Texas’ DIY Parties Are Creating Spaces for Lesbians From Scratch

a person in cowboy gear with their shirt unbuttoned, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat

I am not normally one for leather, or skirts. To the party, I wear both, because I have no other option — it is a leather party after all, and I would rather die than dress off-theme. I wear a leather vest for a shirt, a black cowboy hat, and pearls for added flair. The party is in a discreet, always-changing location, available only by word-of-mouth invite. It costs $20 to get in, plus a sticker over your phone camera the likes of which one usually buys for yard sales. No pictures, no videos allowed. Privacy is guaranteed in a way that is at once unexpected, and appreciated.

It’s the most lesbians I’ve ever seen in one place — it’s revelatory and overwhelming. Dykes mill about like sexy grazing goats. I feel at once small and digestible, a small fish stumbled into the big, libidinal ocean. The event, nameless, and never in the same place twice — exclusive to “queer people of all genders and identities who identify with Dyke experience, and who love Dykes” (with a specification to “for allies of the community to please sit this one out”), you are only able to know where to go and when if you engage with someone who can vouch for you. I get my formal invitation through a first date, who upon meeting makes it clear (unintentionally — well, most likely unintentionally) they are more well-connected in the city’s queer community than I could ever hope to be. I’m grateful for their inclusion — to be chosen — and enthralled, anticipatory. I tell everyone in my life I’ve gotten an exclusive invite to what I am calling a “lesbian sex party,” though of course I don’t know if that’s even what this is, or if it is, what that would even look like. While I am often writing and reading about, and am fascinated by, the queer intricacies of sex as a mode of connection and community understanding, I am still quite squeamish at the prospect of it in such garrulous, excessive means. I blame my Catholic upbringing, though I have been told I can only blame so much on that before it becomes stale. I just think I sound cool saying I am going to such a party — but as it turns out in attendance, while sexual connection can be a part of one’s experience here, that is not the crux of its intent. It is so much more than that.

Lesbian spaces are dwindling at a rapid rate in this country. The Lesbian Bar Project, begun in 2020 to combat the closing of such spaces, brought into awareness the sad truth that over the past 40 years the number of lesbian bars has collapsed from over 300 to less than 30. While a few have happily opened since the LBP’s induction, it is still a small number that reflects a colossal loss. While I have been lucky in my life to always find spaces and people of queerness around me, what I have lacked is that specific essence of lesbian community — in the broadest sense of the word. That is, a space that centers those outside of white male gayness, and encapsulates a wider range of genders, races, classes, and ways of moving about the world. Those who are, for lack of a better way to define it, less “profitable” or less “attractive” to the straight gaze. Queer spaces built specifically for lesbians (of all genders) portray a completely different atmosphere and energy. But here in Austin, Texas, there is a glimmer of what could be, sitting like a small gold nugget in a muddy stream, waiting to be plucked and replicated.

The organizers, Beth Schindler and Malika, have been curating parties like this for awhile. Beth, born in Kerrville but raised in Austin, and Malika, a DJ who moved to Austin in 2008, are the brains and brawn behind much of this specific event.

Beth, specifically, began her lustrous career as a DIY queer space coordinator around 12 years ago with an event called Free & Queer Cinema, at the now-shuttered North Door on Austin’s East Side. Inspired by Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet, the space was dedicated to showing queer films to queer audiences, allowing them space to engage with their community and interact with these films, calling out at the queer coded scenes.

After the dissolution of Free & Queer Cinema, Beth set her eyes on a new venture, a party event titled Lesbian Wedding (which celebrates its ten year anniversary this year). She says the inspiration, aptly, came from attending a lesbian wedding, and reveling in the joy and fun with friends she and collaborator Hazey Fairless didn’t get to see much of on an average day. “We were already reminiscing on how much fun we were having, in real time,” Beth says, “Thinking, ‘I wish we could do this all the time, why don’t we do this all the time.’”

The induction of Lesbian Wedding entered a void created by the end of another iconic Austin DIY queer party, GayBiGayGay, a SXSW alternative hosted in Hazey’s backyard on Springdale and MLK. “People would bring food and blankets and just lay around. Magical, easy all-day hang, which allowed for intimate connections and real friendship, the kind that’s hard to find sometimes at the club,” Beth recalls.

Lesbian Wedding sought a similar setup, showcasing bands and DJs and a potluck style food setup. While the event itself is not typically actually a lesbian wedding, there have been “no less than ten couples” who have met through the space and since gotten married. Hosted at the Sahara Lounge (formerly the blues bar TC’s), Beth emphasizes the importance of the location, as well as the gathering, is rooted in its dedication to community caregiving. “There’s always a pot of beans and rice on the bar for anyone who needs food,” she says.

a person holds a sign that says DYKE WILL SAVE YOU

In a city like Austin, which has seen rapid change in its culture and accessibility in the past couple decades, events emphasizing community are both welcome and rare. While Dallas has Sue Ellen’s and Houston has Pearl Bar, Austin has no official brick-and-mortar lesbian bar. Most of the bars Austin does have are forced to compete with the city’s mutating financial landscape — expensive drinks, cover charges, rent hikes. Just last year, PriceListo declared Austin the third most expensive city to spend a night out in the US. And despite Austin’s progressive politics, Texas was home to 20% of all anti-LGBTQ legislation in the country in 2023. Suffice it to say, Austin is a difficult city to be in if you are not cisgender and/or heterosexual, nor if you are in a lower tax bracket.

This, Beth explains, is a crucial pillar to why she does what she does. “A lot of newer lesbian bars are full of people who look like they’re going to have a meeting about their startup, and that doesn’t represent me,” she says, “I don’t feel seen…It feels like that’s what Austin’s lesbian bar would look like. No disrespect but it’s important for me to create spaces for the community I actually engage in.” She has a point. While mainstream acceptance and tolerance of queer people has vastly improved, there is the other side of that coin, in that non-queer people are more drawn to queer spaces, sometimes in an act of voyeurism rather than with true intention of engaging with the community.

Beth says this is part of why many of her DIY events — including Lesbian Wedding, dive bar Deep Flamingo, Austin Dyke March, Lez B In Touch, and the unnamed party we are not allowed to talk about in this interview — are more “underground,” and less frequent. In order to get news on when (and even where — often for the sake of protecting the security of the space, they are never in the same location twice) the parties are happening, one must be following the right (private) social media accounts, be on the right email list, or know someone who can vouch for them. While this may strike some as gatekeeping, Beth says the intent is not to keep people out based on status, but rather based on the welfare of the community at large. Beth says they are careful with spreading information about these spaces “because of how desirable they are to the outside world, to people with money, to people who aren’t contributing to the culture.” It’s important to Beth and Malika that those entering the space are not doing so voyeuristically, or to take rather than give, but to engage with and be kind to other members of their queer community in a space in which they can feel secure that most everyone there has been vouched for as a “safe” person to be in the space with.

“It’s great for us to create a space where we can actually feel more free. And to express ourselves in a way that is often not allowed or celebrated. It allows us to see ourselves in ways to break down tropes — a lot of times in certain spaces we are uptight, and guarded, because we’re not free. So people think us dykes aren’t any fun. But it’s fucking beautiful to realize you are a rowdy bitch! I can have fun in public, but I can have more fun around my people. It’s liberating, and a big part of why I do what I do.”

In addition to her Austin ventures, Beth collaborates with California-based JenDM for parties in LA , San Francisco, and NYC as part of their production company Double Virgo (aptly named, both of them being double Virgos). She proudly shares that the two of them were responsible for a very successful “Folsom afterparty for dykes.” Since then, Double Virgo continues to engage with these larger cities’ scenes, most recently hosting Power Snatch in LA in late March, and with more parties in the works for summer Pride season.

It’s great for us to create a space where we can actually feel more free. And to express ourselves in a way that is often not allowed or celebrated.

When asked what makes the parties in Texas different from the ones in California, Beth says part of the importance is proving to queers in larger, more queer-friendly cities that “Southern queers” are just as capable and just as happy making their own spaces, even in red state pockets. “The ‘South’ is 15 minutes away from any major city. It’s 15 minutes away from NYC or LA, it’s not this other place.” Part of these parties’ charm lies in their Texan-ness; in their radical desire to take up space, in a state (and in an entire society) that would silence lesbians and other queers from being raucous, rowdy, and fun. The crux of these parties is that they can provide something beyond drinks and leather and people to make out with. For over a decade Malika and Beth have created DIY club spaces in Austin, providing that essential space for queer nightlife, with the intention for those spaces to be an act of caregiving in and of themselves. “The queer community is not a monolith.” Malika says, “There are very different levels of privilege and access among us. And we’re trying to elevate that space for Dykes and trans people and non-white people.”

“It’s interesting,” she continues, “when I go to other cities, in the US but especially in Europe — they have no idea, they’re unaware of what we have here. And I’m glad to be able to be proud of that amid the harsh politics of the South.” Malika agrees that hosting these parties is integral to their makeup — while the mentality of non-Southern queers is often “why don’t you just leave,” for those who can’t or don’t want to, these parties remain to corral the queer community in the areas that, arguably, need it most.

people beneath a sign that says I'M GAY SO WHAT?

One sight in the parties always catches me: taped haphazardly to the drywall surrounding it are printouts of old covers of On Our Backs, the first and most significant lesbian erotica magazine. Begun in 1984 and shuttered in 2006, On Our Backs existed in part as a retaliation/response to the Feminist Sex Wars of the 70s and 80s, with tongue-in-cheek references to antiporn magazines and Playboy, but grew to a greater significance as a resource towards the reality of lesbian sexual life heretofore commandeered by straight understandings of the sexual genre. In these pages, lesbian erotica by and for lesbians could be displayed with the proper reverence, alongside interviews with prominent lesbian scholars like Leslie Feinberg and articles concerning community matters such as AIDS and trans identity. The magazine’s effort to portray “real dykes and real lesbian couples” through their own lenses was an effort to create (according to the NewBridge Project’s website) “a way for them to participate in their own representation. Making desires visible was a political statement made from the community, for the community.” It’s no small thing, for me, knowing this, to see the covers plastered against the walls, cast in faint light and between plumes of menthol smoke. It proves Beth and Malika are coming towards this event with a similar desire: to create space not just for frivolity and sexuality, but for the right of lesbians to be frivolous and sexual.

Malika refers to such parties as the “continuation of a story.” She says creating these spaces has often been about “remembering that spaces like this have existed and can happen again.” As Beth says, in regards to the difficulty of creating DIY parties on one’s own dime: “Queers are often given the scraps to work with, so this isn’t unfamiliar territory. Historically this is how we move through the world! The doors aren’t open for us often. The idea that we can’t access these doors isn’t new. We will always find a way to commune. We will always find ways to gather.”

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Gabrielle Grace Hogan

Gabrielle Grace Hogan (she/her) received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her poetry has been published by TriQuarterly, CutBank, Salt Hill, and others, and has been supported by the James A. Michener Fellowship and the Ragdale Foundation. In the past, she has served as Poetry Editor of Bat City Review, and as Co-Founder/Co-Editor of You Flower / You Feast, an anthology of work inspired by Harry Styles. She lives in Austin, Texas. You can find her on Instagram @gabriellegracehogan, her website www.gabriellegracehogan.com, or wandering a gay bar looking lost.

Gabrielle has written 6 articles for us.

Queer Feminist Essay Collection Explores Horrors of Motherhood

I count myself much more of a fiction than a nonfiction reader, so when I tell you that Allyson McOuat’s debut essay collection The Call Is Coming From Inside The House is one of the best books I’ve read in years, it means a lot. With feminist insights reminiscent of Melissa Febo’s Girlhood and horror film analysis on par with Carmen Maria Machado’s brilliant essay on Jennifer’s Body, McOuat’s writing effortlessly weaves together personal narrative and (pop) cultural criticism. Touching on themes of motherhood and pregnancy to true crime and horror movies, this collection is a dream for any reader looking for queer feminist essays that will intellectually thrill you, scare you, and make you laugh.

The title of the book, The Call Is Coming From Inside The House, sets the tone and expectations for the collection. Remember that urban legend (and plot to When a Stranger Calls)? A teen girl (usually a babysitter) starts receiving increasingly threatening phone calls to “check the children” and the spine-chilling ending reveals the scary calls were coming, not from the unknown outside, but from her very own domestic space! (It’s strange to think that with today’s ubiquitous cell phones, the shock of the unexpected reveal falls totally flat). Entitled male violence, the intrusion of a horrible threat into a supposedly safe feminized space, the nostalgic thrill of a campfire scary story, the burden of women’s conventional roles as caretakers: all of these themes evoked by the title, plus more, are explored in depth in the book’s essays.

Each essay revolves around a theme or event wherein McOuat addresses it through various avenues: her own lived experiences, true crime narratives, horror or thriller movies (usually from the 80s and 90s), feminist theory, well-known tall tales, and more. McOuat expertly connects seemingly disparate elements in each essay, revealing the everyday elements of horror present in her life as a queer woman. In “The Haunted House (A Spirited Journey Through Queer Home Ownership)”, for example, McOuat uses her and her ex-wife’s struggles to find an affordable home in Toronto as a jumping off point. Throughout the essay, she discusses Shirley Jackson’s iconic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House, the irony of queer and trans people finding refuge in cities that become too expensive to live in, the pull of a heteronormative life, ghosts, how grief can permeate a place, and trauma.

As a new-ish mom to a toddler and baby, I found McOuat’s discussions of pregnancy and motherhood some of the collection’s most affecting writing. McOuat knows, like I do, that pregnancy can be horrific. In contrast to the mainstream depictions of glowing, energetic expectant mothers enjoying every minute of their pregnancies, McOuat endures multiple miscarriages and subchorionic hemorrhaging. Feeling like the protagonist in Charlotte Perkins Stetson’s iconic postpartum feminist short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” McOuat sits in bed on doctor-ordered bed rest, listening to noises inside the walls of her room. They turn out to be a pregnant raccoon who’s moved into their heritage house, with whom McOuat has a distressingly strong sense of solidarity. She responds to her then-wife’s suggestion that they find a “permanent” solution to the raccoon: “YOU ARE NOT KILLING HER…WE ARE PREGNANT. SHE IS A SINGLE MOTHER. SHE IS MY FRIEND.”

Motherhood too, especially as McOuat finds herself a single parent after she and her ex-wife divorce, can be incredibly frightening. McOuat shares how her anxiety — personified as her “own personal Harbinger of Doom” — rears its ugly head at random moments, reminding her of her baby’s accidental fall off the bed years before. It’s like the horror movie stock character a la “Crazy Ralph” in Friday the 13th has set up residence in her head. Despite being cozied up on the couch watching Frozen with her kids and wanting to contemplate the queer-coding of Elsa, McOuat is having flashbacks to the sound of her kid’s head hitting the floor. At night, the Harbinger whispers “Don’t fall asleep, one of them might stop breathing while you are just lying there.” As sad as it is to know other parents are suffering from these kinds of intrusive thoughts fueled by anxiety, I am also comforted to know I’m not alone in them.

Terrifying in a totally different way are McOuat’s details of violent encounters with men. One story particularly haunted me. With suspense equal to any of the horror movies she analyzes, McOuat tells the story of driving a car full of women friends at 18 when they were targeted, chased by, and forced to stop on a remote highway at night by two cars of men. The cars worked together to effectively trap the women, twice, with one car pulling ahead and one behind, both abruptly coming to a stop sideways across the single lane road. McOuat and her friends were terrified. They screamed. McOuat writes: “Girls need plenty of healthy opportunities to scream together in fun so that when we need to scream in outrage or fear, our voices are prepared.” What makes the event even more terrifying was that at the time, in the area where they lived, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka — a Canadian husband and wife team of serial rapists and killers — were at large, targeting young women like McOuat and her friends.

McOuat often references true crime such as Bernardo and Homolka throughout the essays, using it to elucidate and expand on her own experiences of violence and horror and vice versa. I am actually very much not a true crime fan and usually get a feeling I can only describe as icky when I occasionally encounter it. But I really appreciated how McOuat integrated these narratives into her essays. She takes care to humanize the victims in each case, making sure their whole personhood is foregrounded rather than leaving them as faceless victims ripe for exploitation and morbid fascination. In the essay “The Babysitter (Changing Diapers and Narratives),” for example, McOuat discusses the highly publicized case of Janett Christman, who was murdered while babysitting in Missouri in 1950. She describes where Janett lived, her family, her hobbies, and her personal qualities. It’s clear that despite some of these real life atrocities having been retold and adapted so many times that they feel fictional, McOuat feels the losses of the (young) women victims as real people.

Speaking of women victims: there sure are a lot of them in typical horror movies, many of which McOuat discusses in this book: Alien, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Rosemary’s Baby, Scream, The Blair Witch Project, When a Stranger Calls, and more. Conversely, of course, there are the final girls such as Scream‘s Sidney Prescott and Halloween‘s Laurie Strode, who are idolized as beacons of strength and resilience and as icons for women to look up to. Or so I thought, until McOuat’s take on the final girl trope challenged me to think a little deeper.

She writes that “these women are the victims we love and cheer for — the perfect frontier-style, capable, white women who evolved from being a victim into being heroines of their franchises.” They’re forced to fight: “[Ripley in Alien] knows it is her job to keep fighting because, just like moms cleaning out the fridge, she knows if she doesn’t do it, nobody else is going to and it’s just going to be a bigger nightmare the next time the door gets opened.” But the final girls represent a narrow definition of a “good victim,” who are only “socially acceptable victims for a short period of time before we want them to follow the way of the hero and emerge from their trauma with new strength and wisdom…Paradoxically, we want people who are at their weakest to be the strongest they have ever been.” What if, in real life, you aren’t a good victim? McOuat hasn’t been, and she tells us about it.

Also: What if you aren’t a good queer? In conventional queer discourse, you come out as one thing and stay that way. McOuat discusses what she terms “bi-scrutiny” in the context of Amber Heard, her high-profile court case with Johnny Depp, and her first starring role in an indie slasher flick called All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, where she plays a “bisexual spree-killer-on-a-mission.” On fluid desire and the limits of labels, particularly for bi+ women, McOuat writes:

“Who I am, and what words I use to identify myself to others, often has me twisted in knots because it seems determined by what others think I am or what I want others to think about the people I have loved instead of something intrinsic to me. The labels have changed from something self-empowering to now a title that is earned, bestowed, and must be maintained at all stages of your life. I have been many people in my lifetime, at different times different labels would apply to me. That is not a sign that I have an unstable identity, it’s proof I am growing and learning.”

The Call Is Coming From Inside The House is an ideal read for anyone interested in any one of its disparate themes: horror movies, queer parenthood, mental health, bisexuality, true crime, and more. But its true power and beauty lie in the ability to turn the simultaneous discussion of those themes into more than the sum of their parts, creating a queer feminist tapestry of wise words that transcends any one topic. I truly cannot recommend this essay collection enough!


The Call Is Coming from Inside the House: Essays by Allyson McOuat comes out April 30 and is available for preorder.

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+!

Casey

Known in some internet circles as Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian, Casey Stepaniuk is a writer, librarian, and new parent. She writes for Book Riot and Autostraddle about queer and/or bookish stuff. Ask her about cats, bisexuality, libraries, queer books, drinking tea, and her baby. Her website is Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian. Find her on Twitter, Litsy, Storygraph Goodreads and Instagram.

Casey has written 125 articles for us.

2 Comments

  1. I very much appreciate this review! Tbh, I was skeptical of the book after reading the headline but you dispelled pretty much all of my misgivings in the review. Looks like an interesting read

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Untethered: How Do You Know You’re Living Where You Want To Be?

“When I’m gone, are you gonna get your grandpa, you know, his dope?”

My sister deepens her voice on the his dope. She’s imitating my dad, talking about my grandpa and the very mild and completely legal edibles he and my sister bring him because he is pushing 90 and heaven forbid he takes something that helps him sleep. My dad has been asking this because he and his wife are moving away. My sister has been taking my dad to the dispensary to get my grandpa “his dope” for some months, and despite a lot of evidence to the contrary in some old family photos, apparently the whole experience makes him nervous (according to my sister).

My mom has been dreaming of both moving away and also of taking psychedelics for years. She’s sold her house and has been living in her late mom’s house. I’d dreamed or joked or both of finding some psychedelics for her, of MK-Ultra-ing the conservatism out of her, whispering in her ear about maybe not hating people, while she’s tripping, seeing if there are any pieces of that angry reactionary shell that might break off. She tells me the energy in my grandma’s house, her dead mom’s house, is heavy. She also tells me she has been cleansing it, of course. In her mind, nothing originates from her but solutions. Problems are external.

When I visited my hometown for the eclipse, my mom and I had a mediocre dinner with questionable drinks at a gay bar. She’d suggested it, which seems odd until you know that it’s in the very same building that was once the boarding house my grandfather, her dad, grew up in. Later, without my mom, I heard a baby cry while being held by its mother when the sun was eclipsed by the moon’s shadow. Before I left, I did hand her something she could try, a parting gift, a shot in the dark at healing.

Part of the reason I moved back to Pittsburgh was so that I could be somewhat near my family. Within months of my returning from the west coast in 2015, my mom’s house was broken into. She had to clean up rummaged-through closets. I was able to drive up to see her within a few days, the drive only a few hours. I’ve attended a wedding since then, a funeral. I’ve had my own wedding attended by family and went to extended family holiday celebrations. It’s been a location that, though still far enough away to prevent drop-in visits, allowed for connection.

Now, they’re both moving south in search of something else — warmer weather, activities to fill out their retired lives, the American dream. They are separately, but at the same time, in the same year, dissolving my sense that traveling back could mean seeing extended family, would mean flitting back and forth, as I had once done, between the apartments or houses my parents lived in but that I had never lived in because they stayed, which I know is not the case for everyone by any means, in close proximity to each other for almost two decades after their initial separation.

My sister will still live there, up in Buffalo. A couple old friends still will, too, and of course, I’ll still see my grandpa when I visit. But if I look at the senses of belonging, of home, that have dissolved over the past 12 months, this was one I maybe didn’t expect.

There are photos from 2018 of my sister and I in the snow at my mom’s place, the winter I went back after moving out and away from my abusive marriage. The journey home after that breakup felt like a reset and a reassurance; there are these people who are there for hard times. I told my dad and his wife some of what happened. I told my mom. I had her watch Big Eyes with me and pointed and made the comparisons that made sense and then she told me how she “liked him” though and that I was “mean to him.” Then, following that, there were even more years of a Trump presidency, Q Anon, Covid, sheltering in place, an uprising, a failed insurrection, unending twists and turns and doubling downs.

But only once did I go up and not tell my mom, not see her, when I was hurt by something or other she’d said or done. I told my dad about it, and it was like his eyes sunk deeper into his skull with the hurt of hearing it. He told me not to do that, that I’d regret it. He and my mom had moved us all a solid 45 minutes away from his parents because my grandmother, my father’s mother, would not could not stop being mean to my mom. She died not long after that move, while on bad terms with my dad. He’s never forgiven himself for leaving things that way.

When my mom packed up her house, she handed over tubs of old photos to my sister to go through. And so, on subsequent trips back up there, my sister and I combed through the old pictures. There were so many chubby kids’ cheeks, my old bowl cuts, and her dimply little smile under strawberry hair. We shrieked in horror at each other as we saw the same dresses — that had already been hand-me-downs from the 80s — appear first on me, and then on her, as late as the 2000s. “I can still feel the itch,” she moaned.

In there, too, are a batch of photos from an Amway conference. In them, my parents are roughly the age I am now. I remember the Amway days. They were so sure they were going to move up the pyramid, that life would be different, better. We sat on the blue carpeting that filled the house and flipped through the Amway magazine detailing the prizes you could win when your downline was big enough, Disney cruises, trips to Florida and yet more Disney — and central Florida is where my dad is now moving like he’s never forgotten the siren’s call contained in those glossy pages. Of course, we know that no one ever won out when it came to Amway, except for the people at the very top, who, years later, would go on to lobby excessively to dismantle laws that sought to prevent pyramid schemes, and who would even have a representative in the Trump cabinet in the form of Betsy DeVos. My mom maybe had two or three customers I remembered, ladies who applied makeup in the bathroom where my floating bath toys sat on the edge of the tub. I learned to apply makeup with the leftover Amway palettes. We never seemed to run out. For years, I washed our floors with Amway cleaning concentrate. Later on, determined to have never been duped, my mom blamed their Amway dreams falling apart on my dad, on his inability to get his downline in order, never on the trick she fell for while dreaming.

In the photos, there is a rack of fur coats in a convention hall. My mom and other women try them all on, modeling for the camera. It’s funny to think of this extremely analog form of manipulation. Fur coats and nothing around them but blank walls and easy-to-clean polished concrete. My mom grins into the camera, and I can practically hear how her heels would have clicked on that floor. In other photos, they are seated and applauding at banquet hall tables, sweating men in ties and collared shirts grin at the photographer and clasp their wives close to them, so sure they’re both shooting into the stratosphere.

In one final photo, which I packed up to bring home with me, my dad stands on a stage. The photo is taken at an odd angle, as though my mom is maybe seated in one of the front rows, pointing the camera upward. My dad is being led across the stage, hand in hand with a woman I don’t recognize. Behind him, monstrous red lights cut through what looks like fog or smoke. He is smiling under his mustache and wearing a suit, even though he had never had a job that would have required him to even wear a collared shirt or a tie. My sister speculates that he is perhaps walking across hot coals.

They were so unmoored at my age, thrashing around in the dark for some kind of social mobility, for someone or something that would lead them somewhere else than where they’d found themselves plunked down. Like everyone else at that convention, they were easy prey. What they had was a young kid, a head of household with just a high school education, recently closed factories and narrowing blue collar job prospects. Bills. And a more-economically-depressed-than-most region — go Bills! It’s nice to think they can choose something for themselves now, decades later, as Boomers and some of the last Americans with pensions from union jobs, savings, the ability to finally stop laboring and laboring. I wish I could be a fly on the wall at that conference. I do suspect that my mom carries that brainwashing about bootstrapping with her still, the rhetoric about pulling yourself up through hard work that was so transparently a lie because no one who made any money from Amway got it without having dozens or even hundreds of people in their downlines losing out.

Their impending moves have made me start questioning if I want to be here in Pittsburgh at all — or where I want to be physically located, if I even care. And I found, also, in those photos, a mirror held up to the economics we’re all experiencing right now and the recession that is encouraging me to stay put for a little while at least. Moving would almost certainly mean paying more for housing, would mean more disruption, more uprooting. It might be a reaction, too, to feeling like I’m losing roots, like I just want to say “fuck it” and tear them all out instead of dealing with less of something I’m accustomed to. I’m trying to sort through what I want and how much of it is what I want and how much of it is what I’ve been influenced to want — what’s real, what’s a scam, what exists in the space of something that is surely a scam but is also somehow real. The aesthetics of dreams and promise and hopes and goals never match up with the dirty dishes in the sink, or the mechanical scheduling of a little time off mid-week to attend a protest against yet another anti-abortion or anti-trans speaker, or the taxes that are owed that are going to pay for more weapons and weapons and weapons.

This dissolution of home presents a lot of choices — how I’ll spend my time — who I’ll visit, when, for what holidays if any. And also, whether I want to stay or move and explore somewhere new. It has me combing through my connections in this city, which also has me feeling cold and calculating, but nevertheless, it’s something I’m doing. At the very least, it’s an opportunity to turn to myself and just myself and ask — do I like it here enough to stay? And to realize, if I don’t, I do have choices. I’ll just have to look for them.

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?

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Nico

Nico Hall is Autostraddle's A+ and Fundraising Director, and has been fundraising and working in the arts and nonprofit sector for over a decade. They write nonfiction and personal essays and are currently at work on a queer fiction novel and podcasts. They live in Pittsburgh. Nico is also haunted. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram as @nknhall.

Nico has written 222 articles for us.

1 Comment

  1. Autostraddle, is there any way to turn off these autoplaying video ads that open every single time I open an article? And then they hover annoyingly over the top of the text! It’s the absolute worst! They are so so irritating it makes me not want to open any articles.

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The Best Breakup Advice You’ll Ever Get

Many years ago, an Autostraddle reader asked me for lesbian breakup advice on Tumblr (yes, it was that long ago!) — my girlfriend of 2 1/2 years just broke up with me because she doesn’t think she’s gay. we live together. i feel completely empty, and like i’m actually going to die because i can’t eat. i mean i have a lot of emotional problems already, but is it normal? — and I answered it, mostly by transcribing a letter from my friend Krista. Krista had written this email to me in the summer of 2003 when we were 22 and a boy had just broken my heart and I couldn’t eat, or think really, or do anything besides play The Sims, do drugs, go on long runs (often while on drugs), go to work, drink vodka-cranberries, and have fights with the boy, whomst I still saw several times a week.

After I posted the Breakup Advice on Tumblr I got a surprisingly significant amount of comments/emails about this letter and its supreme wisdom, which I then elected to share on this website, well over ten years ago. We’ve gotten a lot of requests for lesbian breakup advice lately, so it seemed like an important moment to bring it back to the front page for another round of transformation and what I still consider to be the best breakup advice I’d ever received.

So here we are, with this email that Krista wrote me during my Summer of Extreme Discontent which I still keep around because she was right and it was good.

The Breakup Advice That Saved My Life

Ris,

Even though sometimes the world seems about six sizes too small for our pain, the amazing shit is that no matter how deep purple the bruise is, no matter how dark and overwhelming and miserable and worthless it all seems, the world will get a fraction of an inch bigger every day.

Really, every fucking day.

And you won’t notice it for a long time until suddenly, one day, it’s only five times too small for your pain and then four and then the world will just keep getting larger and larger in comparison to your shattered heart and eventually it will be able to hold it and then it will outgrow it.

And your pain will be just a speck in your world.

It is supposed to feel like the end of the world right now. That, my beautiful dearest Ris, is how you know that it was worth it. That is why it was one of the relationships that shook your core and after which you will never be the same. That is how you know that you are growing up and are experiencing shit rather than living safely in risk-free choices.

The world is supposed to feel as though it is ending and you are supposed to know only in the most dormant recesses of the backmost corner of your soul that it will not be like this forever.

You are supposed to feel acutely and lucidly that everything is over that your purpose for life is worthless and that not even cheesy pasta and molly ringwald movies are going to make you smile, and you are supposed to know opaquely and elusively and abstractly that everything is not over and that your purpose in life is so much huger than you can ever imagine and is still saturated with value and that you will eat pesto and read Stephen Dunn and live in Manhattan and have stacks of waffles at corner diners with girlfriends and spend inordinate amounts of money on bath products and sunbathe on the roof reading trashy novels and you will will will will will will will love again.

I did not think that I was going to be able to ever breathe without shaking again after J broke up with me, let alone successfully love and fuck again.

That is what you are supposed to think.

I cried hysterically for months.

I wept so much that I had stewardesses on planes ask me if I needed oxygen, I had waitresses refuse to serve me, I had strangers approach me with offers of help.

Then I stopped.

Then I started again and stopped again and started again and then stopped for good.

I promise you will survive, and with more grace than you can now imagine and that you will have more grit and vision because of it.

Moral: Sometimes someone can crack open something that feels very safe and make you unreasonably vulnerable: you will live to tell the story of this shock.

When I started dating my first girlfriend in 2007, the boy who broke my heart in 2003 wrote me and asked me who are you now, who is this person i see on the internet, what happened to you, you’ve changed so much, i miss your face and how we were, and I thought, you know what, you’re right. I have changed. I’m not the girl with the half-broken heart anymore. He wasn’t the last person to break my heart, or the last relationship of my life that would end in what felt like, at the time, absolutely incurable heartbreak. I’d be lying if I said every one of those heartbreaks hasn’t worn me down a bit more than the one before, that it can be more and more trying every time to open back up again, that for a while it felt like I might never do so. But, as Stephen Dunn wrote in his poem “Each From Different Heights”:

And the big bruise
from the longer fall looked perfectly white
in a few years.
That astounded me most of all.

So, my dear brokenhearted friends who often message us asking for advice on how to cope with your compromised heart — do know that you will live to tell the story of this shock.

And finally, let’s end with another email from Krista, one she’d written me only about a year earlier, when I’d been the one breaking someone’s heart, and felt terrible about it. I knew he was all wrong for me but he disagreed. So I asked Krista for advice then, too, and she was right then, too. Here’s a little bit of that, for the finale:

“We are trained in this Republican sappy fuck of a society peppered with Sandra Bullock movies that somehow his haircut and not liking the things you like are superficial and all that matters is that you love each other. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Loving someone and making a life with them are separate spheres, they have nothing to do with each other. When you find someone where there is both, that’s when you win. But they’re not contingent qualities.

You have to surround yourself with life that brings out what you like about yourself, not what’s easy. It’s impossible to do sometimes, but it’s something to strive for.”

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 3179 articles for us.

96 Comments

  1. I needed this so much. Thanks for sharing…wonderful advice, and really well written.

  2. favorite part: “Then I started again and stopped again and started again and then stopped for good…”

    the aftershocks of a breakup are what are most unnerving, i’ve found. you think you’re over it, you breathe again, you find something/someone/everything/everyone bearable again…and then you cry – could be 10 days after, could be 10 months after – and you feel as if you’ve failed your healing heart because you’re shaking and pulling at the sheets again. but you quickly learn it’s a process of start & stop, start & stop…but you do stop, eventually, for good.

    and it’s such a comfort to read this and know that it’s not just a me thing, but an everyone thing. kinda knocks you on your ass, in a good way.

  3. Thank you.

    For both parts of this, because it’s never easy to be on either side of a break up.

    This is beautiful, and I think I will save it as a reminder as well.

    <3!

  4. As someone who went through a breakup two days ago, I really needed this.

    Thank you.

  5. absolutely beautiful. i think i might print this, fold it in four and carry it around with me until the edges are yellow and torn, just in case i need to re-read one day. i hope not too soon, or maybe never.

  6. Oh God I needed this too. My first girlfriend broke up w/me 6 months ago and most of the time I’m okay…had my couple little rebound flings, etc, but once in a while I sit in bed and I’m like “I WILL NEVER LOVE AGAIN EVER EVER.”

  7. I cried. Again.

    It’s been 5 months today (oh God why am I counting!?) since my first girl breakup. I know I’ll love again, but I’ve never experienced such hurt before.

    This has helped tremendously. I wish my friends were eloquent, dammit.

  8. Thank you so much for this… I’ve spent the last several months like this- not breaking up with a girlfriend, but breaking off ties with my best friend/the first girl I’ve ever loved because I cannot deal with all the scary shit she wants me to keep secret. It was just like your friend Krista wrote- with plenty of rebounds… But, the feeling of freedom you get after all that pain, after you move on, is unbelievable. Today, I’m planning to tell her father everything in hope that he can help her better than I can. I’m terrified. But I can’t just let things go on the way they are, and I’d rather lose her friendship than her.

  9. Thank you for this, so much. Last night, my heart was ransacked and my gut trashed by someone I should have let go of completely months ago for what is hopefully the last new time. It was my first relationship after years, the first person I slept with after some PTSD-inducing living nightmare of an experience. Whee, #sobstraddle.

  10. I literally just came on here to try to stop crying because I think, I am not sure, but I think my girlfriend just starting phase one of some kind of break up. None of my friends are answering their phones and I am considering calling my mom. But this helped. Even just remembering that everyone goes through this, and feels this way. Thank you.

  11. Wow…Krista is one smart and wise lady! She should be everyone’s best friend….

    Riese, thanks for this…

  12. This is wonderful as my gf of over a year broke up with me today. Also, I got hit by a car. It was a wonderful day.

      • Just some scrapes and a broken nose which I think looks kinda badass. The girlfriend thing sucks more…

        • A broken nose?! Jesus, sounds painful!

          I know the girlfriend thing sucks, and I apologize for that! Getting your heart broken completely and utterly blows. But take things one day at a time, my dear!

          • Sure is, especially because I normally wear glasses.
            And thanks, I’ll be fine eventually.

    • i’m glad you’re okay :)

      this afternoon i fell off of a ladder & that sucked. but in the wise words of ice cube: today i didn’t even have to use my A.K. / i got to say it was a good day.

    • I know your post is old, but I recently got hit by a car while with the person I was dating, and then dumped 4 days later. So your comment made me laugh haha.

  13. Thank you for postig this. I’m ~3 weeks out of the best relationship of my life so far, and this is the best advice I’ve gotten. Thank you.

    • Remember: Every relationship is going to feel like the best relationship of your life, but turn out not to be, until one, just one, truly is.

      I know, I’m paraphrasing Dan Savage. I’m going through this too, and I find thinking about the above statement helps, in certain moods.

  14. “Loving someone and making a life with them are separate spheres, they have nothing to do with each other. When you find someone where there is both, that’s when you win. But they’re not contingent qualities.”

    OMG yes. My first girlfriend and I were together for over 5 years, even when the last few years were pretty awful much of the time. But we stuck it out for a long time because we loved each other, and that was supposed to be enough. (we were 18-23, so that didn’t help either).

    And then after we broke up and I went through all of this shite, exactly as described, I met my wife. And she is someone I love AND can make a life with. And my Lord the difference is amazing. It isn’t the all-consuming “I can’t breathe if you’re not near me” thing I had when I was 18, but that was exhausting. It’s “I love you and respect you and you make me laugh and you’ll pick up the milk on the way home, right?” It works so so so well. So much healthier.

    So, yeah, love and compatibility are not actually the same thing. Unfortunately. But if you’re lucky you’ll find the person who gives you both.

  15. dina’s right, this advice is good for many kinds of grief. a close friend committed suicide last monday, it’s been the hardest week of my life. it seems like the mercury retrograde is presenting many people with tough challenging, things right now. with words like this, i’m at least reassured i’m not alone in the struggle. y’all are awesome. love and light to everyone hurting now- <3 <3 <3

    • so i was just clicking through this awesome article and your comment caught my eye…i have lost 7 friends to suicide, it’s somewhat of an epidemic in my affluent, drug mecca of an area. if you ever need to talk, i’m here, and also, there are tons of survivors of suicide loss (thats what they call those of us left behind) support groups out there. also, i have a whole stack of books on the topic that have helped me a lot. sending support and encouragement your way <3

  16. Thank you so much for posting this for us to read. I find myself like so many others above, in the healing stages. Krista has given sage advice that many should take to heart right alongside of that broken heart. I’m looking forward to that place of grace and grit she speaks of. I hope that she knows her words have been pronounced and resonating to many.

  17. I recently fell for someone, hard enough that I’ve decided to move up to San Francisco (I’ve lived in/near Los Angeles all my life) because I am absolutely not letting her walk away. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before – and something tells me that if she decides she doesn’t want me after all, I’m going to suffer heartbreak like never before.

    So thank you for this – I may need it. (But here’s hoping I don’t!)

  18. This is actually the best thing I have ever read. I will share it with as many people I can at any applicable opportunity.

  19. “We are trained in this Republican sappy fuck of a society peppered with Sandra Bullock movies that somehow his haircut and not liking the things you like are superficial and all that matters is that you love each other. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Loving someone and making a life with them are separate spheres, they have nothing to do with each other. When you find someone where there is both, that’s when you win. But they’re not contingent qualities.

    I’m drowning in FUCK YES right now but had to shout out that particular quote <3

  20. I rarely listen to anything that I read on the internet but the second I started reading that first letter from krista I sat up. What a brilliant friend, my Krista is in Berlin right now and things are hard sometimes, and I’m currently in the first girl relationship of my life and I feel so wary at times of it’s end, and just of everything, but your friend has helped me to realize that time’s the thing. And the relationship will have it’s time, and if it’s right, and we can have both then I won’t have to go through that top part, but I might, and if I do I’ll make it out.

    So I bookmarked this

  21. My break-up advice: I’ve just gone through my first one, and talking to my mom, friends, etc. was great. But talking to a counsellor was AMAZING. The best out of everything, besides lots of exercise, and kittens. I’ve seen a counsellor for a few things, but this was the most helpful. If you’re in school and you can see one for free, or through some other means, I really strongly suggest it.

    Also, go visit the SPCA (you can totally just go in and hang out) or volunteer with something. Kittens/cute kids help.

  22. I love this and needed this
    It doesn’t only apply to break ups either. I was just feeling like crap about everything in my life and the letter was a total pick me up. “This too shall pass”
    Thanks

  23. I love this so much and it really has helped me through my situation and I just sent the link to another friend as well

    Sending Autostraddle some love from Vancouver Island up In Canada
    XOXO

  24. I read this and found it lovely a month ago, but didn’t relate much as I wasn’t at the time going through a breakup. Now that I am, I’m finding it not just wise but also comforting and helpful. Thanks for sharing.

  25. this was needed.
    this is a good counterpoint to all the things I’ve heard from friends/loved ones
    I feel so pressured to push through my heartache, to feel like i’m “better off” without, but it’s heartache for a reason

  26. A perfect example of something too good to keep to yourself. I really really really really needed this.

  27. This is so important:

    “Loving someone and making a life with them are separate spheres, they have nothing to do with each other. When you find someone where there is both, that’s when you win. But they’re not contingent qualities.”

    It is so hard to think of it that way. I always thought that love would be enough, but one of my good friends told me the other day that her hardest breakup was one that unraveled for almost a year, because both of them kept thinking that loving each other was enough. it wasn’t.

    I just got broken up with halfway around the world and I’m terrified to get on a plane and fly home alone. The flight attendant scenario made me laugh, and made me feel like it will be okay, I won’t be the only person ever to sob on a plane by myself.

    I’m so grateful for this post — I kept googling “coping with a lesbian breakup” but i got nothing. I shoulda thought to come straight here :)

  28. 2 and half months later after breaking up with my girlfriend of two and half years who I am undoubtably still in love with I keep coming back to this post and I feel a little better. Thank You.

  29. I was telling one of my best friends last night that I didn’t think I could live through the heartache and I felt like shit and I thought I made a mistake, and she sent me the link to this article. I am so thankful that she showed this to me and that you wrote this here for everyone to read, because it helped me realize that I’m supposed to feel this way, that this feeling that the world is ending means that it was worth it, that I’m growing and experiencing things and learning from them. That I don’t have to feel pathetic about feeling heartbroken. I also realized that “loving each other and making a life with them are separate spheres.” That you really do need both to make a relationship work, and sometimes they seem like mutually exclusive qualities, but when they overlap, then it works out.

  30. Thanks for this….going thru the throes of breaking up and can’t stop crying…. never thought it would end this way. Thanks for the advice. I think I will survive……….

  31. Thank you. Thank you. Didn’t know I needed this when I came looking (for something NSFW) today. STILL getting through a ‘break-up’ 2 years ago that became a barely-survivable divorce. . .and losing the life I had with my children to this purgatory known as partial custody. He’s getting married this week, though the divorce is not quite a year old and my kids are calling to say they want to spend an extra night with me, but I’m going to school in hopes of someday having a job that pays the bills and I start an internship on Monday that I have to commute an hour each way to – and none of this fits the life I was going to be having at 41!! But I met a woman who makes me laugh and lets me cry and would have brought me flowers at the airport the other day, but her cat would eat them once we got to her house, so can I please let the thought count? And, yes. Yes, I can let the thought count. Because sometimes that’s all that matters – that they thought of you (or remembered to pick up milk on the way home). And that’s how we get through. Someone actually remembers to bring milk home, or doesn’t buy you flowers because it would make the cat sick and eventually everything will be alright. Thank you, AS!

  32. Ditto the Thank you. I am going through both a divorce and a break-up. I did the wrong things – trying to start and finish two different things at once and now I must recover and pay attention to me. But it sucks and hurts so badly…nothing ever hurt me like this breakup with her.

    And the loving someone and making a life resonates so clearly. With him, there was love but a lack of intimacy. We had a life but it was facile and set-like.

    With her, love and life abounded BUT couldn’t really flower because grief over the other ending couldn’t happen. Now, a la Edna St.Vincent Millay, “Where (she) used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.”

    Thanks for the reminder that all is as it should be…and that these feelings too, shall pass.

    I’m just sick of crying in the most inappropriate situations!!!

    • This is exactly where I am: “I did the wrong things – trying to start and finish two different things at once and now I must recover and pay attention to me. But it sucks and hurts so badly…nothing ever hurt me like this breakup with her.” I did that, too. She dumped me before I could finish the first ending, and propose to her, the one with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. It’s almost two years- the anniversary of the break-up looms. I used to think I’d gotten to a clear place, only to burst into tears over the most ridiculous things. “Where (she) used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell.” Yep. That sums it up nicely. I hope you’re in a much better place than when you wrote this. Thanks, Riese and Cibby.

  33. There is an amazing and hilarious book that just got me through a painful breakup quickly! It’s called: “it’s called a breakup because it’s broken.” Change the he’s to she’s and follow the book’s advice. It seriously got me through some rough moments and helped me move on.

  34. God this helps. Just getting out of a three year relationship, moved across the country and losing a cat and dog. Best advice so far.

  35. I am really glad this is on the internet so I can read it whenever I need to. Right now I need to read it like 50 times.

  36. I first read this back in October, when my girlfriend and I of eighteen months broke up. It helped tremendously. Since then, we have tried to make it work; however, on Saturday night I walked in on her with the girl that she originally cheated on me with. Thank god this post was still up–it’s one of the first things I did when I got home.

  37. This post provides me so much solace. I come back to it regularly when I’m feeling like I’m just not strong enough to handle it anymore.

  38. I have read this 100 times in the last week. It’s the best, most comforting advice I’ve been given, though I seem to be stuck in the “the world seems about six sizes too small” and “the world is ending” phase.

    We were together a year and a half. We fell hard and very fast. We bought puppies and made life plans. She moved in after the first year. Life was blissful. Sure, we had our trials and tribulations and living together came with challenges, but I had never been so happy. Coming home to her everyday was the best part of me day and there didn’t seem to be a fight or challenge that wasn’t worth it, because we were growing and learning together and we were in love.

    Unfortunately she didn’t see it this way. The burden of our growing pains was not a foundation for her, for us to grow from and grow up together. They were a reason we couldn’t grow anymore, right now.

    I guess it was somewhere in July, though I’ll never be sure, that she began to check-out. I noticed the distance but she always said it was due to stress and we continued to buy furniture, plan trips, and she even asked to look at rings. She was over-compensating, or trying to convince herself she still felt in love, while I actually thought she was in love. She ended it 2 weeks ago and is in love with someone else.

    Nothing has ever hurt so much before in my life, I’m amazed I make it to work everyday. I think the it’s so true though, that “Loving someone and making a life with them are separate spheres, they have nothing to do with each other. When you find someone where there is both, that’s when you win. But they’re not contingent qualities.” I have to believe that each day the world will get bigger and have more space for my pain. She’s my best friend, but she isn’t the right partner for me, and I can’t obsess over someone who doesn’t feel the same way about me anymore.

    Thank you so much for this article. It helps keep everything in perspective and keep going.

    • Like lots of others, I keep finding myself back here on this page.

      I first found it by searching the site for “breakup” — surely, I thought, Autostraddle will have some wisdom to help get me through the unimaginable horror of breaking up with the person I love and causing her that kind of pain. It helped.

      And then I rebounded. Once with someone who liked me a whole lot more than I could have hoped for and made me feel loveable again. We talked. We kissed. It was mature. The timing was right. And it ended perfectly when we were both just ready for it to end.

      And then I rebounded again. This time with someone I loved immediately — who maybe I loved before our first kiss. She is charming. She wooed me. And then one day she wasn’t there anymore. And now it’s been months and I keep hoping to get to the part when my “pain will be just a speck in my world” but I’m not there yet. I see her at a bar — hell, I see her online — and it’s like getting sucker punched.

      But I have faith in time, and faith in the wisdom on this page, so I keep coming back to it. Thank you for sharing.

  39. I literally came to Autostraddle because I too thought, they have to have something about a break up. And here it is.

    My girlfriend of a year and a half just broke up with me last week. I’m having the hardest time in the world right now. Can’t eat a thing. Can’t stop thinking about her and can’t stop loving her or wanting her back. While she seems a okay moving along and hanging out with her friends and looking like nothing is wrong. But reading this has definitely helped. Thank you for sharing…

  40. I am one month out of a twelve year relationship an have been searching for any support that is out there. That touched my heart and provided a moment of hope. Thank you. It is just the moments right now

  41. I’m a little over one month out of a three year relationship and the heartbreak just hit me a few days ago. I needed this so much. Thank you.

  42. Your friend Krista is a very wise woman for articulating these truths, and you are very compassionate for bringing them to the masses, Riese. Thank you.

  43. Thank you this is such great advice. I just got out of a 3 year relationship and she claims she “fell out of love with me” and wants to be single for a while. Which is understandable but still sucks. Anyways this post helped a lot. It would be so much easier if the people we love loved us back but I know that this will work out and I have to fight the urge to text or call her. Thank you and please post more of this kind of stuff!

  44. So, I don’t want to repeat what everyone has already said.. My first gf broke up with me 8 days ago.. I still feel like my world is crumbling as we speak. I feel like I’ve reached out to everyone I possibly can, and I still feel like no one has any idea how I feel. I want this process to speed up!!! I want to stop crying already! I want to stop thinking of her.. us.. our life.. If this is love, I’m not sure I’ll ever want it again, especially if this is the outcome. :(

    • Whit, time goes slowly when you really need it to speed up. There is no way to make the pain go away quickly but there are ways to lessen it. Friends are who you want to be around at the moment, both to distract you from dark thoughts and to make sure you don’t make too many bad decisions out of grief. Things may be slow to get better but it will happen. My first gf broke up with me over a month ago, and today was the first day I felt like eating again.

  45. Recently I had my heart broken and didn’t know what to do with myself. My friend suggested to search internet on ways to deal with it and to find a perspective. This article is a life saver – it opened my eyes on things I already knew, just had them blurred with tears. Now I have it printed and framed on my bedroom wall – just a reminder of how I felt then and how I look at it now.

    THANK YOU!!

  46. Pingback: Cutting Cords | one check or two?

  47. I find myself reading this at least once a week for the past few months of my own hellish breakup.

    Never gets old.

  48. Still relevant. This is some of the most comforting and spot-on advice I’ve received about break ups, on the internet or in real life. The other thing that gets me by is something that both my ex and my friend have told me since the break up: “You are a normal human being having normal human feelings.”

  49. From Hyperboleandahalf, about dealing with lost love:

    ” Love is wonderful in that it can never be wasted or used up. We can never replace the people … we have loved, but the love we feel for them can be expanded. I like to think of love as being stretchy. It is easy to feel guilty when you [find new love] – like somehow that means you love your old friend less. But when you think of love as being stretchy and able to expand, you can see that there will always be room for everything. You can love as much as you want.

    I just wanted you to know that I’m thinking about you, and I understand. No matter how much this hurts, you’re not alone.”

  50. I wrote a comment on here just under a year ago, when I was going through one of the most traumatic and horrendous times of my life. I never heard from my ex gf again, and my heart still beats with love for her every day, but this article IS genius and everyone needs to embrace every word. I no longer hurt myself, or focus on suicide, or try to destroy myself. I just know that I was so damaged I couldn’t let anyone love me, because I couldn’t understand how anyone could. I’m nowhere near moving on, but I feel much stronger, and although I hope one day she thinks of me…..I know if she doesn’t, i’ll survive. My heart will be shattered, but at least i’ll have some sticking tape to hold it together. I love this article. Also, I want to meet Dina, she clearly rules.

  51. Thank you so much for this. I cried when I read it. It was so comforting to know that I’m “supposed” to feel this pain instead of feeling bad about it. This is the best thing I’ve read about break ups.

  52. my gf of about a year dumped me yesterday after a summer of being a terrible, distant, even hostile person to be in a relationship with. i drove an hour to what i thought would be a reunion and discussion about how to work through our issues. instead, she said being long distance for the summer made her realize she “doesn’t want to be in a relationship with anybody”, that she “wants to date other people before settling down”, that she “doesn’t want to have to work at something at age 20” even though she “still loves me”. i understand, i respect the decision, but at the same time, that’s so fucked up. don’t promise people commitment and long term love and then pull this bullshit. i did everything you are supposed to for long distance, and it “made her resent having to talk to me”.

    we are living in the same dorm this year at school. i am going to have to watch her take other people home. our college is 1400. we were a semi-iconic couple on campus. i have not been single in 5 years (yes, serial monogamist). what the fuck am i going to do? i literally do not know how to be single? also, fuck hookups and getting back out there, i just, i don’t want anybody to touch me ever again? is this normal?

    • I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way! Yes, that’s all normal, you’re normal, breakups are awful and it is supposed to feel this bad. You will figure out your own way of being single and discover strengths you didn’t know you had and really appreciate your friends, and eventually you’ll be okay. <3 <3 <3

  53. Thank you thank you thank you. Thank you Riese. Thank you Riese’s friend. Thank you. I’m going to be reading this every day for a while I think.

  54. Sounds silly, but this advise has gotten me through two breakups in 3.5 years…….amazinf

  55. Thank you so much for this. Five years ago my first boyfriend broke up with me after six years together and this helped me a lot. At the time I didn’t see it, but just as your friend said, two years ago I met somebody else, I fell in love with her, I really thought that I would spend the rest of my life loving her, that is, until last Friday that she broke up with me. I came right here to read this, I feel like I’m dying, I feel that I will never love again, but deep down, I know that I’ll be ok.

    Thank you for posting this.

  56. Thank you. I need this. My girlfriend of nearly three years broke up with me last night. It is a difficult and complicated break up. We love each other. She needs to work through some things. I need to be less involved. She is afraid no one will love her the way I love her. I am afraid to love anyone else.
    The world does seem six times too small for my pain.
    And, annoyingly, I work in politics, so my emotional pain seems really stupid compared to all of the other problems.

  57. Hi everyone. I’m new and really desperate for advice and support. I’ve recently broken up with whom I thought was the love of my life of nearly 1.5yrs. For probably a year anda but it was pretty tough. I was emotionally abused pretty often by being called a slut, whore cunt etc and on the odd occasion I was hit. I finally left a month ago after a pretty big beating. I was made to feel like the one who was in need of help. I even attended a mental health hospital and was put on medications. All in the whole she refused help and I didn’t pressure cos I felt like I was the one who was causing all this. She would abuse me then tell me I was being overly sensitive and couldn’t take any criticism. She would say it’s not all about me. She never once worked or gave anything. I accessed all my super and was left broke. I felt relieved when I left- she kicked me out after hitting me but pledges her undying love for me and says were soul mates. I’ve been throwing myself into work and have Drs helping me but I’m at my lowest. I am withdrawn. And today I’m having overwhelming feelings of missing her like crazy and trying to stop myself from getting In contact with her. I have court this Thursday with the domestic violence order I’ve lodged and miso scared of seeing her again cos I know I will miss her and want to hug her. I know deep down its not right what she has done. But when and how will I stop thinking of her and missing her. I feel so low. I amso lost. Please if you have similar experience you could share or support me I would appreciate it so much. I want to come through this bigger and stronger but right now I am not seeing it. Thank you all reading this. Love and light.

  58. I read this in 2015 after my first queer breakup and I’m reading it again in 2019 after the passing of my dog. It feels relevant to both, the reminder that the pain will eventually fade, if not entirely, at least to a manageable level. I didn’t want to love again, and I don’t want to get close to another dog because nothing else could possibly measure up. It’s so tempting to close off my heart so I don’t have to feel this, but “that is how you know that you are growing up and are experiencing shit rather than living safely in risk-free choices…” I don’t really want to grow up right now, but I’ll try.

  59. It’s 7 years later but I just want you to know that I still come back to this letter every time my heart hurts.

  60. Here again like I was after my divorce. This time an on again off again relationship of the last 9 months is finally over. I thought we kept fighting for it because it was going to be worth it if we could heal together. I thought we both wanted that.

    It doesn’t matter, I’m here because I know somewhere deep inside that I will love again. I won’t even be so angry at this person some day.

    I’ve grown so much from the first time I read this. Remember that if you ever end up here again.

  61. I pulled out this article this week to help a friend through her first massive breakup heartbreak, after she said “I wish I just knew some older lesbians to talk to about this.” Thank you Riese and Krista and Autostraddle, generally, for sharing all your heart and hope.

  62. I guess this is just my tradition now! Here again like I was in October. I think the second part resonated with me this time in a way I hadn’t been healed enough to understand before. I loved Annie but our need were in conflict in a way we could not ultimately get around. And how she ended things validated that my fears were real and not just anxious attachment. 💜♥️⌚️

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Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe Are Turning Our Favorite Lesbian Soccer Romance Novel Into a TV Show

Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe Adapting Lesbian Soccer Romance Novel ‘Cleat Cute’ Into a TV Show

sue bird and megan rapinoe with the "cleat cute" book cover/ Daniel Bartel/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF

Daniel Bartel/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF

In what is the most thrilling announcement regarding “people we love turning a lesbian sports story we love into a lesbian sports TV show we’re going to love” since the League Of Their Own announcement, today the sapphic community is bursting at the loins with excitement for Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe teaming up with independent TV studio Future Shack Entertainment to adapt Meryl Wilsner‘s bestselling lesbian romance novel Cleat Cute into a TV show.

Cleat Cute was a hit in the queer community and earned a big lift from BookTok as well — and in general, we’ve been seeing so many more sapphic romance novels coming out of major publishing houses over the past few years than ever before. The runaway success of Casey McQuiston’s Red, White and Royal Blue and its middling Prime Video adaptation was one step towards proving the genre’s marketability, and hopefully this will give contemporary W/W romance a similar boost.

“If you’re a fan of women’s soccer, you’re going to see not only your favorite sport play out in the pages of a queer romance novel, but also your own self reflected back at you,” Heather Hogan wrote in her review of Cleat Cute. “And that’s cool as heck. Mostly, though, Cleat Cute is full of sexy sex sex. Unapologetic sapphic sex.”

Cleat Cute, published by Griffin in 2023, was Wilsner’s third Sapphic romance — previously, she penned Something to Talk About and Mistakes Were Made.

Cleat Cute is the story of a young rookie soccer player dreaming of a spot on the national team and also sorting through her developing romance with her team captain.

“Having spent most of our lives on teams, we want to celebrate the ways in which relationships, both romantic and platonic, are organically created through sports,” Bird and Rapinoe said of their choice to adapt the book. “Cleat Cute will not shy away from the messiness, occasional frustration, and undeniable beauty that come with loving the game and the players within it.”

A Touch More launched in 2022, but this will be their first adventure into scripted content. Their first project was ESPN’s 30 for 30 Podcast “Pink Card,” which told the story of Iranian women fighting to watch soccer. Bird, Rapinoe and A Touch More’s development head, Camille Bernier-Green, will be executive producing Cleat Cute with Meryl Wilsner.

According to Variety, “the company plans to expand its scripted and nonscripted titles as it explores the sports landscape and beyond.”


More Queer Pop Culture News For Your Day:

+ The full Hacks Season Three trailer is here!

+ Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution, the “first feature-length documentary to examine the history of queer stand-up comedy,” premieres June 18th on Netflix. Lol

+ Elliot Page is one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2024 according to Time Magazine and you know what, we agree.

+ 7 Queer East Asian Movies To Watch Now

+ Bridgerton’s third season will include “lesbian romps” and “threesomes”

+ Queer Women Behaving Badly: These Movies Scrap the Coming-Out Story: on new messy lesbian movies like Love Lies Bleeding, Bottoms and Drive-Away Dolls

+ Listen to Kayla: Mark My Words, Billie Eilish’s New Queer Sex Song Is Gonna Be the Song of the Summer

+ Coachella is so gay this year.

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?

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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 3179 articles for us.

5 Comments

  1. you forgot to mention that my bff Camille Bernier-Green is Executive Producing!!!!!! lol but true.

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‘Girls State’ Documentary Reveals Limitations of a Mock Government

New Apple TV documentary Girls State explores the eponymous national program Girls State. If you’re unfamiliar, Girls State is essentially an immersive politics camp for high school girls that runs in every state except for Hawai’i. It brings girls from all over their respective state together to build and run a state government from the ground up for a week. There are rules, of course. Namely that that state government has to mimic the structures of existing state governments in the U.S. There has to be a legislative branch, a judiciary branch, an executive branch. There are elections for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. There’s a two-party system — not Democrats and Republicans, but rather Federalists and Nationalist. Mock cities are formed with little talk of what makes those cities distinct. In other words, girls come to Girls State not to reimagine government or build something that bucks the system. They come to Girls State to see how they might slot into a system that already exists, a system that was designed to exclude them in the first place.

While the documentary never states its implicit critique of the program quite that boldly, this tension between the girls’ ambitions and the opportunities Girls State offers simmers just beneath the surface. The documentary focuses on Girls State in Missouri. It focuses on a few of the girls in particular as they butt up against the limitations of the program and especially the glaring inequities between Girls State and Boys State, the sibling program which is being held on the same campus for the first time in Missouri history. The proximity of the programs highlights their differences. While the girls have to abide by a dress code, the boys do activities shirtless. The girls have to walk in a strict buddy system any time they do anything on campus. The boys have no such “safety” rules. When one girl tries to write an op-ed about these differences — and the vast disparity in how Girls State is funded versus how Boys State is — she ends up censored by whoever is in charge of the Girls State newspaper, a headline imposed on her softening the original argument. And whew, have I been there.

Quite literally, I actually have been to Girls State. I attended the Virginia version of it when in high school a decade and a half ago. It was a formative experience. But back then, my own frustrations mimicked some of those expressed in the documentary. Girls State teaches government and politics in the flattened and often decontextualized ways AP Government classes and textbooks do. There’s little room for radical ideas or building something new. It’s about mimicking the things that already exist. It’s also about dulling the edges of our political imaginations and beliefs. Or, at least, that’s how I see it in retrospect and when watching the new documentary. When running for office at Girls State, most attendees fall into the trap of keeping platforms safe and palatable to as wide of a base as possible — you know, just like real politicians, so I guess there’s something to be said of the experiment’s real-life parallels. In the documentary, one girl laments the fact that everyone is running on save the environment platforms, an issue just about any girl can get behind. There are some more outspoken girls willing to run on stronger platforms of gun reform and addressing racist policing. One girl details her own political awakening, having previously been influenced by her family to have a far right mentality before realizing she was being forced into a line of thinking she didn’t ultimately agree with and then developing her own more progressive beliefs.

But its not the program of Girls State that really encourages this kind of consciousness raising — at least not explicitly. In my experience, though, it does have an unintended effect of showcasing the limitations of electoral politics and of adhering to the status quo. At Girls State, I learned politics and government were a lot of theater and spectacle. And that’s accurate, even if it’s not the intent. Girls State — like similar mock government programs — is all about recreating a system rather than interrogating and reimagining it. It’s about buying into the two-party system, the supposed checks and balances of the U.S. government. Teens are encouraged to have political ambitions but not outside of these strict confines and rules. The Girls State documentary makes it clear not much has changed since I attended. It’s far from an advertisement for the program, though at times I do wish the documentary and its structure were more explicit in its critiques — as explicit as its subjects, the young but perceptive teens, seem to be.

One of the documentary’s central subjects is Maddie Rowan, who makes a strong entrance, right away talking about not only political polarization but also her queer identity. When I attended Girls State, I was deeply closeted, though revisiting my journals and photos from the experience certainly tell their own story, a crush hidden in the margins of the notes I took and Facebook photo album I posted dedicated entirely to photos of one of my fellow attendees. Even though it’s 15 years later, I was struck by Maddie’s candid vulnerability about her queerness, especially set against the backdrop of a state like Missouri. I had a chance to talk to her about the experience of attending Girls State and being in the documentary, and I opened with a question about this decision.

“Honestly, I think it’s kind of impossible to avoid the topic of my queer identity,” she says. “I’m in a serious relationship with my girlfriend of two years, and I absolutely adore her, and I actually never stop talking about her, so it would be literally impossible for me to make a new friend and not be talking about Annie 24/7. I don’t think I can physically do that.”

Maddie says she was a little fearful heading into Girls State, not solely for this reason, but rather because her father had attended Boys State and his descriptions made it sound militaristic. She admits having a bit of fear about being queer in this space, especially since she comes from St. Louis which is a bit of a progressive pocket in a red state. When I ask her about what it was like being a queer teen in Missouri, she’s honest: “I have experienced pretty extensive aggression,” she says. “And it’s kind of exhausting as a teenager to hear that kind of pushback against someone you love. It’s frustrating. It’s tiring. There’s a lot of personal emotion behind that and it feels really, really personal.”

It’s for these reasons she’s surprised she ended up having a lot of conversation with and eventually befriending fellow attendee Emily, who in the documentary says she identifies as more conservative. “I think that the program of Girls State kind of forced me to have those uncomfortable conversations,” Maddie says.

Adding urgency to the documentary — as well as highlighting its central tensions — is the fact that the Roe v. Wade ruling draft leaks while the girls are there. This context heightens the discrepancies between Girls State’s mock political system and the political realities the girls exist in outside the bubble of campus. When I ask Maddie what it was like to be there for the leak, she says definitively: “Nauseating.”

“I mean, I experienced Trump’s election, and it was similar to that kind of gut-wrenching feeling of knowing that your rights are at risk and knowing that the future of yourself like my ability to get married, my ability to have an abortion if I were to be sexually assaulted, that’s me. That’s me they’re talking about,” she says. “And when it becomes so personal, it is agitating and it is exhausting to see those conversations happen in completely white-dominated, male-dominated places.”

All the limitations of Girls State come to a head in the documentary when it’s discovered that official Boys State speakers are taking hardline stances on reproductive justice and women’s bodies. In the documentary, we see as Maddie receives a texted video from a friend at Boys State that shows an anti-choice speaker addressing the boys. She tells me this is a queer friend of hers who she ended up texting with most of the time during their respective programs. Later in the week, Girls State’s mock Supreme Court hears a case on abortion rights and privacy, but this comes after Boys State has a chance to debate these topics. “That was beyond infuriating to see,” Maddie says of the video leaked to her. “That the boys were having those conversations and not us. And it was just the continuous sexism of Missouri that is kind of never-ending that it just wasn’t even a woman’s conversation.”

I also talk with Maddie about those contradictions between what Girls State claims to do and what it ends up being, the fact that more explicit real-world politics are largely ignored or flattened by the program itself even though the girls already have strong political beliefs and identities they’re willing to talk and even argue about. She shares a moment that doesn’t end up in the documentary, as it happened after hours. “Two of the nights we had sleepovers in one of the girls’ rooms, staying up literally all night talking politics, and it wasn’t like we were all being nice to each other,” she explains. “We were pretty head to head.”

“And those moments of uncomfortable conversation I think are really what have pushed me as a person,” she continues. “Being uncomfortable is good for you. Adults are not having uncomfortable conversations in relation to politics, in relation to human rights, in relation to the upsetting standard of what’s happening in the world right now, and that needs to be addressed, and face to face.”

As a documentary, Girls State isn’t quite the explosive takedown and critique of the program that it could be, but it does explore the programs limitations cogently and in a way that ultimately doesn’t just replicate the same type of status quo rhetoric the program leans on. Speaking with Maddie makes it clear these young women’s political ambitions and priorities are so much bigger and more expansive than what they get to do and showcase at Girls State. The documentary nods toward that expansiveness.

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+!

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, short stories, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the assistant managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear or are forthcoming in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 814 articles for us.

1 Comment

  1. As someone who was once a gay Missouri teen girl, this is an unsurprising revelation, but wow, what a brave, brave girl. I am in awe of Maddie, and happy she’s using her voice!!

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Is Monogamy Cool Again?

I haven’t been monogamous since high school, and even then, my relationships were never fully closed. So when I learned about polyamory at 22, I was thrilled. There was a word for what I was!

The lifestyle and my relationships helped me to eliminate so much sexual shame and provided my first experiences of gender euphoria. Of course, I’ve also contended with judgment for being multi-amorous in a world built for two. Luckily, I was also queer, and to me, queerness felt intrinsically intertwined with non-monogamy. They were in the same polycule, if you will.

I’m single for the first time in five years, and back on the dating apps (as opposed to the hook up apps). Imagine my surprise to find that in my absence, all these queers have become monogamous!

“If you are partnered and poly, swipe left.”

“I don’t have the mental energy for poly.”

“We’ll get along if: you want monogamy too.”

It’s a non-negotiable! When I was single in 2019, the monogamous cuties I’d run across would sometimes bashfully try to play at maybe being interested in trying poly — just for me. I’d have to cut them off at the pass for their own good. Now? They’re cutting me off first! With pride!

It’s not just on the apps. The person who taught me what polyamory was is now in a monogamous relationship. The last few T4T couples I’ve inquired about joining in on have been closed for funny business. A gay guy friend of mine locked down his wayward situationship like he was on Grey’s Anatomy: “Pick me, choose me, love me.” Now, they live together and if either of them ever hooked up with someone else, I’m pretty sure the other one would commit a double murder.

I’m being cheeky. Monogamy isn’t the same as uncontrollable jealousy, nor is it inherently unenlightened. It’s also not a stagnant state. There are times when someone might be one or the other, or some combination of the two.

But my overall working thesis in general? Monogamy is back on trend for queers!

Consider my writing about this on par with the New York Times’ insistence that only cis people report on trans issues. Only I, a famous polyamorist, could possibly investigate a resurgence of monogamy without bias. That’s how journalism works, folks.

MONOGAMY IS BACK, BABY!

Poly representation peaked in shows like HBO’s Gossip Girl reboot, the polyromantic comedy series You, Me, Her, Peacock’s recent Couple to Throuple, and – sigh – The L Word: Gen Q. More people tried it. For some it worked. For some, it didn’t. Polyamory is not inherently easier or harder than monogamy, but in the end, monogamy is what’s familiar. There’s more of a social roadmap to follow. It’s comfortable.

“There are ways through this discomfort,” single non-binary lesbian Anna Hope told me when I put out an Instagram call for monogamists to explain themselves. But that hard work isn’t for everyone. Hope has been polyamorous before, but said in 2024, they’re looking for monogamy.

“[Polyamory] feels liberating for some, but scary and chaotic for others,” Hope said. “It’s only fair to choose the way back instead, if monogamy also works for you.”

It works for monogamous queers like BJ and Harmony Colangelo, wives who co-host the feminist film podcast This Ends At Prom. Until recently, they felt like outliers, because as a cis lesbian and trans woman whose “sexuality is whatever,” respectively, their being monogamous seemed outlandish.

“The response is always some form of shock that we’re not poly,” BJ said, “because it’s become almost assumed that if you’re queer or trans in 2024 – especially in Los Angeles – that you’re also dismantling relationship structures.”

It’s a reasonable enough assumption. When you’re going against society’s defaults in one way, why wouldn’t you adopt some of the other ways? It’s why leftists might be vegans or why Flat Earthers might throw in with anti-vaxxers.

When Harmony and BJ met, BJ was in a V-shape polyamorous relationship with other people. The women’s swift connection was undeniable and unexpected, and, after a conversation about shifting dynamics, BJ and Harmony were monogamous. In the seven years she’s been with BJ, there have been opportunities for non-monogamy, but to Harmony, nothing has been appealing.

“I guess I am monogamous because there is no one else out there that makes me feel the way I do with BJ,” Harmony said.

BJ agreed, “Anyone else just feels redundant.”

Nicole Kristal, a bisexual woman who has been monogamous with another bi woman for the past six years, said being with someone who is also bisexual eliminated the temptation to act on other opportunities. She can be honest about her outside attractions, she said, without her girlfriend feeling insecure, and thus the temptation fizzles.

Kristal, who is also the founder of Still Bisexual, said it took her 20 years of searching to find this kind of healthy monogamous relationship in the queer community. Her and her girlfriend’s deep trust and fulfilling sex life are such that she knows “adding another person is completely complicated and unnecessary.”

“We joke that someday we might get a pool boy,” Kristal said, “but overall we are just enjoying being monogamous.”

SO WHAT CHANGED?

It once behooved queer couples to present as similar to the average heterosexual pairing. After the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s, and into the 00’s fight for gay marriage, we needed to seem like all we wanted was monogamy, a white picket fence, and 1.5 dead-eyed, blonde children. We could not give the right-wing any excuses to call us polygamous harlots planning to one day marry goats.

“I can’t even remember how many headlines I’d see about ‘gay couple together for 50 years can’t get married but Britney Spears can be married for 55 hours,’” BJ recalled. Because of that influx of respectable queer representation, “poly folks got a lot more vocal in response.”

When monogamy was the default, polyamorous people were the ones who had to specify so that no one was wasting their time pursuing incompatible matches. Now it’s the other way around. The new counterculture is monogamy.

“You know how sometimes people get dumped and their first course of action is to date someone absolutely nothing like their ex?” BJ said. “Well, if you had a messy poly breakup between the years of 2020-2024, I’m not surprised the reaction is to go back to the ‘traditional’ well.”

These past four years are a big factor. Post-lockdown, we were led to believe the 2020s would mirror the roaring 1920s. Everyone would be eager to make up for lost time. That did happen a little bit, but it wasn’t so much the start of a decadent decade as it was a brief gust before the dust settled – even calmer than it had been before.

“So many people went through the pandemic alone and that made them rethink whether it’s worth putting in the work to have a person who’s always there for them,” Kristal said. Surviving the pandemic with her girlfriend solidified their relationship. The world was falling apart, but at least they had each other.

Kristal’s not saying polyamorous people don’t have reliable connections or can’t be committed and loyal. Of course, they can. But loneliness overtook those who were already alone, and logistics and fear overtook those who were in poly relationships or pods.

“Someone would break quarantine and then they couldn’t see each other for weeks. Or some poly folks I know had kids and they couldn’t risk the exposure,” she said. “Logistically, the pandemic just destroyed so many poly relationships.” After everything we’ve gone through as a world population, people might just be yearning for predictability.

Married lesbian Rasha Pecoraro said she found safety in monogamy.

In her twenties, Pecoraro, a “hopeless romantic” who lives outside Portland, Oregon, usually dated several people at a time but ultimately, she said, she hated it. She hadn’t yet come out as a lesbian, and just felt lost. So now for the last 15 years, she’s been monogamous with her wife.

One reason queer people could be getting back into monogamy, Pecoraro said, could be the natural expansion of our love of mysticism, astrology, and signs from the universe. Pecoraro believes in “forever soulmates” (whether you’re monogamous or not). She wondered if the queer community isn’t searching for meaning in a chaotic world and seeking comfort and stability in monogamy.

Hope, who is based in the UK, said they have relationship-related trauma, and the more relationships they’re in, the more risk there is of even more trauma.

“I am trying to minimize heartbreak for myself at the moment,” they said, citing a fear of abandonment and struggles with jealousy. Sure, this is something they could work on while in an open situation, but it would be much more difficult for them to manage than the way they’ve been able to in monogamy.

“A big component of how I experience romantic love, at a certain level of commitment and depth of the relationship, is a feeling of devotion and a desire to prioritize one person,” they said.

One person can also be more than enough effort, my interviewees told me. People looking for relationships right now are simply tired and overwhelmed.

“The work it requires to maintain one relationship is hard enough in this ‘the world’s constantly on fire’ decade we find ourselves in,” Kristal said. Even maintaining friendships takes up all her “low bandwidth” and finite energy.

Queer people and other marginalized groups under attack have even less energy than most. Hope told me about a friend who had a hard time coming out as a queer, and said she never wanted to be open about her non-monogamy simply because she doesn’t want to invite any more discrimination into her life.

“I suspect that with the overall rise of conservatism everywhere many queer people might be pressured to at least present as being in more traditional monogamous relationships,” they said. “The whole ‘we are just like you’ thing” is coming back around.

Recently, on @openrelating, an X account run by relationship coach Roy Graff, he suggested that maybe there aren’t actually less poly people, so much as, like Hope’s friend, poly people have stopped talking about being poly.

“This is why when we see polyamorous representation on social media and articles, it tends to focus on negative experiences,” he wrote.
We non-monogamous folk have had our moment in the spotlight and have quietly stopped trying to prove anything or call attention to ourselves.

Rather than there being less of us, maybe we’ve simply decided to shut up.

WHAT NOW?

For that reason, it’s impossible to know qualitatively if monogamy has become more popular than polyamory for queer people in the last five years. But my own personal anecdotal evidence says monogamy is cool again, and is only gaining steam.

On Valentine’s Day this year, The Washington Post ran an article debating whether polyamory is actually always increasing in popularity with increased representation, or if people and outlets are just saying it is for clicks and cool points.

In response to a 2023 article in the New Yorker that explores polyamory as if it’s already taking over all romantic relationships, WaPo reporter Shadi Hamid, said that it’s more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than an actual statistic.

“Polyamory becomes more widespread because we think it’s already widespread,” Hamid wrote. “Norms around sexuality change because we think they’ve changed — even if they haven’t.”

If more people seem poly, it triggers monogamous people to give it a go in order to seem hip.

Hamid noted that a 2021 National Library of Medicine survey of single people of all sexualities and genders showed that “only 10.7 percent of respondents said they had engaged in polyamory at some point in their lives; 16.8 percent said they would like to try. About 4 to 5 percent reported currently being in a consensually non-monogamous relationship, suggesting that the number engaging specifically in polyamory is even less than that.” There’s maybe more poly shown in TV and movies than is happening IRL at this point.

Josie Rea, a single cis queer woman looking for a monogamous relationship, agreed the current media landscape can account for the resurrection of LGBTQ monogamous pride. When poly went mainstream, there was bound to be a bounce back.

“People are always going to be who they are and have the relationships that work for them,” she said. “It’s just what’s being talked about the loudest.”

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?

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Gabe Dunn

Gabe (he/him) is a queer, trans writer and director whose most recent film GRINDR BABY was selected for Frameline Festival’s 2023 Voices. He is a best-selling author thrice-over, host of the podcasts The Knew Guys, Just Between Us and Bad With Money. As a TV writer, he has sold over a dozen TV shows to networks like FX, Freeform, and Netflix. His young adult sci-fi drama Apocalypse Untreated was released by Audible Originals in 2020. His latest TV project The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams is in development at Universal with Gabe set to write and produce.

Gabe has written 13 articles for us.

15 Comments

  1. As a person in a nominally poly but functionally monogamous partnership (like, one of us goes on a meh date with someone else maybe once a year) , a lot of this resonated w me! Like, the idea of openness is still foundational to our relationship and always will be, but we’re too fucking tired and destabilized by the state of the world, and leaning on the stability of what we’ve got feels much better rn.

    Still love to see that poly rep on my terrible tv shows, though!

  2. I kind of hope polyamory doesn’t go away again…I already feel pretty alone as is, like I’m the only one. I’d think the increased representation would make me feel the opposite, but like Gabe said it’s mostly negative representation, and it just empowers more non-poly people to say their negative thoughts about it. Doesn’t feel great. Oh well, though.

  3. I think, potentially, the increased popularity and acceptance of polyamory (maybe not acceptance, though, but tolerance? understanding?) allows for all relationship structures to be more accessible. Queer people can be more unafraid to try polyamory or monogamy and find what actually suits them, rather than trying to “replicate heterosexual structures” (though I’d argue monogamy isn’t always seeking to do this, and that sometimes monogamy just vibes with certain people genuinely!). Either way, I think it’s cool people are getting to know themselves better, whether that leans monog or poly!

  4. I think the apps in the Bay Area are still poly as heck! Gabe, come over to the San Francisco Bay and you’ll find all the poly folks.

  5. What do y’all think is the most relatable polyam representation in TV and movies? I don’t watch a ton of TV/movies but I’ve never felt “represented” by what I do see.

    (With the exception of Jim/Olu/Archie in Our Flag Means Death)

  6. Dear Riese,
    Thank you for your monthly tips. Besos!
    There’s also this interesting series from Australia.
    ‘High Country’ with Sara Wiseman and Leah Purcell as Helen x Andie.
    It’s about a detective transferred to Victorian High Country who investigates 5 missing persons. She uncovers a complex web of murder, deceit and revenge.
    And yes, the detective has got a sapphic relationship.

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    • Monogamy was always the main choice by most people, even queer ones. Polyamory is just something that caught on in the press.

      I deeply hope that we haven’t reached the peak of polyamory rep. We’re only beginning to figure out how to tell poly stories, and polyamorous relationships have little legal standing. There is a lot of work to be done still. Society as a whole is still overwhelmingly monogamous.

  8. There’s an aspect of this that I think is a bit overlooked and I think is potentially worth a discussion, which is the economics of being in a non-conventional relationship structure? I think it comes up a lot in relation to ace people – it’s really expensive to live without a partner and the economy is horrible at the moment! Situations that start off as non-monogamous may end up heading towards monogamy just because there’s an economic incentive to living with and dating one person. The places that are the most queer friendly and therefore where you’re more likely to come across non-monogamous queer people are often the most expensive. I can totally see people ending up in monogamous relationships, even if they don’t necessarily think of themselves as monogamous, because of the financial stability and security that comes along with a society built for monogamy. It’s the same system that disadvantages ace people and single parents (mostly single mothers if we’re being upfront about the reality).

    • Oh man just realised that this comment comes off as a criticism of the article – it’s a great article and a really interesting one and I’m grateful for the work that went into it! I just wanted to float another idea for discussion!

    • I think this absolutely is overlooked, and by many poly people in general. I think that probably has a lot to do with why single people now say in their profiles, no poly and partnered. They’ve had time now to do the math and/or get burned. In my experience, from the SF Bay Area to Kentucky, the vast majority of poly people on apps are partnered, and the vast majority of partnered poly people on apps ***in actual reality*** already live with and/or are married to that partner. That means that if you date them as a single person, you are almost guaranteed to lose out on the potential for the financial and legal benefits of marriage, and there’s a good chance you won’t have the opportunity for the benefits of cohabitation as well. Or if you do, it’s something that you’ll have to work out between multiple partners of multiple people, which is super complicated – it’s hard enough to navigate moving in with someone when there’s just two lives involved. This was something I dealt with as an unmarried, non-cohabitating person with a married, cohabitating poly partner. It was absolutely infuriating to me that he would not acknowledge that I could never actually be equal, even if only just financially and legally, to his wife, and that I was heavily disadvantaged in my life compared to an existing couple unit. And furthermore, that most poly people *do* have existing married/cohabitating partners, so it’s exceedingly unlikely that an unmarried person would meet another unmarried person who wants to get married but is okay with them already having a poly relationship structure and existing partner(s). So, I think that legally and economically, and with a goal of achieving stability (which makes a lot of sense to want in this world), it doesn’t make sense for someone who is not already in a serious partnership to pursue poly dating if it isn’t a hard requirement for them. I really wish that poly people would respect this reality more, particularly those who having this existing privilege of being married or cohabitating.

      • Yes this exactly. I’m not theoretically opposed to polyamory for myself, but that would have to assume a completely equal and free society. The material reality is that as a woman and lesbian I’m going to experience less economic security than a lot of my peers. If I could partner with someone exclusively and we combined living expenses, finances, etc., that goes a long way to helping us both be a more economically secure.

        Additionally, just by statistics (and especially in the smallish town I’m in, maybe its different in big cities with big gay scenes), if I date a woman who is already has a primary relationship, she’d probably be with a man and something about feeling like I’m playing second fiddle to that more socially acceptable/economically advantageous relationship just doesn’t work for me. In our current system, it makes total sense to prioritize the relationship you have a big financial stake in over other connections, but it can really suck for those other people! We don’t actually live in a utopia and I think a lot of coupled up poly folks have on rose colored glasses when it comes to material/financial realities.

        If we could all live in an equal, non-capitalist society and truly be free to pursue connections, I’d be all for it. But as it is, I feel like it’d just be a major bummer to not be someone’s priority, and I’d rather be single than deal with the heart ache and financial hit.

  9. i love this writing
    this reminds me of the autostraddle of olden days

    before it became the old mother hubbard with green hair or random identity scold olympics

    the writing skill shows here and it’s not TEDIOUS

    this article shows you can be whoever you are break whatever structures but not be so precious with your identity and able to be funny and look at real trends and facts

    most of autostraddle writers sound like 14 year olds who read marx for the first time and wear doc martens while blasting bikini kill angrily stomping down the street hoping everyone notices (newsflash they don’t)

  10. I’ve always kinda felt that the assumption that a lot of queer people are polyamorous is reactionary, like how men will think women are talking too much when the man is still taking up the most space in a conversation. I feel like I have a lot of queer friends who are monogamous and also a bunch who are polyamorous, to me it doesn’t feel as dominant as all the “swipe right if you’re into ENM” tinder bios make it seem. Dating apps also seem like a bad place to determine which styles are more common because monogamous people are more likely to delete an app if they find someone which results in the rest of us being overrepresented.

Comments are closed.

April 2024: What’s New and Gay on Netflix, Hulu, Starz, Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+, Peacock and MGM+

It is the month of April 2024 and you are wondering where to watch lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans characters on television, and I am here to share with you information on that exact topic!


Netflix’s LGBTQ+ April 2024 Shows and Films

Wild Things (1998) // April 1

This classic thriller arrives on Netflix with the kind of bisexual behavior that we really clung to with all of our mights back then.

Heartbreak High //  Season 2 //  April 11

Every now and then a truly inventive and undeniably queer teen television show full of chaotic teens actually succeeds and gets additional seasons and Heartbreak High is one of those shows! Kayla writes that Season 2 of this Australian series is even gayer than the first, and is also “deceptively complex” with “sharp tonal shifts genuinely echo the fraught emotions of teenage experience.”

Baby Reindeer // Limited Series // April 11

Nava Mau, an award-winning trans filmmaker and actress who you might recognize from Genera+ion, plays Teri, the love interest of a struggling comedian dealing with a stalker, in this British series. “This still feels groundbreaking to have a trans woman be one of the main characters in a series that feels like it’s written in a respectful and loving and nuanced way,” Nava told Diva Magazine.

Killing Eve // Seasons 1-4 // April 15

Our bodies are not ready for this

Black Sails // Seasons 1-4 // April 17

This is a show about PIRATES and some of them are GAY!

Ahead of the Curve (2020) // April 22

A documentary about Franco Stevens, who started seminal lesbian publication Curve, a magazine I read religiously while dreaming of one day starting my very own lesbian magazine! Franco is a powerhouse and her story is really compelling, I’m excited for this!

Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen (2024) //  April 22

Bisexual autistic comic, podcaster and award-winning memoirist Fern Brady’s comedy show “Autistic Bikini Queen” is coming to Netflix and I think it’s going to be very good.


Hulu’s Queer April 2024 Content

Blockers (2018)

One of my favorite queer movies of all timeBlockers follows a group of teenage friends who’ve made a pact to lose their virginity on prom night and their overprotective parents, who really hate this idea! It’s so much cuter and funnier than the description suggests.

Boys on the Side (1995)

Whoopi Goldberg is Jane, a lesbian musician moving from New York to Los Angeles after breaking up with her girlfriend and her band who joins Robin (Mary Louise Parker) and Holly (Drew Barrymore) on a cross-country road trip that gets messy after the women band together to protect Holly from her abusive boyfriend.

Under the Bridge // Limited Series Premiere // April 17

Riley Keough is Rebecca Godfrey, whose book — about the brutal murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritka Gupta), who left home for a party with the terrible girls she longed to be accepted by and never came home— inspired this series set in 1997 in Victoria, Canada. Lily Gladstone is Cam, a local police officer working the case, which brings both her and Godfrey into the world of the “Bic girls” — allegedly troubled teens sent by their parents to live in a local home for girls. Amongst them is Dusty, played by queer actor Aiyana Goodfellow. Queer producer Quinn Shephard described the project as “three years in the making,” beginning with her working with Godfrey (who passed away in 2022) on adapting the book into a project produced by Shephard, Samir Mehta and Liz Tigelaar (the bisexual showrunner ofLittle Fires Everywhere. I’ve seen the first four episodes and I really loved them for many reasons including Cam and Rebecca being queer and Lily Gladstone in a tight white t-shirt and also because Archie Panjabi plays Reena’s mother.


Starz Bisexual Show of April

Mary & George // Miniseries Premiere // April 5

This British “x-rated period drama” from Killing Eve writer D.C. Moore is based on a book about the affair between James VI and I and George Villers (Nicholas Galitzine) and stars Julianne Moore as George’s mother, the ruthlessly ambitious Mary Villers, the Countess of Buckingham. Niamh Algar is a brothel-keeper who has an affair with Mary. “Nearly everyone on-screen is a bisexual sex fiend,” writes Drew of the series. “Nearly everyone on-screen would kill blood, boo, or bestie to rise in society.”


Peacock of April 2024

Drive-Away Dolls (2024) // April 12

The “raunchy lesbian caper” from Tricia and Ethan Coen landed triumphantly with our community as a “a queer film that isn’t trying to be everything to everyone.” It follows Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), an uptight lesbian in 1999, and her best friend Jamie (Margaret Qualley), a serial cheater from Texas, who get roped into a caper that sends them in the direction of Florida — Marian to visit some family, Jamie to get away from her abusive cop ex (Beanie Feldstein) — and things take a turn when they discover a mysterious suitcase in their trunk.


Paramount+

Star Trek: Discovery // Season Five Premiere // April 4

The final season of this groundbreaking Star Trek franchise series finds its crew in the 32nd century, racing forward on a hotly contested galactic adventure to find a mysterious power hidden for centuries. Non-binary actor Blue del Barrio is returning as genderfluid character Adria Tal and Tig Notaro as Jett Reno is slated to appear in a guesting capacity.

The Challenge: All-Stars // Season Four Premiere // April 10

There is a LOT of gay chaos on this star-studded season of The Challenge: All-Stars. The Challenge: Fresh Meat II alum Laurel Stucky will be competing and so will her ex-girlfriend, Nicole Zanatta of Real World: Skeletons. (Who also famously competed on Clone Wars, in which she was given the opportunity to date seven girls who looked like her dream woman, Ciara.) And then we have formative reality television event Rachel Robinson, one of the first out bisexuals we ever saw on teevee when she debuted in the 2002 series Road Rules: Campus Crawl (she was also a special guest at Autostraddle’s 2010 Rodeo Disco). And Rachel’s ex, Vanessa Portillo (Road Rules: Semester at Sea) will also be on this season of The Challenge: All Stars. So.


Apple TV+

Loot // Season Two Premiere //  April 3

Maya Rudolph returns as Molly Novak, a billionaire fresh out of a high-profile divorce who is determined to give her entire fortune away with the assistance of her foundation director Sofia Salinas (played by Pose‘s Michaela Jaé Rodriguez) and her devoted assistant Nicholas (Joel Kim Booster).

Girls State (2024) // April 5

This “political coming-of-age story” asks “what would American democracy look like in the hands of teenage girls?” by bringing together teenage girls from a wide variety of backgrounds from all over Missouri to collaborate on “a stirring re-imagination of what it means to govern.” The documentary follows a small cross-section of the invited participants and amongst them is Maddie Rowan, an openly gay activist who’s been attending protests all her life and is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights. But the girls have a lot to say not just about the country and its politics, but the differences between the Girls State program compared to the Boys State that’s simultaneously underway.

Sugar // Season One Premiere  //  April 5

There is no actual real lesbian content in this program about a private eye named John Sugar (Colin Farrel) investigating the disappearance of Olivia Siegel, granddaughter to a legendary Hollywood producer. There’s technically not any lesbian content in this series but Paula Andrea Placido has a small part working with Sugar in what I believe is a surveillance capacity and in my personal opinion, her character is a lesbian. But that’s just my opinion!

The Big Door Prize // Season Two Premiere // April 24

Heather enjoyed Season One of The Big Door Prize, set in a quirky small town where a magical machine lands and promises to give users a glimpse into their future. It’s centered on Dusty (Chris O’Dowd) and his wife, Cass (Gabrielle Dennis), the latter of whom has a gay Mom, Izzy, played by Crystal Fox. Apparently, Izzy will be “finding romance” this season!


MGM+

Beacon 23 // Season Two Premiere // April 7

Despite this sci-fi series featuring Lena Headey in a lead queer role, we have thus far been underwhelmed by the series and its tendency to play into the worst queer tropes. According to Screen Rant, Season Two trailer “hints at a larger conflict on the horizon as the Beacon is attacked by military forces.”


HBO Max

Black Swan (2010)

Ballet! Homoeroticism! Natalie Portman! Swans! Mila Kunis!

The Watermelon Woman (1996)

This is Drew’s favorite movie and maybe it could be yours! This genre-bending fictionalized documentary / rom-com follows Cheryl, a version of filmmaker Cheryl Dunye, a film buff working in a video store while pursuing a passion project about an obscure Black lesbian actress of the 1930s pigeonholed into stereotypical “mammy roles” of the era. “When Dunye didn’t see her story, she made it herself,” wrote Drew. “But The Watermelon Woman isn’t just her story on screen — it’s also the searching, the wanting, the necessity of that story.”

Velma // Season Two Premiere // April 25

Heather wrote that “even Velma and Daphne’s queer romance can’t save” this Scooby-Doo prequel, which she described as “a cringy, eye-rolling slog that doesn’t seem to have any idea who its audience is, yet seems to despise them all the same.” But indeed we are getting more Velma!

We’re Here // Season 4 Premiere // April 26

It’s our fourth turn around the sun with the drag queens who invade a small town and recruit its people into putting on an epic drag performance. This season they’re headed to Tennessee!


Prime Video

Fallout // Season One Premiere // April 11

This Prime Video series based on a beloved video game is the platform’s big push for the month, and I’ve learned from all of you that although there were LGBTQ characters in various iterations of the game, the series is presenting new characters. The Verge writes that Fallout has “such a pitch-perfect tone and its vibes are so postapocalyptically immaculate, that it doesn’t really matter what story the show is trying to tell,” while The Hollywood Reporter said it “captures the fun of simply getting to explore a strange new world, meeting colorful characters and going down mysterious rabbit holes” but “its eight hours take an awfully long time to get where it’s going.” There is a non-binary character, Dane, played by trans actor Xelia Mendes-Jones, who appears in two episodes, but otherwise there’s not much gay there.


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 3179 articles for us.

32 Comments

  1. For Black Sails (spoilers) i would like to clarify that, some of the pirates die but the gay pirates don’t. Also the show ends with a bonus gay pirate and a surprise returned from the dead gay. This show famously unburried their gays.

      • Came back to say that i was correct in saying none of the gay pirates die but after talking to some friends they all agreed that a pirate adjacent gay does in fact die and stay dead. Sorry.

        But you are still more likely to survive and/or return from the dead if you’re queer in this show.

  2. I played Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas ages ago and while there are crazy characters (a gang of guys who dress like Elvis, an entire army of Roman soldier cosplay, etc) none are sticking out as gay. Doesn’t mean the show won’t be! Seeing Jackie from Yellowjackets as the main character has me hyped!

    • yeah at first i was like wait where do i know her from and then when i realized where i knew her from i was very excited

    • New Vegas has too many gay and bisexual characters to list. Most prominent is probably a recuitable companion character named Veronica Santangelo, voice acted by Felicia Day and her girlfriend / ex Christine Royce(who’s also a recruitable companion in a dlc)

      Fallout 2, which came out in 1998, is the first western video game to feature the player character having the option of a gay marriage for both men and women.

      Now, wether this means there’ll be gayness in the tv show is anyone’s guess.

  3. For the sixth month in a row, Netflix has no new shows for us :)
    I just hope no one tells Netflix it’s Gayflix again because it really isn’t.
    The most anticipated shows this month for me are Mary & George and Fallout, I’m really hyped for them.

    • yeah it blows! they are debuting Ripley this month, which is based on the Patricia Highsmith novel and has gay men … but no lesbians

    • I haven’t really looked into this but i have a faint memory that Netflix had a lesbian manager who left and this seems to coincide with this reduction in queer content? Am i making this up?

  4. I haven’t watched the challenge in years but damn, vanessa, laurel, AND rachel??? Crazy. (Never liked nicole lol)

  5. The Fallout series isn’t an adaption of any of the games, but rather it’s being billed as Fallout 5. A new iteration taking place in the Fallout universe, that will be canon to the lore. As such, we can’t know if any of the characters are queer or not.

    PS – Are you going to talk about Disney+, because I need a place to specifically talk about Renegade Nell.

  6. Dear Riese,
    Thank you for your monthly tips. Besos!
    There’s also this interesting series from Australia.
    ‘High Country’ with Sara Wiseman and Leah Purcell as Helen x Andie.
    It’s about a detective transferred to Victorian High Country who investigates 5 missing persons. She uncovers a complex web of murder, deceit and revenge.
    And yes, the detective has got a sapphic relationship.
    https://fero.tips/videos/tv/high-country-s1/

  7. Killing Eve is coming to Netflix on April 15th to scar a whole new audience, if you want to count that. Thanks for these lists – even though they make me sad. BTW, Renegade Nell is filling some kind of hole in my heart right now. I think it just feels queer because the show runner is Sally Wainwright (Gentleman Jack).

    • Renegade Nell has Xena like vibes, with the same female choral during the fight scenes etc. Her companions are her sisters, otherwise it would be super gay. Also it’s gender non conforming with the male fairy entering her body and turning her into a martial artist?? It’s wild :D

  8. Hi! Just adding to the bunch, HBO Max is having the Season 2 premiere of “Velma” on April 25th!
    Thanks for the amazing list, here every month for it!

  9. I don’t think it’s been covered here on Autostraddle, but Ark the Animated Series on Paramount is SUPER GAY! The main character is a lesbian and her love interest is voiced by Michelle freaking Yeoh! It also has Devery Jacobs from Reservation Dogs and a bunch of other great actors in it. You should really be covering it here!

  10. Not sure if it’s been covered but Deadloch on Amazon Prime is super gay as well. Australian, comedy and a murder mystery. One detective has a wife and the town is full of gay women and feminists! The writing is hilarious – you just have to forgive that the other detective is annoying. Synopsis: Two vastly different female detectives are thrown together to solve the murder of a local man in the sleepy seaside hamlet of Deadloch. Check it out!

  11. Just watched all of Renegade Nell and it was brilliant! By Sally Wainwright, there’s no overtly queer romance storyline, but there is adventure and magic and I can strongly recommend. Would love to hear what everyone thinks of it!

  12. Dumb Money on Netflix has a lesbian couple in it. And Ripley stars Eliot Sumner, in which I understand to be a nonbinary interpretation of a canonically male character. Also, anything with Patricia Highsmith as the source material is gay.

Comments are closed.

No Filter: Reneé Rapp and Towa Bird Perform Together in Front of Giant Scissors

feature image photo of Reneé Rapp and Towa Bird via Towa Bird’s Instagram

Hello and welcome back to No Filter! I am your host, and today we will be diving through the Instagrams of various queer famous people! Let’s rock and roll!


I love that this image is conveying cool dyke energy and proud mom energy, that’s the shit we do like to see!


There is a case to be made that Jimmy Fallon is as famous as he is entirely due to the fact that he’s good at finding the harmony and making a moment out of it. See also: Corden.


The chokehold Revolve has on the Coachella girlies…my word!


Cannot make it clear enough that I do not know Renee Rapp personally— but I do remember her winning a Jimmy Award at 18! So in many ways, I do know her personally and I am proud of her!!!


I do not know what Kehlani is up to in this new era but MY word I am intrigued!!


If you have not listened to Brittany Howard’s new album, What Now, I must urge you to get to it posthaste!

Look here madam, I am still not over that performance and you know it!! Let me live!


Ali is addicted to looking stunning and generally killing her divorce narrative, god bless her for it!


The way I have seen people call this both a hard launch and soft launch??? Whatever, they both look hot, I support them in all they do!


Pop girlies serving looks again…thank you!


If you told me this was a preacher and his wife posting about Easter I would believe you tbh!!!!


I mostly love this for Kristen being like “ugh this fucking pants are too tight!” Get real with us babe! Let us know!


Oh by the way, still joy-crying at this!!

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Christina Tucker

Christina Tucker is writer and podcaster living in Philadelphia. Find her on Twitter or Instagram!

Christina has written 281 articles for us.

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Dice Sets Ranked by How Much My Girlfriend Wants To Eat Them

My girlfriend Lucy lives with the neurodivergent urge to put small, colorful things in her mouth. The urge becomes ravenous if she knows she’s not allowed to. Rather than suffering from this, she seems to enjoy every moment of it — especially when there’s a chance to startle me by threatening to eat something inedible near me.

We’re also big ol’ nerds. Our evenings are spent nose-first in our respective PCs and there’s always a weekly tabletop role-playing night on the cards. That means nerd paraphernalia. Miniatures, dice, markers, you name it. They’re everywhere and conveniently bite-sized. I needed to turn her attention away from my property before her desire for mischief flared up again.

So I showed her fancy dice listings on Etsy and had her rank them by how edible they look to her.


10. Frosted glass pastel dice with cat butts

frosted glass cat dice

Lucy: The frosted glass look gives them a sugar frosting vibe that makes them really appetizing. They are adorable, but the cat butt imagery is not something I’d want in my mouth. The kitties are so cute though.


9. Double chocolate-themed dice

chocolate dice

Lucy: I do want to eat these. But surprisingly, not as much as some of the other themed dice. It’s because purposefully making the dice look like candy removes the Forbidden Snack Vibe™.

Summer: That’s a surprise, because these make my mouth water and I can’t stand the thought of plastic in my mouth. It’s just the chocolate style. I love chocolate.


8. Swiss cheese-themed dice

Summer: Note the big warning that says NOT EDIBLE.

Lucy: That sign was written for me and I hate it. Most tasty dice I see look like candy. These buck the trend with a savory look, but they are still going right into my mouth. Also, I love the cheese box packaging. I love brie. I love this.


7. Liquid core floating dragon eye dice

dice with a dragon's eye

Lucy: I know that nothing about this is meant to look edible, but I do want to eat them. They look like a fantasy potion that would do unspeakable things to me. However, as the protagonist in my life’s misadventure, I’m downing them.

Summer: See, I don’t want to go near these because they look like they have a soft center that would pop with flavored fluid into my mouth.

Lucy: Okay, but that’s actually a point in their favor.


6. Rainbow glitter pride dice

rainbow glitter pride dice

Lucy: You’re just showing me candy now. They look sparkly sweet and sugar coated like the queers I know. They look like a fruit medley where each color is a different flavor. I refuse to believe the listing when it says ‘acrylic’. That glitter looks perfectly edible, and I will prove everyone wrong or break my teeth in the attempt.


5. Glitter purple dice

purple glitter dice

Lucy: These look like sherbert or pop rock candy. Look at that pop of flavor in the center. They’d cut your mouth if you bit into them too soon but you’d take that risk anyway. Also, they’re so obviously a sour grape flavor.


4. Dark blue glass dice

dark blue dice with gold lettering

Lucy: I immediately want to eat those. They look like hard candy. A delicious, berry-flavored hard candy. Clear translucence always sets off my desire to eat small plastic things.

Summer: These also had me for a while, but I’m not sure how I feel about the gold lettering. They’re beautiful, but I don’t know what flavor gold would represent.


3. Translucent resin dice with real flowers

pink floral dice

Lucy: It’s hard to separate how beautiful these are from how edible they look. These don’t rank high on edibility for me, but they are probably the most beautiful dice I’ve ever seen. Even so, they give a very delicate floral tea vibe that I can live with. I wouldn’t impulsively munch on these, but would enjoy them gently with tea.


2. Edible strawberry candy dice

edible dice shaped candies

Lucy: Why hasn’t anyone gotten these for me yet? Everyone in my life knows I want to eat dice. Obviously I’m gonna eat these. I love sour candies. Hell yes.

Summer: I’ll make a note of your desire for these, love.


1. Blue frosted glass moon dice

blue frosted glass moon dice

Lucy: Ooh. Okay. Yeah, no. I have to put those in my mouth. The frosted glass looks like the sugar coating on a Turkish delight. They look like expensive, artisanal candy that is completely worth the price. My wallet would be ruined and I’d never be able to get enough.

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Summer Tao

Summer Tao is a South Africa based writer. She has a fondness for queer relationships, sexuality and news. Her love for plush cats, and video games is only exceeded by the joy of being her bright, transgender self

Summer has written 24 articles for us.

8 Comments

  1. Ok, so I’ve never wanted to eat dice, but nevertheless I feel a strange sense of kinship with these feelings. Like, it’s not for me but I totally get it.

    (Well, on top of that, there is some scientific basis for this too, it’s like the Tide Pods. The glossy surface tells our brain they have good oils/fats, and the bright colors are like fruit, packed with vitamins and minerals, iirc. They may say “do not eat” but they’re designed to look delicious and appealing, even when they aren’t designed to look like food.)

    But yes, I agree with most of Lucy’s choices. Not sure I’m brave enough for the dragon eye though 😅

    • I endure the same strange phenomenon but more aimed at textures than objects so none of us are alone.

  2. Relatable content. I went to the museum with my partners and my bestie, we rated the crystals and rocks by how much we wanted to lick them.

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Mini Crossword ‘Accidentally’ Leaves Gloves Everywhere

I told them I really bring a lot to the table.

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Kate Hawkins

Kate Hawkins is a city-loving Californian currently residing in New Hampshire with her wife and toddler, where she's currently enjoying sports that require unwieldy pieces of equipment (kayaking! biking! cross country skiing!) and grilling lots of corn. She's stoked to be writing puzzles for Autostraddle and hopes you enjoy solving these gay puzzles!

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Top (Get It?) Moments From Inside the WNBA Draft

Monday night I had the honor of sitting amongst basketball legends at the 2024 WNBA Draft. The event, hosted at the BAM center in Brooklyn, had sold out in 15 minutes and was buzzing with crowd of fans ignited by the rapidly growing fervor for women’s basketball. Oh, and it was pretty fucking gay. The highlights are of course available online, but there were also many magical moments happening off camera. Some of the top moments from this year’s draft:

The “Three Musketeers” Award

Before the draft officially started, Jake From State Farm, LSU coach Kim Mulkey, and USC coach Dawn Staley walked into the draft…. and they all sat together! I couldn’t believe it when I turned to find legendary red suit wearer, Jake from State Farm, standing next to us. He was giving straight corporate icon! Then Kim Mulkey walked down to say hello to her fellow straight. Minutes later, the audience erupted in cheers for this year’s National Championship winner, Dawn Staley, who hugged Mulkey then sat in front of her. The three of them in a row looked like they formed a mad libs three musketeers, and there’s just something queer about an unexpected trio.

The Number 1 Pick

As they announced Caitlin Clark as the first pick of the night, the entire audience jumped to their feet cheering. It was truly electric energy in the room as she walked to the stage in head-to-toe Prada. She said this was the first time Prada had dressed a basketball star (men’s or women’s) for a draft, but that’s only because she couldn’t see me in the audience writing “Prada” on all of my clothing. In the audience, Clark’s fellow Iowa teammate Kate Martin cheered her on, unaware that later in the draft she would be asked to move to the aisle as a camera stood nearby for “no reason.” Showing up to support your friend and then getting drafted yourself? Iconic!

The Holly Rowe Chant

Holding down the night with the post-pick interviews was sports commentator Holly Rowe. And let me just say, it appears the gays love Rowe! Something magical happened in the audience… At one point, a fan in the front row stood up and led a chant of “When I say Holly, you say Rowe! Holly! Rowe!” The moment held cinematic parallels to the AMC Nicole Kidman promo beloved by gays, where it was clear Rowe had been chosen as a queer icon of the night despite not being intended as the main attraction.

Aaliyah Edwards and Her Fan Section

The love in the room for UConn star Edwards erupted as she got called as the draft’s sixth pick. In what’s already been given the meme treatment, fellow teammates Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd proudly filmed like two gay moms cheering on their prodigal child. Even before the draft started, Edwards spent what I think was a record amount of time signing whatever fans held up in front of her (I saw one person take their shoe off and have it signed. Edwards is a hero for signing that in my opinion).

The Fashion

Everyone looked stunning, with Clark’s Prada look and Angel Reese’s incredible silver dress leaving big impressions. But a few other fashion moments stuck out for me.

First, Dyaisha Fair stood out as the only player rocking a tux. She paired the sequined black tux with a red bow tie that matched the flower in her pocket, which was a subtle nod to her hometown of Rochester, New York being a Flower City.

Second, Alissa Pili’s worked with designer Jason Wu to create tribal print that honored her Samoan and Indigenous Alaskan heritage. In her post-pick interview she discussed the lack of representation for indigenous and Polynesian girls, and how she was looking forward to getting to be a role model for them as she joins the league for the Minnesota Lynx.

And finally, Rickea Jackson walked the orange carpet in a red two piece, but when she accepted her Sparks jersey onstage she had a new stunning silver sparkling suit look. The event was tightly timed and spaced, so making an outfit change work feels legendary!

Honoring Past and Future Stars

While it seems like the WNBA has exploded this year, the night was full of the draft stars taking time to honor and recognize the people who helped get them here. Projected on the screen at one point was Clark’s elementary school dream goals, which included joining the WNBA and meeting legend Maya Moore (mission accomplished). Angel Reese, after getting drafted to the Chicago Sky, thanked her family as she talked about how she couldn’t wait to be coached by another legend, Teresa Weatherspoon, before hugging and thanking former coach Mulkey. Also going to Chicago, Kamilla Cardoso gave a beautiful speech spotlighting her sister for inspiring her to play basketball as she talked about leaving Brazil at 15 with the goal of giving her family a better life. Evident throughout the night in every player’s post-pick interview was the idea that it truly does take a village.

The Gayest Thing in the Room?

The crowd!

Outside the venue, I watched fans come together to boo OutKick, the rightwing media site that recently asked Dawn Staley before the national championship if transgender athletes should be allowed to play (which she answered with a resounding “duh!”). Seated inside, there was a group of lesbians in front of me that included multiple ex-girlfriends attending together. Some absolutely stunning suits and chains were on display fashion wise. And long time fans cheered alongside newer fans in a very queer tradition of intergenerational connections. The atmosphere is always welcoming, so if you haven’t fully jumped into watching women’s basketball now is your time. You can also learn more about the league by following all the gay players online and reading Autostraddle’s 101 guide. Long live the W!

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Tina Sieben

Tina Sieben is a stand up comedian based in New York City. They delight audiences regularly at clubs and bars with a laid back, sarcastic perspective on life. They are a contributor for Reductress, have been featured in Newsweek, and have had their tweets appear in the Huffington Post.

Tina has written 1 article for us.

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  1. The rightwing media website that a recently asked Dawn please click here to visit.

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Mark My Words, Billie Eilish’s New Queer Sex Song Is Gonna Be the Song of the Summer

Among all the glorious gay gems coming out of the first weekend of Coachella 2024 was a super queer surprise DJ set by Billie Eilish. Eilish joined Lana Del Ray on stage during her set for duets of “Ocean Eyes” and “Video Games,” but Eilish also dropped by one of the smaller Coachella stages to do a DJ set that included teasing her upcoming single “Lunch,” which is…very overt in its queer storytelling! It seems to be the most explicitly sapphic Eilish single yet.

Just check out these steamy queer lyrics:

I could eat that girl for lunch
Yeah, she dances on my tongue
Tastes like she might be the one
And I can never get enough
I could buy her so much stuff
It’s a craving, not a crush

I COULD EAT! THAT GIRL! FOR LUNCH!

The next snippet of “Lunch” then goes:

Call me when you’re there
Said, I brought you something rare
And I left it under ‘Claire’
So now she’s coming up the stairs
So I’m pulling up a chair
And I’m putting up my hair.

It’s just a teaser for now, as Eilish isn’t planning on dropping any full singles ahead of her upcoming album release for Hit Me Hard and Soft on May 7.

Get a little sneak taste of “Lunch” here:

Honestly, even just in teaser form, it’s a bop. I can’t wait to terrorize the TouchTunes machines at every dyke bar by playing this on repeat. Has an entrepreneurial gay already bedazzled a tank with the words I COULD EAT THAT GIRL FOR LUNCH on it? Because I’m gonna need one of those, stat.

I also like to think of this “Lunch” teaser as a taste of what’s to come from the full album, the first Eilish has released since talking more candidly about her queerness in the press — which wasn’t entirely by choice. “Lunch” certainly isn’t mincing words about its queer erotics, and I’ll be curious to see if these themes permeate the album.

I know it’s a little premature to declare an early contender for song of the summer but…

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, short stories, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the assistant managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear or are forthcoming in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 814 articles for us.

Dev Doee Is the Star We’ve Been Waiting For

Dev Doee never set out to be a drag queen. All she knew was the world of dance. Trained in ballet, hip hop, and modern at an early age, Dev devoted her life to strengthening her body, honing her flexibility and owning her musicality. While the dance world made her a razor-sharp performer, it also provided a safe space for her to play with presentation and explore gender. “When I lived in DC, I was on a dance team where I got into makeup and wigs, but I didn’t call it drag,” she tells me over the phone. “I was just into makeup, wigs and dancing. Then when I moved to New York. At first, I was really anti-drag. Being someone who’s trans, I was like, I don’t want people to confuse the two.”

At the dawn of the 2020 pandemic, Dev’s mindset took a radical shift. She began talking to different queens of the Bushwick scene. They encouraged her to perform. For her drag debut, she entered a competition and went home a winner. Four years later, one of New York City’s most-sought after talents, she’s the 2023 Glam Awards Breakthrough Artist of the Year and she just performed her one-woman show, Bare With Me. She’s also one of my oldest friends in this city.

I first met Dev in 2018. I had just moved to New York from Missouri and was immediately thrown into the world of media and queer nightlife. I met so many magnamic people, but after a while, I realized I could only call a few of them a true friend. Dev stood out to me not because of her talent but her heart. I saw something genuine in her, and I firmly believe that is the key to her success. Over the years, our friendship has blossomed into a sisterhood from our time in acting classes together to our messy nights out on the town. I’m lucky to know her, and the world is lucky to witness her as a fierce and forthright artist.

In Dev’s solo showcase Bare With Me, she pulls back the curtain. She takes the audience on a journey through all that she is. From the electrifying, show-stopping lip syncs she’s known for to original poetry and rare archival footage, Dev bares it all.


Eva: What was it that made your mindset change? Was it the fun of performing? Was it the praise you received

Dev: During the pandemic, I was like, “Girl, we could all die tomorrow. You need to either do it or don’t.” I thought to myself, Why am I depriving myself of something that feels so in alignment with what I do? I grew up as a dancer. I was a makeup influencer. I was so into performance and acting. It was just something I was scared to do because of how other people would see me.

Eva: What was that first competition you entered?

Dev: The first competition I did was Are You the Next Diva? hosted by one of the NYC drag legends and daughter of Kandy Muse, JanelleNo.5. I entered with my sister Mo’riah, and we completely stole the show. There was no competition. Those bitches were sick of us. It was one of those things where you’re like, I’m at the right place at the right time doing what I’m supposed to do. We walked in, everybody was looking at us and we walked out with a trophy. It was seamless.

Eva: Since 2020, how has your drag persona evolved?

Dev: It’s really interesting. People always talk about drag personas. I do think a lot of people have those, but I don’t have one. I’m just myself. The person you’re talking to right now is the same person you’d hear on the mic, which I think is what people resonate with. Aesthetically I’ve changed. The more time you have to practice, you get better at makeup. I look back at earlier photos and cringe sometimes. But I think the biggest change for me is my confidence in working a room. Drag has made me just a more confident, powerful person in any space. Whether there’s a wig on my head or not, it’s giving me. When I first started, I would just flip and flop across the stage (which I still do). I really do love to connect with people, make fun of them and uplift them. Really seeing people is a fundamental part of my drag.

Eva: You’ve been doing drag for four years now. In that time, you’ve made a name for yourself. You are so authentically you, and people hype you up every time you go onstage. What does it feel like to know you’re that girl?

Dev: This might sound cocky, but I’ve gotten to a place where I know I’m good. What really matters to me now is talking to other baby Black queens knowing that I’ve created my own lane and paved a path in this city that didn’t really exist before. There’s always been trans performers, but I think my style of performance and the way I dress and just, it’s a little less draggy and stuff. I’ve heard the way that I’ve inspired others, especially other Black queens and more up and coming queens. That means more to me than, “Oh, that flip!” and “That split!” and “That fit is pretty fit.” I know I’m all that, but being able to pay it forward inspiring people in the way that I was inspired by a Naomi Smalls, for example, really means a lot to me.

Eva: Wow. So wholesome. We’ve got America’s Drag Sweetheart over here y’all.

Dev: Was that wholesome?

Eva: I think so! I mean, you easily could have been like, “Well, I’m that bitch and it takes a lot of energy to be that bitch and fuck these other bitches.”

Dev: [laughs] Okay, you right.

Dev looks toward the camera with one arm in the air and the other on her heart.

Photo of Dev Doee by Raymond Fernandez

Eva: So what inspired you to create Bare With Me?

Dev: This Thanksgiving, for the first time in two years, I went home. When I looked through my childhood bedroom, I found an old journal I had written in high school which was probably the most depressed I’ve ever been in my entire life.I was reading the journal and I was like, “Who is this person?” I think I blocked things out. I almost forgot how much I was going through it at that time. Honestly I didn’t have anyone to talk to but this composition notebook. It was really dark and it was really intense. I felt like I was finding this ten years later for a reason.

I wrote poetry and things that people will never see or hear. So I wanted to put that into the show and center it around that. As time went on, it started to feel too cheesy. So the journal itself kind of got removed from the work, but some of the themes, feelings and overall messaging is there.

The show spawned from being back in an environment that used to trigger me – my childhood bedroom. This journal explicitly stated my deepest, darkest feelings at some of the lowest points in my life. It really inspired me to see how far I’ve come. Now I’m a breakthrough drag artist who’s killing it in the city. Little Devin could not imagine the life I’m living now. So I looked down at my journal and realized that I needed to create something out of this.

Eva: Wow.

Dev: [laughs] Your one-word response.

Eva: Well it’s just because I can relate. I’m writing some projects now loosely based off of different chapters in my life. I’m working on a few screenplays and a novel. Every time I work on these things, I’m brought back to these grueling moments in life. When I first began these projects, they were very dark and dreary. After a while, I realized that I needed to make something uplifting too. I want people to walk away from what I create and feel a sense of hope for the future.

So if those poems from high school aren’t in your show, what are the themes you pulled from them?

Dev: The show is actually an hour-long video with interludes which are live performances by me. The video is a compilation of self-tapes from acting classes we both attended. I also include my audition tapes for RuPaul’s Drag Race from the first one I ever did to the one I just did a few months ago. You get to see the evolution of my confidence in speaking to a camera, in acting, my opinion on drag and my opinion of myself.

Along with footage of myself, I include clips and archival footage of the queer icons who have shaped me: RuPaul, Marsha P. Johnson, Laverne Cox, and Ali Forney. I’m really into interviews. I’ll be up until 4 a.m. finding the most random shit. I’ve noticed that a lot of what I say in my own tapes or interviews align with what RuPaul used to say in the 90s or what Marsha said in her apartment while talking in her fur coat. In this show, I want to draw a connection from myself to the people I look up to. I want to show a different side of myself.

Dev Doee on-stage looks up toward the lights

Photo of Dev Doee by Raymond Fernandez

Eva: What is the driving force behind your desire to perform?

Dev: If I don’t perform for four days, I start to get sad. I won’t even realize why. There’s something about that energy exchange. I think Beyoncé feels the same way. She’s doing 75 shows on her tours. She’s got the same thing I do. It’s like a weird addiction.

I’ve talked to some other performers who feel like it’s very much a job for them. For me, drag is like a hobby that pays like a job. Even when I’m tired, as soon as I get on that stage, my whole vibe changes. I can be so over it not wanting to put makeup on or to leave the house. Once I get to the venue and get on that stage, everything changes.

My intent is the love of the craft. It’s the first thing in my life that I was like, “Oh, this feels right.” When I tried to just be a dancer, yes, I had wins, but it always felt like a fight. It always felt like friction. “Why am I so feminine when they want this? I don’t want to be masculine. I don’t want to do the hip hop dance this way. I want to do it like this.” Even in acting, it’s like I always would get in my head about memorizing the lines. When I do drag, there’s not a doubt in my head.

I’ve been chasing this thing trying to find where I fit in this world for so long. I’ve finally found it.


Follow Dev Doee on Instagram.

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Eva Reign

Eva Reign is a Peabody and GLAAD Award winning Brooklyn-based actress, writer and artist from St. Louis, Missouri. She is the star of Billy Porter’s directorial debut Anything’s Possible from Amazon Studios and MGM’s Orion Pictures. Her writing has appeared in Vogue, Vice, Them, The Cut, Byrdie, PAPER, and Highsnobiety.

Eva has written 2 articles for us.

Sapphic Romance Books To Give Your Heart a Spring Refresh

After what felt like the longest winter ever, it’s finally spring. It feels like the year shouldn’t start in January, but in April, when things are starting to come alive. The weather is warming up, the grass is a little greener, and things are being born after the dark cold. There is something so refreshing about the springtime — it’s the perfect time to sit outside with a new book. If you’re looking for something that evokes spring, whether literally or figuratively, this list of YA and Adult Romance has you covered.


The Last Love Song by Kalie Holford

The Last Love Song by Kalie Holford

Mia is on the precipice of major changes. With high school ending and her best friend/sort-of girlfriend Britt leaving, she turns to the only thing that can fix it: songwriting. Britt is trying to encourage Mia to live her dreams and leave their small town, but Mia simply couldn’t. Not just because it means too much to her, but because she doesn’t want to be like her late country star mother Tori Rose, who abandoned Mia and her grandmothers in pursuit of music. But then she starts getting letters addressed to her from her dead mom, she starts to learn a lot more about who Tori Rose really was. But with Britt’s departure looming over her, Mia has to move fast. Is she going to fulfill her destiny?


Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

Winning the lottery is ruining Opal Devlin’s life. While she was finally able to quit her dead-end job, she has lost track of the amount of people who keep showing up with a kind word and an open palm. So she does the only thing she can to escape: puts most of her winnings into a failing flower farm in Asheville, North Carolina, where she’ll also kickstart her painting business. But when she gets there, she finds Pepper Smith, the gorgeous thorn in her side who claims to be the rightful owner of the farm. The two women agree to cohabitate, and soon, the flowers aren’t the only thing blooming.


The Girl Next Door by Cecilia Vinesse

The Girl Next Door by Cecilia Vinesse

Cleo has her whole senior year planned like a film script. But then her boyfriend Daniel dumps her for Kiki, the school’s head cheerleader, which was definitely a major plot twist Cleo didn’t see coming. Then the plot thickens — not only did Daniel dump her for Kiki, Kiki dumped her girlfriend Marianne for Daniel. The same Marianne who just happens to be her next-door neighbor…and former best friend. That’s when they create a new scene: They write a fake dating plot sure to throw all the characters further into chaos. But any good filmmaker knows that fake dating eventually turns into real dating. Is Cleo ready for that?


Peaches and Cream by Georgia Beers

Peaches and Cream by Georgia Beers

Adley Purcell has dreamed of owning Get the Scoop ice cream shop since she was a kid. And now that she does, she is constantly worried that it will go under. That feeling only gets worse when she finds out that national chain Sweet Heaven is opening up mere blocks from her shop. Her dreams are melting faster than an ice cream cone on a warm spring day. Enter Sabrina James, the woman sent to set up Sweet Heaven and then be on to the next. When the two women meet, they have no idea that they’re about to go together like rainbow sprinkles on a vanilla ice cream cone.


Every Time You Hear That Song by Jenna Voris

Every Time You Hear That Song by Jenna Voris

Apparently this spring is all about country music. Darren is an aspiring music journalist and a huge fan of country music star Decklee Cassel, who is as famous for her music as she is for her partnership with songwriter Mickenlee Hooper. Mickenlee disappeared at the height of the duo’s careers, never to be seen or heard from again. And now that Decklee died, her time capsule is creating buzz. When it’s found empty, Darren knows that she will break the story and find the real time capsule and get the reward, even if she has to pair up with her coworker Kendall. Told in dual POVs, we also get to know more about Decklee and Mickenlee’s partnership, in music and in life. Could Decklee give it all up for love?


Finally Fitz by Marisa Kanter

Finally Fitz by Marisa Kanter

Ava, aka Fitz, is killing it. She’s created a platform to showcase her love for sustainable fashion and upcycling, maintained a 4.0 GPA, and has a solid relationship with her girlfriend Danica. When Danica breaks up with her before she goes off to college, she claims Fitz is more concerned with her brand than she is with her relationship, which hurts big time. Desperate to win Dani back and prove herself, Fitz finds herself crossing paths with her childhood best friend Levi, who she hasn’t seen since elementary school. Levi is dealing with his own heartbreak, and so Fitz comes up with the perfect plan: she helps him create a fake relationship online that is sure to make his person jealous, and he acts like her boyfriend in front of Dani to make her jealous. But like they always do, fake feelings become real, and Fitz has to decide what feels right for her.


Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake

Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake

The second of Blake’s Bright Falls trilogy, Astrid Parker has mostly been known as the uptight member of the group. After her engagement ends, Astrid needs a win to prove that she’s not a total disaster. And she thinks she’s got it when given the opportunities to redesign the Everwood Inn on a popular HGTV show. But just when she thinks she’s got it made, in steps Jordan Everwood, the owner’s contractor granddaughter who isn’t so keen on Astrid’s proposed changes. When the show’s host suggests that Astrid and Jordan work together, sparks fly, but they’re not always good ones. Each woman has to learn a lot about compromise, and also themselves.


The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall

The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall

Hollis isn’t really trying to rock the boat on senior year. She has anxiety, thank you very much. She also has a boyfriend she really likes. Chris is a good guy, and their relationship works for them. In an effort to get closer to him, she wants to learn his favorite role play game, Secrets & Sorcery. But he has a “no girlfriends at the table” rule, so she has to learn somewhere else. Thankfully, she finds an all-girl group to play S&S with, and begins to really find herself. She also finds Aini Amin-Shaw, who’s character develops a crush on Hollis’ character. Can that crush translate off the game table?


Sizzle Reel by Carlyn Greenwald

Sizzle Reel by Carlyn Greenwald

Luna Roth is too busy trying to make her career as a director of photography to worry about what it means to come out as bisexual at 24. But things change when she meets A-list actress Valeria Sullivan at the talent management office where she works. Valeria is getting ready to direct her first feature, and Luna is hoping to get a PA gig on the set. Plus, Valeria is gay af, and Luna decides that she’ll be the perfect person to take her virginity. Soon, feelings start getting in the way, and Luna worries that her career will be over before it even starts.


I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

McQuiston’s YA debut not only opens with action, but also takes place in spring, just before the end of the school year. Shara Wheeler, the most popular girl in school, goes missing, but not before she kisses Chloe Green, her biggest academic rival. Chloe is determined to find Shara, but she realizes that she can’t do it alone. Quickly, she finds out that she’s not the only one who’s been receiving Shara’s cryptic notes — she’s also been leaving them for her boyfriend Smith, and her neighbor Rory. The three couldn’t be more different, but as they are forced together to find Shara, they realize that maybe they’re not that different.


D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins

D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins

There’s something about a wedding that screams spring, right? This book has several of my favorite things: a wedding, a reality wedding show, and the fake dating trope. D’Vaughn and Kris are getting married in six weeks thanks to the show Instant I Do. Each woman has different reasons for participating: Kris is an influencer who thinks this show will benefit her brand, and D’Vaughn thinks this is a solid way to come out to her family. Boy is it. From the very beginning, it’s not hard for the women to fake their chemistry; it isn’t really fake. But as they get through the show, they realize that starting their relationship on TV may not be the best choice. Or is it?


What romance novels have your heart pumping this season?

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?

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Sa'iyda Shabazz

Sa'iyda is a writer and mom who lives in LA with her partner, son and 3 adorable, albeit very extra animals. She has yet to meet a chocolate chip cookie she doesn't like, spends her free time (lol) reading as many queer romances as she can, and has spent the better part of her life obsessed with late 90s pop culture.

Sa'iyda has written 115 articles for us.

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How Do I Learn To Trust Again After My Two-Month Situationship Ended Abruptly?

Q:

I’m a cis queer woman in my mid-twenties, and I’m mourning yet another 2-3 month-long relationship that ended unexpectedly, and this time it’s messing with me in the way the others haven’t.

To keep the background of it all short, before this I’d been single for about 4.5 years. Around the start of COVID, I realized I really needed to work on my relationship with relationships, so I committed to therapy and eventually started SSRIs. All of this has been super helpful, and about a year after moving to a new city, I decided to start dating again, but nothing stuck until this most recent person. We went on a first date, but a few days afterward, she reached out to tell me she had a lot going on and didn’t have the capacity for a relationship. I was initially upset but wanted to be friends, because we got along well, and we spent a few months developing a friendship I was really happy with. Then she confessed feelings, and I did the same, and we decided to try dating out to see where things went.

For two months, we’d started doing the stereotypical couply things: When we were visiting our homes for the holidays, we were always in contact, and she told me she couldn’t stop talking to her family about me. When I got back, we ordered a sex toy together (which we’d talked about doing a few weeks prior and I’d never done with a partner before). Then all of a sudden, after we got back to my place after a date night, she told me she has too much going on in her life and doesn’t have the capacity to be in a relationship with me.

I was and still am very confused by everything. I know we hadn’t formally defined the relationship yet, but she knew from the jump where I stood re:situationships, and I genuinely didn’t think she’d break things off so suddenly.

It’s been almost eight weeks and I’m doing better than I ever have after a breakup thanks to the work I’ve done on myself, but I’m honestly still fucked up about how I go forward once I’m ready to put myself out there again. I opened up to her in a way I never had with anyone and really put in work to be honest about my anxieties so they didn’t backfire on me like before. Now I’m not sure how I can trust anyone else to not break things off super suddenly when it happened with someone who made me feel genuinely safe and secure. I’ve never been in a healthy long-term relationship and thought things with her were going in that direction, and now I’m not really sure what to do. Some magic words of wisdom would be SUPER appreciated, it’s tough out here!

Thanks for listening!
Baffled & Bummed Out

A:

Dear baffled and bummed out,

I’m baffled and bummed out for you, too! It seems like things were going so well, which makes the sudden breakup even more confusing. You’re definitely not alone in feeling torn up about a short situationship. Most of the time, the 2-3 month relationships I have are more difficult for me to work through than long-term full blown relationships. I think a big part of that has to do with closure. In a typical monogamous long-term relationship, there’s often a sense of if/when things might come to an end. You’ve known that person long enough to identify behaviors that may suggest changing feelings. In a short dating stint, it could be harder to read the signs or feel comfortable sharing uncomfortable feelings. Regardless, it sounds like you and this person were very close and shared many intimate moments, so you’re completely valid in feeling upset about this.

I don’t have any concrete answers for you, but I can offer another perspective. Sometimes people just can’t handle saying goodbye. Some people can’t even handle strong feelings. This could be your ex-situationship’s case. Often, relationship changes that feel sudden aren’t exactly impulsive for the person making the changes. She might’ve been grappling with many complex issues either within or outside of the relationship and didn’t have the tools to handle it and/or didn’t know how to communicate it. She might’ve been afraid to face her strong feelings and thought goodbye was easiest done in a quick, non-emotional kind of way. It’s also interesting that she stated her intentions/boundaries at the very beginning of the friendship, changed them via her behaviors in becoming more involved with you, and then broke up with you for those same reasons. She knew what she wanted (or didn’t want), developed feelings for you and pursued those (defying her own boundaries), and then realized one day that this dynamic isn’t what she wanted and hurt you in the process. This is why sticking to your intentions and continuously communicating is so important!! It seems like you were pretty clear throughout the relationship, and maybe she just wasn’t super honest with herself, and therefore not honest with you.

I feel for you in grieving this whirlwind relationship, but I’m proud of you for working on yourself! It sounds like you’ve set aside an ample amount of time to process your emotions and figure out who you are. Not many people take time to do this, especially before or after dating, so I want to commend you for your hard work on yourself. Trust in other people will take time, which is the most annoying answer to hear. Continue to trust yourself and tell people what you’re looking for. Ask for their expectations and intentions in return. Vet future dates based on these intentions and values and stick to them. You deserve a love that won’t leave you, including love for yourself. Have patience (even though it’s truly rough out here) and let yourself grieve.

Wishing you lots of love!


You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

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Em Win

Originally from Toledo, Ohio, Em now lives in Los Angeles where she does many odd jobs in addition to writing. When she's not sending 7-minute voice messages to friends and family, she enjoys swimming, yoga, candle-making, tarot, drag, and talking about the Enneagram.

Em has written 70 articles for us.

9 Comments

  1. I feel so much for you, Letter Writer! I’ve been in very similar situations and they have been hell on my already anxious mind – it’s been hard to trust that any relationship, even friendships, won’t just end suddenly. I think Em’s advice was good, I don’t have anything else other than to say, you are not alone and I wish you good healing!

  2. Letter Writer – As a cis lesbian now in my 30s, I had a LOT of these 2-3 month situationships in my mid 20s. More than I can count.

    I realised everyone was so flighty in my 20s because people were afraid of being tied down when their options for short term flings are quite literally endless on dating apps. It’s literally the prime time of your life to meet people who aren’t yet settled with kids and married, to travel and to endlessly work on your career. It’s common for people to come and go like bus boys in a restaurant in your 20s when it comes to love / sex / romance. It’s the same for the heterosexuals too, I assure you.

    I know many straight women who jump from guy to guy like monkeys on a branch simply because they can, regardless of how good the spark is between them or who they are as a person.

    People do settle and calm down into meaningful relationships as they get older. If you do find these short situationships exhausting, then don’t bother with them. It’s okay to focus on yourself and date yourself. It really is. Maybe it’ll be more valuable for you in the long run. I dated myself for 2-3 years, got into therapy and worked on myself. It was easily the most valuable thing I’ve ever done for myself by a long shot, because now dating and rejection does not phase me at all.

    I dated SO many women in my 20s, women from all over the globe from different backgrounds and cultures, and many of these situationships were a total waste of time. Some were great, some were extremely self consumed and vapid to the point that they were astounded at the idea of making space for someone else in their routine (i.e a healthy relationship with compromise), some turned out to be outright abusive and vile.

    I’ve now been dating my current girlfriend for 2 months and this is by far the easiest and most loveliest relationship I have been in. And this time 4-5 months ago I had completely given up at the idea of ever finding anyone decent after years of terrible dates, situationships and scrolling through multiple dating apps endlessly. So it does work out eventually. And this is coming from a person who had dozens of situationships in my 20s that only lasted 2-4 months at the very most.

    Things may not have gone wrong between you, sometimes people just lose interest. It’s not anything you did wrong. It may not even be about you. She may have just felt that the same spark and interest wasn’t there, so moved on swiftly to not waste anyone else’s time.

    Look at it this way, when one door closes, another opens. Always. Sometimes it’s okay to take a backseat and go with the flow. Maybe you’re being directed to someone even more well matched for you.

    Sometimes all you have to do is trust the process, while taking care of yourself and knowing that it’s not you – what you’re experiencing is extraordinarily common in your 20s. But it does get better.

  3. I feel like the other piece of it is that you can’t control or predict what other people do. This may happen again, although I hope it doesn’t! The thing that you can reliably grow your trust in, is your own resilience in the fsce of the occasional capriciousness of other people

  4. The only thing I would offer here is that if somebody starts off by saying that they have too much going on in their life to be able to be in a relationship, and then “changes their mind,” they probably like you so much that they have talked themselves into trying to make room for the relationship. But nothing changed in their ilfe that opened up room, and so all the factors that made feel they would be too busy are still there. And then burnout occurs, and they realize they were right in the beginning.

    So if you ever find yourself in that particular situation again, of someone who previously said they were too busy now saying they’ve changed their mind, I’d suggest you question them closely about it: Did anything in their busy life actually change? There are valid things that could have changed, like maybe they changed jobs to one with a lighter workload and hours. Suddenly having space for a relationship where they did not before would make sense then. But if the answer is that nothing in their life changed, they just want to try to fit in the relationship…I’d be skeptical. They may have the best of intentions, but are not being realistic.

  5. As someone who has both been in a similar situation as the letter writer and at another time acted similarly to the ex, I just want to say that I think your advice here is bang on, Em!

  6. Boy is this timely.

    I got surprise dumped on Monday by someone I’d been seeing regularly for the last 4 weeks. After five consistent dates that were pleasant and breezy, the abruptness of the breakup really threw me for a loop.

    It just blindsided me because the day before and the evening of, they’d been voicing their interest in continuing to date and the dinner date itself went well for the most part. But just as I’m heading into the subway stn, they just sprang “I think we should stop seeing each other” on me after the usual goodbye hug. I asked the reason and all they said was that they realized they didn’t want the responsibility of maintaining a relationship and had a lot of going on and then hugged me again and left.

    Which I understood and I could also see some potential long term incompatiblities cropping up but I just did not care for the last minute, public breakup when they could’ve picked any earlier time during the date or in a less public place than a subway entrance. It also stung because it meant I only had under two minutes to process that this previously calm and pleasant growing connection that might’ve lasted for a few more weeks or months was now ending immediately.

    It had only been weeks so I wasn’t deeply invested but still it sucks to lose a connection abruptly and it’s jarring to be so early that any resentment that might’ve grown hadn’t even sprouted. It’s a hard lesson to be reminded of, that I need to still be trusting and open but also maintain certain selective standards when selecting future partners so I’m not wasting my time and energy on people who aren’t in the right place for a relationship.

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10 Gayest Joni Mitchell Songs Ranked by Lesbian Longing

When the greedy overlords who run Spotify announced that Joni Mitchell’s discography was going to be available on the app, I’ll admit I wasn’t very familiar with her work — other than knowing she is beloved by other queer people. Growing up, I was surrounded by music but my parents’ tastes were specific, and I kind of followed suit. As a result, there are some older artists who I heard sometimes but never in their entirety and never enough to discuss them in any serious way.

For a music appreciator like me, some of these blindspots were a little embarrassing, so I came up with a self-imposed ongoing homework assignment I have simply titled “Discography Project.” The Discography Project rules are simple: I pick an artist from my ever-expanding list and I listen to their discography — including live albums, special collections, and remasters — in chronological order. I also read criticism of the albums and try to gather any and all context regarding their creation.

Due to some initial judgments, Mitchell was pretty far down on my list. But with the explosion of excitement on social media about the Spotify news and a little nudge from my editor Drew, I decided to bump her up. Even though Mitchell is famously heterosexual, spending as many hours as I have with her revealed something quite fascinating: Some of her music feels extremely lesbian coded. Or, at least, the longing and wail of emotion explains why she has so many committed lesbian fans.

And so I present to you, as a new expert on her discography, the 10 gayest Joni Mitchell songs ranked by lesbian longing.


10. “Jericho” from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (1977)

I’ll be honest. There might be some bias involved in my decision making for this one because way before I even heard Mitchell’s version of this song, I’ve known and loved k.d. lang’s version. It’s clear that it’s about someone opening themselves up to love for the first time or, maybe, for the first time in a long time. There is no gendered language here, which does add to the ambiguousness of it all, but I think what really gets me is the chorus: “I’ll try to keep myself open up to you / And approve your self expression / I need that, too / I need your confidence, baby / And the gift of your extra time / In turn, I’ll give you mine / Sweet darling, it’s a rich exchange / It seems to me / It’s a warm arrangement.” Sounds like someone experiencing their first real, queer relationship in a way, doesn’t it?

9. “Woman of Heart and Mind” from For the Roses (1972)

Is there a Joni Mitchell album that wasn’t born from some heartbreaking or devastating experience? For the Roses was produced and recorded right after Mitchell’s tumultuous relationship with James Taylor, so I understand if upon first listen, all of these songs feel very straight. But hear me out. “Woman of Heart and Mind” is essentially an ode to a lover who isn’t doing right by the speaker in the song. Mitchell, once again, doesn’t not employ any gendered language except to compare the lover to a “small boy” in the beginning of the song. Partway through, the speaker realizes they just can’t stop desiring this person — “I’m looking for affection and respect / A little passion / And you want stimulation, nothing more / That’s what I think / But you know I’ll try to be there for you / When your spirits start to sink” — and they’ll put up with a lot just to be by their side. Most of the song kind of sounds like a type A femme speaking directly to a type B butch who’s simply been playing her ass for too long, and it’s “I’ll still have your back” attitude makes it extra gay.

8. “Coyote” from Hejira (1976)

Hejira is another Mitchell album with a storied background, and the writing and recording of this song is especially intriguing. “Coyote” is technically an extremely heterosexual song. This one does specifically refer to a man, a ranch worker in particular, with whom the speaker shares a bumpy and brief relationship with. On the surface, it seems like a typical story we’ve all heard and seen before between two straight people, but it also gives rural butch/city femme a la Desert Hearts vibes to me. Using the metaphor of a coyote’s behavior seems stereotypically masculine, but that masculinity doesn’t have to belong to a man. The way desire and heartbreak are explored in the song feels very gay to me.

7. “Help Me” from Court and Spark (1974)

By the time I got to Court and Spark, I’ll admit, I was feeling a little fatigued in regards to my Mitchell listening, but this album breathed some new momentum into me. “Help Me” isn’t the only gay banger on here, but it is the hardest to explain of the two. Mitchell does seem to be addressing a man, ok, but the vibes here are extremely two people with strong feelings for each other who don’t know what to do with them. And I don’t know, to me, queer people have really mastered that specific scenario, so the atmosphere of this song is tinted with that gay filter.

6. “See You Sometime” from For the Roses (1972)

“See You Sometime” takes some of the ideas Mitchell was playing with in “Woman of Heart and Mind” and brings them to an even queerer dimension. Here, the speaker in the song seems to be addressing the jealousy they feel when their flighty lover is, well, flighty. When the lyrics “It hurts / But something survives / Though it’s undermined / I’d still like to see you sometime” hit, it feels oddly familiar. Kind of like a text you’d get from your ex-girlfriend three months after the break-up because she’s lonely and saw something that reminded her of you.

5. “Down To You” from Court and Spark (1974)

“Down To You” is the other track on Court and Spark that has lesbian vibes. According to Sean Nelson’s 33 ⅓ book, Court and Spark, “Down To You” is supposed to have taken place in the immediate hours or day after a one night stand. This song isn’t about the lover on the other end of the one night stand but about the speaker reminding themself of their worth. That’s not gay per se but so many of the lyrics — like “You go down to the pick up station / Craving warmth and beauty / You settle for less than fascination / A few drinks later you’re not so choosy” — delivered in the particular style Mitchell adopted for this album don’t read as speaking to a distinctly straight experience; they feel much more fluid than that. As far as I can see, Mitchell was straight, but something about the ambiguity of who the speaker slept with and the fact that Mitchell once again doesn’t use any pronouns for the lover gives it a familiar feeling.

4. “Both Sides Now” from Clouds (1969)

This is purely based on vibes. When you’re listening to “Both Sides Now,” every lyric sounds like a string of things a queer person would say after a bad heartbreak — maybe their first queer heartbreak. This one had me wondering if Mitchell somehow did have inside knowledge about the depths of queer pain. I think if you listen you’ll wonder the same.

3. “A Case of You” from Blue (1971)

After listening to Blue all the way through last week, I finally understood why that album has so many of you queers in a headlock. Like any good, queer almost 36 year old person walking around right now, I mostly have fond memories of “A Case of You” from movies like Practical Magic. But now that I’ve listened closer, I can say this song is queer as hell. Aside from having the lyric “I met a woman / She had a mouth like yours,” there’s a few other gay things happening in this song. First, what straight man is going to say to a woman “You’re as constant as a northern star” on the heels of a break up? None. None at all. Second, we can even go a little deeper here…the yearning in the lyric “I would drink a case of you” is absolutely wild. Sorry to the straights, but that specific brand of yearning feels unique to us.

2. “My Secret Place” from Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm (1988)

Mitchell said herself that this song is gay: “It’s a love beginning song. The song’s about the threshold of intimacy. It’s a shared thing so I wanted it to be like the ‘Song of Solomon,’ where you can’t tell what gender it is. It’s the uniting spirit of two people at the beginning of a relationship.” And she’s not escaping the queer vibes allegations with lyrics like: “People talk to tell you something / Or to take up space / Guess I’m only talking / To be talking to / Your pretty face / I don’t talk much to anyone, but / You’re a special case / For my special place / My special place.” The lyrics and the idea that the song’s composition would make it so you couldn’t tell Mitchell’s voice from Peter Gabriel’s at times? Sure, it might have been conceived by presumably straight people but this is gay gay gay.

1. “All I Want” from Blue (1971)

Blue is, undoubtedly, Mitchell’s most highly regarded and critically acclaimed album, and the story of its evolution is equally as legendary. Given the extremely heterosexual circumstances surrounding the recording of the album, it’s still shocking to me that it opens with “All I Want” — a song that has no gendered language and features the lyrics “All I really, really want our love to do / Is to bring out the best in me and in you / I wanna talk to you, I want to shampoo you / I want to renew you again and again.” I want to shampoo you?? Ok. Ultimately, the song is about the speaker pining for an ideal relationship they don’t have, and the specific choices in the songwriting make it feel even gayer — certainly gayer than Joni Mitchell ever intended.

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?

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Stef Rubino

Stef Rubino is a writer, community organizer, and student of abolition from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. They teach Literature and writing to high schoolers and to people who are currently incarcerated, and they’re the fat half of the arts and culture podcast Fat Guy, Jacked Guy. You can find them on Twitter (unfortunately).

Stef has written 81 articles for us.

7 Comments

  1. My ex and I used to play Joni Mitchell on Sunday mornings. Because her music feels like Sunday mornings, or there’s an album that seems to suit any kind of Sunday morning? I found myself listening to her just this past Sunday. Extremely excited about this list and also your project!!!

  2. Great content. Also the reason Joni’s work was off of Spotify for the last few years in the first place was in protest of them platforming a conservative anti-vaxxer’s podcast, which is a pretty queer move ⚡️

  3. Perhaps the gayest that I believe is ladies of the canyon. Not about longing but about this woman centered communal life with your eccentric queer friends

    Oooh Chelsea morning is also notably absent. “Won’t you stay we’ll put on the day and we’ll wear it till the night comes.” Waking up on a date and EXTENDING IT ALL DAY

  4. I love Joni Mitchell.
    My favourite albums of her catalogue are Hejira, The hissing of summer lawns,
    Don Juan’s reckless daughter, For the roses, Night ride home, Shadows and Light, Clouds, Blue, Ladies of the canyon.
    She is an incredible musician, guitarist, poet, and storyteller.
    Her music is universal – it doesn’t take away from her music to state this.
    Her storytelling and musicianship is so good that she is a straight, lesbian, queer and trans icon.
    I wish she had more recognition in her younger years.
    One of her best anti right wing moves was removing her catalogue from Spotify.
    She had polio (Neil Young had polio too) as a child so she knows all about the value of getting vaccinated and vaccine preventable diseases.
    She is an absolute treasure.

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‘Bluey’ Hinted That Lesbian Cartoon Dogs Could Theoretically Exist, Bigots are Mad

Bluey’s Classmate Has Two Mums, Bigots Are Rabid

Bluey, Pretzel and one of the terriers sit in the classroom, threatening family values

THIS IS WHAT THEY’RE AFRAID OF. LOOK AT HIM.

Imagine being so bad at minding your own business that a cartoon chihuahua named Pretzel saying the word “mums” made you lose your entire goddamned mind. Couldn’t be me. But the homophobes are back at it, accusing gay people of ruining TV shows and family values instead of just moving on with their lives, because of one (1) word on the popular children’s cartoon Bluey. Some chihuahuas have two mums, Karen, get over it!

What’s hilarious is, it would be very easy to miss or misinterpret this. They didn’t even show the mums! And I’ve heard plenty of British and Australian people call their singular mother “mums” in an affectionate way. If a parent just had Bluey on for their child and wasn’t sitting down and actively watching, there’s a big chance they would have missed it entirely. It probably went over most kids’ heads. But the kids with two mums probably noticed, and that’s who it was really for.

Bluey is arguably a perfect show. It’s wholesome and pure and sweet and Australian. If you somehow didn’t end up on Bluey-tok like I did, Bluey is about an imaginative and curious seven-year-old dog (a blue heeler, to be specific) named Bluey and her family. In most of the short episodes, Bluey learns a lesson or goes on an adventure or tells a story and it’s all very cute and magical. It’s the kind of show I would have tricked the kids I babysat into watching in the subtle ways I used to trick them OUT of watching shows like Cocomelon (which I hated) and Yo Gabba Gabba (which stressed me out.) This trick was much easier on the DVR because they couldn’t read and I could just tell them I couldn’t find it. “All I can find is the Backyardigans or Wonderpets, kiddo!” I don’t have young kids I babysit or visit regularly in my life these days, so instead I take an edible before bed, watch Bluey, and let my inner child cry about how different my childhood was from Bluey’s, or delight in the games that Bluey and Bingo play that remind me of games my brother and I would make up.

I feel very LEAVE BLUEY ALONE about this whole situation, especially since there are apparently rumors that Bluey could be ending or significantly changing soon, since the actors are aging up.

What’s sad is, this wasn’t even groundbreaking representation, it’s barely even inclusion, and yet here I am having to defend my favorite blue dog because haters gonna hate.


Sit, stay, there’s more news

+ Maya Hawke’s character Anxiety is apparently a hit in Inside Out 2

+ Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin‘s second season is, confusingly, called Summer School and comes out May 9th

+ An update for the Trekkies: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was renewed, but Lower Decks is ending

+ Death and Other Details has been cancelled after only one season

+ Konstantin Bojanov’s Indian forbidden romance drama The Shameless is coming to film festivals and looks v gay

+ ICYMI, Station 19′s Danielle Savre and Stefania Spampinato talked about their #Marina relationship

+ Velma season 2 is coming soon, for better or worse

+ Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck both have both have nonbinary kids (who are genuinely friends, as well as step-siblings!), and I think that’s beautiful

+ Lesbian musician Brittany Howard will play a pony pretending to be a unicorn in a journey of self-discovery in Thelma the Unicorn

+ There is a lesbian musical on Broadway, this is not a drill

+ There’s also a lesbian play going on at Georgetown

+ Also to leave you with a little smile, it’s Prom Season and my TikTok has been full of teens doing cute transition videos with their dates using the hashtag #wlwprom and it’s very sweet; the kids are alright

@littlemissyolo

gonna be serving on the dance floor #prom #wlw #wlwcouple #prom2024

♬ original sound – manny ☦︎︎

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+!

Valerie Anne

Just a TV-loving, Twitter-addicted nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories. One part Kara Danvers, two parts Waverly Earp, a dash of Cosima and an extra helping of my own brand of weirdo.

Valerie has written 548 articles for us.

3 Comments

  1. Frankly, I’m surprised that it’s just Pretzel they went crazy about because Chili has a line in that episode about how when her and Frisky were teenagers they used to go to the lookout to…think. There’s only so many activities that teenagers do at lookouts. My original take on it was teenagers smoking/drinking/getting high, but making out is also a popular ‘going to the lookout’ activity and as my spouse pointed out if they were making out with other people Chili would have mentioned going with ‘friends’.

    Anyway, you can definitely read that scene as Chili and Frisky were an item in high school.

  2. Must you post tiktok videos on here? They are nothing but wastes of space and they even dare to self-play, in which need to pause them while scrolling. Just no

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The Gayest Moments From Coachella 2024 Weekend One

feature image art by Autostraddle / photos of Chappell Roan and Victoria Monét via Coachella 2024 livestreams; photo of Reneé Rapp by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Coachella

Coachella 2024 wrapped up its first weekend yesterday, and so many queer, bisexual, and lesbian performers made the weekend as gay as possible. From Victoria Monét’s extremely hot set to Reneé Rapp’s L Word tribute to Chappell Roan using the stage to directly place a hex on her ex, here are some of the gayest moments from Coachella 2024 weekend one.


Victoria Monét Making Her Mic Into a Strap

Yeah, you very much read that correctly. Bisexual R&B superstar Victoria Monét gave an incredibly homoerotic set at Coachella weekend one, including using her mic to mimic a strap during some of her choreography. Just take a look and try not to pass out (with important commentary from the incomparable Taylor Crumpton):

And it did not stop there!!!! Monét’s set included choreography that not so subtly simulated sapphic sex. Just watch! The whole thing!

“Stop the wars, stop the hate, stop the genocide,” Monet also said at one point during her set.


Chappell Roan Singing DIRECTLY to Her Ex

Queer pop singer Chappell Roan made her Coachella debut over the weekend. In addition to having impressive live vocals, she also brought the sapphic drama in a way only a Pisces could. “This one goes out to my ex, because bitch I know you’re watching,” she said DIRECTLY TO THE CAMERA when introducing her song “My Kink Is Karma.” “And all those horrible things happening to you aren’t karma. It’s me.”

@snoopy.luvvr

My kin* is karma 💋 @chappell roan #chappellroan #fyp #mykiniskarma #coachella #theriseandfallofamidwestprincess

♬ My Kink is Karma – Chappell Roan

Roan’s band wore shirts emblazoned with EAT THE RICH, and Roan wore a tank that read “Eat Me.” All in all, she made sure her Coachella debut was gay gay gay.


Reneé Rapp Being Introduced by the Cast of The L Word

Renee Rapp performing at Coachella

Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Coachella

If you’re a dyke who’s awake and alive and extremely online, then you probably have heard by now that Kate Moennig, Leisha Hailey, Jennifer Beals, and Ilene Chaiken brought Reneé Rapp out to the stage at Coachella. Rapp also brought out Kesha for a queer duet of “Tik Tok.” All in all, it was a very aughts set (complimentary, we love gay time travel).


Brittany Howard Absolutely Shredding

Fresh off her sophomore solo project, lesbian rock musician Brittany Howard hit Coachella over the weekend and posted a video to her own TikTok appropriately labeled SHREDCHELLA.

@brittanyhowardofficial

Give it to love #shredchella @coachella

♬ original sound – Brittany A. Howard


Ice Spice’s Coachella Debut

Bisexual rapper Ice Spice made her Coachella debut and also debuted some new music during her set. She’s making a lot of post-weekend-one headlines today, because Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce were seen vibing in the crowd during her set.

@popbase

#fyp #foryoupage #foryou #coachella #coachella2024 #icespice #icespiceeedit #concerts

♬ original sound – Pop Base


Billie Eilish Teasing New Queer Song

Coachella surprise duets are always a treat. Lana Del Ray brought out Billie Eilish over the weekend for a duet of Eilish’s hit “Ocean Eyes.” They then sang Lana’s “Video Games” together.

@sydneybucksbaum

@lanadelrey x @billieeilish at @coachella 2024 Friday night was an iconic duet #coachella #coachella2024 #lanadelrey #billieeilish #oceaneyes #videogames

♬ original sound – Sydney Bucksbaum

In addition to her guest spot in Lana’s set, Eilish did a drop-in DJ set where she teased her super queer new song “Lunch,” and you should check out the lyrics.


Tinashe’s White Vest

Bisexual R&B singer Tinashe performed her new single “Nasty” while wearing an iconically bisexual white suiting vest with nothing underneath.

I think it’s safe to say Coachella 2024 belongs to the bisexuals?


Young Miko’s Coachella Debut

In another solid Coachella debut that’s for the gays, Puerto Rican lesbian rapper Young Miko brought a ton of energy to the stage and performed some of her super gay hits, like “Lisa.”

@mayradoe

Lisa 🥰 #Coachella #youngmiko #Lisa #coachella2024

♬ original sound – Mayra Lupita


Ludmilla Bringing Out Her Wife

Brazilian and bisexual singer-songwriter Ludmilla has a tendency to put queer love centerstage by bringing out her wife for a kiss, and she did not disappoint at Coachella this weekend! The #ludchella tag on TikTok is full of gems.


Stay tuned for any new queer Coachella updates after weekend two.

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?

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, short stories, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the assistant managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear or are forthcoming in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 814 articles for us.

1 Comment

  1. You forgot about Ludmilla, AfroLatina from Brazil. She’s a huge deal here and her wife is her backup dance, in most of the concerts they kiss as a protest against homophobia in Brazil.

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34 Gay WNBA Players to Follow (And Thirst After) on Instagram This Season

Ah, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! The sun is out longer, the flowers are blooming, Dawn Staley won another national championship, and the world is talking about women’s basketball. As we get ready for the WNBA draft tonight, you might be wondering — who are all the gay WNBA players, anyway? What percent of the WNBA is gay? And more importantly, where do I find them online? My friends, I have you covered.

When Autostraddle first published this list, we had 15 out players. Today we counted 34 gay players in the WNBA! And yes, we could wax nostalgic about how great it is that the league and society at large has come such a long way for players to feel able to come out and not only be comfortable in their gay skin, but be celebrated for it! And seriously, that is great. But I’m going to keep it 100 with you! I first started getting into the W because someone finally sat me down and showed me how insanely hot these players are. So I’m going to cut right to the chase and pay it forward.

Here is every out gay WNBA player that I could find, and the hottest picture of them available on their Instagram… for reasons. We’re all grown here. Enjoy. And if you know of more (confirmed!) openly gay WNBA players, drop them in the comments.

* Many of these players are partnered, engaged, married, with babies on the way. So! To any actual WNBA wife (unlike me, a purely fantasy WNBA wife) who happens upon this post, please know that we come to thirst in peace! It’s a sign of your excellent taste, presented with nothing but honor and respect upon your household.


34 Gay WNBA Players to Follow (And Thirst After) on Instagram This Season

AD Durr, Atlanta Dream

Aerial Powers, Atlanta Dream

Alyssa Thomas, Connecticut Sun

Congratulations to Alyssa Thomas, who got engaged to her Connecticut Sun teammate DeWanna Bonner last summer!

Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty

Breanna and her wife welcomed a new baby this winter.

Brittney Griner, Phoenix Mercury

DID YOU HEAR THAT BABY BG IS ON THE WAY!?!? Incredible congrats to Brittney and Cherelle!

Brittney Sykes, Washington Mystics

Candace Parker, Las Vegas Aces

Candace and her wife are expecting another baby this Spring!

Chelsea Gray, Las Vegas Aces

Chelsea Gray and her wife welcomed their new baby this past winter. The WNBA baby boom is in full effect.

Courtney Vandersloot, New York Liberty

Courtney Williams, Minnesota Lynx

Crystal Dangerfield, Dallas Wings

Danielle Robinson, Atlanta Dream

DeWanna Bonner, Connecticut Sun

As mentioned already, DeWanna is engaged to Alyssa Thomas (who’s also on this list).

Diana Taurasi, Phoenix Mercury

DiJonai Carrington, Connecticut Sun

Emily Engstler, Washington Mystics

Emma Cannon, Dallas Wings

Erica Wheeler, Indiana Fever

Jewell Loyd, Seattle Storm

Jonquel Jones, New York Liberty

Jonquel got engaged last summer! And the photos are to die for.

Jordan Horston, Seattle Storm

Jordin Canada, Atlanta Dream

Kahleah Copper, Phoenix Mercurcy

Kahleah also got engaged over the fall.

Kierstan Bell, Las Vegas Aces

Layshia Clarendon, Los Angeles Sparks

NaLyssa Smith, Indiana Fever

Natasha Cloud, Phoenix Mercury

Natasha Howard, Dallas Wings

Natisha Hiedeman, Minnesota Lynx

Sami Whitcomb, Seattle Storm

Stefanie Dolson, Washington Mystics

Sug Sutton, Phoenix Mercury

Sydney Colson, Las Vegas Aces

Sydney Colson is in a bathing suit and baseball cap on her instagram. The caption reads: "The ocean ain't the only thing that's fishy" and many different WNBA players are joking with Syd in the comments below.

Sydney’s Instagram won’t embed into the post, so please enjoy this screenshot. But also follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok not just for the thirst, but for the jokes. Syd’s got one of the WNBA’s biggest personalities and she’s unapologetically gay. They don’t call her “the face of the league” for nothing!! (PS: You can read my interview with her for Autostraddle right here.)

Victoria Vivians, Seattle Storm


While assembling research and crunching numbers for this post, I learned some other fun facts that you might enjoy! Such as:

Which WNBA Team Has the Most Gay Players?

The Phoenix Mercury is the WNBA team with the most gay players, in 2024 there will be five gay WNBA players suiting up in Phoenix. The Las Vegas Aces, Atlanta Dream, and the Seattle Storm will have four gay players each, leaving them in a three-way tie for second place. The Chicago Sky is statistically the most straight team, with no out gay players that I could find (they are also rebuilding this year, so expect a lot of movement). As of right now, The Los Angeles Sparks have only one out gay player.

Are There Any Trans or Nonbinary WNBA Players?

Yes, there are two nonbinary players in the league this season! AD Durr of the Atlanta Dream, and Layshia Clarendon of the LA Sparks!

What Percentage of the WNBA Is Gay?

As of right now, there are 34 out gay players in the WNBA for the 2024 season. If all those players make it out of training camp and into final roster spots, that will mean that roughly 23.6% of the WNBA is gay (34/144 total players, then divide and multiply by 100. You understand how statistics work). This would be right on track with the last two seasons. Research in 2022 found that 20% of the league was gay, and our reporting last year had the league at about 25% gay. Two players from last year’s list — Tiffany Hayes and Jasmine Thomas — retired after last season. A small handful of others are exploring free agency, but haven’t yet landed on a roster.

Will Any of the Players in the WNBA 2024 Draft Be Gay?

I don’t know! What is college if not a wonderful time of exploration of oneself? But if any of those newly minted draftees do any gay shenanigans in the near future, you can trust that I’ll have you covered! For the last few years, draft night has become a real showcase of butch fashion — and though I expect tonight to lean femme heavy, it’s still going to be a lot of fun to watch.Who doesn’t love getting misty eyed watching someone live out their dreams after years of hard work and dedication?

If you’re like me and came to this post for the thirst, but are new to the league and would like to learn more — let me close us out by saying, I have a post for that too and you might enjoy it: WNBA 101: Everything You Need to Know About the Gayest Sports League 🧡

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+!

Carmen Phillips

Carmen is Autostraddle's Editor-in-Chief and a Black Puerto Rican femme/inist writer. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. 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. You can find her on twitter, @carmencitaloves.

Carmen has written 700 articles for us.

14 Comments

  1. Yall not to comment on my own post, but I just realized this was my 700th one 😭

      • Izzy Harrison and Tash Cloud are dating! Jasmine Thomas! Lou Lopez Senechal (though we technically haven’t seen her play yet).

        • Lily! Lou Lopez Senechal is definitely a name that comes up a lot (she was mentioned in a comment on a previous version of this post as well), but I can’t find any concrete confirmation anywhere? If you’ve seen any, definitely drop a link. But I have looked into it! And I haven’t seen anything yet beyond like 2nd hand chatter.

          Ditto, I looked into Isabel Harrison! But I hadn’t heard she might be dating Natasha Cloud, so I’m going to deep dive again! Thank you!

      • Courtney is on the list! I have yet to find public information about Rhyne Howard’s sexuality, but if that changes we will update the list accordingly!

  2. Candace Parker being on this list still feels surreal even though it’s been official for a couple years now! I love her response to Syd Colson’s post lol. Thank you Carmen for putting this together, I’ve really appreciated the NCAA and WNBA coverage on here lately!

  3. Thank you for the journalism! I hope all the draftees are gay too! (Just kidding, live your lives gals!)

  4. This is truly an excellent post, and I love to see so much representation here! The amount of hot athleticism and hot hotness is just…yes yes yes!

    I also wanted to out that there are a minimum of 21 out / queer players on the 6 teams of the PWHL (based on a quick google search) — can we get some three sport action up here?! Sports!

    • I am sorry to be the one who has to tell you this, but she’ll be sitting out this season unfortunately. I don’t think she’s decided on a permanent retirement tho, just some contract things with the Mystics, so we should hopefully see her again next season!

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