Also.Also.Also: Straights Declare “Dressing Like a Lesbian” to Be a “Sexy Trend” When They Do It.. WHUT

Feature image of Zendaya by by Amanda Edwards/WireImage, Bella Hadid by Claudio Lavenia/Getty Images, and Dakota Johnson by Jacopo Raule/WireImage

I’m making a new recipe for dinner tonight (an alternative to takeout beef and broccoli) and I’m a little nervous about it? Does that ever happen to you, getting nervous about low stakes things? Anxiety is so weird!


Queer as in F*ck You

Today on the gay internet…

According to the New York Post, ‘Dressing Like a Lesbian’ Is the Sexy and ‘Powerful’ New Fashion Trend

Which lead to very funny tweets, like:

And a general burning down of the Autostraddle office upon the news:

Shelli: PLETHE
Yash: I’m gaytekeeping
Nicole: RUDE
Dani Janae: From the New York Post of all places
Yash: This is cultural appropriation

Apparently the Post is actually just repackaging this article from respected and internet-beloved lesbian writer Jill Gutowitz (check out our profile of her and her new book “Girls Can Kiss Now” just last week) for Harper’s Bazaar, Sapphic Style Is Going Mainstream: And It’s Making Me Understand My Own Queer Identity in a Whole New Way — but now here we are!

OK, I hope that small bit of joy made you laugh in some really hard times. Speaking of amazing lesbian authors we’ve recently profiled, your must read of the day comes from Kristen Arnett on the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” in Florida:

“To be tender, I think, means to be vulnerable. And there is wild vulnerability in speaking the truth, regardless of our fear; a blessing to open our mouths and speak the hard thing into existence. I think back on the closeted lesbian teenager I used to be, crying and frightened, alone with my silence, and I want tenderness for her. I want it for every queer and trans youth. I want it for Florida, my community; my home. To love a place that refuses to love you back is a heavy burden to bear. But this place is mine, which means it is queer too. How could it not be? I have helped make it. Our LGBTQ+ community has shaped it.”

I Know What It’s Like to Be a Florida Teen Who Can’t Say Gay. I Was One by Kristen Arnett for Time.

And Black, Latino Queer Students Say They Are on Edge in the Wake of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill


Saw This, Thought of You

This really gripping report on Long COVID comes from Heather, and I couldn’t stop reading it: The Pandemic After the Pandemic

We’re All Angry At Work. Now What?

Goodbye to Chowhound, the Internet’s First Food Hub. Shout out to those of us who learned how to cook from food blogs!

Growing up, trips to Long Island to visit my great grandmother Tita on her farm where she raised Chihuahuas also meant visiting the Entenmann’s factory as a reward for not killing my cousins during the long car ride. Entemann’s pound cake is still what I crave every single Fourth of July, and their chocolate chip cookies will probably remain my mother’s favorite forever and ever and ever. Anyway, this ode to a New York staple really got to me in unexpected ways: Thank You, Mr. Entenmann, for the Nicest Cake of My Life

And speaking of all these food related reads, here’s an FYI: “‘There can’t be food justice without worker justice,’ says Alejandra Tolley, a Los Angeles-based organizer and editorial content manager at Veggie Mijas.” Calls for a Boycott of Amy’s Kitchen Grow Amid Allegations of Workplace Safety Issues

Also.(Also.Also): the current Minneapolis Teacher Strike Is Part of a Wider Labor Struggle for Educators Around the Country


Political Snacks

From Himani, “A lot of news sites including Mother Jones and Huffpost are participating in this effort to save Russia’s last independent news platform, which is based in Latvia but can no longer get funding from its Russian readers and supporters… In case it’s helpful, here’s the Mother Jones article about it with more info.” Putin Tried to Shut Them Down. Let’s Keep These Brave Russian Journalists on the Beat.

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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.

17 Comments

  1. Hello team! I’m listening to a really excellent podcast right now from the Red Nation on war in Ukraine and I wanted to recommend it to the team. We are all of course anti-war anywhere, but the podcast is helping me learn important context and history from the “coup” in Ukraine in 2014 and back to the Cold War days that more folks should be aware of – the U.S. is responsible for stoking the flames of this war and to blame it entirely on Russia/Putin is to give our own country a pass on its imperialist ways. Wanted to share because I know y’all have been working to keep us updated – which is always appreciated – and I haven’t seen really any news sources (even the “liberal” ones) doing this depth of reporting.

      • “Apparently imperialism is ok when youre not the US, or do you really think Russia is fighting a defensive war against NATO or Ukranian nazis?”

        No one said that??? Work on your reading comprehension please.

        Thanks for the rec Herekitty.

          • “the U.S. is responsible for stoking the flames of this war and to blame it entirely on Russia/Putin is to give our own country a pass on its imperialist ways.”

            Bad faith much?! What year is this? McCarthy era is back in fashion.

            One criticism doesn’t equate support for another.
            Come on now.

    • “the U.S. is responsible for stoking the flames of this war”

      Without noting the UTTERLY DIFFERENT contexts of Obama/Biden, as opposed to Trump, I just can’t take this comment seriously.

      “The U.S.”? There isn’t a “The U.S.”. There’s a pro-oligarchy/Putin-tool U.S. Right, and consistently pro-democracy U.S. Left (or Center-Left, if you prefer). Yes, all of the U.S. has an imperial past, and it’s still too friendly w/ exploitive multinational capitalists, but the fact is, the U.S. Left (Center-Left) IS on the side of democracy in Ukraine.

      It’s perfectly possible to debate strategy, and whether peace can really be achieved through more war. But NOT which side are the good guys here: it’s the Ukrainians, who—including the majority of Russian-speakers—WANT to be part of the West (even though it includes the U.S. w/ its past of “imperialist ways”).

      • The U.S. doesn’t have an imperialist past.

        The U.S.A. IS an imperialist state.

        It has consistently, regardless of administration, meddled in other countries affairs, directly and/or by proxy,always violently,in EVERY part of the globe.

        Foreign Policy is probably the only bipartisan subject, where both donkeys and elephants agree on.

        Obama invaded Lybia ,incepted Saudi backing in the destruction of Yemen, which Orange Cheetos, perpetuated and Robinette is keeping up to date with tech weaponry and intelligence gathering, with the subsequent humanitarian catastrophe, western media, thoroughly avoid mentioning.

        As for being Pro-democracy,Histories are our witness.
        Democracy is earned,fought for, actively
        sustained and fostered.
        Not given, by a foreign entity, which is utterly ignorant of the ways of the land, its history,people and don’t bother trying to understand.

        The U.S.A. has failed again and again, to address civil society in the countries They supposedly wanted to help.

        Instead choosing to arm and ally themselves with the most vile entities.

        The U.S.A is not on the side of the Democracy in Ukraine.
        It’s on the side of selling Shale gas(for which indigenous land has been and is being destructed), Weaponry, as well as securing military basis around Russia, via NATO.

        Because The U.S.A. wants a unilateral world, wherein It has the last word on everything and everyone.

        It’s one thing to have your political convictions,and orientation.
        It’s another to display ahistoricism,just coz Your fav are leading.

  2. i will support any and all teacher strikes!! i’m a fourth generation educator and at my last full time job i made roughly the same annual salary as my great grandmother, who retired in the eighties. right now i’m a teacher’s aide/paraprofessional at a hybrid preschool and the staffing problems are unreal; we currently have a superintendent-level person at my nonprofit filling in as a teacher’s aide sub because there’s literally no one else. everyone is underpaid and overworked and the demands placed on teachers have never been higher. it’s so hard to set boundaries when you know that the kids will feel the effects before anyone with decision-making power. “i will not do extra prep work outside my paid hours” will mean “my three year old class will not get structured art activities” long before it means “my prep work will be compensated fairly”

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