Also.Also.Also: Don’t Assume Julianna Marguiles Hasn’t Had Gay Experiences She Vaguely Suggests Possibly Occurred

Trader Jose’s Butternut Squash Harvest Chili and Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits for dinner! With a cold beer, if I’m lucky.


Queer as in F*ck You

Ghana’s President Calls for Tolerance as Parliament Considers Anti-LGBTQ Law (and related, Natalie found this: Republican Backers Ghostwrote a Bill That Would Punish Homosexuality With Death in Ghana)

These Nonbinary Patients Were Seeking Trans Health Care. But in a Binary System, They Felt ‘Invalidated.’ by Andréa Becker for The Lily

Intersex People Have Been Challenging ‘Gender-Normalizing Surgery.’ Doctors Are Starting to Listen.


Saw This, Thought of You

Listen my friends, I’m just here to report the “news” about a dark satire television show about “news reporting” starring pretty much every one of America’s favorite white women actors over 50, but please do know this was a hot topic today in the Autostraddle office slack with many opinions — Julianna Margulies on Criticism Around Her Playing a Gay Anchor in ‘The Morning Show’: “We’re All Making Assumptions”

(Not to self-plug our own shit here, but we’re doing gay Morning Show recaps written by noted expert Christina Tucker and you could be reading those if you enjoy thirsting at women in business wear, just saying)

Vogue’s ’73 Questions’ Is in Her Flop Era. Once upon time, those Vogue 73 questions videos were my 3am insomnia binge of choice, so count me intrigued…

I Used Facebook Without the Algorithm, and You Can Too. And while we’re here: How Facebook Fails 90 Percent of Its Users, “Internal documents show the company routinely placing public-relations, profit, and regulatory concerns over user welfare. And if you think it’s bad here, look beyond the U.S.”

A Consortium of Museums in Vienna Have Started an OnlyFans Account After Its TikTok Is Banned for Posting Nudes

Ro thinks you would like to know that this seemingly… flirty? business is what perennial 90s crush Alicia Silverstone is up to these days

@aliciasilverstone

💋💋💋 @Jasmine Poulton

♬ they might kiss x promiscuous – anete

Katie Couric Is Not for Everyone. Am interested in Catie Kuric? No, not necessarily. Is watching the self-implosion of the press tour surrounding her new memoir a bit like gawking at a car crash on the freeway where you can’t turn away? Yes, yes it is. And no one has captured that sensation more than forever favorite writer Rebecca Traister for The Cut.


Political Snacks

Restrictions on Transgender Student Athletes’ Participation in School Sports Signed Into Law by Gov. Greg Abbott

One Year In, Justice Amy Coney Barrett Has Energized Supreme Court’s Rightward Turn

A Record Number of Black Women Are Expected to Run In 2022. “No Black woman has ever been elected governor, and no Black women currently serve in the U.S. Senate. But some candidates are hoping to change that.”

How Kyrsten Sinema Became the Worst Kind of Bisexual Stereotype

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen is Autostraddle's Editor-in-Chief and a Black Puerto Rican femme/inist writer. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. There were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. You can find her on twitter, @carmencitaloves.

Carmen has written 689 articles for us.

13 Comments

  1. I have always taken issue with the idea that straight actors can’t play gay/bisexual characters. What kind of test will be required to make sure they’re being truthful? What about closeted actors? What about actors who aren’t closeted but want to keep their personal lives private? What about actors who haven’t realized they’re queer yet? How many times have we seen someone come out after playing a queer character? As long as there’s respect, I see no problem.

    • Also for me at least the weirdest thing about this conversation is that the argument “straight actors shouldn’t play gay” feels directly descended from the “cis men shouldn’t play trans women” argument — like someone just find-and-replaced it in internet discourse. Which is absurd because the situations are completely different. Trans people have been saying for years that cis men playing trans women contributes to the idea that trans women are “men in dresses”, and materially incites transphobic violence. It is a very clear and simple argument. There isn’t really a widespread and materially harmful assumption that gay people are actually straight, certainly not on the same level, so the parallel with straight actors playing gay just doesn’t exist.

      So much of the time I think people’s problem with straight actors playing gay is that the actors are not acting well (or not being directed well, or the script isn’t good). Or their problem is with there being a lack of roles for gay actors — but if that’s an issue (and hopefully we can all agree it’s certainly much less of one than it was eg ten years ago), it has nothing to do with gay roles specifically; it has to do with all roles. Both of these are legitimate grievances, but the solution to them is not to make a blanket decision that straight actors playing gay roles is inherently bad.

      I just find it so so so silly and I can’t believe it has become as mainstreamed a conversation as it now is.

    • Agreed. There are certain immutable characteristics that can’t be changed and shouldn’t be played by actors not of that experience (race and trans experience come to mind), but we’re assuming a *lot* by assuming that a seemingly straight actor can’t play a queer character. We’re also indirectly contributing to bi erasure by insisting that these roles can only be played by queer characters.

  2. So many actors have realized they’re queer while playing queer characters or have been previously closeted (at least publicly) and come out only after playing queer characters. Chyler Leigh, Dominique Provost-Chalkley, Demi Lovato, Chloe Grace-Moretz, Kaylee Bryant, Sara Ramirez, Taylor Schilling, and Mae Whitman are just a few recent examples. Making some kind of blanket “you must be out to play gay” rule would have robbed the questioning ones of a safe way to explore their sexuality and robbed us of all those great performances.

    • this is a good point to bring up.

      but it’s fuzzy when you consider it with the other ‘argument’ brought forth in the article, slippery slope – if straight can’t play gay, gay shouldn’t play straight. feels like a logical error because it assumes a level playing field that does not exist yet.

      marginalized communities have a tough time getting hired at all, even when they are the demographic that is being portrayed, much much less when it’s a cis/straight/white role. this is a convenient thing for cis/straight/white talent to forget when they want to feel ok about taking a good opportunity portraying a demographic they don’t represent. the roles are barely there, so adding richness to underrepped stories by hiring talent with inherent sensitivity doesn’t seem the same as restricting roles about dominant culture that remain the lion’s share of work opportunities.

  3. Not being an American and thus possibly missing some context – but it seems like that article about the bisexual senator largely seems to be criticising her for being stereotyped by people? Bisexual people are not responsible for bisexual stereotypes…

  4. Honestly people saying straight actors shouldn’t play gay roles is a total joke.

    Look at Benedict Cumberbatch playing a closeted gay rancher in The Power of The Dog. Absolute perfect casting and he’s damn good in it.

    And what about Kristen Stewart playing one of the most famous straight women in all of history in Spencer?

    Gay people are not just their sexuality or their gender identity.

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