I’m 34 and Want Kids. Is It Ethical To Eliminate Older Women From My Dating Pool?

Why Do I Feel So Weird Looking For Younger Women Specifically?

Q:

I’m recently single after a ten-year relationship and returning to the dating game after all that time. i want to have children, more than one in an ideal world. i am 34, my ex was 7 years older. we were trying to have children when we broke up, but with my PCOS and her age, we did not succeed. now returning to dating, i’m experiencing some conflict and discomfort. it feels very “off” to be looking on purpose for women who are around my age or younger, but also feels like, that’s what i have to do if i want to maximize the chances that we’ll have kids together. it will take a few years to get comfortable with someone and be ready for kids. i’ve never dated anyone younger than me before. I was usually attracted to older folks. that’s not really the issue though because i think with the right person it wouldn’t matter. but i feel like i am objectifying people by doing this, reducing someone to the age of their uterus. it feels somehow morally wrong for me to consider this in dating? Is it?

A:

Summer: Well, evaluating potential relationship partners for whether they’d make fitting parents is one of humanity’s oldest pursuits. If not immoral, it’s at least wildly common and normal.

I don’t think it’s immoral to find partners who fit into your vision of the future, either. It ‘s objectifying if one of your principle criteria is breeding value (lmao) at the expense of their numerous other qualities. It’s not immoral or objectifying if you’re trying to find people who simply match your needs for life. It’s doubly fine if you’re upfront about your eventual need to have children. It’s also imperative to consider your future partners’ agency in this. They get a decision in this too, so it’s not exactly harmful if their plans match yours. As long as you’re not being downright creeptastic or inappropriate about it, you’re just dating with an eye toward your future.

Valerie: Have you considered other ways to have children? Could you be open to adoption or surrogacy? So you don’t have to focus so much on age while dating around? You say you’re usually attracted to people older than you, so I guess my question is, are you still attracted to these younger people you’re pursuing, or are you pursuing them JUST because you know they’re more likely to be able to birth you a child? Because that second option seems like a surefire way to doom a relationship. That said, if you are just changing age sliders on a dating app (literally or metaphorically) and still looking for people who check all your other boxes and who you are genuinely into, that’s a different story. As long as you’re very clear about the fact that you want children, and also that you are looking specifically for someone who wants to give birth, age is just one of the many things we all consider when looking for potential partners for one reason or another. It’s a slippery slope, though, so just check in with yourself now and then and consider the reasons you want children so badly, and use THOSE qualities to help you find someone to build that life with you.

Nico: People can also have kids in their 40’s! So, it’s possible you’re limiting yourself too much, here. I’d leave potential for you to discuss matters with a potential partner, regardless of whether they’re a little older or younger, because every person’s individual situation is going to be different. And on the other hand, I think that exploring the ages of people you’re open to dating is maybe a good exercise. And you can absolutely factor someone’s interest in having kids into your dating preferences. And like Summer has said, you can also make choices regarding partners that are influenced by your life goals — you’re just going to have to walk a line between being normal about it and being too intense. And as with any dating situation, you just want to make sure you’re being careful with others feelings and being honest from the start. I would definitely make this a regular talking point with a therapist, and I would also open up to trusted friends about your journey. There are so many emotions wrapped up in the prospect of having kids, that in addition to being careful with people who you’re dating, you also need to look out for yourself. Good luck!

How Do I Signal On Dating Apps That I’m Looking For a Co-Parent?

Q:

How do I signal on dating apps that I’m looking for a co-parent with the understanding that it probably takes time to properly get to know someone to figure out if we’d make good co-parents? I recently joined dating apps explicitly for the purpose of wanting to start a family but not wanting to do it on my own. I know I can put that I want kids in my profile, but it feels like more than that. I’m looking FOR a co-parent; having kids isn’t just some nebulous future goal. But I also think that could come off as overly forward or intense. Has anyone had luck using dating apps for this purpose?

A:

Summer: App dating with serious, forward intentions can be pretty hit-or-miss. The upside is that if you angle your profile with intentions clearly and openly, you’ll immediately cut through people who aren’t as serious. Basically, anyone who was looking to play the dating ‘game’ or looking for something more casual should simply swipe no, or not make it past the first bit of small-talk. The downside is that it drastically cuts down your dating pool.

In your position, yes, definitely use every function in your profile that lets you showcase your intentions and interests. Things like wanting children, past education, personal info, interests, everything. A comprehensive dating profile is your first impression and signals that you take even basic things like social media reasonably seriously. Beyond that, your bio should at least note that you’re looking for something long-term and committed. That, combined with an indicator of wanting children should signal your life plans. You can write in your bio that you’re dating with the intention of co-parenting, but that might scare off a lot of people because it will be viewed as serious. I’m not sure if bios have enough characters to iterate that you are intending to co-parent, but are ready to go through the effort of knowing a person and establishing compatibility.

Valerie: I won’t lie, I had to read through your question twice to realize by “co-parent” you didn’t mean that you already had children. What you’re describing is just parenting. Wanting a partner who will be a good parent with you is implied in stating you want children together. I know that’s not always how it shakes out, but it should always be the intention when having kids with someone. I think there are ways to talk about that in your dating profile, or in early conversations, that make your intentions clear without sounding too intense. Saying you’re looking to build a family with someone, that you’re looking for a partner in life and in parenting, etc. I even like the way you phrased it in your question; you want to/are ready to start a family but you don’t want to do it alone. I think as long as you’re clear about that, looking for qualities in someone you think would make them a good parent is something you can do alongside looking for qualities that would make them a good partner.

Nico: There are other people out there who also want to start a family, have kids, be parents together — and if that’s your focus, not only is it important to put that front and center so you can find the right person to do that with, it also helps people who aren’t going to be a good fit to self-select out. I do think that keeping in mind that you want to communicate that you aren’t looking to IMMEDIATELY co-parent is important. I think you could say that you’re “looking for a partner who I can eventually start a family with,” or something along those lines might be helpful phrasing.

Kayla: Just want to chime in here to say I have multiple friends (all queer, some trans) who are on dating apps looking for someone to start a family with. It’s definitely not weird or too forward or anything like that. If you want to be even more specific in your dating profile about things like your parenting philosophy, how many children you want to have, whether you want to be the gestational parent or not, if you’re interested in adopting, etc., then this could be another way to find someone who is well aligned but also just to reiterate how serious you are about wanting to start a family with someone ASAP.

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Queer Horoscopes for Virgo Season 2025

Despite repeated wounding, queers have maintained resilience, power, and rebellious joy throughout history. Like Chiro, the wounded healer of Greek mythology and the celestial body that some consider to be the ruler of Virgo, we wear our scars with honor, transforming personal pain into collective medicine. By being true to ourselves, we give others permission to expand into their own authentic expression.

It’s no coincidence that those who have been misunderstood by society often become the most skilled at holding space for others to transform. Virgo Season (August 22 to September 21) invites all of us to embrace this healing alchemy. And it comes down to presence. Can we be present with ourselves and each other? Present with the pain, the joy, and the mundane?

This particular Virgo Season arrives with a lot of intense energy. We’re entering Eclipse Season, five different planets change signs, including Saturn re-entering Pisces, and, uniquely, Virgo Season offers us the rare gift of two new moons in the same sign.

In this season of change, we’re called to examine where we’ve been wounded, where we need healing, and how our unique journey might light the path for others. Below you’ll find a guide to understanding and navigating this cosmic weather.

Virgo Season Highlights

Virgo Season begins on August 22 and ends on September 21.

Key Dates

​​August 22: 🌑 New Moon in Virgo
opening a portal for reflection on routines and habits & an opportunity for setting new intentions and goals around health, fulfillment, and energy exchange

August 25: ➡️ Venus enters Leo
shifting relationship dynamics toward a protective and creative mode

August 26: 💥 Venus opposite Pluto
emphasizing tension around power struggles and revealing unequal dynamics

August 28: ✳️ Uranus sextile Neptune
offering a supportive cosmic environment for innovative spiritual insights

September 1: ➡️ Saturn (retrograde) re-enters Pisces
returning us toward contemplation about how we actualize our dreams and create structure that does not limit imagination

September 2: ➡️ Mercury enters Virgo
asking us to pay attention to the details

September 4: 💥 Mars square Jupiter
emphasizing challenge around balancing assertive energy with thoughtful planning as we strive for our goals

September 5: ↩️ Uranus in Gemini Stations Retrograde
reworking our perspective on collective change

September 7: 🌕 Full Moon TOTAL ECLIPSE in Pisces
illuminating capacity for empathy, highlighting where where we’ve been tuned out or too hard on ourselves or others

September 12: ✳️ Sun and Mercury sextile Jupiter
offering a supportive cosmic environment for direct communication

September 13: 🌀 Mercury in Virgo Cazimi (Conjunct the Sun)
an important moment to pay attention to signs and signals from the Universe

September 16: 💥 Mars opposite Chiron
emphasizing tension around self-esteem and motivation — where do you feel imposter syndrome and how might you recognize that as a place of profound power to be of service?

September 18: ➡️ Mercury enters Libra
asking us to consider multiple sides and perspectives before declaring any conclusions

September 19: ➡️ Venus enters Virgo
shifting relationship dynamics toward a more practical and evaluative mode

September 20: 🌀 Saturn Cazimi (Conjunct the Sun)
a great day to set, evaluate, change, or reinforce your goals and boundaries

September 21: 🌑 New Moon PARTIAL ECLIPSE in Virgo
opening a portal for reflection on your health & an opportunity for setting new intentions around routines, rituals, and roles

September 22: ➡️ Mars enters Scorpio
encouraging us to dive deep, confront hidden truths, and pursue our passions with unwavering determination

September 22: ➡️ Sun enters Libra
initiating a new zodiac season!

Virgo Season Breakdown

Every year, Virgo Season invites us to evaluate if the routines we’ve fallen into are healthy for us or not. This is because Virgo governs the mundane tasks of life: walking the dog, folding the laundry, scrolling on IG, our skincare routine, etc. The seemingly mundane can be so meaningful, though. These little things accumulate to being the majority of our lives.

This year, the Virgo Season invitation to evaluate our habits will be harder to avoid or ignore, because of some in-your-face energy coming from multiple cosmic directions. We’re entering Eclipse Season, with a Full Moon Total Eclipse in Pisces on September 7th bringing up big feelings, followed by a New Moon Partial Eclipse in Virgo on September 21st asking us to confront deeper layers of truth about what is and is not working in our daily lives.

An eclipse is a reboot, a necessary disruption to reroute our energy and reveal what needs to change. The best thing you can do to get through this month is be radically honest with yourself.

Just before our eclipse deep-dives, Saturn retrograde re-enters Pisces on September 1st, leaving behind the fiery energy of Aries and returning us to deep-watery contemplation about how we create realistic structure (Saturn) for our dreams (Pisces) without squashing them.

Many of us are disillusioned with “The American Dream” that has packaged and sold supremacy to us a million different ways. Many of us long for a more sustainable blueprint that honors our wholeness and the value of all life. This is the time to create it. Saturn will remain in Pisces (the last sign of the zodiac) until February 2026 before returning to Aries (the first sign of the zodiac), completing a full cycle around all twelve signs. This happens roughly every 30 years.

Some of us have abandoned our wildest dreams in favor of what’s practical, while others cling to fantasies that may be unrealistic for where we are now. What needs to change in your relationship to your dreams? Where have you been too idealistic and where have you been too resigned? Let this Virgo Season be an experiment in finding the magic in the mundane, rewriting the narrative, and being radically honest about how you feel day-to-day. It’s not about having all the answers, but rather being willing to sit with the questions that spark transformation.

We are supported in this process by the rare gift of two consecutive new moons in the sign of Virgo — beginning with August 22nd’s New Moon offering a great opportunity for reflection and intention setting, and closing with September 21st’s powerful eclipse new moon to reevaluate those intentions.

This Eclipse Season, we’re called to examine where we’ve been wounded, where we need healing, and how our unique journey might light the path for others. It’s not about being perfect or atoning for our mistakes. It’s about owning our mess so sincerely that it becomes our medicine. It’s about being so present with the little things — being a little more hydrated, a little more honest with our partner, a little more intentional about our screen time — that we start dreaming whole new words of possibility.

Below are horoscopes for each zodiac sign to help personalize your journey through Virgo Season. Please read for both your Sun Sign AND your Rising Sign for a more complete picture!

Virgo Season Horoscopes

♍ VIRGO

Welcome to your time of the year, Virgo! How are you going to celebrate? Although Eclipse season may bring some heaviness and intensity to the party, there is no one more resourced than you to navigate this puzzle of evaluation and renewal. With your natural attention to detail, you’re likely already ahead of the curve when it comes to analyzing all the possibilities for what lies ahead. But because of that superpower, you’re often the first to criticize or downplay your own capacity. What if you set an intention this month to be more present with your own brilliance? Pause in between tasks to celebrate what you just finished before moving on to the next thing. Soak in a compliment someone gives you rather than pointing out a flaw to counter it. You might even consider, bear with me, asking for help. What routines and rituals of yours could be enlivened by the company of others? What tasks could you delegate? Any resistance to trusting others to take care of things is important to pay attention to this season. Is it your own block to surrendering control or is it that your relationships aren’t matching your standards? Take notes, be honest, and be willing to be surprised.

♎ LIBRA

Libra, has the past month felt particularly busy for you? Virgo Season invites you to slow down. The upcoming eclipses are an opportunity for you to recalibrate your ratio of rest to work. You can have a tendency to overestimate your capacity sometimes, getting swept up in the excitement of a project or the beauty of an opportunity. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big, but Virgo Season asks you to reflect on when your visions deplete you versus energize and inspire you. Practice saying no to some invitations, even if they are exciting, when you know they would send you into energetic debt. Notice how your best ideas often come when you’re not forcing them. The eclipses will illuminate what’s been hiding in your subconscious — pay special attention to your dreams this month and consider writing them down to revisit later!

♏ SCORPIO

As a fixed water sign, your emotional landscape can be quite stubborn. You can hold a grudge. You can double-down on your story. You can exercise extreme loyalty. And yet, your Scorpion archetype is committed to continual transformation! This eclipse season will undoubtedly bring up some big feelings, and it is up to you to evaluate how much what comes up reaffirms the story you have already been telling yourself and how much it catalyzes you into new territory. Said another way, what will you hold onto and what will you let go of? Said another way, what is yours and what isn’t? Although you have thick castle walls around your inner world and lots of tests and mazes for people to traverse before deepening into true intimacy with you, once you let someone in it can be easy to get ultra-absorbed. What habits, routines, or labor have you taken on from or for other people? Are those activities contributing to your growth? Virgo season is a powerful time for you to renegotiate expectations for yourself and the expectations others have for you. If you’re honest in that process, you will come out on the other side with incredibly renewed creative energy.

♐ SAGITTARIUS

If you were handed a microphone and placed on the world’s largest stage, what would you say? How would you feel? Take a moment right now to close your eyes and pretend that the floor is yours and all eyes are on you. What would you like to be seen and known for? Virgo Season can be a time of increased visibility for you. You might already be infamous in your friend group for speaking your mind and not sugar-coating the truth. But something is changing for you right now. Something is stirring and shifting when it comes to your beliefs and your knowledge. What is on your mind and heart that is ready to be shared, and what is still percolating and not ready for public scrutiny? Whether at work, at the dinner table, or on social media, honor those limits. Pay attention to the data your emotional landscape is providing right now and on the other side of eclipse season, you will likely have more clarity about how to move forward. For now, focus on tangibly resourcing yourself! Prioritize what you know grounds you.

♑ CAPRICORN

Eclipse Season wants to take you on an adventure, Capricorn. When stress starts to pile up, you’re encouraged to turn to the practices, books, people, and places that excite you and connect you to something bigger than yourself. You’re encouraged to try something new, to take in new perspectives. Virgo season is a time to reconnect to a sense of inspiration. This month is a good time for all of us to evaluate our daily routines for their efficacy, but for you it’s important to also evaluate for their quality of intellectual invigoration. While you’re often focused on achieving your long-term goals through discipline and structure, this eclipse season highlights your need for expansion and learning. Remember that feeding your mind is just as important as checking items off your to-do list, and sometimes the two can happen simultaneously. What at first may seem like a “distraction” may prove to be a catalyst for new projects you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to conceive of. Let yourself be surprised!

♒ AQUARIUS

Since Pluto entered your sign late last year, a slow yet profoundly powerful transformation has ignited within you. Old stories and masks are falling away as, simultaneously, a new version of you blooms forward. It’s a beautiful but also incredibly painful process to regenerate in this way. This change is slowly unfolding, but this Eclipse season speeds up the process and brings previously subconscious material all the way up the surface. Consider how your goals and commitments might be changing. This isn’t about fitting into an existing mold; it’s about meeting parts of yourself that have been hidden even to you and learning in the process where and how to shift toward what actually aligns with the person you are becoming. Honoring this process requires honoring your emotions. As an air sign, it might feel easier to intellectualize your feelings, so it can take conscious effort to make space to drop the narrative and move through catharsis. What routines, rituals, and habits help you process your feelings? Are you making enough space for those activities?

♓ PISCES

As the Sun moves through Virgo, your opposite sign, notice when you feel in polarity with others. Pay attention to when your experiences with someone represent opposite ends of a spectrum. When you feel “at odds,” know that these interactions are offering important clues about your shifting capacity to hold complexity and contradiction. Said another way, you have the opportunity to deepen your skills around conflict. Do you habitually run from or avoid conflict? Or do you love drama and often instigate arguments? Does it depend on the person or the topic? Let what comes up this month be an opportunity to reflect on your relationship to conflict itself. Eclipse Season is testing your connections, but that doesn’t have to be limiting! Lean into your creative nature and get curious and playful with how you approach these dynamics. Be honest through the process and you can come out on the other side with stronger bonds and more confidence in your ability to navigate uncertainty.

♈ ARIES

Pleasure is a resource, and Virgo season invites you to take stock of where and how you seek pleasure. When do you use pleasure to avoid the tasks at hand? When do you use pleasure to be more present with yourself? Eclipse season can be an ungrounding time, and yet, it is asking you, Aries, to tend to your to-do list nevertheless. Consider how you can make the mundane feel more magical, what treats can enliven otherwise daunting tasks, and which essential practices light you up and fortify your resilience to address whatever obstacles come your way. A huge ocean wave can be a scary obstacle or a fun ride. Get in a surfing mindset (a balance of surrender and discipline) for the upcoming month and embrace the energetic swell.

♉ TAURUS

You are pretty good at embracing the “work hard, play hard” motto. I would add “rest hard” to that, too (which last season was inviting you to embrace extra). Being the bull of the zodiac, you are perseverant and determined but also good at chilling out in the grass and cloud gazing, when you feel like it. Virgo season invites you to trust your ability to do both: Let loose when you want to and own your ambition when it is alive. Eclipse season is known for shaking foundations. This month, when things feel off-kilter, remember that you have a profound and innate gut instinct for maintaining homeostasis. You’ve been working on building deeper self-trust this year. This season, can you trust your process even if it looks weird or confusing from the outside? Can you risk being misunderstood to honor your needs? Bringing conscious awareness to any wounds or fears around risking your sense of belonging will help you make clearer decisions going forward.

♊ GEMINI

Although you are the social butterfly of the zodiac, you still need a safe and stable home base from which to launch your adventures. This Eclipse Season highlights the importance of your foundations and sense of security. What routines and rituals help you feel grounded and connected to your roots? As a mercury-ruled air sign, you are constantly taking in so much information, chewing on ideas, thinking through a million little puzzles . . . Virgo season asks you to make space to reflect on and digest the emotion underneath it all. During Virgo season, your home becomes a laboratory for experimenting with new systems and routines that better support your mental health. Throughout the eclipses, pay particular attention to how you transition between social engagement and alone time — both are necessary for your well-being.

♋ CANCER

Even though you are known for being the hermit of the zodiac and thrive better than most as a homebody, you do benefit from venturing into new situations beyond your comfort zone from time to time. This eclipse season highlights the importance of communication and community connections for you and creates space to repattern habitual ways of socializing. Your intuitive nature gives you valuable insights about others, but sometimes you need external perspectives to fully understand a situation. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and engage in meaningful conversations. Don’t be afraid to change your mind about something. As you navigate the month ahead, notice when your tendency to protect yourself might be closing off important connections. Your sensitivity is your superpower, but don’t let it become a barrier to necessary growth and exchange.

♌ LEO

As we move out of your season and into Virgo Season, let this be an opportunity to integrate what you learned and what you enjoyed! Virgo season wants to offer you space to ground, to digest, and to replenish whatever is feeling depleted. That may feel a little challenging as the eclipses start hitting because their big energy can often feel anything but grounding, but they ultimately serve our growth. This is an excellent time to assess what truly matters to you materially and energetically. What possessions, relationships, and activities actually nourish your magnificent spirit? Prioritize your needs. Maybe that looks like sticking to a stricter budget, getting more sleep, or centering a creative project that has been lingering on the back burner. Whatever you know would be good for you, try your best to commit to it even amidst shakier cosmic energy and you will come out on the other side revitalized.

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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G Weaver

G Weaver is a queer astrologer, creative coach, and certified digital wellness educator. She has a special interest in humans. Whether exploring the collective psyche through the cosmos or studying and teaching about how the Internet is impacting us all, she is passionate about understanding and supporting transformation. She offers readings, classes, and publishes audio, written, and visual content on numerous platforms—connect with her here.

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Lesbian Neo-Noir ‘Honey Don’t!’ Plays With and Challenges Genre Conventions

When Joel Coen made a black and white adaptation of Macbeth and Ethan Coen made a sex-filled comic caper with his lesbian wife, audiences broke down the longtime duo like a math problem. Joel brings the arty seriousness; Ethan brings the silly comedy. But art is not an equation and genre is not a binary. Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen’s second collaboration Honey Don’t! is proof of that fact. They’ve crafted a film with an air of farce that ultimately finds more pain than humor in our outlandish world.

Honey Don’t! is about a private detective in central California named Honey O’Donnaughey (Margaret Qualley). She’s an old-fashioned private dick who prefers a rolodex and a landline to a computer. After a prospective client dies in a car crash, she begins to suspect that a local reverend (Chris Evans) is up to no good. Other threads include a gay man played by Billy Eichner who suspects his boyfriend is cheating, Honey’s teenage niece (Talia Ryder) in an abusive relationship, and a new romance Honey sparks up with a cop named M.G. (Aubrey Plaza).

In the tradition of California neo-noirs like The Long Goodbye, the plot mechanics here are secondary. Honey may think she’s trying to solve the mystery of the car crash and the church, but what she’s really trying to understand is the cruelty of human beings. Unlike other noir riffs like Inherent Vice, Cooke and Coen set this film in the present with explicit references to COVID and Trump. While it requires suspension of disbelief to reconcile the contemporary references with the retro aesthetics and genre conventions, it also gives the film an uncomfortable urgency. Even if Honey Don’t! exists in its own stylized world, it makes sure we’re never having too much fun to forget our own.

But the film does have its fun. Tricia Cooke promised us more lesbian sex, and she has delivered! It’s just that watching Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza use anal beads is less fun when one of them is a cop, something the film understands. Watching Chris Evans return to his Not Another Teen Movie comedy roots is fun too until the violence ordered by his character gets a little too real. Honey Don’t! is a seduction. The film itself is a femme fatale. It’s erotic and hilarious and seems ready to take us on an adventure. But just when the audience leans in for a kiss, it turns into something more sinister. It becomes difficult, thought-provoking, hard to like and just as easy to love.

At one point, the reverend tells Honey that she doesn’t like people. Throughout the movie this proves to be true. What’s to like amid all the cruelty, stupidity, and betrayal? But she does have one weakness: sex. There’s no intellectualizing when it comes to sex. There’s just desire. Someone doesn’t have to be perfect to turn you on.

You don’t have to like people to fuck them — the reverend makes this clear — but there’s something kind of pure about what the way sex prevents Honey from tipping completely into misanthropy. It’s as if there’s a biological force pushing her toward people (women) sometimes to her detriment.

There’s a clear throughline between the Coen Cinematic Universe’s most famous film Fargo and this latest work. There is more lesbian sex and no gold-hearted cop fantasy, but there’s the same melancholy frustration with human cruelty and senseless violence. However, where that film found easy answers in its good apple protagonist, Honey Don’t! lives in the complication. I know I said collaborations can’t be split in two, but let’s just say those complications feel pretty queer.

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Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. Her writing can also be found at Letterboxd Journal, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Into, Refinery29, and them. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Instagram.

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4 Comments

  1. I was already excited to go see this one upon theatre release, but now I’m even more excited!

    (also Hello!!! It’s so nice to see a new movie review from you on here. Been missing your perspective lately! <3)

  2. I was already excited to go see this one upon theatre release, but now I’m even more excited!

    (also Hello!!! It’s so nice to see a new movie review from you on here. Been missing your perspective lately! <3)

  4. Been looking forward to this movie ever since they started talking about it during the press tour for Drive-Away Dolls. Aubrey Plaza, Margaret Qualley, explicit lesbianism, and even Chris Evans. What more could you possibly want in a movie?

Comments are closed.

Remember When ‘Brokeback Mountain’ Lost to ‘Crash’ at the Oscars?

I saw an early screening of Brokeback Mountain in Miami with my dad.

Stay with me. I’d found an ad in the Sun-Sentinel offering free tickets to see the movie in advance. It might have been a test screening. I’d been dying to see it, but I wasn’t out as queer, so asking a friend to go with me seemed risky. My thought process was that my dad, who was still drinking at the time, was more oblivious. He’d ask fewer questions and tell fewer people at school than someone my own age. We also lived in Fort Lauderdale. Miami was an hour away, and I wasn’t allowed to drive that far yet. I’d have to explain to my parents where I was going. It was easier to just take one of them.

Luckily, neither of them were conservative or evangelical. In 2004, my mom had driven me around in her minivan to remove Bush/Cheney signs from our neighbors’ front lawns. When I was eight, we all dressed as the Teletubbies for Purim, and my dad enthusiastically took on Tinky-Winky. This was at the height of a gay panic because Tink was purple and carried a purse.

I pitched Brokeback Mountain to my dad as simply “a gay cowboy movie.” He was in. I remember getting to the theater, and it was just me, my dad, and a room full of queer men. When the movie ended with that heart-rending scene of Ennis sniffing Jack’s jacket, there was presumably not a dry eye in the house. I certainly was crying. The lights came up, and the first thing my dad asked me was, “What the hell?”

I was caught. Oh no. He was upset he’d had to sit through Jake Gyllenhaal bottoming with spit. But that wasn’t the case. “I thought this was going to be a comedy!” He was also tearing up. “I heard gay cowboys and I thought how could that not be a comedy???” (Years later, we saw Sweeney Todd and, upon hearing the first song, he groaned and said, “A musical? I thought ‘demon barber’ meant it was a horror movie!!”) He didn’t care that Brokeback was a love story between two men. He just hadn’t been prepared to be so emotionally devastated. He was mad I hadn’t cleared up that the “gay cowboy movie” wasn’t going to have the light tone of Blazing Saddles.

I was a senior in high school when Brokeback premiered. I secretly watched shows like the U.S. version of Queer As Folk and Logo’s Noah’s Arc. I read every book I could find on Allen Ginsberg and Harvey Milk. I had crushes on Lance Bass (who would come out in the summer of 2006) and David Hyde Pierce (who would come out a year later). It might have been harder for my parents to sense anything gay going on with me, because I was very into boys. Those boys were just gay.

When it looked like Brokeback was going to sweep awards season, I couldn’t believe it. Queerness wouldn’t be a joke anymore. I was overly emotionally attached to making sure the people around me — family, friends, strangers on Livejournal — respected LGB people. They deserved the right to marry! They deserved workplace protections! They deserved to be part of our society! I had big feelings about gay rights, because I was just the best little ally.

The 2006 Academy Awards were some of the most queer to date. Capote, a film chronicling gay writer Truman Capote’s reporting on the 1959 murder of the Clutter family, was nominated for Best Picture. For better or worse, that same year also saw Felicity Huffman nominated for Best Actress for Transamerica. This legitimized a two-decades-long stretch of cis people playing trans women poorly. Julia Serano writes really intelligently about the “putting on lipstick quota” depicted in Transamerica in her iconic book Whipping Girl. I have no memory of Transamerica affecting me in any way. Even though I would come out as a trans guy in 2023, I didn’t connect to this movie at all.

I was too busy stanning Brokeback. I was so impressed both Jake and Heath Ledger, two heterosexual heartthrobs, were playing gay and taking it seriously. I felt honored that straight people cared enough to make queer art. A Best Picture win would change hearts and minds. I just knew it. Brokeback Mountain won the BAFTA, then the Golden Globe, the Producer’s Guild, Indie Spirit, etc.

Then it was March 5, 2006 and time for the Oscars! I don’t remember where I was watching. It was most likely at home with my parents in the living room of our house, which was just above the bedroom where I wrote my gay fanfiction. It was all happening!

Dustin Hoffman presented Brokeback with Best Adapted Screenplay. Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee won for Best Director. It was the 78th awards, and only 21 times before had a film taken Best Director and not also Best Picture. All the other directing nominees were white men. Ang’s speech touched on how Jack and Ennis taught him about “not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society but just as important, the greatness of love itself.” A straight man was on my TV saying the word “gay” and winning an award! It was a lock. Jack Nicholson got on stage to announce Best Picture.

Then, even Jack looked shocked to say that the winner was Paul Haggis’ Crash. He actually mouthed “whoa” after he read the card. In the distant future, Andy Cohen would ask Michelle Williams on Watch What Happens Live her thoughts on losing to Crash, and her reply sums up my reaction at the time: “I mean, what was Crash?!” Yeah! What. the. fuck. was. Crash???”

I am white and, to be completely transparent, I remember petulantly thinking Academy voters must care more about race (the subject of Crash) than about sexuality. Once again, gay people were slighted. I felt personally scorned! I hadn’t seen Crash, but I was sad! I was being so dramatic about it. It confirmed every joke about Lee’s masterpiece was an arrow to the chest that wouldn’t be removed by a big award.

Two white people, director Haggis and producer Cathy Schulman, walked up to accept Crash’s Best Picture statue. They spoke about “love, tolerance, and truth.” Schulman thanked “people all around the world who have been touched by this message.” I was annoyed. At 17-years-old, it was more important to me that straight people didn’t win for a gay movie, than that white people did win for a movie about race. This was stupid of me. I was convinced that homophobia was at play. I vowed to boycott the Oscars. (I never did.)

The next day, I was thrilled to read op-eds labeling Crash the worst Best Picture winner in history, but Brokeback losing that night was yet another setback in my coming out journey.

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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Related:

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 25 articles for us.

On Never Seeing Someone Again

This is The Parlour, a place for intimate conversation, a real-time archive, a shared diary passed between a rotating cast of queer characters every week in an attempt to capture a kaleidoscopic view of what it’s like to be a queer person right here, right now.

In a fit of bipolar disorder-induced mania in 2012, I took all 800 dollars I had in my bank account and flew to Paris. While I was there alone one day, I went to the train station and planned to get on whatever train was leaving next, which turned out to be one to Brussels,  a place I knew nothing about. I barely looked up tourist spots on my phone on the way. I can’t remember where (probably at the Atomium), but I met a guy named Ben from Australia. He was also alone. We decided to spend the day platonically together. We got waffles, fries, and chocolate. Then we headed to a bar where we met an entire Midwestern family (like a mix of a dozen kids and adults) visiting someone from their group while she was studying abroad.

Noting that Ben and I were young and alone, the adults invited us to dinner with them. We kept insisting it was too much, but one of the women said (very Midwesternly), “Oh come on. I’m sure your parents would do the same for any of our kids.” (I do think that’s true.)

We went to a seafood place and sat at a long table. The family paid for our meals. We went to another bar afterwards, and they paid for our beers. We all took a lot of photos together with early Instagram filters on them. I think me and some of the kids followed each other on Twitter, but when I left Brussels, we didn’t keep in touch.

Ben was staying the night in a hostel and invited me to stay with him. I knew enough to know that though he had only been friendly, I didn’t actually know Ben from a hole in the wall. I said thank you and boarded the late night train back to Paris. I don’t believe we exchanged information. I never saw anyone from that day in Brussels ever again.

***

One of my exes who struggled with ADHD told me he wished for the simplicity of the way characters on the show Downton Abbey say goodbye.

The PBS masterpiece opens in 1912. There’s obviously no social media or texting. There’s maybe radio transmissions, though they’re not common for the general public. The Downton estate doesn’t get a telephone until season five and, when they do, it’s a big deal. (Carson, the butler, struggles with how to use it.) Cross-country and international letters took a while to arrive — weeks or months, according to the National Postal Museum. The first mail delivery flight (AirMail) took place in 1911, so that mode of communication was in its infancy. Travel times were anywhere from five days with a horse and buggy or two months or more on a ship.

Most likely, people in the 1910s would have an experience with someone and then never see them again. The ex with ADHD loved this idea. There was no pressure to immediately reply to messages or follow up via Instagram. It was enough to say goodbye and hope to see each other soon but also understand that you probably won’t see each other at all.

What about someone you meet on vacation who actually lives in your city? What a coincidence. You say you’ll hang when you get back, but then you never do. Maybe you see on Insta that they got engaged and you type a heart emoji. Why does it feel so weird to get coffee with them in your neighborhood? Did you have more to talk about outside the immediacy of the resort you were both in?

On a message board for Fodor’s Travel Guide from 2005, I dove into the hot goss of travelers discussing how hard it is to stop talking about their vacation with friends who weren’t there. “Anyone else been shunned by friends after you return from a great vacation?,” the title of the post says. One person said he doesn’t even bring a camera with him anymore because his friends from home have such little interest in how his travels went and what he saw on them. Another said she has to try not to seem braggadocious by starting every sentence, “Oh, that’s just like when we were in…”

Instagram launched in 2010, so live updates of our trips weren’t possible in the mid-2000s. Now, if someone has a destination vacation, you’re gonna see and hear about it inside your own phone, whether you want to or not. It’s true what these people are saying though. It’s better to leave the vacation where it was.

***
I used to find it stressful not to keep in contact with people I was once close to. How strange to see someone every day for a chunk of time and then poof, they’re gone. Was that friendship real? Was it situational? How can we continue it? Does it matter if we do?

When I was in high school, I spent a week at a journalism program at the University of Florida. I had three roommates. We got along really well at the camp to the point that one night we sat in one of the girl’s rooms and talked about some secret problems that had plagued us. We cried together in a way I did not do with my long-time friends from home. Then, as far as I remember, we never spoke again once camp was over. We really had nothing in common.

At my former job, I spent eight hours a day with people who, a year ago, I did not know at all. In real life, we’d probably have never met. Here, though, we were forced to bond over the ridiculousness of our bosses or the unfair minutia of working for a corporation that was clearly going under. We had fun with our boredom and helped each other out when floundering. We got into a rhythm. I saw these coworkers more than I saw anyone else in my life. We opened up to each other. Two of them started dating and moved in together. I also got to know the regular customers. They came in and talked about their divorces, their pets’ illnesses, and their job stresses. The dog of a man who came in every day passed away, and he invited me and another employee to the dog’s funeral. One of my favorite customers unexpectedly died, and I was shocked, blurting out to her husband how lovely she was when he sadly relayed the news.

The aspect of quitting that job that bothered me the most was that I would suddenly never see these people and their pets ever again. The job was an hour away, which made the decision to find a job closer to my home a priority. The hours were also long for very little pay. I knew in my head that I had to leave, but I was devastated by this big change. I’m in a group chat with a couple of my co-workers, but we don’t have a lot of instances where we’d organically cross paths. I definitely don’t have any reason to hang out with my old customers again. The store is now so out of my way that a spontaneous visit wouldn’t be very spontaneous. I’d have to make the time despite having a new job to think about.

I need to make peace with never seeing some people again. They exist in one place in your life, and you don’t have to force them to exist somewhere else. I can cherish that time without chasing it. Maybe we’ll run into each other again, but probably not.

***
The most jarring parts of my breakups have been the number of people who I will never see again. A breakup I experienced in 2016 hit me so hard because I’d become close to his friends. I’d even started a podcast with one of his roommates. And yet, there it was: cut off entirely. I never saw him or his housemates again, except once on the picket line for the Writer’s Guild strikes. I said hello, and my ex ignored me and walked on.

I was also extremely close to one of my other ex’s nieces to the point that she would ask for me upon seeing my then-partner even if I wasn’t in town with him. My ex and I talked about how wild it would be when she was a teenager and had never known life without me. I would just be Uncle Gabe, a member of her family. She would trust me the same way she would trust someone she was blood-related to, even though to the larger family, I would always be a recent addition.

I still think about her, and I feel incredibly guilty about the conversation my exit must have caused. Where did I go? Why did I leave? Would she never see me again? Is this her very first experience of someone disappearing from her life? I feel awful that it probably is. She also loved my dog and asked for him by name. She crouched down to pet him with her uncoordinated baby arms, and he would just allow it, accepting her love even if it was a bit rough. She’d never see my dog again either. I think, by now, we’re both just fuzzy memories to her.

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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Related:

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 25 articles for us.

2 Comments

  1. I know someone who got divorced and in explaining to the niblings about how their ex-wife was gone it was very similar to the explanation they had gotten about a family member dying, which is a little morbid but also fitting

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No Filter: These ‘Hacks’ Season 4 Bloopers Are Delightful

Hello and welcome back to No Filter! This is the place where I tell you what our favorite gay celebrities were up to this week, via Instagram! Let’s rock and roll!

Put Jinx in every single thing so I get to watch her do press everywhere, please!

HACKS BLOOOPERS!!!!! ALERT!!! THIS IS NOT A TEST! THIS IS REAL!

Cynthia, I know you are a Capricorn and thus not working is death sentence to you but have you considered taking a break??

Once again I am begging for someone to let Keke play Whitney Houston!

I think we all know we’ll be watching at least one episode of this, no matter what our feelings re: Murphy Productions are.

Nice of Jenna to pop up and remind us that she is great at selling diamonds!

Looooove this shoot! Love the Cabaret vibe, tbh??

Oh she’s making catfish and spaghetti for this man?!?! That’s a wrap, they will be engaged by years end!

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Christina Tucker

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

Christina has written 366 articles for us.

How To Explore Pregnancy Fetish and Kink During Pregnancy

There is something wildly seductive and magical about pregnancy. The pregnant individual becomes full and round — ripe, juicy, and dripping with the essence of life.

The entire carnal vessel shifts and restructures itself, hormones surging, ligaments loosening, hips widening, the uterus expanding from the size of a pear to the size of a watermelon. Our senses of touch, smell, and taste become heightened and demanding… and at times we experience absurd desires and cravings. You’ve probably heard of the pickles on pizza cliche, but it can also awaken other kinds of cravings.

If pregnancy is an embodiment of the very alchemy of life, it makes sense that many individuals would find themselves attracted to this magnetic state of being, one that is queer as fuck with desires, kinks, and expression of self that are just as unique as we are.

To fetishize anything means to revere the object, body part, or individual that is bringing about an erotic charge or state of euphoria. Pregnancy fetish is the fetishizing of the pregnant body or the eroticizing of becoming or being pregnant.

Whether exploring pregnancy fetish or embarking on kinky exploration with a pregnant pleasure vessel, your options for satiating your desires are as limitless as your imagination.

Pregnancy Is a Turn On to Many People

Long gone are the days that pregnancy is for women and femmes only.  Butch babes, non-binary parental units, and trans masculine papas are birthing babies, too. Midwives, doulas, and birthing practitioners are updating their vernacular and their practices to be queer, kink-aware, and trans-inclusive.

And it’s about time!

When I was pregnant with my first child back in 2010, I struggled to find stories, education, and depiction of queer parents and sex-positive resources for pregnant parents-to-be. I encountered heavily biased, conservative, and uneducated opinions from my OB/GYN regarding sex during pregnancy.

This was a major catalyst for me doing my own research, starting support and community groups for queer and sex-positive parents (and parents-to-be), and writing the book The Ultimate Guide to Sex Through Pregnancy and Motherhood.  

Pregnancy Sex Needed a Different Perspective

I had read through enough heteronormative pregnancy guides. So, I wanted to see a collection of shared information among queer, kinky, and poly parents that was open, informative, and written for us and by us.

The book was published by Cleis Press in 2016, just one month before the birth of my second child. In that period of six years, I had seen change and growth in how birthing teams and professionals were supporting expecting parents. This time around, my midwifery team primarily comprised a team of queer, trans, and sex-positive practitioners helping me to give birth the way I wanted, which was an absolutely ecstatic and empowering experience.

Sex and Pregnancy Go Hand-in-Hand

Who we are as sexual beings doesn’t stop during pregnancy.  Our desire for pleasure may shift and change, it may ebb and flow, but connecting with our partners or our own bodies during pregnancy is just one more aspect of our sexuality to explore.

Who Am I and What Do I Desire?

One of the things I learned during pregnancy is to be present and check in with what I  desired — on that day and in that moment.

During pregnancy, one’s body changes rapidly. Hair pulling could be something you totally would dig on one day… but then on the next day, you feel like you are going to scratch someone’s eyes out if they even think about touching you or your hair.

When I was pregnant with my first child, this drove me crazy. I was so afraid I was losing my edge, my identity. If I didn’t feel up for a tough bondage scene or heavy impact session, I thought I had lost my masochistic superpower forever.

Accepting Identity Shifts

What I discovered was that our erotic desires and the need for touch and sensation ebbs and flows. It’s not static. And with all the changes my body was experiencing during  pregnancy, it was as simple as the fact that sometimes I wanted to be nurtured, not spanked!

Sometimes I wanted soft, silk rope as opposed to the toothy bite of hemp rope. I grew to understand, trust, and listen to my body.

Having a period of time where I desired a softer touch didn’t make me weak. Rather, it allowed me to explore another way of connecting and experiencing pleasure that was different from the tight bondage and rough masochistic scenes I was used to.

I gained an understanding that I didn’t always need to push myself to the edge. And that there was beauty in all connections.

A Practical Approach

What this looked like in a practical sense was that before a scene or sexy time with my partner(s), I would check in with my body and ask the following questions:

  • What touch, play, or scenario would feel inspiring and nourishing right now?  
  • What do I have the energetic capacity for tonight?
  • What feels good to my body right now in this moment? 
  • In what way do I want to connect with my partner right now?  

I would also ask my partner these questions and then together we would sculpt a scene that was inspiring and pleasurable for all involved. We would also check in regularly throughout our scene, vocalizing if anything needed adjusting or if something just wasn’t working.

Pregnancy fetish and exploring kink during pregnancy can be as widely diverse as the spectrum of sexual expression.

Below are just a few ideas to rev up your kinky engine.

Inseminate Me Baby! 

The very act of becoming pregnant — or role playing insemination — can be super sexy and kinky!

What kinky insemination fantasies can you dream up? Maybe your partner plays the role of a bad ass bike courier with a special sperm donor delivery? Or your fantasies might even be totally out of this world and involve being impregnated with an alien being after an anal probing! Let your imagination go wild and play!

Put on a Show For Me

By the time I was eight months pregnant, my body was unpredictable. Sometimes I felt great and super erotically charged. Other times, I was massively exhausted. For those lower energy times, I greatly enjoyed stepping into a more dominant role and having partners entertain me.  Light some candles, put on some music, and let your partner put on a show for you. Whether that’s a kinky strip tease or watching as your partner pleasures themselves… sit back and enjoy the show, possibly with a vibrator in hand!

Animal Farm 

Animal role play has always been one of my favorites!  It’s playful, fun, and allows us to connect to our wild side! What kind of fun scenarios can you envision as you bring the element of pregnancy into animal role play? Are you a pregnant puppy that needs to be pampered, brushed, scratched behind the ears, and fed treats?

I’ve known kinky milky pregnant cows (that actually pull off a super sexy scene!) and pregnant piggies and ponies. Maybe you’re a magical pregnant unicorn! The key here is finding a character and scenario that is arousing to you and is something you personally feel drawn to embodying.

Service With a Smile 

Whether you are a submissive or dominant, service is an aspect of kink that easily flows into pregnancy. In some D’s dynamics, the very act of carrying a child and taking care of yourself during pregnancy is seen as an act of service. Drinking water, eating healthy food, going out for a walk — all of these things can be identified as aspects of service.

For a pregnant Dominant partner, service submissives taking care of the household chores, making dinner, running a bath for them, and handling appointments are all aspects of service that can be eroticized and deeply appreciated. This can occur at any time but especially later in pregnancy.

Pamper Me 

Pregnancy is a long journey. When full term, you are looking at nine months!

There were times when my body was utterly exhausted and sore. This is when I easily shifted into Pregnant Goddess mode. I was more than ready to have my partner(s) wait on me hand and foot. It was erotic for them to crawl into my bed chamber, fan me, feed me grapes, massage me, and worship my pregnant body,  including my engorged breasts that were double or triple in size.

Even a simple foot rub can be kinky! Or maybe bathing your submissive pregnant goddess in a sensual bath of epsom salts and rose petals is what is called for.  Consider kneeling before your pregnant dominant Mistress and painting the toenails that she can no longer see.

These are all acts of devotion, love, adoration, and above all… connection.

So go explore, communicate, fantasize, and see where your wildest desires dare to take you.

Note:  During your pregnancy journey, it is important to have a birth team and trusted medical advisors who can answer your questions. It is key to ensure that you feel comfortable having open conversations about sex and pregnancy.  Know that each body and pregnancy journey will be different.  Therefore, you have a choice and options regarding who you select as providers.  If you feel that your doctors are conveying biased information, you have the right to seek out second (or even third or fourth) opinions.

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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Madison Young

Madison Young is a published author, filmmaker, certified sex educator and sexual revolutionary. Young is the writer/director/producer of the queer sex positive documentary television series, Submission Possible, on Revry TV and the writer/director of the forthcoming feature film, By the Roots. Young has travelled the world speaking at universities and conferences on the topics of feminism, kink and sexuality and resides in Oakland, California.

Madison has written 1 article for us.

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‘I Went on a Not-Quite-Date With a Woman in a Relationship and Now I’m Down Bad’

Q:

I am a femme bisexual/pansexual woman back out in the single world after a 4.5 year relationship with a bisexual cishet man. I’ve been wanting to date women for a while, and I have only been with one woman sexually before. Last week, I went on an ambiguous date/not date with a woman who caught my eye at work before I was out of my relationship. She’s hot, smart, funny, goofy, adventurous. We had been orbiting around each other and meaning to hang out because we have a lot of shared interests, and we finally made it happen. We ended up hanging out and talking for 6 hours, about everything from being late in life bisexuals to ways we were scared to die. It was magical. About halfway through our hang, she tells me she’s in a long-distance relationship with a woman. Her partner is her first relationship with a woman, so there is a lot of history there. However, she mentioned a couple of times on our ride how “it probably won’t work out” for a couple of big logistical reasons. She also talked about all the things we should do together, ostensibly as friends.

Since this hang, I’ve realized I am down bad for and crushing way too hard on this unavailable person. I guess my question is, should I distract myself by pursuing a queer hoe phase so I don’t fall too hard for someone who is not single? Do I tell this person how I feel because I don’t find genuine emotional connections/attraction like this very often? As a baby queer, do I pursue friendship with this person even though I very much want her mouth on my mouth and unfortunately could see myself wanting to U-Haul with her? Help me, Autostraddle, you’re my only hope.

A:

Welcome back to the dating pool. Glad you already found someone to join you in the deep end.

The (good?) news about your new flame is that if she’s telling you partway through your maybe-date that she’s not that connected to her partner anymore, she’s probably emotionally checked out of that relationship already. Unless she has a major case of not caging her thoughts, people don’t usually talk about how they’re not into their relationship with their not-dates on the first not-date. Plus, the overt discussion of ways you two could keep hanging out? That all signals some kind of interest from her side.

I won’t mark that as unambiguously good news because I kiiinda doubt what she’s doing with you is entirely above-board in the context of her current relationship. It could be borderline infidelity and you’d have no way to verify without getting in touch with her partner. So just be aware of the possibility that you might be seeing the kind of person who’s willing to entertain Infidelity Lite™ once they’re emotionally checked out of a relationship, even if that relationship hasn’t technically ended.

But okay, you get home and learn the love bug’s got you. What next?

I’d just follow your needs and morals. Easy for me to say, but I do think you have options.

For one, given how she’s already talking to you about her current partner, she may not be as unavailable as you think. But that may speak highly of her if it approaches cheating. Where do your beliefs stand on potentially igniting something with a person who’s okay with doing this? Do you have enough info about her current relationship to confirm your not-dates are okay? How would you feel if she checked out of your relationship after a while and her eyes began to drift?

The idea of a queer hoe phase sounds great. Especially if it gives you more opportunities to find your footing with other women. My questions to you are then: Do you feel the need for a queer hoe phase? Is your goal to explore your sexuality? Build sexual experience? Reboot your brain after a long-term relationship? If you’ve got a strong personal stake in it, I’d say go for it. However, it’s only something you should do if it benefits you. You needn’t buy into the marketing that any foray into dating after a long relationship must first involve a hoe phase. Do it for you.

The only thing in your list of questions I’d try to hold off on is telling her how you feel right now. It’s been one hangout. Your head is swimming in a lot of emotions. Her status is ambiguous. You’re fresh out of a big relationship. Your situation is already complex, and you’re already asking the internet for help (hi!). Disclosing your feelings and letting it all fall out will probably make things more complicated before it improves your life. I know the urge to tell people how I feel. I live the urge to tell people how I feel after a minimal number of dates. It is rarely beneficial to put that extra pressure on the connection when it’s just starting to form. So if you have the willpower to keep a lid on your feelings while you learn more about her, I suggest doing that.

There are also fourth options like winding down the contact you have with her and looking for escapades elsewhere. Like searching for the company of people who don’t make you want to write into an advice box. I know that when your eyes are set on someone and you feel The Spark, that seems absurd. But it is an option, and your life isn’t permanently tied to this person yet. It’s barely tied at all actually.

If she weren’t already in a relationship, the tone of my advice would have been to go forth and slake your baby queer thirst. But I can’t shake the feeling that her relationship status and how she deals with it will make things harder for you.

Thanks a lot for writing in. I think it was the right call and I hope the questions I’ve posed back at you give you insight into how you should approach your budding situationship <3

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

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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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 87 articles for us.

5 Comments

  1. A bisexual cisgender heterosexual man…?? Cishet means something different than just cis, LW!! That aside, I agree that a hoe phase sounds like a great idea. This situation sounds a bit messy.

    • bisexual heterosexuals are VALID okay

      messy is right, though- talking about your relationship being doomed to someone you’ve just met is not a sign of great character and even if it weren’t, trying to start something with her as her relationship crumbles would not be a recipe for a good foundation. keeping up the friends charade is a guaranteed ticket to drama and emotional turmoil. LW it’s so hard to walk away from that kind of chemistry but save yourself, go be gay with someone single!

Comments are closed.

Boston Children’s Hospital Is Standing Up for Trans Youth

feature image photo by Mark Kerrison / Contributor via Getty Images

One thing you’ll notice in this week’s Trans News Tracker is that people are fighting back against anti-trans policies through various forms of legal resistance. I’m always a little wary about the efficacy of these, but given that the fervor for anti-trans action has seemingly fell away (like these kinds of moral panics normally do), I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that some of the architects of the moral panic around trans rights appear to understand the power of this uproar is losing steam as the days and weeks go on. Regardless, those of us who are deeply committed to the liberation of all people must remain diligent in our work to dismantle the systems that make this ongoing oppression possible.

Hospitals Should Be Committing To Trans Youth Healthcare Not Limiting It

We have been reporting on the ways children’s hospitals and other medical centers that provide treatment to young people have responded to the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. vs. Skrmetti and the Trump administration’s executive orders regarding trans healthcare. For the most part, the reactions have been to drastically limit gender-affirming care for young trans people without much of a contingency plan for those patients who are currently being seen at those clinics and hospitals.

In what is truly an inspiring and refreshing change of pace, the Boston Children’s Hospital has taken the opposite stance by absolutely refusing to stop or limit gender-affirming care for trans youth. Even as calls from far-right losers like Chaya Raichik, who runs Libs of TikTok, and Riley Gaines come out to “defund and investigate” the Boston Children’s Hospital, the hospital administration is standing so firmly in their (morally correct) decision to keep providing care to trans youth that they posted a lengthy statement about it publicly on their website.

Earlier this month, their website for the hospital’s Gender Multispeciality Service (GeMS) program featured a message responding to the shut down of gender-affirming care options for trans youth across the country: “Boston Children’s Hospital has always been and always will be committed to providing the best care for ALL of our patients, regardless of their gender identity. The belief that all children deserve the opportunity to live, grow and thrive with love and support, is foundational to who we are and what we do. […] We believe in a gender-affirmative model of care, which supports transgender and gender diverse youth in the gender in which they identify. This is a standard of care grounded in scientific evidence, demonstrating its benefits to the health and well-being of transgender and gender diverse youth.”

As of right now, aside from some chronically online takes from the far-right, the federal government hasn’t responded to Boston Children’s Hospital’s decision to continue providing the necessary care to trans youth. And as far as I can tell from the reports, there isn’t much they can do to get in the way without yet another gigantic lawsuit on their hands.

Some Good Trans News For Once

Volleyball player sues California university that revoked her scholarship for being trans. This story is especially wild because when Emma Morquecho originally applied for the scholarship she received in 2022, she disclosed that she was trans and the college — along with the sports governing bodies in charge of the college’s volleyball participation — had no issue with it. But when they tried to back out of the scholarship, Morquecho teamed up with Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to sue the pants off them. I hope she wins.

U.S. trans runner sues over ‘bigoted’ removal from college track team. Trans athletes are really out here making sure these colleges and sports governing bodies — like the NCAA, for example — don’t get away with their anti-trans bullshit. In this case, long-distance runner Evie Parts is suing both Swarthmore College and the NCAA for pushing her off the track team. Once again, I hope she takes them for all they’ve got.

Four more Virginia school districts defy Trump, reject trans bathroom ban demand. Like Maine and Montana before it, Virginia continues to hold it down for trans youth in their public school districts. Following Loudoun County Public Schools’ vote earlier this month to uphold protections for trans youth in their schools, four more school districts — Alexandria City Public Schools, Arlington Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, and Prince William County Public Schools — vowed to do the exact same thing.

Trans people in Georgia prisons are being forced to detransition. Now they’re suing. If you’ve ever been to or worked in prisons before, you know what an incredible feat of organizing it would take to put together a class action lawsuit against the state. And that’s exactly what trans inmates in both the female- and male-designated correctional facilities in Georgia have done in order to attempt to force the state to provide them with the necessary medical care they need to continue their transitions. I truly hope they not only win but get restitution for all the hell they’ve gone through, as well.

First U.S. homeless shelter for transgender people opens in New York City. The headline kind of says it all here. This is HUGE, and it will certainly improve the lives of hundreds of trans and gender non-conforming people in the city. I can only hope the trend spreads to other major metropolitan areas in the U.S.

Judge rules in favor of LGBTQ+ health researchers after HHS revoked funding for “radical” programs. On behalf of 16 researchers and the group, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) for revoking funding from researchers working on initiatives that impact LGBTQ+ people and for stalling the review of new applications for funding. As of earlier this month, Judge Lydia Griggsby of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction in favor of the researchers ruling that the actions of the HHS Secretary and the NIH violated the Fifth Amendment.

From across the pond:

UK’s first transgender judge seeks rehearing of Supreme Court case on biological sex. I was wondering if and when the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of biological sex was going to be challenged and taken back through the courts for an appeal. Now, retired judge Victoria McCloud is taking her evidence in defiance of the UK Supreme Court’s decision and bypassing the governmental structures of the UK altogether by bringing the case straight to the European court of human rights. I’m sorry to say this again but I hope she gets their asses.

Trans News I Wish I Didn’t Have to Report

Trans woman’s body found behind Detroit laundromat; man charged with murder, hate crime. This is absolutely devastating. Although police have a good idea of what happened and who murdered her, more information about the woman who was attacked, Christina Hayes, is still being uncovered. It is yet another stark reminder of what happens when the lives of trans people are continually and consistently devalued in the public eye. We will likely have more to report about this in the coming days.

Texas GOP uses emergency flood relief to push trans bathroom ban. S. Baum over at Erin in the Morning truly doing the Lord’s work uncovering this absolutely ludicrous situation and this story. You really have to read it to believe it, but basically, Governor Greg Abbott used a special session in the state house meant to create policy to address the flooding of Kerr County in July in order to pass this bathroom ban.

Last Bits

We published some great stories on trans life — and most importantly, trans JOY — the last couple of weeks. Motti wrote about T-Boy Wrestling and his experience in the ring, and Emma took us for a trip through the queer and trans archives to show how DIY magazines and small trans printing presses helped build community for trans people in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lady Gaga wore a trans flag sash on the Mayhem Ball tour. Not surprising that our girl continues to show up for the entire LGBTQ+ community, but worth including here nonetheless.

Iconic fashion designer sells feet videos on OnlyFans to fundraise for trans shelter. Fashion designer and “bisexual icon” Rick Owens announced on his Instagram that he will be selling pictures and videos of his feet on OnlyFans in order to raise money for a trans shelter in Versailles, France called La Maison D’Allanah. Unconventional, sure, but if it works, it works. I hope Rick can convince all these deviants (complimentary) to buy every picture and video he’s selling.

Mariah Carey has officially joined the “Protect the Dolls” Movement. At her UK Pride performance this month, Mariah Carey was seen sporting a jacket with the words “Protect the Dolls” in diamond-embellished font on the back of it. As a lifelong Mariah Carey fan and obsessive, I was excited to see this even if I know logically this makes very little material difference in our lives as trans and gender nonconforming people. The fact that she wasn’t voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an inductee this year gets even more aggravating as the year goes on.

This is Trans News Tracker, a biweekly Autostraddle roundup and analysis of the biggest trans news stories. To support this vital work we do, consider becoming a member.

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, competitive powerlifter, and former educator from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. They're currently working on book of essays and preparing for their next powerlifting meet. They’re the fat half of the arts and culture podcast Fat Guy, Jacked Guy, and you can read some of their other writing in Change Wire and in Catapult. You can also find them on Twitter (unfortunately).

Stef has written 156 articles for us.

Non-Binary Actor Alyson Stoner Hopes Their Memoir Is the Last of Its Kind

feature image photo of Alyson Stoner by Maarten De Boer / Contributor via Getty Images

My fellow millennials have been seeing non-binary actor Alyson Stoner’s face on our televisions for decades. From Missy Elliott’s “Work It” video to Cheaper By the Dozen, their face became a familiar one. Hell, even their voice was familiar as they voiced Isabella in Phineas and Ferb, a role they’re still playing in the new 2025 season. But while they were often seen smiling on Mike’s Super Short Show or happily tapping out a beat in Camp Rock, things behind the scenes weren’t always so cheerful. They lay all this out in their debut memoir, Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything.

This memoir covers their strained relationship with their parents, after their divorce and also after their mother mishandled their finances. They talk about the physical and emotional trauma they endured, from as young as ten when they were told to ignore a heart murmur in case it kept them from getting roles, through 17 when they put their body through hell to audition for Katniss in The Hunger Games, a role they didn’t even end up getting.

They did, however, stop short of writing about their relatively recent gender journey. They came out as queer in 2018, and more recently as non-binary, but this memoir focuses more on the first 25 years of their life. They’re not opposed to writing about it eventually; it just seemed like a lot to contend with combined with everything else they were laying bare.

“I feel like I could write a whole book on it,” they say, “because once you unpack gender, now you start to deconstruct every construct in society. I was trying to think of everyone who’s going to be reading this, and how many things I could tackle in one book before it actually was too much to process.” Though, of course, I have no doubt that some gender feelings will end up coming out in their own ways in the memoir. Also just because the memoir doesn’t go into details about their gender journey doesn’t stop them from being hilariously queer in their promo for said book. I haven’t read the book yet, so I don’t know if they talk about coming out at all, or if that’s also in the next chapter of their life, but I do know their social media and promo has all been unapologetically queer for ages now. We love to see it!

While they definitely still are acting and performing, their focus lately has been on making the industry a better and safer place. They want to restructure the whole damn thing and prevent experiences like they had. While far from the first, they hope that their memoir about the struggles of being a child star are among “the last of its kind.”

I’ll leave you with this cute, nostalgic clip of Raven interviewing Alyson on her podcast in which she asks them to do the Mike’s Super Short Show outro.

@itstteattime

and now you know… @Alyson Stoner is here! 🤍🫖 @ravensymone @miranda v. pm #mikessupershortshow #disneychannel #nostalgia #childstar

♬ original sound – Tea Time with Raven & Miranda

Valerie’s Super Short List of Links

+ Aubrey Plaza is going to be on Amy Pohler’s Good Hang podcast tomorrow THIS IS NOT A DRILL

+ Natalie Morales will play Claire Danes’ ex-wife in upcoming Netflix show The Beast in Me; Brittany Snow will be there too and after The Hunting Wives, who KNOWS what she’ll get up to

+ Alt-rock band The Beaches released their newest single, “Lesbian of the Year”, which is about coming out later in life

+ Mae Martin stars alongside Toni Collette in new thriller series Wayward, about a sinister school for troubled teens (and based on the description, it seems their character will use they/them pronouns too and also have a wife!)

+ Chantel Everett from 90 Day: Hunt for Love officially comes out and admits she has feelings for someone back home

+ The third installment in Tricia Cooke’s lesbian B-movie trilogy, alongside Drive Away Dolls and Honey, Don’t, will be about “a crew team who gets together for their reunion, and they start dying off one by one.”

+ And Just Like That used its final moments on this earth to punch down at queer people

+ Sophie Turner had to kiss her brother in her new film The Dreadful, and of course by brother I mean her former on-screen brother Kit Harrington

+ The TV show Fallout (who had a subtle, dark, blink-and-you-miss-it queer story hidden under the dust) released first look photos for its upcoming second season

+ Out country singer Chely Wright is now in board rooms fighting to keep DEI practices thriving

+ Don’t forget, you can vote RIGHT NOW in the Autostraddle TV Awards

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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Valerie Anne

Valerie Anne (she/they) a TV-loving, video-game-playing nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories in all forms. While having a penchant for sci-fi, Valerie will watch anything that promises a good story, and especially if that good story is queer.

Valerie has written 663 articles for us.

A Queer Tarot Reading for if You’re Feeling Weird About Summer’s Eventual End

Cowboy Clairvoyant is a members-only newsletter and series by Autumn Fourkiller featuring dream interpretation, tarot answers, and more ventures into the Beyond. Today, Cowboy Clairvoyant interprets a reader’s dream, answers that reader’s tarot question, and provides a guide for us all about how to use the tarot to choose between two paths. To submit your own dream or question, use our mystical form (okay, it’s just a google form).

Dear Dreamers,

Howdy. How are you? I’m… okay. I think. I’ve gotten really into watching The Ultimatum: Queer Love like three years after everyone else. I had ice cream for dinner. I’m going on a date this weekend. I keep re-reading the first part of Swann’s Way over and over again. My dreams have been pretty bad.

On Thursday, in fact, I went to bed and woke up heaving. It’s been hellishly hot in Oklahoma City, and I’d sweat through my shirt. My whole body was disgustingly wet, a mark left on the sheets from where I’d shed something bodily. In the dark, it looked like blood.

As I knocked into the cats in the hallway on the way to the shower, my eyes squinted, I thought about the Shroud of Turin. What they wrapped Jesus in, maybe. A relic of my Southern Baptist youth. I’d dreamt of awful and terrible things — a baby locked inside a car with her toddler sister, a panting phone call to my mother about something dire, the field across from Aunt Nana’s old house in Baron near the creek that I always thought looked like a perfect place for an alien abduction. Come to think of it, something must have been buried there — something that drew that spirit that lay inside of me towards it, though I was afraid, and I wouldn’t go over alone.

How different I was, an age ago. How the same I remain. Do you find yourself the same? Let’s gaze at the past versions of ourselves, together. Let’s see them clearly.

Sending only good dreams,
Cowboy

Queer Dream Interpretation

a person holding a sword

So I had this bizarre crossover of a dream wherein my younger teen self had to defend my house from enemy units; in a fusion of Age of Empires and Fire Emblem. Most of my army/family were dead at this point, and there were only a few of us left. So I went outside, armed with dual blades, and recruited a bunch of trick-or-treaters to defend our place. All of a sudden, the enemy attacked us at once, and I was stabbing and straddling some weird robot unit.
– Lua

Dear Lua,

Thank you for the gift of your dream. I did laugh when, in your note to me, you let me know that you were indeed playing Fire Emblem, because yes, it was going to be my first question. Still, now that that’s settled, there is still more to interrogate. I am particularly compelled by your dream-self manifesting as a young teenager. When in our lives feel more perilous than that age? I can only think of a few. This, compounded with your house being attacked by enemy units, well… who wouldn’t be stressed?

This is not to say that this will be the most spiritually enlightening dream you’ll ever have. Sometimes, people ask me if I think all dreams mean something, and what they actually want to ask me is if I really believe all the woo woo bullshit and also, if I am vaccinated. It also seems unwise as a mystic to spread any counter-argument against all dreams springing some Divine well. But that’s what I think makes this work so compelling and, in considering dreams like yours, dear Lua, that are rooted in your clear and present occupations and struggles, the person doing the interpreting can help you clarify your own kind of intuitions about what your dreams might mean, as well as provide a pathway to a clearer kind of psychic growth.

So yes, while this dream means that you’ve been playing a lot of Fire Emblem and are about to move soon and may or may not feel responsible for your family and other people in a way that burdens you in the long term, other dreams may not. They may spring from the ether, from the Beyond. Welcome them in. See what they have to teach you. And hey, keep me updated.

See you on the other side,
CC

Submit your dreams for interpretation!

A Queer Tarot Reading for the “End” of Summer

a dream door into a sunset

My parents intended to name me Autumn because of the autumnal equinox which coincided with my due date. When I arrived a few days early, though, the name stuck. So, technically, I was born on the bridge between the seasons. I complain about the heat, sure, but two exes have gotten me seasonal depression lamps as holiday gifts, and if a body of water is near me I can’t help but get into it, and I prefer not to freeze while doing it. I wanted to call this reading SUMMERTIME SADNESS, but that wasn’t quite right. What I want it to function as is instead a well of clarity for what fall is going to bring us, and its plentiful gifts, even if the entry is rough.

Okay, let’s dive in.

CARD ONE: THE HIEROPHANT, UPRIGHT 

You have it all together. Things are going well. Your pens are lined up, and your post-it notes are at the ready. But how long, realistically, can this last? And how terribly will you flagellate when things don’t stay perfect? Look to older, wiser teachers. They don’t have to be what you expected. The messier the better. Watch what they do and copy it. Then, freestyle, and have fun while doing it.

CARD TWO: THE WORLD, REVERSED

How many times have you sabotaged yourself right before the finish line? Harsh, I know, but we all need to hear it. Instead of burning out from some kind of ill-conceived notion of what something should look like, take time to rest and to shore up your reserves. Give not into inertia, however, no matter how appealing it might look. Balance is not easy, and neither is practice. Luckily, with the clock silenced, something else emerges.

CARD THREE: THE CHARIOT

Willpower will get you everywhere you want to go. Discipline is a gift we give ourselves. Happy Fall, y’all.

Submit a question for Cowboy Clairvoyant!

Cowboy Clairvoyant’s Post-Script

Listening: The Disintegration Loops by William Basinki, read about my obsession with them in Dream Interpretation for Dummies (my other newsletter). Let God Sort Em Out. Slowed and reverb songs on Youtube.

Watching: As above, so below — The Ultimatum: Queer Love. In an effort to strengthen my limited Spanish skills and honor Kanopy’s monsters and aliens week, The Untamed. Max Miller’s tasting history (when I’m [REDACTED]).

Reading: Women in translation! But also, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (I’m in a cluster with two of my dearest friends, Helen and Dana)! Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin. The Mobius Book by Catherine Lacey. Ann’s newsletter, always. Like three essays in the Yale Review.

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+!
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Autumn Fourkiller

Autumn Fourkiller is a writer and mystic from the “Early Death Capital of the World.” She is currently at work on a novel about Indigeneity, the Olympics, and climate change. A 2022 Ann Friedman Weekly Fellow, her work can be found in Atlas Obscura, Majuscule, Longreads, and elsewhere. You can follow her newsletter, Dream Interpretation for Dummies, on Substack.

Autumn has written 22 articles for us.

Vote Now in the 8th Annual Autostraddle TV Awards!

On September 14, the actual 2025 Emmys will take place. But every year we do our very own little Emmys, the Autostraddle TV Awards. They were created as a response to and a step beyond those official awards, a way to celebrate the many queer stories so often overlooked during award season.

The field has been narrowing the past few years, and that continues now — fewer gay shows are getting made, and the initial burst of authentic queer content of the 2010s has vanished. But that makes it more important than ever to celebrate the television still making its way to your screens and hearts, the creators fighting against monumental financial odds to still deliver queer stories.

Trust us: Once you have to vote in some of these categories, you’ll realize there’s still a lot to choose between.

How it Works: For the past few weeks, the queer critics who make up our TV Team have collaborated on a lengthy process to determine the year’s nominees in each of our Autostraddle TV Awards categories. We have 21 whole categories, and while there’s some Emmys overlap, we’ve also created a lot of our own categories that are too often overlooked by mainstream awards systems, like genre television.

Now, it’s your turn to help us pick the winners. Individual Autostraddle readers can vote once in each category. Your votes will be combined with the TV Team’s final votes to choose the winners.

There are also three fan-favorite categories that YOU get to decide completely yourselves! Those categories are Fan Favorite Couples, Fan Favorite Character, and Fan Favorite Out Queer Actor.

We follow the same rules as the Emmys as far as timeline, which means the shows must have aired between June 1, 2024 and May 31, 2025 in order to be eligible. (This means Murderbot and Nine Perfect Strangers Season Two are not eligible!) While the show’s full season does not need to have aired during that range, most of its episodes must have aired.

Here is your official ballot!

Voting is now open and will close on August 25th at noon EST. The winners will be announced on September 11.

AND THE NOMINEES FOR THE 8TH ANNUAL AUTOSTRADDLE TV AWARDS ARE…

Outstanding Comedy Series

Hacks (HBO Max)
No Good Deed (Netflix)
XO Kitty (Netflix)
Overcompensating (Prime Video)
Abbott Elementary (ABC)
Poker Face (Peacock)
Somebody Somewhere (HBO Max)

Outstanding Drama Series

Fifteen-Love (AMC+) Yellowjackets (Showtime) Criminal Minds: Evolution (Paramount+) Heartstopper (Netflix) The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) Matlock (CBS)

Fifteen-Love (AMC+)
Yellowjackets (Showtime)
Criminal Minds: Evolution (Paramount+)
Heartstopper (Netflix)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
Matlock (CBS)

Outstanding Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Series

Orphan Black: Echoes (AMC+) Severance (Apple TV) The Last of Us (HBO Max) Agatha All Along (Disney+) Sunny (Apple TV) What We Do in the Shadows (FX) Wheel of Time (Prime Video)

Orphan Black: Echoes (AMC+)
Severance (Apple TV)
The Last of Us (HBO Max)
Agatha All Along (Disney+)
Sunny (Apple TV)
What We Do in the Shadows (FX)
Wheel of Time (Prime Video)

Outstanding Animated Series

Outstanding Animated Series

Harley Quinn, season 5 (Max)
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy (Prime Video)
The Legend of Vox Machina (Prime Video)
Arcane (Netflix)
#1 Happy Family USA (Prime Video)
Big Mouth (Netflix)

Outstanding Lead Actor Playing an LGBTQ+ Character in a Drama Series

Jasmine Savoy-Brown as Taissa Turner, Yellowjackets Tawny Cypress as Taissa Turner, Yellowjackets Sophie Nélisse as Shauna, Yellowjackets Melanie Lynskey as Shauna, Yellowjackets Ella Lily Hyland as Justine Pierce, Fifteen Love Yasmin Finney as Elle Argent, Heartstopper

Jasmine Savoy-Brown as Taissa Turner, Yellowjackets
Tawny Cypress as Taissa Turner, Yellowjackets
Sophie Nélisse as Shauna, Yellowjackets
Melanie Lynskey as Shauna, Yellowjackets
Ella Lily Hyland as Justine Pierce, Fifteen Love
Yasmin Finney as Elle Argent, Heartstopper

Outstanding Supporting or Guest Actor Playing an LGBTQ+ Character in a Drama Series

Liv Hewson as Van Pamer, Yellowjackets Lauren Ambrose as Van, Yellowjackets Midori Franis as Mika Yasuda, Grey’s Anatomy Samira Wiley as Moira, The Handmaid’s Tale Sarah Greene as Bibi Garvey, Bad Sisters Laysla De Oliveira as Cruz Manuelos, Special Ops: Lioness

Liv Hewson as Van Pamer, Yellowjackets
Lauren Ambrose as Van, Yellowjackets
Midori Franis as Mika Yasuda, Grey’s Anatomy
Samira Wiley as Moira, The Handmaid’s Tale
Sarah Greene as Bibi Garvey, Bad Sisters
Laysla De Oliveira as Cruz Manuelos, Special Ops: Lioness

Outstanding Lead Actor Playing an LGBTQ+ Character in a Comedy Series

Hannah Einbinder as Ava, Hacks Amit Kaur as Bela Malhotra, Sex Lives of College Girls Victoria Bazua as Kate, Land of Women Linda Cardellini as Margo Starling, No Good Deed Anna Catchcart as Kitty Song Covey, XO Kitty Jerrie Johnson as Tye, Harlem

Hannah Einbinder as Ava, Hacks
Amit Kaur as Bela Malhotra, Sex Lives of College Girls
Victoria Bazua as Kate, Land of Women
Linda Cardellini as Margo Starling, No Good Deed
Anna Catchcart as Kitty Song Covey, XO Kitty
Jerrie Johnson as Tye, Harlem

Outstanding Supporting or Guest Actor Playing an LGBTQ+ Character in a Comedy Series

Robbie Hoffman as Randi, Hacks
Regan Aliyah as Juliana, XO Kitty
Abbi Jacobson as Leslie Fisher, No Good Deed
Poppy Liu as Sarah Webber, No Good Deed
Kate Moennig as Gwen, No Good Deed
Ruby Cruz as Ash, Sex Lives of College Girls

Outstanding Lead Actor Playing an LGBTQ+ Character in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Series

Kathryn Hahn as Agatha, Agatha All Along
Bella Ramsey as Ellie, The Last of Us
Rashida Jones as Suzie, Sunny
Krysten Ritter as Lucy / Young Dr. Eleanor Miller, Orphan Black: Echoes
Natasia Demetriou as Nadja, What We Do In the Shadows

Outstanding Supporting or Guest Actor Playing an LGBTQ+ Character in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Series

Isabel Merced as Dina, The Last of Us
Aubrey Plaza as Rio/Death, Agatha All Along
Annie the Clumsy as Mixxy, Sunny
Babirye Bukilwa as Sammie, Domino Day
Sophie Okonedo as Siuan Sanche, Wheel of Time
Jen Tullock as Devon Scout-Hale, Severance

Santana Lopez Legacy Award For Outstanding Queer Teen Character

Kate, Land of Women
Kitty Song Covey, XO Kitty
Taissa, Yellowjackets
Van, Yellowjackets
Shauna, Yellowjackets
Elle Argent, Heartstopper

Most Groundbreaking Representation (Show)

most groundbreaking representation

Somebody Somewhere (HBO Max)
Agatha All Along (Disney+)
Land of Women (Apple TV)
XO Kitty (Netflix)
Orphan Black: Echoes (AMC)
The Sex Lives of College Girls (HBO Max)

Outstanding Performance by an Out LGBTQ+ Actor in a Comedy

Hannah Einbinder in Hacks Cynthia Erivo in Poker Face Mary Beth Barone in Overcompensating Amrit Kaur in Sex Lives of College Girls Renée Rapp in Sex Lives of College Girls Megan Stalter in Hacks

Hannah Einbinder in Hacks
Cynthia Erivo in Poker Face
Mary Beth Barone in Overcompensating
Amrit Kaur in Sex Lives of College Girls
Renée Rapp in Sex Lives of College Girls
Megan Stalter in Hacks

Outstanding Performance by an Out LGBTQ+ Actor in a Drama

Jasmin Savoy Brown in Yellowjackets
Liv Hewson in Yellowjackets
Ayo Edebiri in The Bear
Supriya Ganesh in The Pitt
Cherry Jones in The Handmaids Tale
Adelaide Kane in Grey’s Anatomy
Midori Francis in Grey’s Anatomy
Krys Marshall in Paradise

Outstanding LGBTQ+ Actor in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show

8th annual autostraddle tv awards

Aubrey Plaza in Agatha All Along
Sasheer Zamata in Agatha All Along
Bella Ramsey in Last of Us
Isabella Merced in Last of Us
Jen Tullock in Severance
Amandla Stenberg in The Acolyte

Outstanding LGBTQ+ Director / Writer / Showrunner

Brittani Nichols, Abbott Elementary (writer / producer)
Leslye Headland, Star Wars: The Acolyte (showrunner)
Emily St. James, Yellowjackets (writer)
Desiree Akhavan, Overcompensating (director)
Clea Duvall, Poker Face (director)
Nahnatchka Kahn, Laid (showrunner)

Outstanding Performance by a Straight Actress in a Straight Role

Bridget Everett as Sam, Somebody Somewhere Catherine O’Hara as Patty Leigh, The Studio Natasha Rothwell as Melissa, How to Die Alone Jean Smart as Deborah, Hacks Sheryl Lee Ralph as Barbara Howard, Abbott Elementary Jessica Williams as Gaby, Shrinking

Bridget Everett as Sam, Somebody Somewhere
Catherine O’Hara as Patty Leigh, The Studio
Natasha Rothwell as Melissa, How to Die Alone
Jean Smart as Deborah, Hacks
Sheryl Lee Ralph as Barbara Howard, Abbott Elementary
Jessica Williams as Gaby, Shrinking

Outstanding Cis Male Character

Benito Skinner as Benny (Benito Skinner), Overcompensating Noah Wyle as Dr. Rob (Noah Wyle), The Pitt Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal), The Last of Us Sterling K Brown as Xavier Collins, Paradise Lionel Boyce as Marcus Brooks in The Bear Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richie in The Bear

Benito Skinner as Benny (Benito Skinner), Overcompensating
Noah Wyle as Dr. Rob (Noah Wyle), The Pitt
Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal), The Last of Us
Sterling K Brown as Xavier Collins, Paradise
Lionel Boyce as Marcus Brooks in The Bear
Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richie in The Bear

Outstanding Hairstyling for an LGBTQ+ Character

Marley, Survival of the Thickest (Monique Gaffney)
Amrit Kaur as Bela, Sex Lives of College Girls
Agatha, Agatha All Along (Cindy Welles)
Mixxy, Sunny
Dina, The Last of Us
Taissa Turner, Yellowjackets

Outstanding Costume Design for a Show With LGBTQ+ Characters

outstanding hairstyling for an LGBTQ+ character

Keia Bounds, Survival of the Thickest
Daniel Selon, Agatha All Along
Kathleen Felix-Hager, Hacks
Leah Katznelson, Poker Face
Sharon Gilham, The Wheel of Time
Marie Schley, Yellowjackets

To vote in the above categories as well as the THREE SPECIAL FAN FAVORITE CATEGORIES*, go forth!

VOTE IN THE AUTOSTRADDLE TV AWARDS!!!

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Quiz: Who From ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’ Season 2 Cast Are You?

Was it really only last month that The Ultimatum: Queer Love season two concluded? Why does it feel like three lifetimes ago? Alas, I’m sure you’ve been desperate to find out which cast member from this season you are the most like. No? You don’t want to be compared to ANY of them? Well too bad sweetie, because buckle in and strap up. It’s time for a personality quiz that’ll expose your personality flaws the same way reality television does!

Who From 'The Ultimatum: Queer Love' Season 2 Cast Are You?

Which of the following would make you the most happy?(Required)
Which of the following would make you the most upset?(Required)
What would you do if a partner gave you an ultimatum?(Required)
How would your bestie describe you if they were being honest/giving tough love?(Required)
What would you do if someone you’re close with betrayed you?(Required)
Which gay celeb/athlete would you most want to have a trial marriage with?(Required)
What’s for dinner?(Required)
What motivates you?(Required)
Pick a non-Ultimatum reality dating show:(Required)
What is a quality you look for in a partner?(Required)
What scares you the most?(Required)
If you were on the Ultimatum, whose opinion about your trial partner would matter the most?(Required)
Which part of being on the Queer Ultimatum sounds the most fun?(Required)

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 1074 articles for us.

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10 Unexpected Queer Girl Moments in Scary Movies

Queerness and horror have a long, fraught relationship. Take The Silence of The Lambs, the Sleepaway Camp series, It: Chapter II — I could go on and on. While mainstream horror sapphic representation is flimsy or outright awful, horror movies made by queer women and/or with explicitly queer female characters are thankfully on the rise.

We all know the classics like Jennifer’s Body, Black Swan or The Hunger, but what about movies with subtle or maybe lesser known queer girl moments? These scenes are not necessarily all good or all bad, but they sprinkle a little LGBT crouton packet onto a scary movie salad. Some of them are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter eggs, some are casual one-liners, and some are full-on sapphic puzzles.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

In the latest reboot, Chase Sui Wonders’ character Ava is bisexual, although they don’t use the word. In the beginning of the film, we see her pining for her ex, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King). Later, she meets true crime podcaster Tyler (played by Gabbriette of Charli XCX fame) and they fuck in an airplane bathroom. Hot. Then, Milo picks them up from the airport and the car ride is understandably awkward. Not because of Ava’s bisexuality, but because Milo’s her ex and she just hooked up with Tyler. (Gabbriette is very funny here.) I went into the movie not expecting any queerness and was pleasantly surprised to see that moment — and with Gabbriette, no less. (What can I say? I love a woman with pencil-thin eyebrows.)

Cuckoo (2024)

the kiss in cuckoo

One of my favorite performances of the last year was by Hunter Schafer in the movie Cuckoo. I can’t even explain to you what the film was about, and that’s fine because it’s better if you go in not knowing. While working at a resort in the Alps, Gretchen is approached by a gorgeous mysterious French woman named Ed (played by Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey). Ed asks if Gretchen likes music (an incredible opening line) and Gretchen is immediately in love. The two kiss and plan to run away together but are thwarted. Probably by a monster who hates music.

Hostel: Part II (2007)

Hostel 2

In Rome, Beth meets Axelle (Vera Jordanova) after sketching her nude in art class. She and her friends too quickly agree to travel to Slovakia with Axelle. (But I mean, who among us hasn’t done something impulsive for love?) There are a lot of queer undertones to Beth (Lauren German), but one moment stands out. In the pool, Beth swims up to Axelle, massages her shoulders, and kisses her on the neck. It’s really intimate for two presumably straight ladies who have just met. And spoiler: Hostel: Part II gives us Beth as the rare lesbian-coded final girl.

Aliens (1986)

This is one of my absolute favorite LGBTQ Easter eggs. In the file for the deceased Lambert, which is seen briefly in the sequel to Alien, it indicates that Lambert (played by Veronica Cartwright) is a trans woman. Her bio reads: “Subject is Despin Convert at birth (male to female). So far no indication of suppressed trauma related to gender alteration.” (Fans theorize that “Despin” must be the name of the surgery she underwent.) Lambert being trans is in small text and requires pausing to read the screen in order to catch it. Still, it’s a pretty cool little trans nod for 1986.

Get Out (2017)

photo from Get Out

It’s one of the most terrifying scenes in Jordan Peele’s masterpiece that is already filled to the brim with terrifying scenes. In it, Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris finds a box of photos of his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) romantically posed with each member of the staff at her parents’ home. He realizes she’s brought all of them into the clutches of her family to be brainwashed and kidnapped. In one photo, we see Georgina, the housekeeper, being hugged by Rose from behind. Rose used queerness to lure Georgina (played by Betty Gabriel) to her horrible fate. It is not a good inclusion — Rose is probably not actually bisexual, and Georgina’s been tragically taken advantage of by a racist. That one photo is among a sea of male victims, but it’s part of the smoking gun Chris was looking for.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

This one takes some dot connecting. In 1981, Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate paranormal mysteries: including the citing of a familiar totem at the scene of the murder of a woman named Katie. She was stabbed by her “friend” Jessica who she ran away from home with. In one of Lorraine’s visions, she sees Jessica was possessed by a demon when she killed Katie. The witch’s curse everyone is under predicts three possessions: the child, the lover, and the Man of God. By process of elimination, it’s pretty clear Jessica is the lover. This is also confirmed in the Conjuring comics apparently, but I haven’t read them. It’s not openly said in the film, but putting the pieces of the witch’s puzzle together makes Katie and Jessica’s coupledom undeniable.

Nope (2022)

Keke Palmer’s character Emerald Haywood in Jordan Peele’s Nope is definitely queer-coded. At one point she references a “girlfriend,” but that could mean someone who is just a friend. (Yeah, right.) The more explicit little moment comes when she and her brother visit Fry’s Electronics. In the middle of explaining her plan, she pauses to tell a woman, “How you doin’? You look pretty.” It’s implied she’s asking because the woman seems wealthy, but combining those two lines solidifies Emerald’s lesbianism for me.

Cult of Chucky (2017)

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers!! You’ve been warned. The big twist at the end of this film is that Chucky is now possessing the body of his long-time victim Nica. He’s using her to escape the asylum. When he’s picked up by his lover Tiffany (Bound’s own Jennifer Tilly), we’re not sure if Nica is herself or not, but once she starts speaking, we can guess. The two passionately kiss in the snow. Yes, Nica is Chucky. Yes, it’s twisted. But I like it for this line delivery that happens after the kiss. Nica/Chucky remarks on how different it is to kiss in these bodies. Tiffany replies sultrily, “I don’t know. Works for me.”

Miller’s Girl (2024)

Miller's Girl kiss

This movie, more an erotic thriller than horror, stars Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman as a student and teacher embroiled in a tense, sexual rollercoaster of fuckery. It is not good. However, Gideon Adlon’s performance as high school bestie Winnie is so endearing, gay and relatable. She is clearly in love with Ortega’s Cairo and, when the other girl suggests they make out to entice another teacher, Winnie’s wide eyes say it all. “For him, not for you,” Cairo clarifies. Winnie shyly responds, “Well, it can be a little for me.” They continue kissing even after the photo is taken, but Cairo is clearly manipulating her. Even so, I loved Adlon’s performance in this scene.

The Birds (1963)

Annie and Melanie in The Birds

Though not explicit in the film partially due to the era of its release, the female characters — Melanie and Annie — in The Birds have undeniable chemistry. In later interviews, Jessica Tandy who plays the mother of love interest Mitch in the film said Suzanne Pleshette (Annie) actually asked director Alfred Hitchcock if her character was a lesbian. Hitch allegedly asked her what she thought. It was either that or her character was jealous of Melanie (Tippi Hedren). Suzanne said she’d rather her character be a lesbian than simply “frustrated” by rejection from Mitch. Her take on the character gives us longing, sensual looks between the two, especially one as she leans in a doorway. Smoldering. Too bad their town is being attacked by killer birds. (And not in the fun “slang for women” way.)

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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.

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3 Comments

  1. I never spotted that bit in Aliens! What a great little touch. Also this has made me want to watch several movies despite reservations (Hostel had me wincing for days) because october can start now if it’s for horror

  3. In regards to Get Out, back in the year it was released, I read an essay by a Black woman who made the interesting argument that the reason there’s only one woman in the photos is because Black women are warier, savvier about white women bullshit and consequently much less likely to be fooled by Rose than Black men. So Rose may well be bisexual, she just fails to reel in Black women the way she can Black men, and clearly volume is something of a priority in this evil scheme, so she can’t spend a lot of time targeting any one possible victim. If she can’t get her claws in quickly she moves on.

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15 Great Queer Novels About Sisters

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to stories about sisters. For much of my youth, this meant the Olsen twins and the television series Charmed had me in a chokehold. I think about the connection between close sisters a lot, how there’s a magic to it. My sister and I used to have the same dreams. We live many states apart, but sometimes we unknowingly cook the exact same thing for dinner.

My sister and I are close, but I’m also drawn to stories of sinister sisters, sisters at odds or in competition with each other. It’s all kinds of sister narratives I’m interested in — the loving, the tender, the dysfunction, the estranged — and I recently realized many of my favorite queer novels of the past couple years (All-Night Pharmacy, We Were the Universe, and Smothermoss, all featured below) are connected by the throughline of complicated sisters. So I thought I’d put together a little curated list for anyone else interested in reading queer novels that prominently feature sisters and stories of sisterhood. Anything I missed? Definitely shout it out, because I want to read it!

This list was originally published in January 2025 and has been updated in August 2025.

Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

Cassandra at the Wedding by Doroth Baker

Originally published in 1962, here we have an early entry into the queer novels about sisters canon. (This was recommended by a commenter when this list was originally published, so I decided to add it with the update!) The novella has a delightful but also often sad (hey, it’s literary fiction after all) rom-com premise: Gay graduate student Cassandra Edwards returns to her family ranch determined to sabotage her twin sister Judith’s wedding.

Ghost Fish by Stuart Pennebaker

Ghost Fish by Stuart Pennebaker

The most recent release on this list, Ghost Fish is about a woman named Alison grieving the tragic death by drowning of her young sister. Adrift, she uproots her life from Key West to NYC and eventually becomes convinced her sister has returned to her in the form of the titular ghost fish. Like a couple other entries on this list (We Were the Universe and Helen House), this novel deals specifically with the death of a sister.

Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke

Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke

Protagonis Akúa returns to her hometown of Kingston, Jamaica following the death of her brother and attempts to reconnect with her estranged older sister Tamika. Akúa struggles to reconcile her queerness and the strict, religious upbringing of her youth as she and Tamika take a winding trip down memory lane.

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar

Hey! It’s right there in the title! When We Were Sisters spins the story of three orphaned Muslim American siblings — Kausar, Aisha, and Noreen — in the aftermath of their parents’ deaths. Youngest sisters and eldest sisters will feel well represented by this novel of family, grief, trauma, and survival. Sisterhood is complex and varied and its dynamics can shift, and this is a novel that understands all that very well.

All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky

All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky

I will jump at ANY excuse to write about this novel, which I adore. At its heart is a toxic dynamic between the protagonist and her older sister Debbie, a character who can never really be fully known. I’ve pitched this novel to many friends as one with mommy issues and sister issues. It’s a drug and booze-filled descent into grimy LA haunts, but it’s a fever dream you won’t want to wake up from. The complicated queer relationship the narrator ends up entangled in is a wild ride, but I’m especially endeared to the wild sister dynamics here.

We Were the Universe by Kimberly King Parsons

We Were the Universe by Kimberly King Parsons

I adored this novel, one of my favorites from 2024. It’s very much about sisters, but specifically sisterloss, the sudden absence of a sister. Narrator Kit grapples with the death of her sister Julie and how her life has seismically changed since leaving the small Texas town where she grew up and becoming a mother. It’s a hilarious and delightfully horny book, despite being about such heavy topics as addiction, grief, and death. Parsons balances it all impeccably. And the novel also portrays the almost magical, supernatural bond that can exist between sisters — which I’ve experienced with my own sister — unlike any other I’ve ever read.

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

Weaver of some of my favorite sentences of all time Julia Armfield is back, following up the melancholic and haunting Our Wives Under the Sea with Private Rites, which offers a speculative reimagining of King Lear and follows three sisters amid fractured family and climate horror. Like her first novel, it’s atmospheric and unsettling while remaining sharp in its exploration of interpersonal conflict.

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

This was easily my favorite novel of 2024. Set in the 1980s, it’s about two sisters growing up poor in an Appalachian mountain town whose methods of survival diverge greatly. Their lives and home are quaked by a disturbing act of gendered violence: the murder of two young women hiking the Appalachian trail. It’s a modern day and wholly original fairy tale that’s immersive, strange, and striking. Just trust me on this one and dive right into its pages, because once you start you won’t want to stop.

Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn

Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn

Set in 1994 Jamaica, Nicole Dennis-Benn’s debut novel is about sisters Thandi and Margot and their mother Delores. The novel tackles sex work, class stratification, tourism, and racism and colorism, Dennis-Benn’s dazzling prose bringing every page to life. Margot is also in a clandestine queer relationship with a woman, and the novel explores queerness in nuanced and complex ways that go way beyond mainstream narratives of coming out. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous novel with a pair of sisters who are hard to forget.

Stone Fruit by Lee Lai

Stone Fruit by Lee Lai

Stone Fruit looks at chosen and given family with equal depth and care, centering gay aunties Ray and Bron who have wild playdates with Ray’s young niece Nessie. But the graphic novel also explores the relationships between Ray and Bron and their respective sisters, who they each have complicated dynamics and loads of baggage with. It’s very much a book about the ties between siblings and how to repair those ties when they fray.

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

magic for liars by Sarah Gailey

I thought it would be fun to have some fantasy on the list, and Sarah Gailey’s Magic for Liars immediately came to mind. It features a magical school, minus the transphobic overlord. And it focuses on a pair of sisters — one who has the gift of magic and one who does not — who are estranged from one another but are thrust together to solve a murderous mystery at the magical academy where one of them works. It’s like a hardboiled mystery with touches of the supernatural, but what makes the novel truly compelling is the familial drama at its core.

A Reason To See You Again by Jami Attenberg

A Reason To See You Again by Jami Attenberg

This novel is unique on this list in the sense that it isn’t either one of the sisters who is queer, but the Cohen sisters’ story is bolstered by queer side characters. Like many titles on this list, this is a matriarchal novel about multiple generations of women. Starting in the 1970s, it spans four decades and, amid its family drama, chronicles the creation of the mobile telephone. It’s about the ways we connect and don’t connect with one another, and it’s sharp, propulsive, and often humorous in its exploration of specific dynamics between female family members (mother/daughter, sister/sister, aunt/niece, etc).

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Matrix by Lauren Groff

So, I’m being a little cheeky here as this is a novel about sisters in the ecclesiastical sense. Yes, I’m talking about nuns. If you somehow haven’t heard of this much accoladed book, it is THE lesbian nun novel. This original and intricately layered work of historical fiction is steeped in themes of sisterhood.

Spitting Gold, by Carmella Lowkis

Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis

If the historical fiction element of Matrix piques your interest, then perhaps you will enjoy this tale set in 1866 Paris about two estranged sisters who must come together for One Last Con. No one schemes sinisterly better than sisters!

Helen House by Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Helen House by Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Yes, I am putting my own novel, which is actually a novelette — shorter than a novella! — on this list, because I am shameless. I do very much consider my book to be a sister book, even though the sisters in it are absent. It’s about two women in a relationship who both have lost sisters in very different circumstances but whose individual griefs nonetheless become entangled. It’s a sister ghost story, another story of sisterloss. The intimacy of sisterhood haunts the characters in different ways, leading to some nightmarish situations and psychosexual thrills. If you check it out, I hope you like it!!!! It’s short enough to be read in one sitting — perhaps even in the bath!

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 1074 articles for us.

8 Comments

  1. Thanks for this list, Kayla! My sister is my best friend, but I’m also super drawn to stories of toxic sister relationships. The only ones I’ve read on this list are Magic for Liars and your book (which I loved, and also loaned to multiple friends who aren’t big readers but were drawn in by the length and the images!). I’m really excited to have so many new recommendations to check out.

    My favorite queer sister novel is Cassandra at the Wedding! It’s from the 60s, so the queerness is discussed obliquely (but definitely present). It’s about twins–the straight one is getting married and Cassandra (the gay one) can’t handle it. I’ve read it a couple times and it’s an all-timer for me!

  2. The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar!

    This came out this year but it had the feel of an old fashioned fantasy. It’s about two sisters, 18 and 20, who live on the border of faire and sing to the magic willow trees on their family’s land. (As one does). They’re very close – one is queer and one isn’t. One loves riddle songs and the other murder ballads, and both come into play after something terrible happens.

    Highly recommend the audiobook for the singing!

  3. I would love to know if any of these novels include trans women in these stories of sisterhood? I’m searching for recommendations. That search is sometimes mystified by a lack of specificity.

    • Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom is INCREDIBLE, it’s a kind of surrealist semi-memoir, semi-poetry novel about a trans girl who runs away from home leaving her little sister behind. The novel is partly made up of letters home to her sister.

      Also Woodworking by Emily St. James is amazing and has a 17 y/o trans girl living with her sister as one of the two main characters.

  4. I mean, in a society that doesn’t want to celebrate homosexual love, the memetic pinnacle of relationships between two men or two women is going to be the pair of brothers or sisters who really love each other a lot. This is to the point that particularly strong same-gender friendships are treated as a sort of honorary siblinghood. The closest a woman can get to another woman in the straight world is to become her sister, and that’s going to form some confusing archetypes in the mind of the larval gay, especially the larval gay who doesn’t have close same-gender siblings in a more literal sense.

    And (while not defending any kind of actual coercive relationship happening in actual real life!) some people grow up in situations where being openly queer means having to accept that people will be disgusted by you. There’s a certain frustration in being expected to treat all other men or women as brothers or sisters categorically, you know?

    • Yeah, I’ve got to say I’m pretty disappointed that not a single book here seems to address toxic sisterhood in a more taboo sense. Maybe that’s not a thing the writer likes, which I guess is fair since it’s their list, but the weirdly chaste approach to messed up sister dynamics leaves me with a feeling of “what are we even doing here?” If we’re focused on the sister relationship, and that’s not romantic in the slightest, why do the novels need to be queer at all?

      (It’s also strange to me that none of these books appear to have more than one of the sisters be queer, and for that matter no one has more than two siblings. Not necessarily meaningful, but puzzling once you notice it.)

  5. Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs is exactly this description, I was honestly surprised it wasn’t on your list! A very fun romp about magic books, with an explicitly queer woman protagonist (one of the titular sisters) in the first ten pages. Loved that book.

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Must I Invite My Homophobic Stepdad To My Homosexual Wedding?

My Mom Insists He Wants To Come and Support Me

Q

When I came out to my family, my (now) stepfather was absolutely AWFUL about it, and afterwards we basically settled into not really having a relationship even though I’m close with my mom. I am 75% sure he voted for Trump. They live on the opposite side of the country so I don’t have to see him that much, my Mom comes out to visit me & my gf without him. When I’m back home for the holidays, there’s lots of family around and me and my gf stay with my Dad & stepmom so it’s easy not to spend much one-on-one time with him. (Officially the reason for this is that my mom & stepdad have cats and my gf is allergic, and bc my dad’s house has more space, but the other reason is that i don’t want to be around my stepdad.) Now me and my gf are getting married next year, and I don’t want him to come. My Mom is really upset about this and said he wants to come and support me, that he feels awful for how he reacted at the time, he was ignorant, and wants to make amends. I said that’s fine but i barely know this man and don’t want him there. She said it will be really hard for her to be there alone when my dad is there with my stepmom. my dad left my mom for my stepmom, so i get why she feels that way. My dad & stepmom have always been really supportive of me though, so I do want them there even though he did that to my mom. I just don’t want my stepdad there, it’s my wedding. What should i do?

A:

Summer: The final call is yours. It’s your wedding (and your girlfriend’s). I was ready for a less sympathetic setup but when I got to your mother’s expression that he wants to be present… Well that complicates things.

My first question is honestly why your stepfather hasn’t tried to bring this up himself. I know you and your girlfriend go through great lengths to avoid him, but are there barriers keeping him from expressing his regret and feelings directly? I’m not saying you shouldn’t trust your mother’s word about his regret, but this should be the kind of thing handled by him. Directly. To you. Strictly speaking, this is between you and him, so having a line with him would give you an idea of how to proceed, even if the interaction is unpleasant.

It’s clear that whatever you went through is deeply horrible and you can absolutely decline to invite him. But if you want to consider your options, how… out-of-bounds is it for you to try and locate more facts about the situation from your stepdad directly, rather than via an intermediary?

Valerie: Hot take from someone who has never been married but is advice I’ve given to everyone I’ve ever known planning a wedding: your guest list is up to you and the person you’re marrying, end of story. If you don’t feel like your stepdad has made any meaningful attempt to make amends, why would you want to invite him? Surely there will be other family and friends your mother knows at the wedding, so it’s not like you’ll be stranding her in a sea of strangers. Your wedding isn’t about her, and she’ll have to see your dad and stepmom regardless of who she’s there with. Probably what she really doesn’t want is to explain to everyone that her husband isn’t there because he’s homophobic. But that’s not your problem. Also seems convenient that he seems to want to make amends and you’re only hearing about it now that there’s a wedding invite on the line. Actions have consequences. He was homophobic, he doesn’t get to come to the gay wedding. She chose to stay with someone who was an asshole about her child coming out, and clearly never encouraged him to plead for forgiveness or build back up his relationship with you, so she has to go to your wedding alone. I seemed to have misplaced my teeny tiny violin.

Riese: I agree with Summer that if this man does want to apologize to you and is experiencing regret, for how he treated you before that is actually your first order of business here — he’s gotta say that to you! I don’t think you can make any decisions about this until he’s done so. This man being present at your wedding proper won’t make or break your experience, but I think it’s more like, the rest of it? I imagine he’ll be in town with your Mom, maybe there’s a rehearsal dinner, in your family photos, other family-only things happening? Idk I feel like when it’s been a family member getting married there are EVENTS besides just the wedding itself. If this man wants to be part of that inner circle, he owes you a conversation about that alleged regret, first. Also I think it’s fair, if he does end up coming, that you are picky about which wedding-adjacent events you want him at.

Nico: Apologies not made directly to you are not apologies — they’re just performances for other people. Now, what would you do if he actually apologized directly to you? Is that something you want or something that would change things? I think these are important questions to consider. You don’t have to accept an apology as a game-changer. Your feelings and the ways your stepdad (and mom) hurt them are real and valid. You aren’t responsible for how your parents conducted their personal romantic business with each other, or the hurts that they should be managing between them. That’s not on you. You aren’t the one who cheated on your mom, and it’s immature to expect you to make up for that considering the circumstances.

This isn’t someone who makes you feel a little awkward. This is someone who you suspect (assuming reasonably so) voted for someone who represents violence and persecution for you, your girlfriend, and countless other people in the US and beyond. This is someone who was outright cruel to you and has never apologized, and if we’re talking about people who should be compromising for others — if he really cared about your mother, he would have compromised and swallowed his shit a good, long time ago. To me, it sounds like your mom should get a hot new boyfriend and bring him to the wedding, or maybe you could seat your mom with some actually decent single guys her age — just saying.

How To Friend My Ex Without Sending Mixed Signals

Q

My Ex and I dated for five years, we’ve been broken up for nearly a year and we are both in new relationships. I am very happy with my girlfriend and I wish them happiness as well, the breakup was not mutual as we both knew the relationship was over but I technically ended things and they did not take it well. We went back and forth for months before deciding to do no contact. We haven’t spoken since December, but I want to reach out to them. They were a huge part of my life for so long and we had a respectful, kind relationship. I am wondering how to approach a potential friendship with them in a way that makes my partner secure and doesn’t send mixed signals to my ex.

A

Summer: Huh. My first thought is whether your current partner would be okay with you reaching out to a no-contact ex. I would check with the current partner first and get their opinions before proceeding. But if you get the green light… I’d just be direct. Pick an avenue that you both feel comfortable with (probably online?), send a polite, but not overly friendly message about where you’ve been mentally and why you’ve reached out. Then wait. I advise against being overly MLM-scheme friendly because you don’t know for certain where their feelings have taken them during this year apart. It pays to not presume a positive or negative outcome.

I think a year is long enough for you to try and make contact, especially since you both have new partners. In your position, I’d just approach it like reconnecting with anyone: friendly, to-the-point, and with no expectation of instant gratification.

Valerie: You’re not going to like my answer, but my advice would be…don’t reach out to them. If you are the one who instigated the breakup and they didn’t take it well, I think the ball is in their court to break the no-contact rule you both set up. It seems like the boundary was set up mostly to help them come to terms with the breakup, and even if they have a new partner, you can’t be sure they’re over it enough to talk to you again without re-opening those wounds or rekindling those feelings. If you have mutual friends, you could drop something like “I miss being friends with them but want to respect their boundaries” and if that gets back to them, they can choose to reach out. But unfortunately, I think you just have to wait them out, and be open and clear about your feelings and intentions if/when they do reach out again.

Mal: This is a tricky one, being that the ‘no-contact’ was mutual and probably really hard but so emotionally responsible on your end. It’s clear you really care about them and are super considerate in thinking this through. I’d gently advise not to reach out to them. :( However, I’d take an honest inventory of why you want to reach out to them, log what’s going on when you have the urge to and sort other ways to quell what you’re desiring from them specifically. When I read “…approach a potential friendship with them that makes my partner secure and doesn’t send mixed signals to my ex” it communicated to me that it’s seemingly too early to attempt friendship at the moment. When you say ‘potential friendship’ what would the day to day workings of that look like? Is it wrapped in the subtle nuanced language of familiarity of 5 years? The very subtle things that kept you connected? The ways that only you know how to show up for? I do think safe friendship is possible for sure. I just think it might take a little more time and I think you will know without a doubt exactly how to reach out and when the time is right. A thing that helped me when I was in a similar situation was having one non-judgemental neutral friend that I deeply trusted that I could write an email or text to pretending like it was my ex unloading all the things I needed to say every time the urge hit me. There was something that felt cathartic about getting it out of my body, obviously not quite the same but extremely helpful. It helped me sort what I was actually needing and protected my ex at the same time. My fear was not wanting to be disruptive to the healing process of everyone involved. Eventually the desire calmed down and out of nowhere she reached out to me. We rekindled our friendship and I got to genuinely know her based on the newness that was grown without the ‘us’ undertone.

Nico: I think it’s probably a no and very likely too soon, but one way to look into this a little bit further is to see if a mutual friend is willing to poke a little for you. If/when they tell you that your ex would rather not break contact, it’s best to just let it go. If on the off-chance they say that your ex is actually open to talking again, well, there you go!

As far as not sending mixed signals goes, in any situation where you don’t want to do that, simply don’t! Don’t flirt! Don’t do any touching except for hello and goodbye hugs, don’t put yourself in make-out-vibe situations. Keep it light and clean and platonic. As for helping your partner to feel secure, I feel like that all comes down to how you treat your partner. If your partner feels like you’re not present with her in what is a pretty darn new relationship, then it’ll be difficult to help her feel secure. Similarly, you’re just going to have to communicate with your girlfriend, and to expect for there to potentially be some discomfort you’ll have to make some choices around.

Kayla: I am leaning toward not reaching out because of the mutually agreed upon nature of the no contact, suggesting your ex indeed does not want contact. That said, I do not know the particulars of your communication arrangement (or why you deemed it necessary in the first place) or the general vibe of the relationship. I guess I’m left wondering: Why exactly do you want to reach out and what is it that you’re hoping to achieve? Do you have concrete answers to those questions? I would sit with them for a bit before reaching out, if that’s what you decide to do. Also going from no contact to friendship is something that could very well take a lot of time, so if you do take the plunge, just know that it likely won’t happen overnight!

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‘Weapons’ and the Demonization of Teachers

The following essay about Weapons (2025) contains some spoilers.

In the already much-buzzed-about horror film of the summer Weapons, written and directed by Zach Cregger, schoolteacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) enters her third grade classroom one morning to find all her students except for one have disappeared. Our real story begins not with their disappearance but with the aftermath several weeks later, as our child narrator informs us. In that aftermath, the town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania is shot-through with collective trauma and grief. How could 17 kids have gotten out of their beds at precisely 2:17 a.m. and run out of their homes, never to be seen again? Where did they go? Who made them do this? For surely, a bunch of third graders don’t just conspire to simultaneously run away. Something or someone made them do it, their parents are sure. And who do they suspect first? Why, their teacher Ms. Gandy of course.

Justine Gandy is an impulsive, paranoid, haunted alcoholic who likes to sleep with other women’s cop boyfriends and pour hard liquor into plastic gas station cups. She isn’t, as far as the text shows us, queer, but it sure is easy to map her experiences and position in the film onto what it’s like to be a queer or trans teacher today. As part of their multi-level attacks on public education, the religious right has demonized LGBTQ+ teachers. A teacher in Florida was fired for using the honorific Mx. to reflect their gender identity. When the Don’t Say Gay bill initially passed in Florida, it was designed to be confusing, making it unclear whether teachers could legally identify as gay. The religious right wants Christianity back in public schools and queerness and transness far from it. And the Trump Administration is pushing an “anti-indoctrination” agenda that would in turn implement racist, anti-trans, and ahistoric indoctrination in public schools. None of this is new; it’s just the latest escalation of attacks on queer teachers. Nearly 70 years ago, Florida pushed gay and lesbian teachers out of public schools. The sentiment then was the same as it is now: The right loves to chase after this boogeyman of immoral indoctrination in public schools. Of course the parents turn on Ms. Gandy when their kids go missing. It’s not textually because she’s queer, but she indeed does not fit their definition of an upstanding individual in society. She drinks, is unmarried, has a string of ill-advised relationships, lives alone in her sad little house. For all her faults, it’s always clear Justine cares about her students. She’s as devastated by their disappearance as their parents are, bereft of closure or answers.

At one point, the principal of her school — who himself is gay — tells her she couldn’t possibly understand the position of the parents. She isn’t a parent herself. Only their teacher. Here, we get an even more wholistic view of how society treats and views teachers. Because sure, we don’t know the politics of the parents in Weapons; they aren’t portrayed as overt right wingers. But all sides of the political spectrum devalue teachers and push parental choice, which is how we end up with bipartisan support for things like school voucher programs, which have devastating impact on public schools.

It’s these themes subtly threaded into Weapons that call to me most. The devaluation of teachers in general. The scapegoating of queer teachers. The demonization of public education when the real demons are so cartoonishly right there in front of everyone’s noses.

(I already warned you about spoilers, so I’ll do so again: SPOILER ALERT!)

The film’s real villain is a witch-like old woman named Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan) who can — with some blood, some hair, the snap of a twig, and the ding of a bell — transform people into zombie-like creatures who either rest in the dark, not quite dead but also barely alive, or become laser-focused assassins who will stop at nothing to kill whoever she wishes to target. Like mapping Gandy’s role in the film onto the real-life scapegoating of queer teachers, it’s easy to map Aunt Gladys’ desire for power, control, and the weaponization of youth onto how the right wants to subjugate the youth of today by depriving them of personal liberties like gender-affirming care and by taking any real learning about history and society out of public schools. Aunt Gladys turns these children into docile, obedient, homogenized beings who exist solely for her personal gain. They do not get to be kids at all.

While the real witch works her evil, it’s Justine Gandy whose car is vandalized with the word WITCH painted in blood red. She is far from a perfect horror hero, but that’s a much more interesting choice than if her edges had been softened. Because regardless of some of the choices she has made in her personal life, she is not a threat to these children. The cartoonish Aunt Gladys is, and she capitalizes on making Justine into a target, deploying her latest weapon. Again, it maps well onto the scapegoating and diversion that happens in real life. The religious right’s obsession with villainizing queer and trans schoolteachers obscures one of the most disturbing calls coming from inside the house: the rampant sexual abuse that happens in U.S. megachurches, which are also sites of explicit indoctrination that often ignores or outright denies science, history, and reality.

Horror films often slash the picturesque portrait of American suburban life, but Weapons is at its best when it takes this one step further and really looks directly at the ways communities can tear themselves apart when focused on the wrong things. If Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the missing children, had teamed up with Justine sooner, maybe they could have saved those kids before all the death and destruction of the film’s final act. If others had treated James (Austin Abrams), a homeless addict who lives in a tent in the town’s woods, like a real person instead of something disposable, then maybe he could have led them to the children, too. Aunt Gladys is the real villain, yes, but she’s able to operate in the shadows because of the systems already in place. Grief and fear are easy to weaponize, and Aunt Gladys uses that to her advantage. The most powerful villains in real life are getting away with it, too.

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 1074 articles for us.

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Netflix’s ‘Amy Bradley Is Missing’ Gives a Cold Case a New Queer Angle

Amy Bradley
Amy Bradley

“I think we stayed in that car for like, an hour, kissing. It felt like, finally. It was magical.” These are the words of Mollie McClure, a deeply important unheard voice of a ubiquitous true crime mystery that’s plagued the genre for nearly 30 years.

On March 24, 1998, Amy Bradley disappeared on a Royal Caribbean cruise she was taking with her brother Brad and their parents Ron and Iva. After a night of drinking and dancing, she and her brother returned to the room the family was sharing and sat on the balcony enjoying the sea air. Brad eventually went to sleep. By 6 a.m., Amy had disappeared. To this day, neither her clothes nor her body have ever been recovered.

Because I’ve dabbled in writing crime fiction, I’ve done my share of true crime deep dives, particularly into the stories of Jane and John Does and missing marginalized persons. Even before the most recent documentary about her case, Amy Bradley Is Missing, premiered on Netflix last month, I knew the basics behind Amy’s story. Or so I thought.

Amy Bradley Is Missing, directed by the duo behind the exploitative The Price of Glee, circles three categories fans of the genre can’t resist. The first is missing white woman syndrome. The second is the thrill of a “locked door” mystery. The third is xenophobic panic about the human trafficking of nice girls from the suburbs.

The most prominent photo of Amy distributed to the public is understandably from the night she went missing, though it isn’t what she went missing in. It shows her dressed up for a formal dinner, wearing a black and jeweled necklace, shiny earrings, and a black dress. It wasn’t until this new documentary that I — and even Internet experts on this case — saw more casual pictures and videos of her.

Amy Bradley in a backwards cap and sweatshirt
Amy Bradley in a black dress

I’m not sure how to explain the ‘90s lesbian je ne sais quoi but whatever it is, Amy has it. In these new photos, Amy is all baseball caps and shorn hair. She has a tattoo on her back of Taz from the Looney Tunes spinning a basketball. In videos of her doing the “trick shots” her friends say she was known for, she has undeniable swag. It turns out that in her everyday life, Amy Bradley was pretty butch.

Yet Amy’s sexuality was kept hush-hush for nearly three decades. (Even the subreddit dedicated to her case was rocked by the information.) Apparently, Amy had come out as a lesbian a few years before the cruise, and her Virginian family had not been thrilled about it.

Her mother explains in the documentary, “As her parents, we were concerned that in 1995, those feelings would not be welcomed by the general population.”

Iva isn’t wrong. Butch lesbians in the early 1990s are like gods to me. What must it have felt like to hear even the most liberal politicians slam gay marriage and vote for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Every single butch who was out in the 90s should be given the Purple Heart for their service.

Amy being a lesbian and the erasure of her sexuality matter to the case. No doubt there are people who know far more about Amy’s story than I ever will, but I want to speak to the queer reveal and why it wasn’t disclosed until 2025.

The film starts with Amy’s mother sobbing. She and Amy’s father have not moved on at all. They think about her 24/7. They’ve kept her car in the garage untouched, waiting for her return. They obviously loved their daughter. In an interview with one of Amy’s best friends Sarah Luck, she claims that Amy’s parents’ disapproval of her sexuality definitely bothered her. Their whole college social circle drank a lot, but it seemed to Sarah like Amy was trying to numb the pain of her parents’ rejection.

Kat Lovelace, the first of Amy’s ex-girlfriends interviewed, says their relationship is why each of them came out to their families. Afterwards, Amy’s father wrote Kat a three-page letter blaming her for making his daughter gay.

In the doc, Ron refutes this. “It’s Amy’s life. It wasn’t what we would choose for her but it’s her life,” he says, “and we loved her unconditionally, and I remember putting that in the letter.”

Amy’s brother Brad, in follow-up interviews after the documentary’s premiere, clarified that their close knit family was actually fine with Amy’s sexuality. But, he says, Amy was never a lesbian. Sure, she’d come out to them as bisexual, but at the time of her disappearance, Brad claims Amy had a boyfriend. (Her friend Sarah says that Amy self-identified as “gay.”)

This all would have been useful to determine Amy’s state of mind. She had allegedly had seven light beers and was feeling unwell when her brother left her on the balcony at around 3:30 a.m. Some theorize that she was drinking so much because it was stressful to be trapped at sea with her parents or that she was sad about her recent breakup with the aforementioned Mollie.

Her parents deny that Amy’s disappearance was an accident brought on by drinking away her pain. They also insist she did not die by suicide. To them, Amy did not go overboard at all. As the years crept on, why would her family want to think their harsh response to her coming out may have contributed to her disappearance? The guilt would eat me alive.

They say Amy must have been kidnapped. Amy must have been trafficked. Her family paints a picture of a woman that men flocked to. She was magnetic, they say. So much so that the femme photos she’d taken before dinner were stolen by an admirer and had to be reprinted. The waitstaff were at her beck and call. Every guy on that boat was flirting with her. Investigators wondered if she could have been lured by one who “sweet-talked” her into following him to a rough area of Curacao.

I also don’t think Amy died by suicide. I don’t believe her intoxication was connected to her family’s rejection, and I don’t think she was smuggled off the ship and forced into prostitution. I think she fell off the railing while trying to puke.

Still, we can’t ignore the world Amy was living in. Matthew Shepard was killed that year. Ellen DeGeneres coming out in 1997 had ruined her career. Conversion therapy was in full swing, enough for the 1999 LGBTQ movie But I’m A Cheerleader to resonate with the community. It would be understandable if her family felt saying Amy was gay would endanger her with her kidnappers, or make the general public uninterested in her case.

It would have cleared up one demerit against the case’s prime suspect: Alistar Douglas, the bass player from the ship’s band. People speculated that maybe she left to hook up with him because she was seen dancing with Alistar right before she went missing. He could have killed her afterwards. (A couple of teens claim they saw her on the upper deck with him.) Now that seems unlikely.

Her being a lesbian also sheds some light on the racist and sexist fetishization that has come out of Amy’s story. “Amy Bradley Is Missing” spends a lot of time dissecting a set of prurient photos of a sex worker advertisement that the family was emailed anonymously in 2005. The woman does resemble Amy even though she’s done up in teased hair and pink eyeshadow, but she doesn’t have Amy’s tattoos. Maybe they’re covered. It’s 50/50 on whether she’s Amy, but I lean toward no.

It’s interesting to note that being public about Amy being taken as a sex slave (on shows like Dr. Phil) was less harrowing to her family than revealing she was gay. It’s a better narrative that she’s being assaulted by men then that she may have struggled with her lesbianism.

When “witnesses” come forward in the doc, it’s men with rescuer fantasies, and one older white lady who believes she saw Amy being manhandled by a pimp in a bathroom. A guy who claims he saw her flanked by two scary men on a beach weirdly describes her as “tanned” and “in good shape.” A Navy seaman says he was a client of hers in a brothel and that she asked for his help. Another admits he talked to her over their shared balcony on the ship and that she was the quintessential “girl next door.” It’s an amalgamation of white fear that “good, Christian” women are being taken prisoner in foreign countries. The woman in the bathroom describes stereotypical Latin thugs threatening the hypothetical children Amy’s been forced to bear. Amy Bradley has been portrayed as a person she never was to serve a thriller novel narrative.

With the reveal of Amy’s authentic self, the 27-year-old cold case becomes 3-dimensional and warm. People can parse out some new theories. Gaps are filled in. Amy was a whole person, not some face in a spooky viral TikTok or a salacious podcast episode. Her ex Kat lovingly recalls the first time Amy kissed her. Her more recent ex Mollie takes out an eerie gift Amy gave her a few months before she disappeared: a message in a bottle. Mollie is reluctant to share it. She’s still raw all these years later. “I can see her, I can smell her, I can feel her,” Mollie says, letting herself remember those days. “Cause we’re bringing her alive, you know? We’re bringing her alive.”

Mollie and Amy met at a basketball tryout when they were 14. Amy had a full mullet. Mollie was shy. She would sleep over at Amy’s house, and her heart would be pounding. She was falling in love. After a night of dancing at a gay bar post-college, they hooked up.

Amy gave Mollie the handwritten letter in a bottle as an apology for drunkenly kissing another girl. I paused the screen to read the parts that weren’t being highlighted by the filmmakers and saw one of the most sapphic sentences I’ve ever read: “I would drive 400 miles to eat lunch with you.”

Mollie feels they would have gotten back together. On the same day she learned Amy was missing, she received a postcard from her that read, “Wish you were here.”

“It was the 90s,” Amy’s friend Sarah says, reflecting on the atmosphere of being a lesbian at that time. “It was taboo. It was difficult for a parent to say I have a child that’s gay, but [her family] loved her regardless.”

We’ll never really know Amy’s thoughts on that. The most important person in this documentary is Mollie, who through tears says that she doesn’t like to think about the theories of Amy’s fate.

“For me, and my making peace with that she’s no longer here, the one that I have loved is…” she trails off. “The fact is I’m living my life without her. That’s not going to change. That doesn’t change.”

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 25 articles for us.

6 Comments

  1. Hello,

    I just love that you guys always put a biased opinionated view to push a hidden narrative on real serious news topics! Will never come back to this site ever :)

    Thanks for your time!!!!!!
    Please do better :)

    Nunya

    • Super weird comment!!

      This “news topic” is literally 25 years old! This is a queer site bringing a queer perspective to the revelation that there are new, queer details about this story! The “hidden narrative” was quite literally what the family chose to hide!

      What kind of coverage were you expecting?

  3. If it were my daughter, I know I could never stop. I would sell everything, move to Barbados, change my name and appearance if that’s what it took , just to blend in , and search for my child every single day. Mother’s love doesn’t rest, and I can’t understand how you could ever stop looking

  4. This is the best article on the internet about this. I just watched the series and you touched on the very important topic of her as a full, real person, what was not said, what was denied and left out. I am the same age as she would be, graduated high school a year earlier and was busy with marriage, career, children; and I missed or didn’t take note of this case. My kids are grown and my youngest are teenagers in the Army, leaving for Italy and Hawaii shortly. I feel slightly safer in the age of cameras and digital tracking, but can’t imagine the heartache of not knowing where your children are. I think I feel the most sad for her brother, whose life basically seems to have stopped. Yes, I feel bad for the ex-GF too but she has the ability to move her life forward and Amy’s brother seems stuck living with his sister’s ghost and parents whose life stopped.

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Hell Yeah, Brother! Trans Dudes Are Kissing in the Wrestling Ring

The following story is an extended version of a lead story from The Autostraddle Insider, Autostraddle’s new print zine. To find out how to get the zine — where you can see even more photos from this story — click here.

two transmascs kissing at TBoy Wrestling
photo by Pasha Silaev

I’m just over a year into my transition, and I find myself using the words “bro” and “brother” way more than I ever thought I would or wanted to. It’s not that testosterone has erased my vocabulary or made me forget everyone’s names. It’s that, for the first time in my life, I genuinely feel a sense of brotherhood with my transmasc friends.

So it only makes sense that a trans dude in Los Angeles would want to build something around that feeling. Enter: Adam Bandrowski, founder of Trans Dudes of LA (TDLA), who shares my adoration for trans brotherhood, but couldn’t seem to find it within his proximity. He found plenty of trans support groups but not as many trans dude social groups. In August 2023, he started organizing small meet-ups in Silver Lake and Echo Park like a beach day and a pumpkin carving night. It was during a billiards night that Bandrowski met his eventual TDLA co-director, Mich Miller, who had learned about the group via a flyer on a lamppost.

As it turns out, Miller, who was 30 at the time, also did not have a large group of transmasculine friends. Even more, he craved a mentee/mentor relationship that he hadn’t been able to find. Miller runs his own print shop called Print Shop L.A., which he describes as a community space, and even there he sometimes finds himself to be the only trans man in the room. That’s what drew him to what Bandrowski was doing with TDLA.

According to Bandrowski and Miller, they had “great friend chemistry.” They’re both artists, they’re creative and imaginative, and they know how to use humor to spark joy in each other. “Immediately we started thinking of really creative ideas like bringing a printmaking night to trans men or bringing tattooing and live music together and it’s all transmasculine talent,” Miller tells me. They also hosted Magic Dyke, a transmasc pre-party to lesbian-centric Dyke Day.

The boys love a good theme (last year’s Halloween party was called Trasmascarade) but more than that, they love to be of service to trans guys seeking friendship. “I think all trans men can benefit so greatly from having a shared community, from witnessing trans people of all ages, races, and walks of life in real time,” Miller tells me. I agree.

What started as one guy looking for people like him to hang out with has evolved into a full-blown coast-to-coast spectacle. TDLA is more than a social group; it’s a reminder that there’s still very much a need for intentional and protected spaces for trans men and nonbinary people, even in the most progressive of cities.

And nothing captures that better than T-Boy Wrestling.

someone injecting T at TBoy Wrestling
someone in a For Them jockstrap at Tboy Wrestling
someone at TBoy Wrestling in the ring
photos by Clark Stone

Bandrowski and Miller started to gain attention for their fun parties, but could they organize something that wasn’t just a party? That’s what they set out to prove, as both community organizers and business owners, with their inaugural T-Boy Wrestling event in September 2024. But how and why did they land on wrestling?

At the aforementioned Magic Dyke event in June 2024, Bandrowski and transmasc creator Noah Way “put on tiny little shorts and wrestled on the stage,” and the crowd went absolutely wild with transmascs dying to join in on the performance. After all, the goal after three rounds was a kiss pin.

two performers at TBoy Wrestling
someone is pinned at Tboy Wrestling
photos by Clark Stone

The raw reaction from the crowd that day made Bandrowski and Miller realize that this is what they needed to be doing with TDLA. “The way that it’s grown, and things have grown politically and as a society at the same time, have really affected each other,” Miller reflects. “At first it was really just a space for real wrestling and also real tomfoolery and sexiness and camp. And it still has those roots but it’s also a stage for political theater, it’s a stage for expression on all levels from the transmasculine community.”

A regular attendee and participant in TDLA events, Ashton, who does not identify as a trans man, but rather a non-binary, gender-fluid person, describes themself as “femme of center.” For Ashton, their participation with TDLA is not to specifically find trans masc friends, but to be in community with other trans and queer people, period. “In reality, finding that on a large scale is difficult,” Ashton shares, “but as a person of color, I find trans people in whatever pockets of the world that I can find them in.”

As a gender expansive person who does not fall into a binary gender label, the only wish Ashton has for TDLA and its participants is more pronoun checking and fewer assumptions. This is less a critique of TDLA specifically and more so a well-documented flaw within queer and trans communities. We’ve made so much progress to be inclusive that we’ve almost circled all the way back to assigning labels to folks based on physical attributes, thinking we’re affirming them. It’s a good reminder that transness can look like anything.

Tboys kissing at Tboy wrestling
someone in shorts that say My Other Ass Is a Dump Truck
photos by Clark Stone

TDLA doesn’t care where you are in your transition or if you’re transitioning at all. They know there are too many ways to move through transmasculinity to ever box it in. So they don’t try. If you identify as trans or transmasc, you’re welcome. To Bandrowski and Miller, T-Boy Wrestling is an athletic space specifically for trans poeple as well as a space for those who are more performative, who want to make a statement, and want to use wrestling as a critique of masculinity.

That openness matters, especially as some queer spaces get tighter with their gates and pickier with their labels. TDLA offers the opposite: an open ring.

I first heard about TDLA when an Instagram post of that very first wrestling match made its way into my transmasc comedians’ group chat in New York. We were instantly hooked and turned on. Sorry, I ended that sentence prematurely. It turned us on to some fantastic community programming for guys like us.

Though let’s be honest, it also just turned us on.

photos by Pasha Silaev

But the horniness of T-Boy Wrestling transcends simple attraction. It’s not just sexy…it’s liberating. It’s brotherly love, not born out of obligation or shared trauma, but a deep appreciation for co-existing experience and distinct individuality. It’s about showing up as yourself, in your body, in front of hundreds of cheering strangers. And feeling held — even if it’s in a chokehold.

Bandrowski and Miller know exactly what they’re doing, and when they don’t, they figure it out. The duo shared the philosophy behind their programming via Zoom straight through an active earthquake. When I asked them if they needed to pause or reschedule the call, they assured me they did not. If they weren’t L.A. boys, I’d accuse them of toxic masculinity.

TDLA is the first big job Bandrowski, 24, has had outside of a desk job at Nickelodeon, where he didn’t speak to anyone. But to him, event producing feels like a natural skill he stumbled into. He credits some of this skill to attending California Institute of the Arts, an experience that also helped him figure out how to up the production value of T-Boy Wrestling without breaking the bank.

Between the first T-Boy Wrestling tournament in September 2024 and the most recent one held in March 2025, the boys got an official boxing ring, legit bleachers, lighting equipment, and even a jumbotron projecting a livestream of the matches. “I wanted these guys to be seen in the absolute best light…” Bandrowski tells me, “I wanted them to have the experience of cis people in televised wrestling and sports in general.”

T-Boy Wrestling doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it does take trans joy seriously. In a moment where our bodies are legislated and debated, where being visible can feel risky, TDLA gives us something that’s both sacred and rare: a space to play.

In the future, Bandrowski and Miller look forward to developing their business minds so they can continue to make the money needed to continue their programming. Funding is a challenge many queer and trans groups face when scaling. It’s no surprise that grant funding for trans — and arts — programming is disappearing before our eyes.

two competitors at Tboy wrestling in a pin
two wrestlers at Tboy wrestling locked in fight
photos by Pasha Silaev

There’s a balance to strike between free and accessible events and ticketed events, and it sounds like TDLA knows how to execute it with the help of some “angels” along the way. The social group offers more non-ticketed programming outside of T-Boy Wrestling that serve the community just the same. Beck Williams, a trans actor in L.A., is used to making transmasc friends through film industry mixers and friends of friends, which is how I make most of mine, too. But ever since learning about TDLA, Williams frequents the recurring “Transmasc Thursdays” programming.

Williams jokes but also means it when they say: “[There’s] something about looking around (at people as short as me, too, lol) and seeing the beauty of trans expression and life that I never ever got to see growing up. And being immersed in that is truly special.”

I also spoke with a TDLA regular named Shayne, who emphasized they had never been to an event for trasmasc people, by transmasc people, prior to TDLA. In addition to Trasmasc Thursdays, Shayne attends T-Boy Wrestling, line dancing, and most events held by Bandrowski and Miller. “If the boys are pulling up, I probably am too,” they tell me. Even though he can guarantee he’d know at least one other person at a TDLA event, he feels empowered to show up alone, knowing he’d be just fine either way.

To Williams and Shayne, being in a space with mostly, if not all, trans people feels like home. I love it when trans people say this, because we all have such different definitions and experiences of home, but we still know it’s the correct word to describe that feeling. It’s where your siblings are.

So yeah. Maybe “brother” wasn’t always in my vocabulary. But it’s programming like Trans Dudes of L.A. and T-Boy Wrestling that have me saying hell yeah, brother.

someone doing a headstand at Tboy Wrestling
someone doing a lift at Tboy Wrestling
photos by Pasha Silaev

Shortly after concluding this interview to be featured in Autostraddle’s print magazine, I received a text from a friend asking if I wanted to apply to NYC’s TBoy Wrestling with him as a duo. I agreed without hesitation, and we got to work putting together our choreographed performance. We’re both stand-up comedians and thought doing a comedy routine would be a fun way to stand out. Fast forward a few months, some wrestling practices, and two pencil skirts later, we were ready to take the ring.

I can’t lie — I was a bit nervous leading up to the event. To begin, there were over 100 trans guys in a group chat, most of whom I had never met. And I thought I knew all the trans guys in the tri-state area! So to be faced with the reality that there are so many of us was so beautiful but a little overwhelming. I was certainly on the older end of the age spectrum for the group, and that brought a bit of hesitation and self-consciousness. I turn 29 next week, so I’m certain I’m due for a departure from TBoy Wrestling to TMan Doing Age Appropriate Things, and my body is certainly paying the price for that right now.

The nerves quickly dissipated once I arrived for the wrestlers’ call time. As soon as I saw the wrestling ring being erected in the center of a Brooklyn music venue and all different walks of “transmasc” rush by me — collecting wigs, blocking choreography, taking T-shots, rolling joints, chugging protein shakes — I was reminded that I am but one small part of the event. From then, all throughout the afternoon and evening, I was continuously reminded of the community aspect of the programming. At one point, I thought to myself, Oh my God, this must be how cis guys feel at a football game.

As an audience member, sounds and movements came out of my body that I don’t think ever have before and maybe never will again. In more than one instance, I threw my fist in the air, feet off the ground, and screamed, “LET’S GOOOOOOOOO!” I don’t know what came over me. At one point, I demanded, “MORE BLOOD!” and “KISS HIM OR KILL HIM.” Luckily for me, everyone else around me was experiencing the same kind of psychosis. It was cathartic and thrilling and so, so horny.

Since the event, I’ve seen more and more trans dudes demand that TBoy Wrestling go to their city. I have a feeling we’re seeing the start of a wide-spread, radical display of transmasculinity, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

You can own a very special print version of this story — plus loads more photos from it! — by snagging your copy of THE AUTOSTRADDLE INSDER.

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Motti

Motti (he/they) is a New York born and raised comedian, writer, and content creator. You can find him on Instagram @hotfunnysmartmotti or at a bar show in Brooklyn somewhere.

Reed has written 49 articles for us.

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The Formerly Poly Fortysomethings Who U-Hauled Into The Best, Wettest Sex Of Their Lives

Sex/Life is a series all about the secret sexy business of couples, throuples, exes who still fuck for some reason, LDR darlings, polyculites, and any other kind of amorous grouping your perfect heart can fathom. We send them nosey questions, they record themselves answering them, and we transcribe that conversation for all of us to enjoy. All names have been changed and any identifying details removed.

Reade (49) is a queer/non-binary human and Mack (46) is a trans man and they live together in Alberta after U-Hauling nine weeks into their now year+ relationship. They were poly but became obsessed with each other to the degree that monogamy became their new way of life. Mack’s a framer who is certifiably good with his hands, Reade does construction and customer service, and both are really involved in activism and community service.

And this is how they fuck.

What was your sex life like when you first started dating? How is that different from now?

Mack: So, it was a little scary at first because you don’t really know your partner. Definitely a lot different than it is now. We were just learning each other. It was good, but it’s way better now.

Reade: I think at the start, we were both kind of guarded.

Mack: We were definitely both guarded . Nervous. I held back, you know? You can’t completely be yourself with someone when you’re brand new. I mean the sex was great but it keeps getting better over time.

Reade: Can I tell them about farting? And how you used to leave the room? I thought it was so cute but not sustainable long term. He was so sweet, he’d leave the room in the middle of sex to fart.

Mack: Sure you can tell them whatever you want, it’s anonymous. Like when we first started having sex, I wanted to make sure that everything we were doing felt good and right. And it was. It was definitely a learning process.

Reade: We did a lot of checking in. It was lovely but sometimes I just wanted to get ravished. I’m glad we’ve moved past some of that. Mack and I still do lots of checking in but it’s definitely not as much.

We also didn’t have our own spaces when we met so it was hard to find ways and places to have sex. Which I think contributed to the guardedness and also why we moved in together so quickly. It gave us room to be loud and exploratory and brave.

We had sex in a bathhouse for a while and we also had sex on one of Mack’s job sites.

Mack: Yeah it was like an office though. In an office on an air mattress. It was nice to be allowed the space tho. Like the bathhouse and the work site.

Reade: I just remember how covered in sawdust we were. And I lost a sock at the bathhouse. It was kind of chaotic. Also the straight dude factor at the bath house got kind of creepy after a while.

Mack: Yeah I’m glad we stopped going there. I mean the job site does seem a little weird but the office wasn’t touched and it kind of made it into our own private space where we could hang out and get to know one another. It was safe, it was private.

Reade: One of my favourite earliest memories is you blowing up the air mattress for the first time. We couldn’t stop laughing.

Mack: At first I bought a single thinking that it would be fine and quickly realized that we at least needed a double with a pump. I remember having one of my team blow it up for me.

Reade: A lot of good times on that air mattress. I think we soaked the whole thing from top to bottom.

Our sex life now is chef’s kiss! It’s soooo good. I’m having the best sex of my life and I’m almost 50. I’ve never had a partner like Mack before who can keep up with my sex drive. He’s also really invested in getting me off. Most of my partners wanted to receive oral but didn’t give it me. Mack gets in there like it’s the best meal of his life. Every time. I really appreciate that about him.

Mack: Our sex life is phenomenal. I’m glad we took the time to get to know and understand each other. I really enjoy having a partner who gets me. Who knows what I like and understands me holistically. My partners in the past were clueless. It would always be me having to self advocate to get my needs met and I don’t have to do that anymore. My partner loves and understands me. Like, I like being touched. It was a fight with my past partners because they had low sex drives. They felt like it was all I wanted or that I was using them. And now it’s not anymore. Does that make sense? Like I’d go through long periods of time of abstinence so I wouldn’t have to fight to get my needs met.

Reade: I feel like I’m invested in his pleasure [laughter]

Mack: ME TOO! I love making love to you.

Reade: Same! It’s joyful. It’s fun. We laugh a lot. We play. We’re not afraid to be messy and loud and get what we need. And now he farts in front of me so I know he’s comfortable.

[laughter]

If you live together, how long into the relationship did you make this decision, and how has living together impacted your sex life?

Reade: We do live together. It’s been 9 months (Reade counts it out on their hands). We moved in together like seven weeks after we met. It was kind of ridiculous. I’ve never done something like that before. But we were so in love from the beginning. And we needed our own little corner of the world to be together in.

Mack: We got a kitten (laughs).. We’re pet parents.

Reade: We thought at first we’d move in together like six months into dating but—

Mack: Circumstances beyond our control lead to an early move date. I still had my apartment for 4 months so I’d sleep there on weeknights but go to our apartment after work and on weekends. I think it gave us the time to get to know each other better before living together full time. I’m glad we had that.

So it’s given us the privacy to be intimate. Be comfortable. Love. Laugh. Squirt.

Reade: I mean our sex life was good from the start but I think we were finally able to relax. It gave us room to really get to know one another physically. We learned how to sleep together. We had longer stretches of time with one another in a private space. We weren’t at the mercy of anyone’s time or space, just ours.

Mack: And a work schedule. (laughs)

Reade: I think we’ve been able to cover more of our home in cum.

Mack: Our poor couch!

If you are parents or caretakers, how has this impacted your sex life?

Mack: We’re pet parents (we have a dog and a cat) I know that’s different but they’re still interested in what’s going on.

Reade: Our dog forces us to take breaks, go outside, touch grass. I think it’s good. Our kitten has pounced a few times at inopportune moments.

[laugher]

Mack: Overall they don’t affect our sex life like a child or a senior parent would.

Do you have a top/bottom dynamic? Talk about that.

Reade: We’re both switches. I’m into letting him be toppy with me. Something I’m not normally interested in. I trust him in a way I haven’t been able to with previous partners. It’s really hot when he does some damage. I like wearing his marks. I like being owned a little bit. Again something I’ve never let another partner do.

Mack: Our relationship is different than any other relationship I’ve ever been in. I’ve never let anyone top me. But I enjoy being topped by my partner. So we switch it up. It’s quite fun.

Do you feel like your sex drives are well matched?

Mack: Absofuckinglutely! For the first time in my life I don’t feel like I have to go looking outside of my relationship for sexual satisfaction.

Reade: Yes! Fucking finally! OMG! It’s amazing! I never thought I would find this person and I’m so grateful I have. I feel like I have catching up to do. And same, I don’t need sex outside of my relationship.

Mack: For the first time I don’t feel like I wanna share. I’m happy being monogamous.

Reade: Same. Although I like to make room for other possibilities because I think it’s important. But right now I’m 100% obsessed with our sex life.

Are there specific things you like to do during sex? Things you don’t like to do?

Mack: Yeah. Things we don’t like to do: 69 unless it’s titty/titty. No anal. I dunno what don’t you like to do?

Reade: Yes agreed no anal. I feel like our yums line up really well. We discovered Mack likes to give a little light pain, it really turns him on. A little choking, a little biting. He likes it when I dig my nails in. I like being grabbed in a rough way. I have a lot of flesh, and I like it being pulled on and grabbed. I like it when he sits on my face.

I’d say we’re both into trying things. We’re comfortable with each other’s weird. I like using a q-tip in my ear and Mack wants to go down on me while I do it, but —

Mack: Oh my god! We haven’t even done that yet.

Reade: I know, but we will. I feel like we’ve only scratched the surface of the things we’re going to explore. I know we want to have sex in a park. I want to have sex in an elevator. I feel like we’re getting into the next question.

Mack: What’s the next question?

What are some things you’d like to try (or try again)?

Mack: Outdoor sex. Yeah!

Reade: What else?

Mack: Safe public play spaces. Ummm I dunno, your turn.

Reade: I think you mentioned being tied up at some point. I have some really nice rope made by a queer couple that’s perfect. I agree with public sex. I’d love to take him to a queer bath house.

Mack: Yeah, I’m into that.

How important are orgasms to your sex life?

Reade: I’d say pretty important.

Mack: They’re like the most important thing. I think. Like the whole idea of having sex is to get off. I mean it feels good but getting off is really important.

Reade: We’re really good at making sure we both get off. We’re both squirters. I know my orgasms have gotten better with Mack.

Mack: Yeah it’s extremely important to both of us. That we make sure each other gets off.

What role does masturbation play in your sex life?

Mack: It’s an important part. During penetration it’s extremely important. It’s masturbation but it’s Reade masturbating me or vice versa. I haven’t masturbated on my own since we’ve been together. Or very rarely. I mean we’re both ok with masturbation in our relationship. If I wanted to go masturbate right now I would. Same thing with you (indicating Reade).

Reade: I do it sometimes to get to sleep. But mostly I’d rather have sex with Mack. I’ve never had such free access to amazing sex with a partner and it still hasn’t gotten old in any way. I think masturbation is great and I think folks should do it if they want to but right now there isn’t much of a need for me as solo exploration.

Tell us about your favorite or most memorable time you’ve had sex together.

Mack: They’re all my favourite! (laughs) I dunno.

Reade: I think the first time you came on me, all over my tits and belly. Or when you first sat on my face and came all over me and in my hair. I think discovering that new level of pleasure was fantastic.

Mack: I was thinking about that! I like that time at work when I came all over you.

Reade: I think it’s the level of intimacy that we’ve built that’s the best thing for me.

Mack: I also like when we first started introducing the toy (a large silicone dildo) a lot. That’s when I knew we didn’t need a third party. With the strap-on it helped complete things we were missing in our sex life. It kind of felt that things were missing before, and I’m glad we were able to find something to complete that besides another person.

Reade: I just have so many great memories of fucking and making love.

Mack: We have such good sex!

Reade: It’s so good.

Mack: I keep checking in because it’s so hard to believe it’s as good for you as it is for me.

Reade: It really is. I love you.

Mack: I’m so in love with you.

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+!
Related:

Sex/Life

A series that gives readers a backstage pass into the sex lives of queer couples (and throuples, polycules, etc) around the world. To share your own story, email [email protected].

Sex/Life has written 10 articles for us.