely noticed and perhaps commented upon our recent makeover, which definitely did a better job improving this site’s attractiveness than that $2.75 Body Shop makeover did for my face in 1992. Our Design Director Alex and our Tech Director Cee, whose employ here was made possible by YOU, have been working their asses off for this and it shows. A lot of special shit goes down here, but one of the specialest is how many skilled & talented professionals have chosen to work here instead of pursuing more lucrative opportunities, and Alex and Cee are definitely in this group.

In celebration of this rebirth, we planned a particularly amazing December of content — but maybe you’ve noticed that our overall quality and quantity has been especially awesome lately, too. That didn’t happen because the world suddenly became the socialist commune of my dreams, because our increased traffic garnered increased advertising revenue or ’cause raising A-Camp tuition raised our A-Camp profits. It happened because one magical human was able to give us a chunk of financial support specifically set aside to fund editorial for December, enabling us to publish guest writers and to finally begin paying our 16 Contributing EditorsThe Contributing Editors are the lifeblood of this site, and whereas most of our writers fit AS into their free time, Editors and Contributing Editors make Autostraddle a priority like a real job and deserve to be paid accordingly.

The importance of paying writers has been a hot topic in online media lately and it’s been heavy on our hearts for years. We simply can’t go on surviving almost entirely on volunteer labor — it’s a compromise with little room for growth or comfort. Unfortunately, we don’t have the venture capital or ad contracts other paying sites do, but regardless I made a commitment to our Contributing Editors to keep paying them past December. It seemed like if we kept waiting ’til we could safely “afford it,” the time would never come. It’s an act of faith, but here’s how I see it: in most industries, if you can’t pay your employees, you go out of business. If our readers don’t wanna pay for what we’re making and we can’t secure an investment to keep on making what we’re making, then we shouldn’t be making anything, you know? But I have faith that we’ll be successful in both those areas this year.

Paying our Contributing Editors has made editorial run so much more smoothly — we’ve not once been short on content and had to team pick a bag of pistachios to reach our daily quota, it’s easier to get important stories covered and deadlines met, and we narrowly avoided losing a few CEs who weren’t gonna be able to stick around unpaid much longer. Can you imagine how wonderful life and this site will be when we can pay the CEs better AND pay the rest of our writers and columnists? IT WILL BE LIKE CANDYLAND EXCEPT GAY.


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New Voices

Over the past six weeks we’ve published some exceptionally awesome things — and there are more awesome things by more guest writers to come later this month.

We’ve featured great stuff from guest writers we’ve been admiring from afar for a long time:

We also published new pieces by some of our favorite writers we don’t hear from as often as we used to!


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The Evolution of Team

Our team evolves, just like mankind! This summer, Hot Laura stepped down from her Associate Editorship to attend Law School, and we brought on Yvonne Marquez as our new Associate Editor. Intern Chelsey Petty has been promoted to Editorial Assistant Chelsey and Intern Grace Ellis to Forever Intern Grace. Crystal, our Music Editor, has moved into the position of HR Director, and our original music editor, Stef Schwartz, has returned to her Music Editor throne.

Our veteran Contributing Editors have also taken on Subject Editor positions – Ali Osworth now heads up the Geekery department, Sarah Hansen leads DIY/Food/Home, Brittani Nichols masters Sports and Comedy, Grace Ellis showcases Theater and Carolyn Yates tops the NSFW section. Lizz Rubin remains Fashion/Style Editor (but will be taking a two-month leave for med school) and Vanessa Friedman will return to her Straddleverse Editorship when she returns from seeing the world!

We’ve brought on even more Contributing Editors to the team we began assembling this summer — we’ve already added Lauren Jacobs from Alabama and young radical Maddie Taterka, and a few more new faces are currently in training!

New blood means lots of new columns, and these columns are easier to find than ever with our new menus.

  • Geekery: Geeks will enjoy Saturday Morning Cartoons, featuring a rotating roster of gay comic artists, Loraine’s recaps of the original Star Trek, Mey’s exploration of awesome queer comics you should be reading in Drawn To Comics and Laura’s new sciencey series, Notes From A Queer Engineer.
  • DIY/crafting/food: Hansen is dishing out an interview and a craft project with a variety of artists and crafters in Hearts & Crafts. Meanwhile, culinary student and all-around perfect human Gabi provides Wilder Hungers for you every weekend, serving up amazing photography that makes you wish you were Gabi and recipes that make you wish you were Gabi’s girlfriend.
  • Comedy: Brittani spends several hilarious moments with women of color comedians every other week in Comedy Crush, and it’s HILARIOUS!
  • Sports: Fikri’s got a new column about bicycling that will ride you all night long.
  • First Person: I’m returning to my roots with the Sunday Top Ten, in which I mostly just talk about myself.
  • News/Politics: Kaitlyn will be bringing the recapping spirit into news-capping in Queer View Mirror, giving you a snapshot of a topic’s history, its current events and where to learn more.
  • Music: Jeanie is making you a cocktail and some music to go with it in BPM: Booze Paired With Music.
  • Sex/Relationships: Our new columnist Robyn has tips for making it work for a really, really, really long time in How To Keep A Girl For Ten Years.

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What We’re Talking & Writing About

We’ve had to adjust how we generate new traffic — we used to score big on news coverage and breaking news, but wealthy SEO-optimized sites like Huffpo Gay Voices and Buzzfeed LGBT have stolen our Google News glory, as has the increasing coverage of LGBT news by mainstream news outlets. Social media and referrals are now top traffic drivers. Meanwhile, major women’s and progressive publications have begun seeking out more queers for their team, which means it’s more important than ever that we develop what’s unique about this space.

Obviously our content runs the gamut — we’ve always felt queer women deserved the same all-encompassing magazines straight women have had for decades where we talk about just about everything: news & politics, crafting, pop culture, sex, relationships, tech stuff, food, hot girls and all! The idea of throwing all that together with a queer feminist bent has been one of the most exciting and groundbreaking elements of our work here.

But beyond topical breadth, there’s other shit that makes us special — like that it’s still just us here, humans in our cheap sweatpants on our stressed-out laptops, barely making a living, often publishing content based on our emotional whims. We don’t answer to anybody besides, well, you. We’re not perfect — we’ve made many mistakes, but we do give a fuckWe recently read a thing that compared comment sections to a dinner party, and that seemed accurate until we realized that no, it’s different around here. This isn’t a dinner party, it’s our home. It’s where we live. We want to have fun here, and we’re happiest when our house is filled with other happy, engaged, open-minded people — some who hang out all day, some who drive by every week or so, and many who stop in a few times a week for a drink. Through Autostraddle Social, meet-ups and A-Camp, we’ve watched the connections you make onsite translate into 3-D friendships, relationships and creative collaborations, further emphasizing the fact that YOU are shining stars of our lives. This year, we’ve listened to your demand for more online and offline spaces specifically targeting our readers over 35 and will be taking steps in that direction.

We began with a vague and oft-repeated idea of “the revolution” — a thing we wanted to start, a thing that is with us always — which means we’re also building a culture here, not just a pile of content. Executive Editor Laneia, Senior Editor Rachel Kincaid, Associate Editor Yvonne Marquez and I have been having lots of conversations about what we wanna do this year, so let’s talk about some of those things!

Broad-Level Thoughts About 2014

+ Being Braver: We want to be able to take risks in our writing — to eschew safe groupthink, propose new solutions and espouse progressive politics. Therefore this can’t be a place where ideas are quickly taken out of context and dismantled — it must be an environment where ideas can be debated respectfully and mistakes can be made.

+ Intersectionality: Our little universe made great strides in the area of trans* visibility last year, but there’s still so much work to be done. Locally, Trans*scribe did so much to expand our understanding of trans* issues beyond “101” and brought many new writers into our world, but it seems many activists are ready to hang up their hats ’cause there’s one trans woman on a TV show. No — as far as rights and protections for trans people goes, the work has only just begun. However, this year we’ve experienced firsthand and watched so many of you undergo a significant transformation w/r/t how you talk about trans* people, and your open-ness to this education has been inspiring — and in 2014, we hope that white people will understand and accept that it’s possible white people have as much to learn about race issues as cis people do about trans* issues. This means understanding that people of color are the experts on PoC experiences, that learning about racism in school or having friends of different races doesn’t mean you’re qualified to speak over PoC and that engaging in PoC narratives with an open mind is imperative for anybody invested in progressive politics and a genuinely inclusive LGBTQ Rights and Feminist movement. We have a lot of work to do ourselves and our site needs so much improvement in this area too. We’re really desperately even more interested than ever in submissions and Contributing Editor applications from people of color, trans* women and people with disabilities. Please submit!

+ Accessibility and Education: None of the Senior Editors have an academic background in Queer or Women’s Studies, we’re all self-educated. It’s important to us that this remains an educational space, not a place where we or you obsessively language police, assume a literacy in all the current “right words,” or engage in callout culture‘s destructive glory.  We think this kind of in-fighting is exhausting a community of strong activists who need to save their energies to fight white supremacy, the patriarchy and the cis-tem. These conversations can also be alienating for readers who aren’t all-knowing or privy to various generational attitudes and academic communities where relatively obscure knowledge is taken for granted and words like “queer” are considered catch-alls. So be kind, be patient, and find a way to hold people accountable while giving each other a little bit of room to learn. On this topic, we really like Black Girl Dangerous’ recent piece on “calling in.” (However, you don’t need a degree to listen to members of oppressed/marginalized groups when they tell you explicitly how they are being discriminated against, oppressed, or marginalized, so cut that out!)

Longform: I like reading longform a lot, and hopefully we’ll get enough funding to make a lot more of our own. My background is in creative writing, not internet marketing or journalism or anything like that — and I want this site to produce the kind of quality literary writing that reminds me why I’m alive.

+ Getting Back to Our Roots and Being Weirdos: When Autostraddle was young it felt like we were in a room with our closest friends and could be as exactly as weird as we honestly are. Over time, as our closest friends invited their closest friends who invited their friends, we became more aware of an audience. Now that we’re in a room with over a million of our closest friends, we’ve realized that we’ve started to behave the way people usually do in public — more restrained, more likely to second-guess ourselves, more worried about whether this outfit looks stupid. But we know that there’s a reason all of you cared enough to show up here in the first place, and that the truth is our weird interests and bizarre loyalties and counterintuitive understandings of the world are the best and most honest parts of ourselves. We owe you — and ourselves — to always try and be the best and most honest people possible. So we’re going to try to go back to dancing like nobody’s watching and hitting “publish” on that weirdo thing that we hope our ex-girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend doesn’t read, because if we’re not willing to do that, then what’s even the point.


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A-Camp May 2014

This year we’ll only be holding one A-Camp, May 21st-26th, and it will be our longest and undeniably awesomest A-Camp ever. In order to cope emotionally with only having space for one A-Camp next year and in response to 65% of our campers asking for more days (especially those traveling long distances), it’ll be one day longer than usual. We’re really excited about the possibilities the extended session presents and are already planning some brand new kickass shit for y’all. In the past A-Camp has been executed as a long weekend, but this time it’s a bona-fide vacation. Registration will open on January 17th — otherwise known as “tomorrow.”

We’re not sure what the plan is yet for 2015, but we are always talking about a variety of ways to improve and expand the A-Camp program and concept over the next eon.


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Trying to Earn More Money

This past year our traffic and subsequently our workload has steadily increased — but despite this, our advertising income hasn’t gone up and our income from donations has decreased significantly as the public perception of our success has spiraled wildly past reality. Luckily, income from the fundraising campaign and A-Camp helped us get by this year, but didn’t leave much room to grow. That small investment I mentioned earlier saved us from bottoming out and made our site so much better last month, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for another investment and more reader support this year.

See, presently, 92% of our $11,000 monthly budget goes towards paying seven staff members who work 20-80 hours a week for Autostraddle (that’s before taxes). The remaining 8% covers server costs and subscriptions. (If you know anything about publishing or small business budgets, I bet your jaw just dropped and fell off your face to know we’ve done so much with so little!) Aside from the monthly budget, our largest spend is obviously the cost of goods sold (the cost of putting on camp and printing merchandise), but there are other expenses too — such as travel, taxes, outside contractors, office supplies & equipment, article expenses, lawyers, accounting, software and the emergency fund I like to maintain for team member emergencies.

In 2014, we’ll be keeping Cee Webster on to supervise our technical situation (the fundraising drive only funded one year of her services), moving Forever Intern Grace and Editorial Assistant Chelsey into paid positions, getting our senior staffers closer to a living wage, continuing to pay our Contributing Editors, and investing more in editorial in general. This means our budget will more than double next month. So — if you’ve never donated, never bought merch, never shopped through our affiliate links, you really should! We have hundreds of thousands of readers, but only a small percentage of that group ever supports the site.

On that note — we’ll soon be launching Autostraddle Plus (A+), our premium membership program, on which a great deal of our financial future depends, and we’ll be really excited to tell you more about when the time comes!

We’ve also recently formed a media partnership that will facilitate impressive ad sales, which we’ll give you the scoop on very soon, and we’re working on some more outside-of-the-box merchandising initiatives. Stay tuned!


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The Future

I’m often asked if I think sites like ours will become irrelevant when LGBT acceptance goes truly “mainstream.” I don’t, of course. Nor do I think that queer culture — at least, not the queer culture I identify with — should or can be assimilated. But nothing seems real before it happens, and did I even know what a shred of “mainstream acceptance” would look like? I figured we were safe from competition for the same reason we were poor: nobody believes in this market. But what we’ve built here is more than news aggregation, rehashed press releases and lists. (Although we do write really good lists.) It’s a genuine community of active listeners, and I do think what we do here will remain special forever.

Five years ago, your coming out stories rarely had happy endings, and now many of them do. That’s huge. I don’t think same-sex marriage is the end of the fight, nowhere close, and when I say “we’ve made progress” that’s not what I’m talking about. When I say “we’ve made progress” I mean that the hysterical opposition to gay people having jobs, being related to straight people, appearing on television shows and renting wedding venues has been going down, rapidly, over the last two years specifically.

The LGBTQ activist community has serious problems though, as does feminism in general. We want to be part of building an inclusive fourth wave and we want to earn the right to be a part of it. In my opinion, this will require recalibrating how we define these movements, and recognizing that we are not united by specific causes, but by specific values and ethics. Acknowledging intersectionality in our work means letting go of the idea that broad-level political initiatives are even possible. It means setting priorities not by which goal effects the most members (or the loudest members) of the group in charge of priority-setting, but by determining, in line with our agreed-upon values, who most needs help and who is least able to access it.

Historically, queer/feminist media and capitalism have been uneasy bedfellows, and many believe it’s not possible to succeed in business while remaining authentic to our beliefs. We disagree. We believe that one day we’ll be able to employ all the hard-working smart creative queers we want to, and pay them, and pay them well. I believe that one day I’ll be able to pay enough people enough money that I personally won’t have to work 80 hours a week anymore! There is a way to do this because against all odds, we still exist, we got by for a really long time on very little, and we haven’t come this far to give up now — and neither have you. It’s your supportive and grateful emails, tumblr posts, tweets and comments that have gotten us through the rough patches.

So thanks to all of you for being here, for reading this, for participating in this bizarre experiment in cyber-performance-art. We look forward to a brand-new year of sarcastic television recaps, lists of vintage lesbians, Angel Haze feelings atriums, team picks for psychiatric medications, weepy personal essays, venn-diagramed sex advice, Samira Wiley Appreciation Clubs, listlings consisting entirely of weird shit you said, comment awards, butt plug reviews, Sara Quin interviews, drunken event coverage and chapstick recommendations. Thanks for being a friend.

You Do You,

Riese, Editor-in-Chief / CEO / CFO / Co-Founder

Co-Signed by Laneia, Rachel and Yvonne

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3159 articles for us.

113 Comments

  1. There are so many words here already and they are all so magical so all I’m going to say is that this makes me happy and I am happy to be here. <3

  2. Okay, I’m crying now. I have been crying and laughing since “This isn’t a dinner party, this is our home” Love you guys. Keep being awesome. x

  3. i’m really far away and trying my hardest to stay offline and “live” or whatever but i got back from a stint of hiking in the desert with absolutely zero wi-fi just this very second and felt spoiled by the possibility of logging online and checking my email and gchatting for a minute and oh yeah COMING HOME AKA HERE and look what was right here waiting. all these words from one of my favorite humans to whom i still owe a very long and very feelings filled email. even though i am gone right now (and, selfishly, i will be honest: it was hard to read this post and not see myself in it at all, even though i am the one who said i needed to leave for a little, isn’t that always the way it goes though) i am so so so so so fucking proud, and i feel so so so so so lucky that this is the community i get to come back to one day. keep killing it, everyone. i am thinking about you every day, for real, and i love you and i am proud of you <3

    ps riese i promise i will email you this weekend. pinky swear.

  4. This makes me very excited. I’m sorry to hear that money is tight, and I’d admit that your interpretation of that situation is correct: I think the new site makeover dazzled some of us into believing that there was more money rolling in than there actually is. I’m currently looking for a job, but this has inspired me to definitely send a congratulatory donation when I find one and make my first paycheck.

    And also, I am totally here if you need help team picking some psych meds. You know how there are people who watch all of the AFI 100 Movies or read all of 100 Books to Read Before You Die? I’m like that, but with anti-depressants. I’ve literally tried them ALL. Let’s do a Buzzfeed-style Top 10 list. I’ll start collecting Lucille Bluth .gifs now.

    • top ten anti-depressants is both the best and the sketchiest idea of all time, which means i love it

  5. “we’ve listened to your demand for more online and offline spaces specifically targeting our readers over 35 and will be taking steps in that direction”

    I GOT REAL HAPPY NOW, y’all.

    • Yes! I read that part and my tail started wagging
      Thank you for specifically targeting your readers over 35! Love you guys

    • I got pretty excited too about what is in store for 2014! I love this website, is is home more than any other website period (queer and spiritual websites of which I’m an active member)so thank you for your space of friendship and enthusiasm, Riese, Laneia, Alex, Brittany and Vanessa. Thankyou!!

    • I am way, way under 35 and I am still super excited about this idea! I am a big-picture, long-range person, and I need role models for my future… There’s no place I’d rather find them than here. :)

  6. I’m really fucking proud of all the work we do, and I feel luckier than ever to be on the team. Wheeeeee!

  7. Autostraddle Plus sounds like an upscale strip joint that I’d spend all my dollars at!!!

    I love you all!!!

  8. Eff to the yes! I love this column so much – it’s really amazing to get this bird’s eye view of what’s happened over the past year! Congrats Autostraddle, here’s to a kick ass 2014!

  9. I feel so honored to be a part of this incredible community. I wish I had words to express all that autostraddle, the place, the words, the community means to me. I never felt like I had a place where I fit, where I could be myself, until I found autostraddle, and suddenly this is my place, these are my people.

    I have never felt so at home, and I am so grateful to the amazing staff and all the people who make this possible for helping me find my home and my family.

  10. This whole address makes my heart swell. Just another reminder that we’re all part of a kick-ass community full of love and queermos. All the warm fuzzy feelings.

  11. God, this is exciting.

    And while it might not translate to $$$ (yet), you can bet your ass other websites are reading your glorious missive, what it means and stands for, and wishing they had half the heart and talent and relentless commitment and tenacity Autostraddle does. It’s something else, and I’m genuinely giddy to dance into 2014 with you!

    (Also I’m thrilled that I’ll soon be able to joke that while I may not be gold star, I’ve got an A+. Hoh-hoh-hoh!)

  12. I’m a huge fan and supporter of all you do. But then, I’d be afraid not to endorse you for fear you’d email Cee instructing her to somehow create a slowdown on my wifi bridge. Sorry. Jersey humor?

  13. i love you all so much and am so excited that we are all in this boat together full of weirdos forging onward to our weirdo destiny and sharing snacks. there’s no one else i’d want to make my home with.

  14. You all are the most amazing people. I can’t explain how much I appreciate this space, but I will do my best to continue to support in tangible and sustainable ways! Thanks for all that do. :)

  15. This may or may not have made me cry. Autostraddle means so much to me. This website is what I’m referring to when I tell people ”the internet means more to me than you’d ever think.”

    I love you all!

  16. Just thank you for this community, it’s soo warm and amazing, it makes me feel I am a human and understood.

  17. Only thing I’m said about is one less A-camp. I can’t come in May cuz of family stuff. I really want to go SO BAD!!! Sigh. Next year, fo sho.
    Thanks for existing, Autostraddle!

  18. The way you talk about this website, you writers, and this community gives me absolute faith in you and this revolution. With this outlook, I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

  19. I’ve been reading for 3 years and Autostraddle never stops surprising and exciting me. A Camp is the best, I am so it’s only one time this year, but I’m glad I’ll be able to make it. Soon A Commune, and Autostraddle University! I dream big.

  20. Would a monthly digital subscription solve some of these issues? I’d pay a few dollars per month and with so many unique visitors you’d make a killing. You guys deserve to be paid more.

  21. This post is everything. I found you when I needed to come out to myself and I haven’t left, although I may not comment a lot (or at all). I’m so happy everything is going grand for AS. Y’all deserve it.

  22. OK, so I just want to take an opportunity to express my love and gratitude for this website. For the last couple of years, I’ve been living in places (mostly in a foreign country) where I haven’t had any queer friends or access to any sort of queer community. I never imagined that a website where I seldom pluck up the courage to comment could make me feel less alone, but Autostraddle makes me feel somehow connected to a worldwide community of awesome queer people and I’m really thankful for that. I’m also super excited to see what happens here in the future.

  23. Reading this made me feel very proud of everyone here and excited for the future. You all rock and this site has been an incredible positive part of my life the past few years. Litterally helping me feel like I’m not so alone. So thanks to everyone for you’re hard work. I’m almost always broke but when I have money I support this place and feel so great doing it. I really hope more people start as well. This place feels like a home on the net whereas other sites care more about the suits than they do the people who’ve spent years making them great.

  24. I was one of those new December people! I was searching for a strap on recommendation, and google took me to this site. The tag line enticed me, so I started to click around. Although I’ve known since middle school that I was bi (but closeted until college), I didn’t really acknowledge that part of me until I finally became single in November. Some omphaloskepsis later, I came to realization that I am primarily attracted to women. Honestly, figuring that out clicked into place a lot of myself, but I still felt kind of lost and alone.

    I am so incredibly happy I discovered this site when I did, because it has made me so much less anxious, confused, and unhappy. This shit I’m going through? Other people have been there too! The people on this site are brilliant and accepting, and have taught me a lot. I escape here daily now, excited to see what’s new on the site, or reading through some old posts (currently the Real L Word recaps, hilarious!)

    I hope you hold many, many A-Camps as I don’t know if I can make it this year due to finances, but I’ve already started saving up for 2015. In the meantime, I will purchase some merchandise. Thank you all for everything, I’m sure I’m not the first nor the last baby queer to wander in here and find answers. Here’s to an awesome 2014!

  25. i remember reading in one of your earlier articles that out of, i don’t know, fifty people who read autostraddle maybe ten actually became members and wrote comments. Understandably for some, reading from a queer website is as far as one can go before feeling safe enough to participate. And as someone who was in that position, reading autostraddle religiously over time gave me the courage to engage and participate then eventually chip in. This is a wonderful resource and I think as you take the steps to expand your writers who cover a wider range of topics/points of view you will find even more people who would be able to provide the necessary funds to not only allow autostraddle to survive but grow. Thank you ,by the way, for allowing me into your home.

  26. Wow, this is such a dilemma.

    On the one hand, I firmly believe that everyone should get fairly paid for work. And you guys do work that I value so highly.

    But on the other hand, I absolutely loved those posts you used to do about gas station food and cereal and stuff, which I now see were directly related to your lack of income. I had just presumed they happened as a last resort because wordpress had crashed halfway through some epic political post or something.

    My heart is saying donate to keep the revolution alive; my deep love of snackfood listicles wants to keep you impoverished forever.

  27. This post is probably one of the MOST EPIC ones I’ve read on here and I just want to say I love all you humans so hard right now. So much love. And I am SO SO HAPPY to have found this site through a good friend and fellow AS member. I hope that the community still continues to grow and I’m really grateful I have everyone’s articles and nerdy shit to look forward to everyday ♥

    • PS I had to cut my comment short because I was at work but I saw this psot and I was like I GOTTA FUCKING COMMENT ON THIS RIGHT NOW.

  28. i feel so honored to be a part of this beautiful thing that is autostraddle, and to have the extreme privilege of having my voice be a part of this revolution. y’all are so great and i could stand here saying thank you for the rest of my life and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  29. I’ve been reading for about two years and you’ve been my daily escape so many times ever since. I’m glad I found you just when I needed.
    I love this place.

  30. I’m proud to be a part of this community. This one little website (or not so little anymore) helped me find myself, my love and a shit-load of friends. I don’t know where’s I’d be without it. I read your message Reise and feel compelled to send you a virtual toast (ching ching) to your candor, success and balls (virtual of course). I like where you guys are going and I sure love A-Camp and all of the great writers that make up this happy space. Pay them! You’ve motivated me to donate now – which I will be doing as soon as I click “submit.” Cheers!

  31. This felt like being at an awards show where I had actually seen/read everything mentioned and just did a lot of nodding and “oh yeah, that was fucking brilliant”. I am so excited for 2014 with this community.

  32. Oops, I just tripped and donated money to the revolution.

    (Psst, the PayPal link in the Accessibility and Education section didn’t work for me.)

  33. I’m approaching my fourth anniversary of finding this quirky little space, and the moment I got here I dove in immediately. I’ve never left these life-saving water; consider me a mermaid. This is my home, and everyone here is my family, and I am so so so proud to be able to share so much with this community.

    p.s. Riese, I got your homemade thank-you card the other week, and I have it sitting on my bookshelf so every day I remind myself how lucky I am that I found this home you built for all of us. <3 <3 <3

  34. My Autostraddle bookmark on my laptop is named ‘Home’, and it’s so true. This site is the first one I check when I turn my computer on in the morning and often the last one I see before bed. I honestly would not be the person I am today if not for this amazing place and community. I’m not much of a feelings person but I just wanted to say that I love you and keep up the good work.

    ps My new goal for 2014 is to make enough money to subscribe to Autostraddle so all the months can have as much amazing content as December did.

  35. SO interested in Autostraddle Plus! The community has helped my girlfriend and me find friends and community after moving to a new city. Definitely want to continue to support the site. New merch sounds exciting too!

  36. I (finally) signed up just to say THANK YOU for hearing your over-35 readers. Just ’cause I’m decrepit, it doesn’t mean I’m uncool. ;-)

    I’m thrilled about the progress and am excited about the changes.

  37. I love you, Autostraddle. You were always there for me so of course I will be there for you too.
    I honestly forget that I have to donate here every so often… My suggestion to help with that would be to hold 3 big fundraisers a year with goals (hit $10k we will have International Meet Up Week, hit $20k something else, etc) to remind us absent-minded members of the community to contribute financially to the revolution. Maybe one around March/April (Straddle the spring) another in July (keeping Autostraddle independent) and one before thanksgiving (giving thanks to Autostraddle)
    Love the fact that the readers over 35 will be getting more attention, love “How to keep a girl for ten years”, love the newcomers like Chelsea, love the writers that have been here for a long time like Rachel, love that Vanessa, the prodigal straddler, will one day return triumphantly, love the fact that I don’t even know what Autostraddle Plus is but I already know I am going to buy it,
    love that we will be more longform content and love you guys and the work that you do so very much.
    So proud of all of you, both staff and community. Together we can move mountains

    • I really love the idea of reminder posts for donating! I always buy new merch and stuff like that, but often just get caught up in life and forget that I spend an inordinate amount of time on here and want to give back. Even a kittens post with a “go donate now” button would do the trick for me!!

    • Autostraddle also should have access to our e-mail addresses or a lot of them (pen pal stuff, etc.), so sending an e-blast is an option. Even a quick MailChimp campaign e-mail every so often would work in addition to posts.

  38. Dear Autostraddle,
    My lady love and I regularly talk about things we will do when we’re rich (and by rich, I mean no longer living entirely on student loans and willpower,) and one of those things is give back to y’all. ‘Cause let’s be real, while we didn’t meet on your site, we definitely talked about you on the second date.
    Until then, I hope our occasional, wine fueled 10$ donations and declarations of love will help.
    So much love,
    Julia

  39. I totally wasn’t breaking traffic laws reading this while on the road. O.o Ok, I was but it was so worth it. I love Autostraddle I don’t think anyone outside of the community understands how important this site is to me. It IS home. Quite literally, my homepage. Honestly, the first thing I go to when I step into my house/building type thing. I love you all. Can’t wait for Autostraddle Plus. All the money I spend because of you guys, you deserve more money from me personally. LOVE. I am so proud of how far we’ve come guys. So excited to see where we’re going.

    *whew* is that a tear…from my EYEBALLS?!? Too many feelings happening in this comment section. I need some air. TO THE GEEKERY SECTION, AWAAAAAY!

  40. I can’t express how happy and grateful I feel to be part of this beautiful space.

    I love you all.

  41. I support Autostraddle because Autostraddle supports me. I support Autostraddle because everyone involved is so dedicated to help shape the world into a smarter, kinder, hipper, craftier, savvier, and better dressed world. I’m so honored to help support this revolution, that I can ride on the coattails of this amazing and unstoppable thing.

    Thank you all from the bottom of my wee queer heart.

  42. I think that Autostraddle is literally what gave me the stegnth & confidence to come out the closet. I started lurking because of the hilarious Glee reviews & found so much more. It feels safe here. Thank you.

  43. I have been reading this site for a bunch of years now and it’s absolutely played a critical part in giving me a safe space to queer and feminist and also to laugh and think. And cry sometimes too!

    You guys are incredible, and without knowing anything else, I’m keen to see this Autostraddle Plus and support y’all some more to keep doing what you do. I also really enjoy the commitment to be weird and to espouse progressive politics – I really enjoy both those things as an aspect to this site. I’d actually love to see some Activism 101 articles here too – I feel there is quite a collection of people here who’d have excellent thoughts and stories to share around this! Just an idea :).

    Keep doing what you do, amazing humans!

  44. I read this all with excitement and was like “yeah I care about all of this a lot, this is great” and then I got to “You Do You” and I felt like crying, suddenly. Autostraddle, you’ve done it again, and you continue doing it every damn day. “You Do You”, indeed.

  45. Didn’t read everything yet, but have you guys heard of Patron? What’s cool about it is it lets people choose how much they want to donate a month or per an article. 5 dollars might be too much for some people but a lot could afford a dollar a month and some could give more and everyone could see your goals and milestones. I’d give a dollar a month if you guys got an Patron account. You should try it out

  46. I <3 y'all!

    So I'm moving to PDX in the spring and I overheard my ma talking to my aunt on the phone about it.

    She said "oh she's got autostraddlers there so she'll be fine. I'm not worried knowing she
    has her Autostraddle friends."

    Hearing my mom say Autostraddle repeatedly over the phone with my aunt is uper cute and makes me happy that it is becoming a houshold name.

  47. I’m so grateful to have access to the wonderful bubble of love and light that is autostraddle, and i’m incredibly excited to see what’s coming next! I spent most of this article proudly fistpumping because even though I’ve been lurking for about a year and commenting for a fortnight or so, it already feels like forever and it’s the *coolest* feeling.

  48. Yes please with the longform. I believe this past year has signalled long form’s resurgence, a queer long form will be a great addition.

  49. This is so awesome! Thanks for the reminders about affiliate links, it’s easy to forget.

    I just realized I use Adblock on my browser and that probably affects advertisement revenue. Adblock does wonders for my sanity, but I also really want to support you, so I think my New Year’s resolution should be to make a donation to compensate and contribute?

    I’ve also wanted to make a donation forever and waiting to be a grown adult with a Paypal account, which I am now.

    Autostraddle has been there for me forever, way back in 2009 when I was fifteen and I could read it because the site was too small to be blocked by my school’s content filter (which blocked sites with the amazingly laconic explanation of ”Gay/Lesbian Content”).
    (I visited my high school lately, and it’s blocked now. Ah.)

    Thanks, Autostraddle.

  50. This post/website/community is just everything to me. Thank you all, writers and readers, for constantly making my heart swell with happiness.

  51. This was the first website/community that I felt comfortable joining when I first came out as a trans lesbian three years ago. Thank you all for creating a fun, interesting and welcoming space for all. It’s very special and dear to my heart.

  52. I’ve been reading Autostraddle since 2009, and I love you guys so much. I can’t describe how much this website and all you people have transformed my life. I am a much happier and better person because of this place.

    Thank you Riese, and all the fantastic team, for everything.

    <3

  53. Autostraddle got me through about 2 years of being closeted and trapped in a relationship where I couldn’t talk to anyone about being queer. Finding a home for queer women – that didn’t exclude me for being trans – was awesome enough, but it’s the weirdness that’s kept me here. I honestly feel like everyone involved here has this weirdness in common; I started reading regularly when I realized that this was a website for people like me, who talk like me, and seem to care about the same things that I do.

    Also: I *LOVE* the commitment to transparency! It’s amazing that you’re sharing numbers with us, that you’re including us in your business plans. I really do believe that we all have a stake in this thing.

    Also also: please more A Camp in 2015! I wasn’t going to be able to make even an October one this year because of money, but I want to go so so badly.

  54. Amazing stuff. Prouder of my involvement with this community than half the things I’m doing in the non-digital world right now (I really need to get back into some serious community service again). I am sooooo incredibly pumped for May A-camp and I am also determined to make this the year when I submit to you, oh glorious Autostraddle editors, tons of things I write and hope you want to publish one.

    I also want to note my extreme, extreme appreciation for all the things stated in this post about the importance of intersectionality, your devotion to a strong progressive politics and safe-space education about them, and particularly your goal of constantly being more inclusive of trans* people, POC, and people with disabilities. I want and need those voices in my life, and I have great faith in Autostraddle’s ability to deliver them. As much as Autostraddle means to me for making me feel at home, it means just as much to me that it informs and challenges my thinking in a way that I can take into the non-digital world. Thank you for all the warm welcoming conversations, hot righteous anger, cool quirky-ass content, and for being beautiful productive determined you-do-you humans.

  55. You set me free and give me a home! I want to give you all my money! I CANNOT WAIT FOR A+!

    Thank you for how open you are with us about money and salaries and revenue. Thanks, queermom. We your children will take care of you in your senescence (almost five years old!!!!).

    Thank you for NOT being Buzzfeed or HuffPo. Thank you for getting that “weirdo” is my most cherished compliment.

  56. Who are these users who are bringing down the average pageview per user per year down to about 3? My average is about 400.

  57. I had no idea how horribly you all were paid. – 92% of 132K split over 7 people is not a living wage. I am not raking in the bucks myself as a grad student, but I donated a little money because I’ve come to value this site in the two and a half months that I’ve known it existed, and using it as much as I do while not contributing to its employees having a living wage is unconscionable.

    • it’s exactly what I earn working retail. seems like they ought to be making more than a cashier’s wage, yeah?

  58. I’m very honored to be here. I love you all. This state of the union just makes me want to work harder, better, faster, stronger.

    <3

  59. It’s so exciting to see all the positive changes happening. It’s been four years since I found this site, and I’ve loved every incarnation, but it’s only getting better. 2014 will be the best yet.

    Congratulations on the epic pageview milestone!

  60. AUTOSTRADDLE!!! So impressed with what y’all are able to do on a daily basis. Thank you for being here. Autostraddle is the internet home that is sometimes warmer and safer than our physical homes. Excitant to see what y’all can do with 2014.

  61. OMG I’m so psyched for A-Camp in May!!! I love the Autostraddle community, you are all such amazing people! I was feeling stuck in a rut and then this post made my day! I love you all! <3

  62. Dear team Autostraddle, you are an inspiration to many, your bravery is truly admirable. You’ve come so far since I first happened to stumble upon this site in ’09. Whilst I’m not an active commenter (yet), I couldn’t imagine the interweb without you. Thank you for enriching my path.

  63. congrats on the awesome redesign. It works perfectly on my crappy smartphone, which is no small feat!

    I am loving the new content too, especially the How to keep a girl… one. Keep it up!

  64. As the mother of one of your long time editors, words cannot even express how proud I am of what you all have created! I have the greatest respect and admiration for the entire team; knowing how many lives are made better each and every day because of your efforts. My own heart and mind are more open as a result of Autostraddle. Thank-you.
    I also think A+ is a great idea and can’t wait to join. :) Te quiero todo!

  65. I feel like I’ve been reading this site forever so seeing that it only started in 2009 surprises me. That’s only 5 years! You guys have accomplished so much in such a short time, you should be really really proud. This place is more than just a website; it’s a community, a family, a team. It feels like we’re all in this together, which is a pretty cool feeling.

    Also, I got an anonymous message in my tumblr inbox the other day, asking me if I comment on Autostraddle. Which, not gonna lie, made me feel a little bit cool/internet famous. And also like the internet can be a small place, or maybe just certain circles of it are small. So – if you are my anonymous tumblr asker, and you’re reading this, message me off anon! Or message me here, if you don’t have a tumblr. I would like to know you. Because anyone who reads AS is cool in my book.

  66. My little brother saw that I liked this on Facebook and then he read almost the whole thing and said how cool/funny/awesome it is! I have to agree, you guys are amazing <3

  67. After several years of reading autostraddle, without plucking up the courage to ever comment until recently, this seems like the perfect place to say thank you for existing and creating this space on the interwebs that feels just like home.

    You’ve helped me through some lows and been part of the highs and I love this place so much and honestly can’t remember what I ever did on the internet before I found you guys! I’ve laughed so much and learnt so much and maybe had to wipe away a tear once or twice!

    Thank you for my daily fix of all things deliciously queer xxxxx

  68. I love Autostraddle. Even though this is only my third comment, I check Autostraddle everyday. I love that you are willing to take on criticism and suggestions from your readers, and that you respond to it.

    Also, there’s this article that Riese wrote “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About My Sexual Orientation And Were(n’t) Afraid To Ask” and I’m going to quote from it:

    “Thirdly, queer culture is so fucking ME. Much to my surprise, considering the internalized homophobia I’d so virulently projected onto lesbians, this feels honest. For the first time I can actually be myself and be liked — even loved! even wanted! — for it. Life used to feel like a lie, though I never consciously identified what lie I was living. Maybe this wasn’t true then.”

    I remember reading this and thinking that I felt so differently, that queer culture was so not me. And even now, almost ten years after I came out, I still feel so out of place in queer places. I don’t feel that I am welcome in most queer spaces (on account in no small part to my brown skin and my femininity).

    But you know what does feel like me? And what does feel like a place where I can be myself and still be liked and loved? Autostraddle. It might be online, but it is amazing that you have all created a place where so many people feel connected and feel a sense of community.

    So I wanted to say thank you Riese and all the other writers and workers. Thank you for creating such a place and putting so much time and effort and hours and stress and everything that you have to deal with to create this wonderful place.

    I am excited about your new membership plus program and more than willing to join.

    • this comment touches my heart in all the best places. i’m honored to be part of a place that is where you feel like you. <3

  69. It’s great to see how far Autostraddle has come, through all the adversity and challenges. I wish the best to all of you in 2014 and for many more years to come.

  70. I would love to help contribute to Autostraddle funding. That being said, I’d also love to see merchandise options expanded.

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