The Department of Defense has been claiming this is not actually a ban on transgender service members. But in effect, the Mattis Policy is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell II: This Time As Farce.”
We have to commit to always learning and growing and doing more all the time to make our spaces better and better.
This piece was co-written by Natalie, Reneice, Alexis, and Carmen. We’re four of the black members of The Speakeasy, Autostraddle’s collective for its writers of color.
In 1974 it felt like every American was watching President Nixon’s impeachment hearings. With a single speech, a black lesbian changed the opinion of a nation. She was only getting started.
Birthdays are the perfect time to ask people to take action. Why? People like you! They want to celebrate you! And on your birthday, they feel slightly more-obligated-than-usual to do what you ask of them!
Maybe Josephine Baker and Frida Kahlo were actually lovers? Maybe they weren’t. What always mattered most was the idea that they even could.
Plus: Queer food culture, Generation Z knows so many nonbinary people, King Princess on our secret history, Pride at Disneyland Paris, and New Jersey becomes the second state to require LGBT-inclusive materials in schools.
“I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.” – Audre Lorde
An attack on a black gay celebrity like Jussie Smollet is also a message sent to his black and gay fans. So today, for all our queer fam out there, but especially for my black queer family, feel the love and strength of our community. Our kinship is a gift. Please, fortify yourself in that gift today.
In a post “love-wins” America, we’ve circled back to the underlying legal thinking of the 1950s. In the late 2010s and especially under Trump, gender and gender conformity are back under the legal microscope in a move that targets the gender nonconformity fundamental to aspects of gay identity for many, and also increasingly and dangerously, trans people.
If you’re looking for easy answers that preserve your bubble, you won’t find them here. But that’s exactly why anyone who considers themselves an activist, an ally, or a member of the resistance writ large needs to read this book.
The team from Lora DiCarlo believes gender bias played a significant role in losing an award for one of their products, a sentiment echoed by other woman-run sex-tech companies. Meanwhile, the company behind the trade show insists the award was a mistake in the first place.
On this Martin Luther King Day, Autostraddle remembers the activist legacy of Coretta Scott King and her fight for gay rights.
Hidden in the sea of pussy hats and Instagram marchers, folks took up space, amplified others’ voices, and marched for intersectionality.
A step-by-step guide to lobbying your elected officials. Ready your power suit!
Despite her early resonance, Hothead Paisan has faded from lesbian and queer cultural memory. Today we’re bringing her back.
Demonic witch queens are always queer. Fact.
Shaven heads on women have challenged and informed ideas of beauty, power and tradition for centuries. Here’s the history of a very queer style.
To truly do the work from our standpoint, from a place of strong objectivity, is crucial. So what does that look like? What does using our individual standpoint to make change look like?
The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice has been doing incredible work for 40 years — here’s a little bit about that, and also about the Fueling the Frontlines gala I attended last month, and also about their upcoming benefit featuring Ellen Page, Kiersey Clemons and Olivia Wilde!
