Also.Also.Also: Now Let’s Actually Look at This LGBT Gallup Poll, Shall We…

I am drinking the coldest ice cold water of my life and you know what?  It is, in fact, refreshing.

Stay hydrated and here’s some things you can read:


Queer as in F*ck You

In a still from the television show Pose, Indya Moore sits on the floor of St. Peter's Cathedral during a staged "die in" during the early 1990s of HIV/AIDS Activism

You can also read more about how TV has depicted AIDS activism and ACT Up specifically right here on your friendly Autostraddle.

How TV Stories Have Shaped Our Understanding of AIDS

LGBT Identification Rises to 5.6% in Latest U.S. Estimate More of us!! More of us!! Stats nerds get in here:

  • 15,000 interviews conducted throughout 2020 with Americans aged 18 and older
  • The 5.6% of U.S. adults identifying as LGBT is a current estimate up from 4.5% in Gallup’s previous update based on 2017 data
  • More than half of LGBT adults (54.6%) identify as bisexual
  • About a quarter (24.5%) say they are gay, with 11.7% identifying as lesbian and 11.3% as transgender. These are all increases from 2017!
  • One in six adult members of Generation Z (those aged 18 to 23 in 2020) identify as LGBT
  • However, LGBT identification is lower in each older generation, including 2% or less of Americans born before 1965 (aged 56 and older in 2020)
  • In my deductions, this means that letting Zendaya make out with girls is good for everyone. In the name of Euphoria, Amen.

Tender Judging Care: #TransCrowdFund and the Politics of Desire. “Even before the GoFundMe boom, there was an element of desirability politics in healthcare.”

“I don’t think we should have to live at war with our bodies. I think less misery is possible, and it shouldn’t have to be as suspect as it so often is to simply exist as oneself, to take part in consensual activities, to live one’s life. It can be so lonely to wish to stop wanting what one often cannot help wanting…Kink itself, between consenting adults, does not cause harm. What provably, definitely harms us — and generally hurts us the more marginalized we are — are obligatory scripts about what our bodies should want, are allowed to want.”

The Willful Misunderstanding of Kink by R.O.Kwon for The Cut


Saw This, Thought of You

Sonia Sanchez Still Has Work to Do. (LOVE SONIA SANCHEZ. Have loved her since I was a little girl. Love LOVE LOVE HER. Ok, as you were.)

All My Friends’ Quarantine Bubbles Are Bursting

Yeah, that’s going to go down better with this: 14 Fixes for Pandemic Monotony

The First Girls Have Become Eagle Scouts. It’s Taken More Than 100 Years.

Hollywood’s Empty Weaponized White Feminism of ‘I Care A Lot’ and ‘Promising Young Woman’ (I didn’t love (ahem, openly hated) these movies, despite traditionally love corny #GirlBoss popcorn fare, and there’s definitely something smart worth saying here)

“Honey Girl” Is about a Woman Coming Home to Herself. If you’ve noticed, we have some ads for Honey Girl going on our site and I for one CANNOT WAIT to read this book! This interview between author Morgan Rogers and Bitch Media EIC Evette Dionne is a perfect appetizer.


Political Snacks

I was originally hoping that by the time I published this the Equality Act would have passed in the House of Representatives because I love a easy, feel good headline positive, but sadly we are still waiting. So in the meantime:

And so, if you’d like to have that discussion, here’s some things you can be reading while we wait for the vote:

A POST-PUBLICATION UPDATE!! THE EQUALITY ACT PASSED:


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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And 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. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

2 Comments

  1. I did laugh out loud at “In my deductions, this means that letting Zendaya make out with girls is good for everyone. In the name of Euphoria, Amen.” Thank you!

  2. gonna print out sonia’s interview and read it with tea on saturday morning. such a balm – thank you Carmen. you’re a dream. please take some time off soon. we love you and we want rest for you.

Comments are closed.