Not to put too fine a point on it, but our first installment of Queer IRL — the Queer in the Kitchen gallery — was without a doubt the best part of January 2017, and it was ALL YOUR FAULT. You showed up to be seen for exactly who you are, in the heart of your home at that precise moment in time. You made a thing! A fairly sprawling gallery of nearly 200 AS readers just being yourselves all across the world. It was beautiful and real as fuck and it’s time to do another one! Will anything be as magical as its first iteration? Let’s find out.
February’s Gallery Theme: Queer in the Bedroom
This is a gallery of bedrooms that belong to queer people!
I thought about waxing poetic re: the bedrooms of our youth, or how bedrooms tend to be our safest caves and proving grounds, but I want you to do that for me. Send me your pictures and your stories — tell us what it means to be a queer in the bedroom right now.
Instructions
1. Take a high quality picture of you in your bedroom. This is doable with most smartphones, so don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy camera. You know what else works and is super fun? Disposable cameras. Just saying. I am just saying to you. That disposable cameras work. And are fun. Ok.
Photos should be between 1024-3024 pixels wide so they’ll look nice on a full screen. Please don’t send anything smaller than 1024 pixels wide.
2. Send your picture and info to me at laneia@autostraddle.com with the subject QUEER BEDROOM. Please include the following (technically optional but highly desired) details!
Name
Age
Location
Occupation
A sentence or two describing how you feel about your room, the last thing you think of before falling asleep/first thing you think of after waking up, or your favorite item or space in the room.
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I reserve the right to edit your sentence/s for length or spelling errors. (I’m a pretty good editor though, so.) Your photo will appear in a full screen gallery on Autostraddle.com — the main site, not A+ — and might be used on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr) to promote the gallery. If you don’t want your photo to appear on social media, please make a note of that with your submission. You reserve full rights to your photo. Photos will not be used to promote anything other than this exact gallery, and will not be used in any other future post.
Deadline: February 20
FAQ
1. What is a bedroom?
A bedroom is a space, no matter how big or small or narrow or bright or outdoors or in or covered in cat hair, where you eventually sleep.
2. What is a queer person?
Queer people are lesbians, bisexuals, queer and otherwise-identified women, trans and non-binary folks.
3. Do you want us to be in the photo?
I do, yes! I’d love that. You don’t necessarily have to be in it, but I think all your other queer person-reader friends would appreciate seeing another queer person staring back at them from their electronic screen situation. I know I do. Please be in your photo!!
4. What about my dog or cat or bunny or iguana? Should my they be in the photo?
Absolutely.
5. My bedroom is messy and weird and I really don’t like my windows and it probably doesn’t look like yours at all. Should I still do this?
Yes you should! The perfection is in the fact that it’s yours.
6. How sexy can we get here? Also tell me about your nudity policy.
We shan’t show nipples, genitalia, or simulated or actual sex. Sex toys or nude art throughout your room are totally permitted.
Deadline: February 20
Leave your questions in the comments and if you have an idea for a future theme, let me know! laneia@autostraddle.com
Looking forward to participate in your “Queer in the Building Dust” gallery of queer ladies, their power tools, and the potentially hazardous home improvement messes they live in.
^^^ THIS ^^^
i 100% support this concept
loving your use of shan’t, laneia. reminds me of toastie days gone by…bittersweet but delicious
If you miss the Toast you will like my upcoming article.
Tell me more PLS
Mission #2 accepted! I like this thing we are all doing IRL here.
Garden gallery!!!!!! ???
I don’t have a garden, but I’d still love to see this!
garden/potted indoor plant gallery!
I love this idea, especially if it included indoor gardens.
I have a sunroom filled with plants and it is the best.
Closet gallery? =)
Seconded. Many of us spent awhile in there so.
Well, that would just be a photo of bookshelves and piles of books for me. Fitting I work in libraries.
Theme suggestion: Queer in the outdoors
Thank you, Laneia, for your hard work on this. The kitchen series was great!
^Seconding this one^
Please for to wait til warmer months to do queer in the outdoors bc all of us Canadian queers will just be giant lumps of vaguely human-shaped winter clothes. :P
giant lumps of vaguely human-shaped winter clothes gallery!
Theme suggestion: queer in the club!
SO EXCITED
also I wanna see where all u queer ppl read your queer books and what your queer bookshelves look like
defs. and offices/desks!
My bookshelves are not all in the same room, though, and they have long since overflown. The desk in my shared grad student office has basically become a place to pile books. This could be tricky…
YES challenge accepted! I’ve been super excited for the next assignment!
Now to figure out how the hell to photograph my room to show everything!
I know the kitchen gallery was practically this already, but I think a gallery of Queer Pet Portraits might just kill us all dead with its wonderfulness.
yes yes YES YES YES
Like pets who are queer or pets whose humans are queers?
Oh wait never mind my dog is both ;-)
I was thinking queer humans with their pets, but it’s open to interpretation. Puppies in rainbow sweaters? Cats with alternative lifestyle haircuts? Iguanas in bowties? All welcome.
CATS WITH ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE HAIRCUTS
Is that AC/DC
LISTEN
Meöwtley Crüe.
YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF US LANEIA
Chandra.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I just moved and I am IN LURVE with my space and I can’t wait to show ALL OF YOU LOVELY QUEERS. I’mmma have a little photoshoot tomorrow morning when the light is all pretty and I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS THANK YOU
yessss love this ALMOST as much as I loved the kitchen ones.
I’d love to see queer families! Yes, queers with kids… and queers with their parents (and so many fucking dogs and cats because queers love their fur babies). But beyond the nuclear family, too. Queers have been redefining family since forever. I wanna see who queers calls home!
So stoked for this and thank you for all the hard work you have and will put into this
xx
I was so sad that I didn’t submit a picture for the kitchen gallery, but I just did the one for the bedrooms!
yay! i was excited by the kitchen gallery but totally forgot to take a shot for it, sadface. i’m SO excited for the bedroom one!