Also.Also.Also: Lesbians Love Instagram! Pass It On.

I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again! ✈️

That’s technically not true, I’ll be back again on Tuesday. But I am hopping on a plane this afternoon to meet up with the rest of the Autostraddle Senior Team for a three-day work retreat and leadership training. As most of you know, the Autostraddle team works remotely and it’s extremely rare we’re all together in person. I’m genuinely excited to learn more skills about how to better serve this community. A special thanks to our A+ members and to those who contributed to our fundraiser last summer. Without your support, we wouldn’t be able to grow and become a better, more sustainable and equitable publication. Hell, without your financial support we LITERALLY wouldn’t be here at all. I promise to never take it for granted.

I’m proud, today and always. to work in queer independent media and be held accountable by you.

OK! As soon as I press publish on this link roundup, I’m off to pack.


Queer as in F*ck You

On the Unexpected Cost of Passing as a Trans Woman

In Buenos Aires, Queer Tango Takes a Revolutionary Dance Back to Its Roots

Harlem Renaissance at 100: An Essential Queer Culture Guide

Dwyane Wade spoke with Robin Roberts about Zaya – with her permission – and if you think I’m ever going to get over how much this family loves and protects their trans kid, you have another thing coming! (PS: Hope Zaya did well at her mock trail on Monday! Go ‘head little one! 💜)

I’m pretty sure you will also see this one come back around in our Sunday NSFW Link Roundup, but I’m so proud of Vanessa, I just couldn’t wait: Behold, the Fine Art of the Lesbian Thirst Trap

You should pair the above link with this: How Lesbian Culture Blossomed in the Age of Instagram

Catholic Students Protest After Gay Teachers Are Ousted

Ummmm…. Business Insider profiled the Cubbyhole??? If you’ve never lived in NYC, Cubbyhole is like Cheers for queers, as in it’s the quaint neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name. Anyway, I don’t know why I find this so hilarious, but I do.


Saw This, Thought of You

Kickstarter Employees Win Historic Union Election

Stop Believing in Free Shipping

6 Myths About the History of Black People in America

Coming out as Dalit: How One Indian Author Finally Embraced Her Identity. Raised to hide her low caste, Yashica Dutt’s new book traces her realisation that her history is one of oppression, not shame.

A bad name for an illness can be dangerous. That’s why it took so long to settle on Covid-19: The Life-And-Death Consequences of Naming the Coronavirus

She Didn’t Want a Pelvic Exam. She Received One Anyway. Medical schools and students are grappling with an unsettling practice: Performing pelvic exams on unconscious, non-consenting patients.

Migrant Kids Separated for 6 Years From Family by US Government. Family separation isn’t new. And here’s your daily reminder that it must be stopped.


Political Snacks

Elizabeth Warren Showcases Her Strategy For Beating Trump By Eviscerating Mike Bloomberg by the one and only Natalie for Autostraddle.

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

8 Comments

  1. Those thirst trap pics are just excellent & really scream, “I’m a fabulous lesbian, ladies please come over.”

  2. I am in shock with that article on the pelvic exams. It is seriously fucked up.

    I went to medical school, I learned how to do pelvic exams and I’ve never done this. I learned first on plastic models. After that there was a class with a special teacher. There are some women who, with a few students at a time, would allow us to practice the exam on them. This was a very valuable experience.

    After that I observed and performed exams on real patients – all with consent. There are plenty of people who are okay with that. I’d be.

    There is almost never a medical reason to perform a pelvic exam without explicit concent. I worked in a nursing home and had to do this a few times on patients with dementia, who cannot consent themselves. There was always a very good reason.

    • I am slack jawed! That shit would LITERALLY get you sentenced by three different courts in Germany!
      Performing pelvic exams under anaesthesia during an entirely unrelated procedure! What a fucking nightmare! And 90% of the med students did this!
      I did a four months oby/gyn rotation in med school and did a pelvic exam once or twice during birth (where it was just one of many and actually diagnostic) and only after super explicit consent!
      And driving a car my ass, I can literally count on one hand when I needed to perform an exam as a non OBY/GYN.
      I wonder if they perform rectal exams and prostate evaluations on men during anaesthesia in the US, I take a wild guess and say no..
      The US system is just..eerily dystopian.
      A lot of the medical stuff, especially in regards to women is so outrageous that my friends will literally not believe me when I tell them regular old news headlines. They really think I make that stuff up, so I’ll have to send them the newspaper article links via WhatsApp later.
      Like, a few weeks ago I told a few friends over dinner that Ohio wants to pass a law that makes it mandatory for doctors to implant ectopian pregnancies into the uterus, which is..not a procedure that exists. But the law does!
      Crazy, I don’t know why there isn’t more outrage, tbh.

      • **That shit would LITERALLY get you sentenced by three different courts in Germany!**

        Hi neighbour! I’m Dutch, our healthcare systems are pretty similar I believe.

        **Like, a few weeks ago I told a few friends over dinner that Ohio wants to pass a law that makes it mandatory for doctors to implant ectopian pregnancies into the uterus, which is..not a procedure that exists. But the law does!**

        This I’d missed. This is absolutely insane. Dystopian is the right word.

  3. Have a safe trip, Dr CP
    Send me a message If you wanna get a hot beverage, we could go a friendship date while you’re in town.
    Or not, You do you.

  4. Cool, so TIL that a huge chunk of American doctors should be in prison for sexual assault. Brb, gotta vomit.

Comments are closed.