Late in June, our very own Darcy made some waves in the Autostraddle Slack by dropping the following message featuring a viral meme:
The headline has since been debunked as false and is just a digital alteration, but for at least one blissful day, many folks on the Autostraddle team hypothesized what a They/Them Summer might look like. The headline might be fake, but you can’t unmake a meme, and so we’re still gonna have some They/Them Summer fun, ok!!!!
Here are the mood boards some of our team members made for their sunny, lush, splashy, adventurous, hot, memorable, delicious They/Them Summers. What’s on yours? 🏖
Hello. Here’s how I’m spending my they/them summer: I will be hiking. I will be biking. I will be petting dogs. I will continue buying my shorts in the Target boys’ department. For extra gay points, I will be moving in with my girlfriend. Our new apartment will have a backyard with a fire pit, so yes, I will be building fires and telling ghost stories with my friends and roasting marshmallows for s’mores with GLUTEN-FREE GRAHAM CRACKERS I MADE WITH MY OWN THEY/THEM HANDS. I will also be seeing a bear in the wild. I have no plans to travel anywhere where there are bears — but one will find me and hold me gently in their bear arms. I know it. I will also be feeling ambivalent about my own pronouns, so I guess it’s a they/shrug summer for me?
![Collage containing a screenshot of Scully from The X-Files looking steadily at someone offscreen with blood in her left eye, a picture of Don Cheadle wearing a black t-shirt that reads “Protect Trans Kids”, a screenshot of Harmony_Holiday on twitter that reads: “We shall have everything we want and there will be no more dying.” A screenshot of Sonequa Martin-Green as Captain Michael Burnham from Star Trek Discovery, hugging and laying her head tenderly atop of David Ajala who plays Cleveland “Book” Booker, as he sits down looking somberly offscreen. A screenshot of skai_theartist’s poster of Candice Patton as Iris West-Allen, Javicia Leslie as Batwoman, Meagan Tandy as Agent Sophie Moore, Anna Diop as Starfire, and Azie Tesfai as The Guardian in heroic poses against a black background with the title DC Queens in Orange font across the bottom. screenshot from Alessia Cara’s Here music video where she is at a party in slow motion with a pink tinted filter and she’s looking through her hair at the viewer. Over top is a quote that reads: It Is Puppetry? A digital catalog of unintentional puppetry from @isitpuppetry on Instagram, a quote that reads: “Show I be / embarrassed for trying to survive?” from Sally Wen Mao’s “The White-Haired Girl” published in Indiana Review. A screenshot that reads: “Don’t panic. Learn how it works [1] [2] [3]”. A screenshot of a video recording program on freeze frame of A.Tony looking away from the screen against a light blue background, a screenshot of a message that reads “Host: A.TONY is Quietly Vicious”… underneath.”. A screenshot of their their quote tweet of Richard Siken that reads as A.Tony: me to my family Richard Siken: “If you love me you don’t love me in a way that I understand.” A painting titled Come Outside by jademdk.com of three black women in various shades of black, brown, red, blue, and green look at the viewer unbothered, vaguely interested, and disturbingly excited and threatening. A picture of betnijah Laney, Diamond DeShields, and Arike Ogunbowale, three black WNBA players as they pose for the first issue of WSLAM. A screenshot of a tweet by strqmul_iskwist that reads, “I’m not “self made”. I’m community made, I’m family made. I’m land made. I’m ancestor made. I’m made up of everything and everyone that made me exist outside just myself.” A picture of a black woman from Drumline doing a one armed pushup while the boys in the background struggle to do regular pushups and she looks threatening to someone offscreen. A screenshot of my game in progress, we need that knife b, with art by Tulani Kiara of two characters, a black girl with cornrows wearing a blue shirt and black jeans looking neutrally at the viewer, and a black girl with huge afro puffs and a dark purple sweatshirt smiling gently at the viewer. The text across them reads: “You sit. Scootch back until your back is against your bed and you are settled in between her legs. Safe.” A screenshot from the game BIRDLAND that reads, “Mackenzie: “In your head” isn’t the opposite of “real” though.”. A screenshot from jb-blunk on Tumblr that reads: “in this terrifying world you continuously have the power to offer someone else a little relief. why would you withhold that. do you remember what a little relief feels like? it feels like a lot”. A screenshot of janelle monae and tessa thompson from monae’s pynk video where monae is wearing bright and hot pink and dancing against a desert background and tessa thompson is in between her legs looking like the seeds in a flower blooming, and also known gently as monae’s clitoris in the video.](https://www.autostraddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/A.Tony_.png?w=675)
Comments
Love these agendas for taking over the world
I love how all of these turned out! And I wish we could all have an outdoor they/them summer party together!
I spy a pair of Cyrus ears!!! 🧡
🧡🧡🧡
Hear hear, Stef! As a fellow teacher, I always get a little whiplash heading into summer but I’m inspired to make sure I embrace the whim.
I love this idea, I love everyone’s mood boards (may pitch this to my friends!), and Darcy – one of my all time fave poems!
🍊🧡
Can we get mood boards every season, this is lovely
Agree!!!
This is delightful. You’re all delightful and I hope you have the best they/them summers!
reat job guys, kind off perfect, really helped a lot.
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I need to know where “don’t panic. Learn how it works” comes from. Because that is basically my unconscious raison d’être.
Just ordered a bunch of boys shorts from target, thanks for the tip!
Darcy that Wendy Cope poem is one of my faves! 🍊
🍊🍊🍊
I love the mood boards
Always positive to see what others have planned.
LOOK AT THESE YOU ARE ALL 🔥
I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO HAVE A GOOD SUMMER. We’re working, yes, we’re fighting, yes, but also I hope we all get to touch plants and watch movies and eat good summer food and sit around campfires with fellow queers. All the good things!
I love everyone’s mood boards and how they reflect each person’s individual style. You all are so creative <3
i spy the old navy orange print shirt!! i have the other two (sunflowers & roses)! let’s all wear them togetherrr!
yessss i have the orange print for myself AND for my dog lol
wow i love these
Thanks for sharing
Loved it thanks a lot for sharing
Wow. Nice Work. I like all theses and I wanna use theses in my upcoming project which is https://deunscrambler.com/jumblesolver
Hope it works Nice. Thanks for sharing the amazing ideas
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