Sunday Funday Is Here, Queer, Femme, and Swearing In

Happy first Sunday of 2019!!! We made it bitches! I’m so happy to be here, in the future with you. How has your first week been? I hope it was good, I hope you didn’t have to work too, too hard. I hope you got to take care of yourself. Also, today is the last day I’m legally allowed to say Merry Christmas, so if that’s your thing, Merry Christmas! Okay, let’s get some good news in our bellies this morning.


+ Kyrsten Sinema was sworn in as “the nation’s first openly bisexual senator and only the second out LGBTQ senator.”

+ We stan for a lesbian ex-nun!!!

”I have decided to leave the convent. I’m pretty sure I’m gay,” I announced to my mother over lunch at a quaint Victorian restaurant in Cape May, New Jersey. The year was 1990, and I had made this pilgrimage to deliver what I knew would be jarring news.

+ Sarah Cunningham, who started the “Free Mom Hugs” movement, is a mom who will come to your wedding if your mom won’t! Jamie Lee Curtis is making a movie about her!!!

+ Dorothy Beam is a 94-year-old LGBT activist and archivist. She’s spurred to action by the death of her son Joseph Beam, the editor of In the Life, “the first anthology of black gay men’s writing.”

+ Marriage equality isn’t legal in Japan yet, but Misato Kawasaki and Mayu Otaki are getting married anyway — in every country where it’s legal.

Kawasaki, who studies alongside Otaki at Utsunomiya University’s Faculty of International Studies, said she wanted “to show through our wedding photos that being lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) is normal so that those who are troubled by their sexual status can harbour hope.”

+ Shout out to Virginia, shout out to Jennifer Wexton. The VA representative hung the trans flag outside of her office recently.

+ Here are six queer artists to watch out for this year.

+ An update to our “where can I get a gender-neutral ID?” database: you can now have a non-binary or intersex marker on your ID, or birth certificate in NYC, California, and Germany (in addition to Oregon!).

+ Sophie Rebecca is a trans ballerina from the UK, currently performing in Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre’s Ballet Beyond Borders event.

+ Friends, I know we feel lots of ways about it, but that lesbian “Batwoman” with Ruby Rose is a go. More lesbians on TV is always good, right? Let’s say yeah.

+ Have you watched the new Lizzo video? Let’s all watch it together.


Thank you for coming with me on this first good news roundup of the year! I hope your heart is full and you feel ready to take over the world with kindness and love. Speaking of love, I love you so, so, much!! Happy Sunday, pals. See you soon.

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Ari

Ari is a 20-something artist and educator. They are a mom to two cats, they love domesticity, ritual, and porch time. They have studied, loved, and learned in CT, Greensboro, NC, and ATX.

Ari has written 330 articles for us.

13 Comments

  1. Kyrsten Sinema may check the identity boxes but I don’t think she works for our community. Someone’s values are just as important to me as their identity. How they vote to treat other people. LGBTQ folks in office who consistently vote against health care, against a progressive taxation system, against welcoming immigrants are not good representatives of our community and I’m not excited about seeing her in office. It would be great to see information about people’s records incorporated into this kind of coverage. More info: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kyrsten-sinema-not-progressive_us_5bdca881e4b09d43e31edfa3

    • Thank you for posting this–I’m always interested in getting more information on the actual vote records of political candidates. I’m looking forward to seeing how all the new (and old) senators use the power they have in the upcoming sessions.

    • Thanks for posting. I agree some of her political record isn’t quite what we might hope for. But I spent 24 years in Arizona and that article’s quote of her reckoning with her ineffectiveness in her early days sounds exactly right – the AZ Legislature has a long, proud history of having rightwing nutjobs in it. Especially awhile back I have no doubt she’d have had little luck getting anything even vaguely lefty done. I hope she will decide to move back a bit left now, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, since she still has to think about reelection. However: still better than a Republican in that same office, no? And with a law degree, MBA, PhD in justice studies and experience in government, she’s way better qualified than Trump.

      Unrelated to my opinions on her politics, high femme ain’t usually my thing but goddaaaaaaaammmmnnn, those swearing-in pics! You go, Senator. I’ll just read that article a few more times and gnaw on my knuckles.

    • Thanks for posting this. I’ll take a shitty Dem over the most moderate of Republicans any day, but I appreciate having their measure.

  2. Bless Lizzo for starting our year out on such a beautiful note. Thank you for sharing all this good news!

  3. I’ve known about Sarah Cunningham for a while but I didn’t know she had a gay son and this was the reason she created her organization. I think it’s sweet she and other volunteers will be ‘stand-ins’ at your wedding. While I have no experience with weddings, I still think it’s nice to have a family member there even if it’s a ‘stand-in’!

  4. My aunt used to date an ex-nun. She was awesome. I miss her. She was a big part of my life growing up. Awesome butch who helped me with my woodworking projects and rode a Harley.

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