The Autostraddle Insider: Issue 68, April 2020
“oh yeah we haven’t even scraped the surface of pandemic sex dreams”
A Love Letter to Alice Wu’s “The Half Of It”
You’re as epic as the concept of love and as small as the town of Squahamish. You’re as perfect as a movie can be and as messy as a movie should be. To say it simply, I love you.
Queer Miracles: You Defied the Odds with Collective Action & LGBTQ Community, Earned My Undying Love
I hope you sit for a moment and know that you gifted us — and so many other people — with a serious dose of hope. You are making sustainable, community-supported independent queer media possible.
Alice Wu on “The Half Of It,” Artistic Integrity, and Her High School Crush
“Being a closeted teen who wasn’t even aware meant I just listened to melancholy songs and imbued an unrealistic amount of meaning to them.”
Making Beltane Meaningful in Lockdown
Beltane is fast approaching and for many of us it’s going to be a solo celebration this year.
Welcome Our New Trans Subject Editor, Xoai Pham!
Xin chào! My name is Xoai Pham. I’m the new Trans Subject Editor at Autostraddle.
No Filter: Hair Changes Abound for Housebound Hayley Kiyoko, Rhea Butcher and You Too, Probably!
Also, Holland Taylor shares a TBT sketch of herself that I simply must own.
“Legends of Tomorrow” Episode 510 Recap: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Ava leads the charge to Hell to get answers from Astra while Zari faces off with a dinner party full of Encores.
Natalie Diaz Writes the Love Poem for Our Lives in “Postcolonial Love Poem”
Postcolonial Love Poem is everything the title purports it to be. It positions itself between the worlds of love and violence, and answers the question of where love can exist in a nation with a long list of atrocities, especially against Native people.
Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: April’s Arithmetics of Distance
This is dedicated to those who are just trying to make it through every day. It’s been gratifying on an almost cellular level to find that the queen mother Audre Lorde can so frequently speak to the times and places in which we find ourselves. Her final book of poetry, “The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance,” is no exception.
Pop Culture Fix: Janelle Monáe’s Final “Homecoming” Trailer Is Here and Queer and Weird as Hell
One Day at a Time scores an animated special, The Last of Us II gets a real release date maybe, a show about social distancing from the Orange Is the New Black team, Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris talk activism on and off the filed, and more!
Alice Wu’s “The Half Of It” Lives Up to the Hype by Fulfilling and Subverting the Expectations Set by “Saving Face”
Contemporary YA novels don’t necessarily have happy endings so much as hopeful ones, and The Half of It follows this blueprint, delicately treading the fine line between saccharine and heartfelt with skill — and a few good jokes.
Also.Also.Also: We’re at the Part of the Pandemic Where the Aliens Arrive
UFO Updates, Zoom fatigue is real, some thoughts about Anna Wintour, supporting small business when you’re also unemployed, Latinx movies that love lesbians the most, and apparently Taco Bell is art now?
Small Queer Businesses To Support During COVID-19
We’re not suggesting that if you’d just shop queer, all will well, but if you’re burning some cash on retail therapy anyway, you might as well support queer folks running these small businesses!
Batwoman’s Queer Love Triangle Gets Even Better in an Episode Infused With Hope
“I”m not asking you to be a hero; I’m just asking you to keep going.”
One Day at a Time Showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett on Season 4’s Pause, Elena and Syd, and Reopening Hollywood
“Watching season four episodes — the feeling of normalcy, of connection, of being able to laugh. I’m so grateful to be with our fans and live-tweet. It’s almost like Tuesdays are the only time I know what day of the week it is! I put lipstick. I feel like a real person, just to sit in the before for just a second.”
Hulu’s “Little Fires Everywhere” Is Strange and Familiar and Uncomfortable and Gay
Talking to bisexual showrunner Liz Tigelaar about the intense and beautiful Hulu series that builds on the original in the best way possible: making it way gayer.
You Need Help: How Do I Know if I’m Bisexual or a Lesbian and Find Community?
There’s who you’re physically/romantically attracted to, and then there’s who you want to date, and then there’s who you want to sleep with — and all of these can be different things, all of which can also change! Yet we’re expected to align under a single label.
Pop Culture Fix: Law & Order: SVU Finally Has a Bisexual Main Character Who, Curiously, Is not Olivia Benson
Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi spent four hours delivering hot takes on Insta live; Batwoman’s Meagan Tandy on Sophie Moore and season two; a Parks & Rec reunion, and more!
“Vida” Ends as It Began: A Queer Love Letter to Chicanx and Latinx Communities
Much like the Hernandez sisters, Vida is Tanya Saracho’s bar, her nightclub — and no one gets to push her out before last call without a fight. Few get to say that they’ve truly made history. That what they’ve touched won’t be the same after they’ve gone. Television won’t be the same after Vida. That’s just a fact.