I wasn’t able to get a news round up out on Tuesday because we were busy prepping for our fundraiser (ahem, we need at least $175k to make it to Pride! Please HELP!), so you’re getting an extra long one today. I missed you!

Queer as in F*ck You

Queer People Grow Old, Too. From Heather: “there’s some amazing photos in here.” ❤️

When Parents Are the Activists: Pflag Celebrates 50 Years of LGBTQ Advocacy

As Queer Spaces Return to “Normal,” Disabled LGBTQ+ People Are Being Left Behind

HAHAHAAA. Whew. Let me catch my breath. Protesters Rally Against a Non-Existent Drag Event. “People stood outside an empty pub in East Dulwich, south London, on Friday morning.”

We/Us Is the Uk’s First Visual Art Project Celebrating Butches and Studs From Working Class Backgrounds

Wellesley Students Voted to Admit Nonbinary Applicants and Trans Men. The College President Says It Still Won’t Let Them Enroll.

Oh I’m sorry. Shut thee fuck up. Is that Autostraddle Culture Editor Shelli Nicole INTERVIEWING JANELLE MONÁE!?! Have I stopped screaming about it? Understandably, no I have not. How Janelle Monáe Is Reviving the Harlem Renaissance in Brooklyn

Megan’s Rule: Being Exceptional Doesn’t Make You the Exception. “It felt like the December 2022 trial of Tory Lanez sparked a divide in hip-hop, but it just stoked the flames of a 50-year-long battle for Black women to be heard. In the first episode of our new season, we take you into Megan Thee Stallion’s testimony to unpack the impact of misogynoir on rap.” — Definitely a podcast episode worth listening to.

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Zaya Wade’s very first magazine cover is here!! 🥺 And she looks stunning. But you should stay for the section a the end of the interview where she answers questions from other trans teens. 🥺 Zaya Wade’s Gender Resistance

The Woman Shaking Up Italian Politics (No, Not the New Prime Minister). “Daughter of Italian and Jewish American parents, Elly Schlein wants to remake the center-left opposition to Giorgia Meloni, if only her party can survive it.” I do feel like I should say outright that the article is from the NYT, but also it’s a cool thing to know and I’m wishing Elly Schlein all the best.

Saw This, Thought of You

“Like every bisexual who has ever existed, I used to love Brendon Fraser. I have followed his return to Hollywood closely. I remember the profound sadness I felt when I learned about the reasons he left, and feeling such softness towards him as he began working again. Especially because he returned to this very image-conscious industry as a fat man. Everything I have ever read about him suggests that he a good, kind person.

So it is actually astonishing to me how all of the suffusing, gentle warmth and affection and admiration I had for Brendon Fraser has utterly vanished. A fellow fat friend called it “complicity,” and I am inclined to agree. It felt so ghoulish and frankly kind of insane to watch him stand up there and make an acceptance speech on the back of a project that participates so fully in the dehumanization of an entire category of human beings6.

And it’s hard for me to say this! Because he is, by all accounts, a good and kind person, and has had a triumphant return to the industry after this awful thing happened to him. And his response to his win left him visibly overwhelmed with genuine emotion. I am not a monster. I get it. It gives me no pleasure to disrupt the comeback narrative. But I cannot live with myself pretending it is any other thing. Forget how you can’t put lipstick on a pig—you can!—you can’t put lipstick on an open fucking wound.”

When Whales Fly. Carmen Maria Machado on The Whale and fatness was one of my must reads of the week. (Similarly, you can also read: The Whale Is Not a Masterpiece — It’s a Joyless, Harmful Fantasy of Fat Squalor, which CMM also links to in her piece)

Ok and this is my last Oscars link, the week is over, but it’s by Angelica Jade Bastién so you know it’s goooood: The Self-Possession of Angela Bassett

Nora Ephron’s Revenge

Longtime readers of this column will know that I used to be a The View faithful, dating back to childhood, and when this first dropped it took a lot of self-restraint not to read it all right away in the middle of my workday: Let’s Talk Barbara Walters. “Seventeen leading broadcasters on her legacy and making their way in the world she made.”

So You Began Your Event With an Indigenous Land Acknowledgement. Now What? “Statements recognizing indigenous rights to territories seized by colonial powers may be well-meaning. But some indigenous leaders fear these acknowledgements may become routine and performative.” Correct.

You Should Be Outraged About Silicon Valley Bank

This comes from one our crossword puzzle creators, Rachel, and I personally think it’s really great: “I thought the might be interested in our annual crossword fundraiser for abortion funds — please check it out/share if you feel so moved!” These Puzzles Fund Abortion

Political Snacks

A New Supreme Court Case Could Be the Most Important Transgender Rights Decision Ever. “And it arrives at the Supreme Court at an absolutely horrible time.” — that last part didn’t really need to be said, we all know.

I remember first including this story in a recent round up, I had no idea she was still going! Incredible. A Nebraska Legislator Is 3 Weeks Into a Filibuster Over a Trans Bill. “‘I will burn the session to the ground over this bill,’ state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh said of a bill that would ban gender-affirming therapies for minors.”

How Far-Right Movements Die. Amen.

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