Total ’90s Lesbian Trivia Quiz

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In April we’ll be kicking off our Trivia Meet-Ups month, in which Autostraddlers from all around the world will host local meet-ups that involve some kind of trivia game! Because trivia is fun, and guided activities are nature’s best water-based lubricant for otherwise potentially awkward social intercourse.

But, even if you can’t go or meet-ups aren’t your thing, good news: you can play trivia games on the internet right here! We’ll have a few in March, and a bunch in April.

Today’s topic? ’90s lesbian arts & pop culture. So go ahead and pop Swamp Ophelia into your discman and let’s get this party started! In the comments, please let me know: 1. your score, 2. what year you were born. For the record, my score is “100” and I was born in 1981.

If you cheat and look stuff up then you’re going to have to live with that for the rest of your life, so think about that long and hard before you do it.

Total '90s Lesbian Trivia

  • 2. What is the name of this then-identified "all-dyke" punk queercore band from San Francisco that was notorious for its wild stage shows (including 1994's "Tits & Tofu Tour") during which lead singer Lynn Breedlove would often perform topless while wearing a strap-on?

  • 6. The lesbian erotic magazine pictured here, described as "Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian," launched in the mid-'80s and went bankrupt in 1995 before getting a second life from 1998-2006. What was it called?

  • 9. This musician won a 1997 Grammy for "Give Me One Reason" but her first nomination was in 1989, for "Fast Car."

  • 11. Who is getting married in this picture?

  • 15. This legendary lesbian writer and activist was named New York's Poet Laureate in 1991.

  • 21. The lesbian photographer who took these pictures, well-known for her photographs of LA freeways, the leather-dyke community, queer families, and high school football players; was commissioned by LACMA in 1995 to make a "Dyke Deck," a deck of playing cards with pictures of LGBT "queens" and "kings." What's her name?

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Riese

Riese is the 40-year-old Co-Founder and CEO of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in California. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3017 articles for us.

165 Comments

  14. Quiz Grade: D
    14/23 (61%)
    Year of Birth: 1979

    In my defense I was not allowed to watch any television that wasnt PBS until high school and then I was purposefully kept too busy to consume a lot of pulp culture

    I was OBSESSED with that Sophie B. Hawkins song Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

    Years later I realized how gay it (and I) was

    Reply to This Comment

    • I was born in 1977 but I come from a small town in Newfoundland, Canada. It wasn’t until I went to University that I discovered Ani DiFranco, Rent and many queer movies. (Thanks LBGTMUN) I am still learning things today that I should probably know.

      Reply to This Comment

  19. Born in 1989. Came out in 2009.

    Quiz Grade: D
    Score: 15
    Percentage: 65%

    This actually makes me look way more knowledgeable than I really am, because except for the questions about Friends and Rent, all the answers I knew I knew only because I’d read about them on Autostraddle.

    Reply to This Comment

  24. Quiz Grade: C
    Score: 18
    Percentage: 78%

    Born 1986.

    A few additional things-

    1. I loved every minute of this! Procrastination at its finest.
    2. I am now going to have “Take me or leave me” stuck in my head for the rest of the day (thank you Jonathon Larson)
    3. I would also like not to be fired, Riese. When Ellen came out, I was only 10 years old! I’m trying! I promise I’m trying!!!
    4. That photo of Cindy Crawford and kd lang. I got it correct on a lucky guess, but WOWZERS!!! IT IS BURNED INTO MY MEMORY FOREVER NOW!!!

    Forever and ever. Amen.

    Reply to This Comment

  32. A
    21
    1982

    I didn’t know ALL of them but I knew enough about enough of the options to narrow down and guess.

    But I mean, my first ever concert as a child was Lilith Fair so what hope did I have ;)

    Reply to This Comment

  33. Quiz Grade: E
    Score: 11
    Percentage: 48%
    Year of Birth: 1990

    Oof. I pride myself on being a 90s kid, but I guess I was more into giving my American Girl Dolls boobs and having them make out with each other.

    Reply to This Comment

  38. Score: 13
    Year of birth: 1994

    I tried, I really did!!! But I will admit for some of the questions I had literally no idea who any of the people were!!!!! To give me some credit the oldest I was in the 90s was 5 so I look forward to a 00s trivia quiz soon.

    Reply to This Comment

  39. This is shameful

    Quiz Grade: C
    Score: 18
    Percentage: 78%

    I was born in 1980 for Pete’s sake.

    I always find it weird that Tracy Chapman didn’t released Give Me One Reason before 1997. I do remember one appearance on Saturday Night Live, I think it was on 1989, where she performed this song. The video has disappeared from the face of the earth.

    Reply to This Comment

    • But think of all the youngsters who will now relate so hard to Tribe 8 and Hothead Paison. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen one of those comics, and how often I think of Hothead in my day to day life as I am filled with rage on a daily basis?

      Reply to This Comment

  54. i am so pleased that we have talked about the ’90s enough that so many young humans scored so well

    also it seems the RENT question stumped a lot of older people! i did put it in there because i’ve noticed millennials are WAY more up on RENT than my generation, since you had to be into broadway in the 90s to know about it (i was), whereas then the movie came out in the mid-’00s. and i wanted something that would be easier for younger people

    also despite being born in 1981 i was not yet blossomed as a homosexual in the ’90s so a lot of this i learned later. and also b/c my mom was a lesbian in the ’90s.

    but! i did try to make the multiple choice in such a way that even if you were unfamiliar with the topic, you could maybe still narrow it down using process of elimination

    Reply to This Comment

  60. Quiz Grade: E
    Score: 11
    Percentage: 48%

    Born 1969

    Should be 12 because I knew the LA Law one but hit the wrong button. I remember watching Abby and CJ’s kiss in the tv lounge of my college dorm (wait that makes it sound like I went to college with Abby and CJ) – Abby was the first bi character I ever saw on tv. Made a huge impression on baby-bi me.

    Reply to This Comment

  66. 21/23, 91% I missed the Rent question, and the Ellen question. I watched the Puppy Episode when it aired, but maybe that was the only time. I also used to listen to the Rent soundtrack a lot, but I drew a blank.

    Reply to This Comment

  68. Quiz Grade: B
    Score: 20
    Percentage: 87%
    Birth Year: 1992
    I feel like I mostly heard about this stuff from other queer people on the internet tbh
    BUT ALSO, I am HERE for Tortall Recall being an answer on the last question. They have been giving me life lately.

    Reply to This Comment

  74. Quiz Grade: E
    Score: 13
    Percentage: 57%

    Born: 1987

    I am not from the States and I know most stuff from later research on 90s lesbian culture (i.e. reading Autostraddle).

    Loved the quiz, I learned a lot!

    Reply to This Comment

  75. 79% (17 right)
    Born in 1987.

    My knowledge of 90s lesbian culture is a mix of being super into RENT in middle school/Ani DiFranco in high school (in the early ‘00s), and learning things after the fact. Mostly from Autostraddle, so thank you for that!

    Reply to This Comment

  81. D: 14/23
    1992

    As a Scandinavian born in the 90s, I would like to thank the internet for a passing grade. Also, I remember writing a high school paper on Catherine Opie while listening to Tracy Chapman, so there that.

    Reply to This Comment

  83. I want to justified myself. I was born in 1980 but my case is pretty similar to @charrrlotte.

    Here Down Under (Argentina in this case) cable was not a thing until the end of the 90’s, and we only got the most popular TV shows. Alternative music? That train stopped in the mainstream grunge bands. Internet? We had dial-up until the middle 2000’s.

    It’s a freaking miracle I’ve got a 78%.

    Reply to This Comment

  90. Quiz Grade: C
    Score: 17
    Percentage: 74%
    Year of birth: 1979

    Born and raised in Europe, though, so I kind of feel like this is a European A, tbh. I really enjoyed this, it brought back a lot of fond memories; Hothead Paisan remains my spirit animal to this day.

    Reply to This Comment

  96. 70% and born in 2001. But I have poly parents and more specifically two moms who spurred my devotion to Tracy Chapman, RENT, Ani Difranco, Fried Green Tomatoes, etc. I also had a riot grrrl phase and have devoured every queer book/movie/tv show I could get my hands on in the past 4 years.

    Reply to This Comment

  97. 1. 20/23 B
    2. 1967

    I was able to sort through the ones I was unsureby process of elimination. (Ansela Adams, I see what you did there!) But I was actually there for/watched/listened to/read a lot of these at the time. I miss my Hothead Paisan shirt! Or just as likely I was swimming in a Bay of Pussy, surrounded by lesbanians and unconsciously inhaled their knowledge through my pores.

    Reply to This Comment

  103. Quiz Grade: C
    Score: 17/23
    Percentage: 74%
    Year Born: 1992

    I forgot to come back here to post my score until after I saw today’s article with all of the results so I just missed my chance to be included with everyone else. ?

    Reply to This Comment

  105. 100%.
    1981.
    What I didn’t personally experience, I either read about in my obsessive-queer-culture-hunting babydyke days in the late 90s (thanks, Alison Bechdel) or heard about in my early-mid oughts LGBT Center job.

    Reply to This Comment

  108. I got a C, most likely because of Tracy Chapman, Audre Lorde, Tribe 8 , my fashion idol Darlene Connors and my supreme ability to use process of elimination in multi-choice questions.

    Too many blind spots when it comes to Rent and popular lesbian musicians who make me sleepy. Tracy Chapman is just magical and doesn’t make me sleepy no matter how slow a song goes.

    Reply to This Comment

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