Are You Pumped? Our 14th Birthday A+ Ask-Us-Anything IS NOW

Autostraddle’s turning 14 this week. That’s a lot of years on the internet for an indie queer publication for women and trans people. We’re celebrating this queer space that was built by us, for us, and no one’s gotten rid of us yet!

Today, we’re thanking the readers who’ve kept us here, for everyone who needs us, with an Ask-Us-Anything for our A+ members (pssst that’s YOU)!

Have you ever wondered:

  • How DID Autostraddle get its name?
  • Are any of us single?
  • Who’s a top and who’s a bottom around here?
  • Who’s on board for starting a queer commune in the woods?
  • What’s our go-to for potlucks?
  • Which of us actually believe in astrology?

Get in here, ask away, and let’s celebrate still being here, still being queer, after all these years!

When is the AMA?

TODAY March 7th, 2023 from 8am – 10pm EST / 5am – 7pm PST

But why is the AMA? Because as A+ members, you are the core reason this queer ship is still sailing. A+ members literally fund, just with A+ memberships, half of what we do — and between fundraisers, merch and affiliates, Autostraddle is majority reader-funded. Your support allows us to publish the kinds of articles that matter to our community, vapid celebrity fluff and deep personal essays, queer fashion and style and cultural criticism, and more. We can balance getting clicks with publishing pieces that won’t get as many views, but that really, really matter. AND we can pay queer and trans people to work and write for us. That’s what reader support does for us. That’s what you do for us and this community. So, let’s party in the comments, yeah?

What exactly does this celebration look like? It’s an AMA or, really it’s an Ask Us Anything with 23 whole gays to answer your questions. This is an all out, all day, send-us-your-most-heartfelt-or-most- untethered questions situation. (We might not be able to answer everything, but you can certainly ask.)

Here’s how it works:

Comment below with your questions, your advice needs, your burning desire to share, your quandaries about queer life, the universe, everything.

We, the editors and writers of Autostraddle, reply to your comment with our answers, our advice, our solutions or lack thereof. If you want a specific person to answer your question, include their name in the comment so we can “control F” and find those questions.

So who all’s gay here?

The following people will be around to answer your questions!

Riese Bernard
Carmen Phillips
Nico Hall
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
Laneia Jones
Anya Richkind
Heather Hogan
Viv Le
Em Win
shea martin
Niko Stratis
Stef Rubino
Valerie Anne
Sa’iyda Shabazz
Drew Gregory
Shelli Nicole
Nic Sam
Vanessa Friedman
Julie Gentile
Lily Alvarado
Darcy Cooper
A.Tony Jerome
Ashni Mehta
Ro White

Let’s gooo!

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
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839 Comments

  1. I’m going to ask the first question so that no one feels like they have to ask the first one. Let’s talk tattoos. Do you have a favorite? Do you have one that you are like “well, I had to start somewhere”? What are they?

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    • I love tattoos. The first tattoo I ever got was honestly a weak attempt at rebellion during my freshman year of college. It was the third week of school and I was very much still closeted, conservative, and very very Southern Baptist. So I walked down to the tattoo shop in this small rural Carolina town and got a….Jesus fish tattooed on my right foot to symbolize “Christ as my foundation.” 15 years later, I think it might secretly be favorite tattoo ever because I always just think “who the hell was this person?” and get super grateful for my journey to my now.

      My coolest tattoo though, is this geometric unicorn tattoo on the back of my left forearm. Sometimes, it gets lonely being me in a world not designed for folks who look like me but the unicorn reminds me that even when I’m lonely, I’m still so fucking magical.

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    • I do not have a single tattoo!! And not for any particular reason. My sister keeps saying she wants to do sister tattoos and I keep telling her I’m down but she has yet to show me any specific ideas/designa so we just keep not doing it

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    • Nico, this is HARD question. It’s wild because there are tattoos that I’ve put a lot of time into and worked with my close friend/tattoo artist Angel (@humanrind on IG for all the NYers out there!) for hours to bring to life and get just right but my favorite tattoo remains the prance-y, animated bull tattoo on my forearm that she gave me one day on a whim when we were hanging out in her studio. We’re both Tauruses and not prone to making quick decisions so it feels kind of special in a way, like a quick decision we shared together as bull people. I just love it.

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    • my favourite tattoo, of my many weird and strange offerings: on my left shoulder blade I have a tattoo of a hot dog, with Beavis (from Beavis and Butthead fame) face, and it is saying the name “Jenna”, who is the artist of this masterpiece.

      many years ago I had a girlfriend and yet-unchecked drinking problem and a bunch of us all decided we would draw names out of a hat and whoever’s name you got, you had to get an EXACT copy of their worst tattoo. If you didn’t want to get a copy of the bad tattoo you had to get the hot dog one, which was deemed to be weird and bad. I drew my (now ex) girlfriend’s ex’s name and she told me “in no way am I staring at that same bad tattoo in the same bed on a different person” so I got the opt out option.

      the guy who game the tattoo laughed the whole time and get telling me “this is the worst idea I’ve ever heard” and he had a tattoo on his entire lower face of the letter W, like Tony Wonder in Arrested Development.

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    • I don’t have any tattoos yet, but I’ve been really wanting this family tattoo a few of my cousins have that’s our last name in Burmese script. I just need to be convinced to take the plunge and put something permanent on my body. I am indeed afraid of commitment.

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    • I do no have any yet but I am a wheelchair user and lots of wheelchair users use mermaids sort of as a metaphor for wheelchair use, and also I once saw an extremely cute tattoo of a mermaid in a wheelchair, so I would love a wheelchair mermaid on my ribs <3

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    • Tattoos are such a good ice breaker, Nico!! (and I just realized it’s maybe one of your favorite ice breakers because it was the first one you asked me here: https://develop.autostraddle.com/things-ive-never-asked-carmen-about-growing-up-in-a-theater-family-her-dating-habits-and-more/ !! You are so good at this!)

      Anyway, my favorite tattoo is the bird over my left shoulder, because my grandfather used to call me a “rare bird” when I was little. It’s always felt like my protector.

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    • I have a tattoo on my wrist of Ramona Flowers phone number from Scott pilgrim surrounded by a gilded age-esque frame! and its not my favorite but its one that I remember wanting to get for SO LONG but in the right way cos I love that movie and I love the gilded age and it all just came together!

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    • I only have two tattoos. The first I got when I was 18. It’s the word “Timshel” on my ribcage which is a reference to East of Eden a book that was very important to me as a kid. And the second tattoo I got just a few years ago. It’s a line drawing of a still from Agnès Varda’s Documenteur of a naked woman looking in a split mirror. I could write an entire essay about this movie and this tattoo but I do just love it aesthetically on top of all that meaning.

      There are a bunch more tattoos I want and when I have more disposable income I’ll get them. There’s a tree from Jane Campion’s Bright Star that I really want on my back. And I’ve also thought about getting a VHS tape with “Sometimes you have to create your own history” from The Watermelon Woman written around the edges. Basically I want my body to turn into a tribute to all my favorite art.

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    • I love tattoos! Right now I only have three, but I have plans for more! My favorite tattoo is the first one I ever got – a coyote on my right forearm. But I get the most comments on the very-poorly-done tattoo of two teeth on my collar bone, which I got during a Friday the 13th flash sale. People always ask me what it means, and it means…nothing. So I have fun making things up.

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    • can this answer also be future tattoos becauseeeee i want caitlyn siehl’s “it ends or it doesn’t. we do not perish.” on my left forearm and final boi across my knuckles and what has kept me from this is two fold 1) money and 2) there are only so many fights i can wage against my parents at one time and this one has to hold on to when we’re not all living together lol

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    • I don’t have any tattoos yet honestly just because choosing an artist is stressful to me (even though surely finding a queer tattoo artist in nyc isn’t going to be hard) but I have 5 fully planned out and vague ideas for a few more. including but not limited to a quote from Orphan Black: “I’m not going to apologize for my heart, okay?”

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    • The first tattoo I ever got was a tattoo for my mom and when she saw it, she started crying (it was also her birthday). So that’s my favorite tattoo memory. The one I like the best changes daily I think :).

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    • my first tattoo was a butterfly tramp stamp that has NOT aged well at all. my bestie took me to a really shitty place to get it done and he tore my skin up! also clearly didn’t know how to apply color to dark skin. my favorite tattoo is my “nevertheless she persisted” quote. i have a list of tattoos that i still want, so that favorite will probably change over time

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    • My first tattoo is an abstract line drawing of a body of someone I used to sleep with, along the length of my inner right bicep. I didn’t realize it at the time but it’s become a Rorschach test where if someone can recognize what it is they are either queer, attracted to me, or both ;)

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    • I only have two tattoos but I want so many more!! I have a floral piece on my arm (bisexual) and an elephant on my shoulder. Honestly, I’m not attached to the elephant — I barely see it because it’s on my back — but it is my favorite just because it’s (1) the first tattoo I ever got and (2) pulled directly from Google Images. I went into the tattoo parlor, googled “elephant tattoo trunk up”, and picked either the third or fourth image and now it’s on my body forever lol.

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  2. I’ve been reading Autostraddle since almost the beginning (I think I started in 2010). What have y’all learned the most since the beginning of AS? How have you grown? Give a quick pep talk to Early Autostraddle you (as people, writers, and the website). Thanks for sticking around, friends. <3

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    • Rachel, this is such a thoughtful question! Thank you so much for being with us so long! 

      I think, for me, the most important thing I’ve learned since The Beginning is that internet trends are ephemeral. Pivots to video, slumping and rising social traffic, the rise and fall of dozens of different social platforms, working for “exposure,” Big Data, everyone’s reading on laptops, everyone’s reading on mobile, the way Google reads and rewards articles, lists and quizzes and puzzles, AI, and on and on. Most big media companies have knee-jerk reactions to those trends, firing and hiring in large swaths to try to keep up with the Next Big Thing. Of course some adaptation is required to stay afloat, but at the end of the day, what people are looking for is what they’ve always been looking for: connection, community, laughter, to have their minds and hearts opened, to be part of a larger purpose.

      Autostraddle isn’t still here because we’ve successfully conquered every digital trend. Autostraddle is still here because we are in love with this community and want to make our collective reality a little bit warmer and a little bit brighter, and our readers want that for themselves and for people who don’t even know they need it yet.

      If I had a dollar for every piece of unsolicited advice I’ve had about “building my brand” over the years, I’d be able to open my own rescue cat shelter and save every cat in New York City! I’ve been doing this work 15 years and the only reason I’m still here is because I’ve always led with my heart and worked to grow into a better person, instead of working to grow into an Influencer of the Week. I think if I could give early me a pep talk, that’s what I’d say. “Stay true to yourself, baby Heather. At the end of every day, who you are is so much more important than whether or not the internet thinks you’re cool.” 

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    • Oh wow, there’s so much I wish I could say to myself at the age of 23 when I first started writing for Autostraddle. I hadn’t been out very long, and I was still figuring out a LOT about myself and what I want — both in terms of my sexuality and my identity as a writer. I’m a much stronger writer now, but I don’t discredit the work I was doing then. It was all practice; it was all growth. Just like how my messy dating/sex life back then was also practice and growth haha.

      I do feel like being a writer at Autostraddle means developing a strange but amazing relationship with your writing, because it really does explicitly marry my queerness with my writing. Of course, no matter what or where I wrote, my queerness would always be inextricable from my writing, but here it makes it SO tethered. My journey with my lesbianism maps perfectly onto my journey with my writing career. It wasn’t until very recently that I figured out what it is I really desire in both realms.

      OMG DID I LOSE THE PLOT OF THIS QUESTION???? I hope not lol!

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    • i think the most consistently true and important thing i’ve come to realize in 14 yrs is that, for the very most part, people are trying their best, with what they have available to them, and that giving people the benefit of the doubt for at least a minute will almost always be the best bet!

      and i would tell Early Autostraddle Laneia to sit up straighter, get some wrist braces, and ask for help as soon as possible, because this is gonna last at least 13 yrs longer than she’s expecting it to, bless.

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      • “For the very most part, people are trying their best, with what they have available to them, and that giving people the benefit of the doubt for at least a minute will almost always be the best bet!”

        I agree with this wholeheartedly. My biggest regrets over the last 15 years — with one Pretty Little Exception — were all caused by me not giving people the benefit of the doubt. And the biggest hurts I’ve experienced too. If I could go back and change anything I’ve done, it would be a list of times I acted rashly out of insecurity, frustration, exhaustion, not taking time to ask enough questions, believing the loudest people over the most trustworthy people, and that inexplicably eternal need to be accepted and fit in. Laneia’s absolutely right! The older I get, the more I believe this is true!

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    • Rachel!!! First I wanna say, seeing you and your avatar makes me smile every time (as someone who’s also almost been here since the beginning! I started reading Autostraddle when it was about two years old?). I hope you’re doing well!

      Ok so I agree with Heather about the lessons of navigating internet waters and Laneia’s answers about how to best work with our team. They are also who I most look to as AS vets for advice even outside of this AMA so maybe that’s not a surprise.

      I started writing for Autostraddle in 2017 and I had just turned 31. I had been “out” for about.. six years or so? I think the biggest piece of advice I would’ve given that person was to go outside and touch grass. I’ve been working pretty much non-stop, around the clock, since I first came here as a freelance writer and the truth is… drumroll… the prize of that is just more work! And I do pride myself on being a hard worker, but I could also afford to be kinder to myself and my body and treat it with gentleness. Keeping Autostraddle alive also requires each of us to be our best selves, and my best self is almost most certainly not sleep deprived and without meals (but unfortunately, that’s often how I’m showing up to our workplace). WOW WHOOPS MAYBE TOO REAL FOR 9:45 AM.

      Umm yeah, sleep more. Go outside. Get ready because it’s going to be the ride of our lives.

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    • this is a lovely question!

      i think mine is, if a place is meant for you, you can always return.

      when i first was writing here, i just was so thankful to be here that i let it cloud what i was capable of doing while still taking care of myself. i was anxious and terrified all the time. so i think i’d say, no one is going to kick you out because you’re different, because you have to work differently, and freelance writing is NOT the career you should be aspiring for not, because it isnt worth it or possible but because i dont think you would like the person you’d have to become to survive it. and that, if this is a place that is meant for you, you’ll find your way back here and won’t have to force it. and if you don’t come back, that doesn’t undo what its meant to you, it just means its over. and endings arent the worst thing. they feel like it sometimes, but they arent the worst thing.

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    • rachel, hi! i love this question so much, and i love that you are a commenter who i think “wow we’ve really grown up together, huh?” it’s always so good to see you here.

      i think one of the big things i’ve learned is my own writing/sharing boundaries. for better or worse, i *do* enjoy sharing my personal life through my writing, but when i started writing here at age 23, i just shared everything, and that was a mistake. it also made me feel like i was making connections when i was really just sort of creating parasocial relationships and expectations i couldn’t uphold. i wanted to be friends with everyone and i wanted to believe that community meant EVERYONE. if i could talk to Baby Vanessa i’d say babe, be kind to everyone, but don’t act like you can be best friends with everyone because you can’t and it will bite you in the ass. you don’t have to write every single thing down in public. you can keep some of you for yourself. when you fight with your friends, learn how to say “i forgive you” — it’s almost more important than “i’m sorry,” but just by a hair. i’d tell her a lot more things too, but most of it boils down to like “listen to laneia” so i think we’ve covered that above. ;)

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  3. Ok so I’m just copying one of the suggested questions, but the people need to know — how DID Autostraddle get its name? And by the people I mean me, because my mum definitely thought it was a sex thing when I told her about the website. And I couldn’t correct her because I don’t know that it’s not not a sex thing.

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    • The fact that I have to tell people, anyone, everyone, what the name of my workplace is if they ask. And their reactions! Unreal.

      I can take a stab at this but Riese might be able to come in and fill it out more later. Riese and the other co-founders started Autostraddle in 2009. Before then, Riese had two blogs. I think I am going to get their names wrong (so someone please correct me if so), but one was “A Girl Called Automatic Win” and the other one was about bisexuality and “Straddling” two worlds. If you combine these two names you get a totally-not-confusing-and-not-oddly-sexual-at-all name for a fourteen year old queer publication 😂

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    • My answer is similar to Nico’s, but I believe Riese’s second blog was called “The Road Best Straddled” (the bisexuality one) and that she was also planning on writing a book with the same name.

      Hahaaa cannot wait for Riese to wake up in California and tell us how much of this story we got right or wrong!

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    • in 2006 i was working on a book proposal about bisexuality called “the road best straddled,” which was a takeoff from the robert frost poem the road best traveled, so when i started a blog that year to recap the l word, i called it “theroadbeststraddled dot blogspot dot com” because this was early internet and i thought that this was a way to get my book title for my non-existent book into the public imagination.

      i already had my personal blog, marielynbernard.blogspot.com, which was called this girl called automatic win, or “autowin” for short. so then haviland (my bff at the time), who loves abbrevs, started calling my spinoff l word recap blog “autostraddle”.

      then when we launched this space in 2009 that’s what we called it!

      at one point we did attempt to assert that it is a sexual move

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  4. 14 years is a long time! So many great humans have worked (or interned) for the site. Are there any folks in particular that you maybe don’t interact with much now that you don’t work together, but you think of often?

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    • I’m still really good friends with Erin Sullivan who was hired to be a writer the same time I was but who doesn’t write here anymore. But I’ve stayed friends with her through the years despite no longer working together.

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    • not to sound like the local kindergarten teacher who’s fighting mandatory retirement BUT i can honestly say that i remember everyone who’s worked here, in any capacity, and think of them often af, and i’m always so fucking proud to see them out in the world! writing, acting, publishing a million books, teaching, going back to school, playing in bands, having babies, starting over — all of it. and when i see them on shelves at bookstores, or in the credits of a tv show, i do claim them as my own and tell whomever’s nearby that i worked with them once.

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    • I miss a lot of the Black writers who were here when I was first hired as a writer (Reneice, Ari) and taught me a lot of the Autostraddle ropes. And whenever I see Ari in the internet streets I get a jolt of happiness! A. Tony also used to be in that group, but we were able to bring them back, which has been a real freaking JOY for me!! KaeLyn was an instrumental influence when I was first hired here, and she remains one for me now even though she’s really busy these these days and has opportunities to write less, she’s always still a constant presence and it matters a lot.

      This is a sort of pivot on the question but Carly, B. Nichols, and Gabrielle Korn are three AS alums who were way ahead of my time, but have each gone above and beyond in their own ways to reach out and build a relationship with me. That’s meant everything. And Gabrielle has taught me so much about what it means to be an EIC from her own experiences in media.

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      • Reneice! I loved Femme Brulee! And Ari’s writing on academics and queer homemaking.

        It’s great to hear about the support from AS alums from before your time. I hope that this is a queer community that past, present, and future writers can rely on and build.

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    • i also love this question because i think more than any other job i’ve had, this one really does allow us to cultivate intimate friendships with other people on staff, even though when i was hired the job description specifically said “not a slumber party” ;)

      i’m still friendly with a lot of the people i was hired with back in 2012 — gabrielle korn and austen are two i’m still close with — and it’s really nice to see their lives continue to grow and prosper (lol what? but you know what i mean) throughout the years. hansen has a baby! cara writes for the NYT science section! kristen and i are actually getting coffee next week because she’s visiting portland (and, spoiler, maybe writing something for us soon!). and i became very close with lizz and rachel and have remained extremely close with them, too. i’m sure there are others i’m leaving out — i feel very much like laneia in that i remember so many staff members and wish them all well and miss them and celebrate them as family.

      i actually find the people i miss even more are commenters who have dropped off over the years. i have a way to find most people i’ve worked with, but y’all are more elusive, and i truly miss some people who commented for years and years and eventually dropped off. if any of y’all are still here lurking, just know that you’re missed. 💜

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      • Omg same about commenters, Vanessa! When someone drops off commenting, I always wonder — where are they? How are they? Will we get to chat again? Know that you’re loved!

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    • Rachel Kincaid made me a better writer and was like a big sister to me when I first started writing here. We’re still in touch and it’s always such a joy to catch up with her!

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    • My answers are mostly reflected in Carmen’s i miss reneice and ari SO MUCH and definitely +1 erin and rachel. i literally do no understand how erin is one of the funniest people to ever exist like do you all still read that straight people series even though its years old? just me? okay, cool

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  5. Hiii i’ve also been lurking since the very beginning and have been so grateful for autostraddle throughout the years. i’m wondering what if anything you miss about the early days’ staff culture, and what’s your favorite new staff culture development? @riese @green

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    • it’s tough to really tease apart what i miss bc it was a beloved aspect of our staff culture and what i miss bc i was 29 and am now 42 — like i’m both deeply interested in and also extremely wary of any nostalgia right now — but, riese and i do refer to the earliest days as the slumber party which, you know, implies a halcyon time of camaraderie and potential and very little responsibility, and the feeling of something being infinite and endless, when actually there’s a guaranteed sunrise right around the corner. but also a slumber party is an inherently exclusive thing! that’s what makes it possible to push yourself and actually feel that infinity, bc you’re so safe there, and it also makes it really hard for other people to come in and have that same experience.

      all of which to say that i do sometimes miss when it felt like the wheels could come off at any minute, but i can only say that bc they didn’t actually fall off, bc we kept them on with string and gum and then eventually with [what are the things that keep real wheels on? lug nuts? a tie rod? idfk but THOSE] — bc the sun did come up, and we believed in ourselves and each other enough to get real fucking serious about both the present and the future, and then y’all showed up to pay for memberships and camps and merch bc you also believed in us and this and its future. i couldn’t miss those 2am gchats with editors and daily 100+ email reply-alls with writers and interns if we weren’t currently operating out of a highly organized slack office, making plans using both instincts and data, keeping meticulous records and sticking to strict budgets, surrounded by people who are just as serious about this work, just as excited about creating opportunities for others, just as dedicated to y’all as we were in 2009.

      AS wouldn’t be worth keeping around if it had stayed a slumber party, but i do love that it started with just a handful of very excited babies who didn’t know they were babies, and were too naive to take no for an answer. and i’m simply obsessed with how very Serious Business™ we all are now.

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    • laneia’s answer to this is absolutely everything. carmen recently told me that aside from riese and laneia i am now the person on staff who has been on staff the longest which deeply blew my mind and honestly gave me a minor midlife (quarter life? quarter-plus-life?) crisis but we don’t need to get into that right now, lol. i will say i miss My Youth, and i also miss when the internet was a little different. i appreciate what social media has done for our reach but i also miss when more conversations felt specific to the AS comment section bc there simply weren’t forums for them anywhere else. and i miss when we hadn’t written 14 years worth of STUFF because then everything felt bright and new and now sometimes i have to turn down a pitch not because it’s bad and not because the writer wouldn’t do a wonderful job but because we’ve already said it, do you know what i mean? on the other hand i am truly obsessed with the pitches that come through my inbox every week with stories we HAVEN’T yet told, and it brings me so much joy to know that 14 years in there are still so many stories and perspectives and words that need to be shared and we are continuously making space to share them.

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    • i think laneia said it best!

      i think for me the thing i miss the most is writing and editing every day, you know? and to be in the thick of it with all the writers and freelancers. i liked being editor-in-chief for the first 10 years, but i definitely don’t miss being editor-in-chief! but i do miss having editorial be my main job rather than Business.

      like now there are writers i’ve never interacted with one-on-one and back then i’d sit with an intern in my living room all day banging their essay into its best possible state, hearing about everything that’d ever happened in their life that they could bring to bear upon the page. Eating stir-fry, listening to Lady Gaga. Sitting in morningside park with a bag of french fries deciding on the best lesbian movies of all time and doling out blurb assignments. i miss fucking around on tumblr searching for talent, sending unhinged emails to laneia. feeling like there were no rules and that anything we put up, people would eat right up. we were smaller, and there was no money to manage, logistics were simpler and maybe more inconsequential. there was a lot less on the line, because it was new and so were we.

      but we could do that bc we weren’t going to do it forever, because it was one step on a road towards a bigger, more accessible, more diverse autostraddle. those times were beyond unsustainable, and fleeting by design.

      there was a chunk of time we could call the early-mid 2010s where there was a lot of fun to be had but also we were still so very poor, and the voices we could publish were only those who could afford to work for free, or my literal friends, which made it all very homogenous. i was dying inside literally from the stress of not having the money to pay ppl more, watching all these other websites gobble up venture capital while supervising a thriving enormous community that advertisers didn’t care about. and being compared to them! my blood pressure i am telling you!! was alarming!!! to be broke all the time. to not be making a living wage myself, and working 80 hours a week to try to make even those short ends meet. i was a bad friend and a bad girlfriend and i never saw my family and i was irritable all the time. those 100-email reply-alls and those friendships and writing every day was what made that stress easier to bear.

      which also meant this place was my workplace but also my only social space — i didn’t have friends outside of autostraddle / a-camp cuz i was always working, and in some ways i still don’t know how to connect with people outside of that paradigm, while also knowing that it’s not healthy for me or the company to have that be the case anymore. (i do still have friends at autostraddle obviously but it’s not my primary social space anymore!) but it’s still thrilling to bear witness to other people making those connections with each other, that’s all i really ever wanted to do with my life was make a space for people to connect with other people like them.

      it worked cuz it was temporary, you know? because the point of being there was to eventually get here, where we are now. i want to say “this was always the dream” but that’s not entirely true ’cause we still don’t have enough money! but i think you know what i mean.

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    • Lindsay, it’s so great to see you! Thank you for coming to our birthday party! I got a Lamy 2000 for my birthday and have been surprised to discover that, yep, it sure does live up to the hype! And that is a lot of hype! I have remained unmoved on paper: Rhodia Dot Pad all day every day! I’ve been using Robert Oster Fire & Ice, which I do really love, but I miss the gold flecks of Emerald of Chivor, which is a pretty similar color and made me feel like a lesbian prince.

      But what about you, my friend? I think I remember you using Emerald of Chivor too? And the Studio Neat Mark Two last time we talked about pens?

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      • I can’t believe you remember!

        I also love my Lamy 2000, and a few years ago I had it tuned by Deb Kinney at the Triangle Pen Show, which has made it even more dreamy. More recently I’ve been using a Jinhao X159 (dark blue, silver clip, fine nib), which is a surprisingly lovely little $12 chonker. For work I’m still devoted to the Spoke Pen (Model 2 now, blue crush) with a Uni Signo DX refill (0.38 mm blue).

        Fire & Ice is so beautiful — if you get a wild hair, Robert Oster Fire on Fire is a fun choice too. Big Lady Vols energy.

        Thanks so much for the reply!

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  9. Not a question but a comment. Autosttaddle has consistently been, not just trans accepting but, trans celebratory. As someone who had a lot of trouble coming to terms with my transness because “but I like girls…” this has been a wonderful place to help me unpack a lot of those feelings. 💖💖💖

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    • oOOoooo ok lemme think! literally pulling up my camera roll to look at recent food pics hahahaha. OH I KNOW!! i went to this ethiopian restaurant in orlando and had a big table outside on a warm but not too hot evening and it was just perfect from start to finish – https://www.ethiopianrestaurantorlando.com/

      but also i went to BUCA DI BEPPO for the first time ever????? which sounds silly but I honestly had an incredible time and the only thing that was sub par imo was the tiramisu

      also recently got to take my parents to two of my favorite places in town: https://www.toritoripub.com/ and https://www.strandorlando.com/

      as for things I’ve MADE, I grilled steaks in a bikini for Kristen on our anniversary trip in the mountains in North Carolina lol and it was a VIBE. also made really good gnocchi with fresh mozz the other night. lol sorry that’s like A MILLION ANSWERS

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        • a month ago a friend of mine baked me the best cookies I have ever had in my entire life, and I swear I’m not just saying that bc she made them for me and I felt incredibly loved. they were so soft and chewy but still kinda crunchy macadamia nut cookies, they were just perfect, and fresh out of the oven. I praised them so much that I think at some point my friend thought I was exaggerating or making fun of her but I really need that recipe omg

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        • Took myself on a solo cruise after a long few years of caregiving for a parent. Choose Virgin Voyages, at the Test Kitchen it’s a set six course meal (taking into account dietary preferences and/or allergies). Not only was the food absolutely amazing; they had a zero-proof cocktail pairing. As someone who’s mindful about my alcohol consumption, it was damn near euphoric to have complex beverages paired with fine dining.

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  11. Stef, how is your day job treating you? I grew up in (central) Florida but left at 18. I’m also in education and the news out of florida…I don’t even have words. Is your school district supportive even though the state isn’t?

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    • Thank you for this question that I’m going to take as a mental health check-in because I need it! My situation is a bit better than teachers who are employed by the district and the state because I work at a private school, so I’m OK, technically. However, like many of the private schools in the state over the last 10 years, my school receives a lot of state funding. All that to say, we are still struggling with some of the same stuff that people in the district are struggling with, just to a lesser degree. Everything has been wild to me, especially, because my curriculum is technically illegal right now (lol, but not really lol, you know?) but I haven’t had to change it YET. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the hear future but teaching in secondary school (and maybe even at the college level…we’ll see what this legislative session has in store) is probably not sustainable for me for the foreseeable future, so I’m trying to navigate that unfortunate fact. I have a lot of grief about the possibility of leaving the profession that I’m trying to work through day by day. Luckily, I have amazing support from my partner, my friends, and here at Autostraddle, and I do other creative projects (like my podcast) that keep my spirit afloat. Of course, I’m also working with organizers here to fight against all the shit going on.

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      • Oof. Thank you for replying. I’m so far away and in a state that has legislative protection for sexual orientation and gender identity (although it’s under attack too). Even from this place of relative safety and ease, I feel like the FL, TX, and other news impacts my mental and physical health. Sorry that you’re having to navigate a likely career change. Even more sorry that the education system will be losing such a powerful and passionate voice. I’m always impressed by your persistence—in activism, education, and strength training. I’m glad you have those communities and your creative pursuits to support you when you need it. Sending hugs to you and your students.

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  12. Hi!!! I just found you last year, but am a huge fan of your content. I sent the “Bears Ranked by Lesbianism” article to be bestie and called it career goals.

    I’m new to freelance writing, new to being out and queer (came out at 35), and as much as I want to share my experience I also feel paralyzed when I try to write anything personal. Do you have any pro tips on combatting imposter syndrome and finding your authentic voice?

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    • I’m so glad you liked Bears, Ranked. That was a very fun day in Slack! And welcome to being queer and out! I didn’t come out until I was almost 30 — and also didn’t start writing professionally until I was almost 30 — so I totally understand where you’re coming from!

      One of the best things I ever heard about imposter syndrome is: everyone has it; the people who get published are the ones who write anyway. And I think there’s some real truth to that. It gets easier, I think, but it never fully goes away, and it always rears its head in our most insecure moments, whether or not they have anything to do with actual writing. And then! Here’s another tidbit: Not a week has gone by in my Autostraddle tenure where I have not received an email or tweet or DM from a cis straight man who feels entitled to be published here, oftentimes demanding an explanation when I tell them no or ignore them. Think about that! There are so many queer and trans writers who would love to be published at Autostraddle but feel too scared or unequipped or like an imposter to try — and then there are CIS STRAIGHT MEN out here trying to take your spot! Thinking they DESERVE IT! They don’t, you do! Even if you don’t see it just yet!

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        • Oh man, everything. A lot of times they want to refute what someone else here has written about video games or comic books. A lot of times they want to write about lesbian TV or movie characters, not even annoyed stuff. I had a guy who was a high school softball umpire who wanted to recap A League of Their Own. Insistently! Sometimes the pitches are even, like, couched in ally language talking about how hot lesbian celebrities are? Recently I’ve had a lot of male film nerds wanting to share their perspective on Tár!

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      • Sometimes I think I understand the depth of entitlement of straight, cis, white men, and then something like this happens, and I am just a strange mixture of humbled and truly in awe.

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      • Thanks for the advice and confidence boost! (But sorry you have to deal with entitled, adult-sized babies.) This reminded me of an interview I read with Michelle Obama who said she’s been at probably every powerful table full of men you can think of, and the secret is… they are not that smart!

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    • So many congrats on coming out!! <3

      For me, it's making peace with imposter syndrome and the fact that I don't think it is going away anytime soon. Once I realized I would never not feel like an imposter, it had to become more self-talk like: "I guess I'll just get called out for being an imposter if I am one" or as I tell my partner when she's having a hard music day and says something like "my music is all shit," I enjoy some variation of "Putting your shitty music out there is a power move."

      Ultimately, everyone has a right to self expression and no one who is doing so honestly and authentically is an imposter. You wouldn't tell someone else who wanted to start freelance writing to never start, would you? You'd encourage them! Sometimes, it's helpful to treat yourself like a friend you care about, and to follow the advice you would give to that friend.

      So, I think my main hack is just to accept that imposter syndrome won't be fixed easily and to instead start slamming a keyboard and if it comes up in your mind as you're working, just say "yeah, so what?"

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      • Thank you! It was so scary, but I’ve been fully out of the closet for almost two years and am finally feeling like I am at home in my own body.

        Radical acceptance is a main feature in my life currently. It makes sense that I could apply it to this feeling too!

        Aaaand I just flashed back to the fact that I found Autostraddle in early 2021 from googling various forms of “am I a lesbian?? But I have an ex-husband and two kids! Ok, no, really, but am I?”. You guys literally helped me come out!! Thank you for helping to create this amazing queer space! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here, authentically, and sharing all your experiences.

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    • Nicole, thank you for this question, it’s important. I know there are quite a few of us on staff here who are your age or a little older than you and are either just starting out or started not too long ago. A lot of us came to this whole thing very late. I don’t have great tips for dealing with imposter syndrome, but I will say that getting to the root of your own personal experience with imposter syndrome is helpful as hell! For me, it was just self-doubt that was rooted deep in my experiences as a young person who often felt not good enough and was never told I was. Dealing with THAT helped me feel less like an imposter in the creative shit I wanted to pursue. That being said, obviously, none of this is an easy road and IT TAKES TIME. So, give yourself grace with that. A lot is shifting in your life, and you have a lot to deal with! It’s totally cool to take your time.

      Also, recently, this essay really helped me when I think about my own imposter syndrome. It helped break down why a lot of us feel it in the first place and, basically, how it’s bullshit for us to feel we don’t deserve what we do/have/get, etc. I highly recommend it! https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/13/the-dubious-rise-of-impostor-syndrome

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      • I’m halfway through this article and WOW! Thank you so much for sharing this gem. I love the etymology of commonly held concepts and appreciate the recognition of privilege and prejudice. Putting imposter syndrome under these lenses is 100 percent what I needed. Thank you so much for sharing and for the advice on getting to the root of my own personal experience.

        Also, are you by chance the Stef attending the Orlando meetup? I’m braving I-4 and can’t wait to meet some fellow queer writers in person!

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    • Hi!!!! Thank you for being a fan of what we do! I’m excited for you on your own writing journey.

      I think it can take a lot of time and practice to figure out the right balance between writing authentically and writing protectively. You want to show up fully on the page and be emotionally honest in your work, but you also need to take care of yourself and know what parts to withhold so as not to feel like you’re opening up wounds too much at your own detriment. Again, this takes time! Good editors can help, but also just having readers who you respect and trust can help — readers in the sense of people close to you who read the work in its earliest stages.

      I would also say, if it’s something that’s affordable for you, taking online writing classes can be a HUGE way to grow in your craft but also just get to learn from experienced writers in a low key setting. It’s such a fucking bummer that Catapult classes don’t exist anymore, but a good way to find out about classes taught by writers you admire is to literally just follow them on Instagram or visit their websites! Brilliant writers like T Kira Māhealani Madden, Alexander Chee, Melissa Febos, etc. all usually post what classes and workshops they’re teaching on socials with links to apply/sign up. I highly recommend learning from other writers!

      Speaking of T Kira, when it comes to people who are struggling with writing things that may be very personal or difficult, I always recommend this vital essay that I think p much all writers of creative nonfiction (and other genres too!) could benefit from: https://lithub.com/against-catharsis-writing-is-not-therapy/

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      • I’ll definitely look into some writing classes! I’ve taken a couple on Udemy, but they were more centered around the business and less around the craft. I gave all those writers a follow, and already found a piece by Melissa Febos that I cannot wait to read.

        T Kira’s essay was fantastic and certainly revelatory in helping shape my approach to personal writing. It’s going in the Writing Foundations folder for sure. Thank you for sharing! It means a lot to me that everyone here has given such beautiful, helpful, and in-depth answers.

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    • Hi Nicole!

      I just wanted to also jump in on this one as I have a shared experience here with you. I came out as trans and queer in my mid 30s as well, and I didn’t start my writing career until I was 37! Not to be all, “I wrote about this before” but I did write a bit on this before : https://develop.autostraddle.com/at-36-i-left-a-long-career-in-construction-to-become-a-writer/

      I know how the imposter syndrome feels, not just the “am I good enough at this work” feeling but the “am I gay enough, am I doing it right, is my voice…” all those things live in my head every single day. All the time! And as a lot of other people have said here, I think this is true for everyone.

      My recommendation? Write about how you feel about your imposter syndrome. It could be both good practice and an interesting writing prompt. Share it with someone if you’d like. the hardest part is pushing yourself to try, because we all deserve the right to try. There is no imposter pretending to attempt something meaningful and important, you can’t fake trying. This is getting into Yoda territory so I’ll stop.

      I see Kayla dropped link below which is something she has also sent to me to read when I do my own work, and I have compiled a list of essays and work that have helped me move and push through difficult feelings and traumas and learned how to write through them.

      Really, my only tip is to trust yourself, and to know that you can do this and you just need to let yourself freefall a little. You’ll land on your feet, trust me.

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      • Niko, what wrote on this before is stunningly poignant, and deeply personal yet universal. And I cannot thank you enough for sharing. I’ll start gathering a list of helpful works as well, yours included!

        Thank you for the tips too!

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    • I want to second Stef’s suggestion of reading this piece by Leslie Jamison on imposter syndrome: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/13/the-dubious-rise-of-impostor-syndrome

      And, fun fact, the writer of the piece, Leslie Jamison, is kind of the reason I write personal essays. Reading her work in college was so inspiring to me and her style has been my north star all these years. Something she has said and practices in her work is that writing about yourself, writing work that’s personal, is the best way to write about others. By including your own narrative, you’re allowing the reader to know the perspective they’re getting which creates a deeper truth with the subject as a whole. It’s objectivity through subjectivity. I think about this whenever I have thoughts like “who cares about MY story!” It’s not about my story. I’m just using my story as a tool to talk about broader topics I care about.

      So that’s my poetic suggestion. My practical suggestion is just write a ton. I wrote essays on Tumblr that almost no one read before I ever pitched anything. And once I was writing professionally I wrote so much no one piece could ever be THAT important. By the time something came out, I was already working on three more pieces. The more I wrote, the better I became and with that skill came confidence.

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      • I read that piece yesterday, and everything about it is amazing! I saved it, sent it to friends, ate it for breakfast this morning. The historical, cultural, and personal lenses she uses to examine this concept truly helped clarify my relationship to it. Gahhh! I am just so grateful and delighted that I get to have these conversations. I feel so much less alone than I did a few days ago.

        As far as writing a ton… that’s a big roadblock for me as I always find excuses not to (single mom, physically and mentally exhausting job, would rather disassociate on TikTok, etc., etc…) I always come back to a Toni Morrison quote I picked up somewhere about her son making a mess on her notebook while she was writing one of her early novels, so she just wrote around the mess. I cannot relate lol. I get stuck in the mess instead of writing through it, but I’m trying more and more. Thank you for the suggestions and encouragement!

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    • First of all WELCOME TO THE WIDE WORLD OF FREELANCING! Second Imposter syndrome sucks but your story is your voice so stick with that and keep it in your head. Even thru edits you might get when you’re writing make sure it SOUNDS like you. Also, I want to remind you that sharing your experience is great but you don’t always have to get entirely personal and share so much of yourself when writing personal narratives. You can connect without putting your entire self on the page cos as much as folks would love and need your story, you always reserve the right to keep parts of yourself to just you.

      Early on I thought In order to tell my stories I had to share every single bit of who I am in order to connect to an audience but then I would read the piece and get upset that I shared so much personal stuff, it is also what got me pigeon holed at the start of my career (sharing just traumatic parts of my story and queerness) and I don’t want that for you.

      So share what you want, keep what you want, and your writing will all come together!

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    • Hi Nicole! Congratulations on coming out!!!!! I came out at 30, and for years I ALSO felt really locked up by the idea of trying to write personal things on the internet. All I could think about were the commenters who I thought would just incessantly yell at me! I couldn’t let go enough to even start!

      Eventually I had to do a few things. First, I had to start doing a lot more freewriting, telling myself that it was never gonna be published. Most of it hasn’t; some of it has been adapted and edited and rewritten and posted on this very website!

      Another thing I did was give myself permission not to publish essays I wasn’t ready to publish. I was wrestling with one last month, and finally I went to my extremely understanding, generous editor (hi Kayla) and told her it wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready, and she totally understood! I think I will write about that time in my life, but from the sleepless nights, I knew that essay wasn’t ready to be out there.

      The last thing, I think, is to give yourself permission to write silly, fun things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme! Things that make you laugh, things about the pop culture you enjoy. If you enjoy it, someone else is going to enjoy it too!!!!

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      • Hi Darcy! These are three outstanding bits of advice, thank you!

        I clicked over to your blog and instantly became a fan. I just launched my own blog (I still feel weird typing that for some reason), and also want to make it a collaborative site, with a focus on the queer parenting experience.

        Also, your Comment Awards here are the only place on the internet I can actually enjoy a deep dive into the comments section!

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        • Aw I’m so glad you love the Comment Awards! I haven’t updated that blog since 2016, but doing that writing was super important to me during those years, I’m glad people are still occasionally reading it!

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    • hi Nicole!!

      everyone has been so eloquent with their responses, but i wanted to chime in and add that all you need to do right now is write from your heart. one of the coolest things about AS specifically is that there isn’t one dominating brand voice. everyone on this site writes from their heart and that is different for everyone! if you write from a place that is authentically you, people will attach to it because they can feel YOU coming through the piece. you will figure out what works best for you as a person and a writer, but it definitely takes time. i’m still figuring it out myself, and i’ve been doing this for a while! you got this!

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  13. I don’t know if this counts, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the To L and Back podcast (it’s what brought me to Autostraddle). Are there other podcasts or plans for podcasts that are connected with Autostraddle?

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    • I personally would love for us to have more podcasts, but that is just an opinion, not a plan. Aside from saying that, I’ll let the people in the pod realm take this one.

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    • I’m so glad you love To L and Back!! I love doing TLAB and Wait, Is This a Date? and I hope more Autostraddle podcasting is in the future. The fact is because Autostraddle is a small operation, the podcasts are kind of outside our standard infrastructure which makes them slightly difficult to sustain. BUT I know Christina and I are very down to do a third season of WITAD and I know if Gen Q does get canceled, Riese, Analyssa, and I will probably get itchy to get back on the mic and come up with some excuse.

      So my best answer is no plans currently, but definitely plans soon. One of my dreams for AS’ future is for podcasts to become part of the infrastructure in a way that there can be a whole slate of podcasts from the team.

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    • I was going to say, if you love To L and Back — I think it’s time you try Wait Is this a Date!!

      https://open.spotify.com/show/0yXu4YKj6FlwVZgUyNYTgv?si=e40fcd7f343a4c6b

      I don’t see it listed in your question, so it’s possible you haven’t heard it yet. And if you haven’t, you absolutely should! We definitely have hopes and dreams of more podcasts in the future, we just need the money (and honestly, hours in a day) to be able to do so. But more soon!

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    • Chiming in to say thanks for listening to To L And Back!!! Whether you’re an OG fan or just the Gen Q (or both!) we love making that one and like Drew said…we’d love to yap our way into more podcasts about…something!

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  14. Are any of you guys into Substacks? I can’t get enough and am always looking for new recommendations on queer/kinky/slutty Substacks to subscribe to. Not fussed about the gender of the writer as long as it’s gayyy baby.

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    • Nico, this is such a funny question to me because the answer so anticlimactic (I think). Basically, we came up with the name first one day when we were just goofing around (as we normally/often do). Both of us are writers (Brendan is an award-winning poet) and teachers and avid podcast listeners, and separately, we’re both often engaged in some kind of research even if its just for our own satisfcation (like right now, I am studying the history of exercise!). One day, we were both feeling just very crushed by shit happening in the pandemic and we were like “It would be fun to DO a podcast, actually.” So, from there, we had the first of our what we jokingly call “business meetings.” At first, the idea was that we would just share whatever we were interested in with each other in a teaching capacity. Like “Hey, I’m interested in this thing and here’s what I’ve learned about it.” And the approach is still the same now but also, this season is themed, so we’re only dealing with researching stuff we’re interested in from the decade 2003 – 2013.

      As far as tips, I have a few! You don’t need to spend a ton of money on podcast equipment to get started. I edit our podcast using free software (Audacity), and I learned how to use it through YouTube tutorials (I’m still learning tbh but I feel like I get a little better every week). Also, you can buy a lot of good podcast mics for less than $100 (we used the Samson Go Mic in the early days and it only costs $35!). LASTLY, get comfortable with self-promotion because you have to do A LOT of it! It sucks and I hate self-promo a lot but you GOTTA DO IT. Tell everyone you know about your podcast and don’t feel ashamed of it. People will listen if they want or ignore if they want, but telling them about it won’t hurt you any!

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  16. when i was fourteen – and i say this with a great deal of compassion for my insecure baby self – i was a hugely self-conscious nerd who hadn’t yet learned that having to be right all the time doesn’t mean you’re smart, it just means you’re an asshole. what were y’all like at 14?

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    • I WAS KIND OF LIKE THIS ALSO!!!!!!! i was honestly a piece of work as a 14 year old. i was a musical theater major at my performing arts high school but also decided for some reason immediately upon starting the program that i hated everyone in the musical theater department and started hanging out with the creative writing kids instead who didn’t really accept me because i was still, despite resisting it, full of theater kid energy most of the time and anyway I’m getting a little too far into the social politics of performing arts school but I WAS AN ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!! i was very Know It All and also kind of aggressive lol. but also an extreme rule follower so not like a cool intense rebel girl by any means. i LOVED having POLITICAL DEBATES with FELLOW TEENS on FACEBOOK???? like that was literally my idea of a good time. i was loud, bossy, and had not just no chill but negative chill

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    • thinking back to 14… the things i remember most were the rules i clung to in terms of what I wore. i had just decided that while it WAS okay for me to wear tank tops, it still was NOT okay for me to wear pink. other than that, i was obsessed with wearing snow boots (despite living in northern California), neon yellow tights, and one of two hats that I had knitted. it was… a very specific vibe!

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    • Lord in heaven I was a mess. Talking to too many adults online, drinking, writing torn up love poems to people who didn’t like me all that much. It was a very painful time when I was going through it but now that I’m so removed I can laugh at it a little!

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    • LMAO at 14?! I was determined that I’d either end up as a drummer in a band (like Rancid or AFI) or I would be a professional women’s soccer player and join the Olympic squad. Mostly, I was a handful and just all over the place. I was a kid who was uninterested in school, trying to figure out how I felt about boys/girls, and just trying to fit in with the “cool” kids who were actually just nerds with attitude.

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    • High Key I was just coming off a summer of “finding myself” at a sleepaway camp that I forced my parents to send me to lol. At 14 I was kinda rough with myself (still am yikes) but also leaning into who I was? Like the parts of myself for so long I was either told were weird, unwanted, or just to keep to myself. I still keep a lot in and don’t think I have FULLY bloomed but back then I was opening up like mad but mainly to myself and everyone else (all the new people in my world) were reaping the benefits.

      14 is when you kinda start high school and I had a fucking WONDERFUL ASS TIME IN HIGH SCHOOL cos I was finally digging me more, and that wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the summer I turned 14.

      Damn – I should write about this.

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    • When I was fourteen, I was having a Big Goth Moment, but I was also still very much into musical theater and very into Doing Well in School. So I wasn’t fully accepted by the goth kids or the nerds, and I didn’t share many personality traits with the theater kids (they were loud; I hated being the center of attention). I was a floater in between groups, which is how I still operate today, not quite fitting in anywhere. I’d also kissed a girl for the first time at thirteen, so at fourteen, I’d come out to a small handful of gay boys in my musical theater circle — but I was still figuring out what my interest in kissing girls means (Was I bi? Was I a Big Lez?). This was also the year I moved to a new town and started high school in a new school district. I had a hard time making friends, but I identified my crushes right away (and they were mostly straight girls who performed in the musicals).

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    • I was very much the shy, quiet kid. I wasn’t even that smart so I wasn’t a nerd as much as I was just terrified by everything and everyone. I looked up to the clowns and outspoken kids! I thought they were so brave.

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    • Ummm at 14, I would’ve been a freshman in high school? So that was the year I got braces and also that my boobs (which were already large in middle school) really took on a life of their own. I cut my hair to look like Halle Berry and lol I can say now looking back, it did not work!! I would’ve been incredibly nerdy, very into musical theater but I don’t think I would have gotten into Model United Nations yet?

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    • I’m pretty much the same as I was when I was 14 — basketball, video games, books about girls with swords and dragons, tender heart, superheroes, written words for days, and cats cats cats — only I have glasses now and my best friend in the whole wide world loves me back.

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    • being 14 was a real exercise in ambivalence for me! i was so fucking lonely, but also didn’t really want to fit in with the people i was growing up with. like i knew something/many things were different about me, which was a very “thank god/oh fuck, but now what” feeling, so i vacillated between leaning into that difference and conforming to survive. it was exhausting and i still can’t believe i didn’t take my mother up on her offer to send me to boarding school! not that it would’ve been much better? it was still in tennessee and yes, it was an episcopal situation, but surely it would’ve been something! anyway i also didn’t know how to style my weirdly curly hair and i was very, very horny. bless my heart.

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    • when i was 14 i was really sad and tired and awkward, and i listened to the lemonheads and frente! and the brady bunch movie soundtrack and juliana hatfield and u2 and i wanted to be a filmmaker. we went to the movies a lot. i also had braces with headgear, and i was skinny and pale, and i sometimes wore clothes that fit but i also often wore men’s jeans that were 3x too big with a belt i got at the kiwanis club sale. or i wore my dad’s jeans or his t-shirts from college in the 70s when men wore tight t-shirts. sometimes i wore three (3) shirts at once ’cause i sweated through all of them, and also wore a winter hat out of season.

      we put glitter on our eyelids from the craft store and i filmed music videos in my bedroom starring my bff kristyna. and every inch of space in my room was covered in some kind of massive magazine-enabled collage; letters and cards and absolut vodka ads and leonardo dicaprio and claire danes and jordan catalano. and i loved an all-day marathon of something or anything on MTV.

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    • 14! I was goth, deeply, painfully aware of my bisexuality, and armed with AOL Instant Messenger and the Old Internet at large. I started writing short stories in the sense of like, trying to imitate something like what I had learned were “American” short stories at the time, and could still draw at the time and did so obsessively, often just doing still life after still life. Like, there are a lot of drawings of just like…lamps and stuff in my old sketchbooks? I read ferociously and watched indie movies on an old wood-paneled TV set in my room that I had melted candle wax all over. I can still smell my first frankincense and myrrh black candle from that time. Both the occult and the girl who would be my first kind-of girlfriend had an absolute chokehold on me, and though she broke my heart like every other day, I kept coming back for more. I was a long distance runner, and also, a top grade-earner even though I was always doing work last-minute or writing essays on the last day I could, that kind of thing. In terms of friends, I had them, but was largely isolated from people outside of the friend groups I knew — but I think this isn’t uncommon, especially when just emerging from the extremely cliquey situation that is middle school. My eyeliner was HUGE and my lashes were, like, permanently hardened with way too much mascara.

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    • 14 was a hinge point in my life. I was a Freshman in high school, going from a class of 18 people I’d known my whole life to a class of 200, of whom I knew two. Those two people were girls who decided upon entering high school that they would pretend they don’t know me outside of the confines of our carpool, so I was effectually alone in this brand new world. But I also met people who would become vital to developing my burgeoning personality, the people that would be my best friends through high school. I had realized the year before that I LIKE liked girls so I was desperate to stamp that down, though it sparkled through in intense friendships and hero-worship of certain senior girls that showed me special attention. I was in my high school musical and also a local theater group, plus two dance classes. I was joining every club I could feasibly join just to be out of the house as much as possible. When I WAS in the house I was talking on AIM, writing in my livejournal, and downloading t.A.T.u music videos on Limewire (in the original Russian…for ART reasons, not for girls kissing reasons OF COURSE). I thought I was so grown-up but gosh I hold so much space for that scared little girl in my heart. She had already been through a lot, and she was about go through a lot more, but somewhere deep inside her was a survival instinct that luckily turned out to be stronger than any external or internal factors trying to tear her down.

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    • I was a mess of terrible poetry, misdirected anger, secrets that ate from the inside out (and showed), yearning that didn’t have the proper language around consent and boundaries, running on a diet of unrequited gay crushes and french vanilla coffees with too much whipped cream wrapped up in a Catholic school uniform. My best friend and I wrote long ass posts to each other on Facebook as if we didn’t see each other less than two hours ago and since everyone was friends with everyone, more often than not, that was part of the next day’s conversation. I had absolutely no sense of humiliation until it registered way too late and people saw that as bravery or me not caring when I was just lost as shit! I had joined theater because there was a girl in my class who’s voice I fell in love with and that began the unnecessarily arduous journey of me being a Theatre Kid simply because I had a crush I couldn’t release! I love fourteen year old me dearly now but, damn, homie was going THROUGH it. My definitive asshole year didn’t come until senior year (as my mom likes to remind me at least once a month), so this was like me gathering stuff to build up to that I guess.

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    • What was I like at fourteen? Oh my gosh. I had a Curious George Journal, but I wrote things inside like “FUCK YOU DAD!” I listened to Z-Rock (Everclear, Everlast, all the evers) on my Walkman. I had two very straight-edge best friends in my grade, and one Older Friend who was a junior and Did Drugs and who I was hopelessly in love with. I’d come back from hanging out with her and my other friends would narrow their eyes and be like DID YOU SMOKE WEED? (I didn’t. But once we left class to go break bottles in an alley, which REALLY helped me feel better that day!) In my Curious George Journal, one time I wrote: “Had a dream about kissing [bad friend] last night. Weird! In real life, I’ll stick to guys, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.” Then I forgot about that for decades and would go on to tell multiple therapists in adulthood, “if I really am gay, how come I’ve never had a dream about kissing a girl?”

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    • i honestly don’t remember? but i do remember i had absolutely zero chill back then. to the point where i was incredibly annoying? i was also deeply insecure due to being teased in middle school and definitely had a chip on my shoulder as a result. which again, probably made me really fucking annoying, lol

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    • I asked Google what grade I was in when I was 14 and it said 9th grade so, when I was in the 9th grade I was just beginning to meet myself. Mainly discovering what it meant to be queer at an all-girls Catholic school. I began making mixed CDs for classmates and thinking music was the only thing that would allow me to connect with people who were the same as me. I came out when I was 15, so when I was 14… in a way I was just laying the groundwork for that I guess.

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    • when i was 14 i was probably very annoying! i was DRAMATIC and i was a THEATER KID and i wore A LOT OF BLACK EYELINER and i hung out in the PHOTOGRAPHY ROOM and took BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS and i had a LIVEJOURNAL and i made out with lots of boys at CAST PARTIES, you know? i was also very dorky, very worried about my body (both being fat and having boobs), very concerned about being a good kid with good grades, very scared of drugs… i mean i guess what i’m saying mostly is i was a theater kid. i was also very horny and i dealt with that by making out with all those boys at cast parties, and letting them touch my boobs. i actually love that kid — she was really doing her best and the eyeliner didn’t look as bad as you might think it would!

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    • When I was 14 I spent a LOT of time both on Tumblr AND reading this here very gay website!! I am now 27 (I just had to go back and change 26 —> 27 because wow time flies!) and it is wild thinking that I now get to write for the very site that was such a big part of my early queer years :’) I was definitely a horny nerd, which is a choice I suppose, but I don’t know that puberty really left me any other options. I had a girlfriend (!!) and we kissed maybe three times, once while what I’m pretty sure was 300 (the movie) played in the background. I read a lot! I LARPed every summer! I think I was just figuring out who I was/am and I have a lot of empathy for young me!!

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  18. I just want to thank Heather for her writing about Long Covid. As a fellow sufferer, and one who feels at this very moment like I’m sinking back into another period of severe fatigue and weakness, it’s really been a light in the darkness, something to hang onto when no one in my life really understands, even if they try to be sympathetic. Thank you for everything.

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  19. I am consistently astounded by the collective wisdom (and care and thoughtfulness) of AS writers when reading your responses to Advice Box questions. What’s a cherished piece of advice you’ve received from an AS colleague?

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    • Rachel Kincaid one time told me, “You don’t have to form and share an opinion about everything,” which was one of the most humbling and freeing things anyone’s ever said to me. It completely changed the way I use the internet.

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    • this is not related to our work here at Autostraddle, but Christina has given me some real gems when it comes to wedding planning advice, including this when I was stressed about certain pressures other people were putting on me: “You’re never going to make everyone happy, so just focus on making yourself happy.” Obviously this advice is specific to wedding planning lol not life in general!

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    • also she didn’t give this advice to ME specifically, but one day laneia dropped a slack message that was like “you should apply the topcoat to your at-home mani on day two” and wow lifechanging tbh

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    • Kayla is my friend and also my colleague now because she’s the reason I’m here in the first place. One night, we were out having dinner and she advised me to just “write what you want to write because SOMEONE will want it.” And I don’t know, man…it just felt like the permission I’d been waiting for for like a decade to truly start this part of my journey.

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      • This isn’t so much advice but an overall way of being—the editors here are SO generous, caring, specific, and insightful when working with us on pieces (s/o Carmen, Kayla, Nico). I’ve worked in media and literature for most of my life and cannot tell you how many times I’ve received unhelpful, judgement criticism that’s more of a pride thing on the editors part. AS editors have continuously encouraged me and my ideas and even guided me through some of my less fantastic ones haha.

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    • one of the first things riese ever made super clear to me, like as an editor and my boss, was “if it can be better, it should be.” and damn if that didn’t somehow change my whole life.

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    • This hasn’t been explicitly said to me but one of the things AS, especially the QTPOC team, has taught me is to trust my gut. as a black autistic lesbian i am just always questioning whether my shit is valid, because for so long ive been told its not! and ive believed it! i keep measuring myself against whats expected of me from a white supremacist society vs. whats in my heart but ive been taught to ignore the loud of it, and even though im trying to unlearn the former its really hard to lean into the latter and just yeah, theyve taught me to listen to myself first and its okay to need community to double check but // also better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission especially when im in white/cis majority spaces

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    • This isn’t specific one-time advice so much as what I’ve learned over time, but Heather being my editor has helped me second-guess myself less. I used to start every review with like…a CV of all the TV I’ve written about or watched that is relevant, as if proving why I was “qualified” to write a review. I would have caveats all over my reviews like “does that make sense?” or “I don’t know” etc. Heather taught me to just write my review without all the padding around it, that my work can speak for itself. It’s made my writing stronger and I learn to be a better writer from her with every piece I submit.

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    • Ooh I love this question. A long time ago, before I was writing for AS, there was a Greasebats (by Archie) in the Saturday Morning Comics where one of the characters who was getting ready for a rave or something said that “not everybody has to be a glitter gay” and it was such a throwaway line but it was SO important for me relaxing into who I was instead of trying to pick some archetype or persona I thought I had to be as a person in queer spaces. I could just be me!! I was free!!!!!!

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    • You know, Carmen will often say “work smarter, not harder” and in a space of seriously limited resources (including and especially our own time), this is simple, but true and useful advice that I could use to come back to every single damn day.

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    • i don’t think there’s a singular piece of advice i’ve gotten from anyone, but the care that carmen, kayla and vanessa have put into editing my work has really changed the way i approach my writing

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    • i’ve been trying to figure out how to answer this!

      i’m not sure this counts, but from the beginning we’ve fielded NUMEROUS suggestions from people to simply “ask ellen degeneres for money,” which is, you know, not how this works.

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    • oh this is a hard and good question and i am still thinking of three, but i’ll start with one: even though our per-post rates aren’t as high as richer / larger publications, our editorial budget is actually relatively *enormous* because instead of just having our full-timers write 95% of what’s read every day, we do prioritize having a wide variety of voices on the site! this also means that our day-to-day involves a lot more logistics than a typical editor who doesn’t have all of their freelancers in slack.

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  22. First of all: big thank you to all of you. Autostraddle is one of the best things to have happened on the internet and makes the world a better place. <3

    Second, a question: I work for a large university as a senior scientist and it was one of my goals to be more active in the queer community, mentor more and be more visibly out once I finished grad school. But now that I've taken on leadership roles in various queer groups, mentorship programs, book clubs etc., I've found that other faculty, PIs and I are being used by my university as evidence how far they've come, as "diversity" on booklets, on grant applications to show support of underrepresented communities, etc. Which would be great if the university was actively supportive and didn't encourage free speech to the extent of harm to the queer community. The other faculty, PIs, more senior staff in leadership and mentorship roles to younger students are upset about how our voluntary actions are being used as evidence the university is super supportive. I don't want to stop my support, but I also don't want my name or activities to be used as evidence that they are doing well. I've spent a significant amount of time fighting admin for using books with TERF rhetoric in HR trainings, non-inclusive language in first year orientation, etc. I want to support the students who are here, and help create a safer space, without having my efforts used to create a false illusion that it's currently a great place to be queer. Do you have any advice?

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    • damn, I am reading the other comments and am now realizing that I misunderstood the assignment! If this is too serious for the advice ask, please feel free to delete (I don’t know how). Sorry!

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    • My toxic advice that is definitely NOT the first step is to contact the program officers who work at any foundations who are funding the university based on these grants, to invite them out for a coffee, and have a chat. Depending on your status, this might be too high risk for you, which I understand and why I’ll label this route as like, The Road of High Pettiness. It’s really interesting because this is so, so common. I hear it a lot from leaders of local small POC-led arts orgs for example. Like I was having dinner with a friend who runs a dance org, and she was telling me about how she finds out, without ever receiving any benefit or money, that someone somewhere has put working with her org on a grant application in a similar way.

      I wonder if you all can get together and compose a letter, sign it, and send it to relevant decision-makers at your University? Ask for a meeting and a discussion and make sure you’re including the grant-writing / development department as well. It might be that they don’t know that your mentorship activities and other points of volunteer work aren’t actually supported by the university or that there are materials from TERFs or that the university has encouraged “free speech” that is in fact hate speech (if I’m reading between the lines, here). This is probably a medium-risk activity, which is why it’s important to have a strong plan ahead of taking any complaints public and to make sure you’re organizing as many people on your side as possible before taking your first steps. (In my opinion and experience – though not with a university setting.) I think that it’s good that you and others are discussing this already, and I recommend that maybe, you start by carving out space dedicated to starting to have discussions around these issues to see what you can do.

      I’m sorry that fighting these policies ultimately just means MORE work for you, but I don’t know that any of us are in a position where we can afford to not take up the fight from wherever we are. Sending you so much love!!! AND ALSO CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR DEGREE.

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      • Also apologies, I basically escalated quickly and worked backward. The steps in chronological order, to me, look like:

        1) Identify the people who should be invited to the first discussion – people you’ve been talking to already, but also people who you might discern interest from via a short 1:1 conversation here or there. Find your accomplices.
        2) Arrange a discussion group! Start discussing. See what comes up. Leave room for venting, but also problem-solving.
        3) Decide on next steps, if any. Are you going to contact the university? Something else?
        4) Whatever you decide to do, keep discussing, meeting, and providing emotional and tactical support to each other. I believe in y’all!
        5) Don’t let someone gaslight you into thinking this is not a big deal. The way we combat fascism is by taking even the small fascists things seriously and kicking the legs out from under them. The University should be a full-throated supporter of its LGBTQ employees and students. Full stop.

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    • Hey there! Fellow queer academic here also very used to (and annoyed with) institutions using me to demonstrate how far they’ve come when they really haven’t. I totally get the frustration here. It’s a tricky space to be in, right? Because of course we want to continue fighting like hell to make the space inclusive but also don’t want the college to use as a poster child of inclusion to create the false narrative that everything is great. Here’s what I’ll offer: When I was looking at grad programs as a Black, queer, non-binary person, I saw right through those “diversity” initiatives and clubs. What I really looked for was the truth from faculty and staff about what tensions, struggles, and pitfalls I might face coming to the college. I didn’t get any of that information from a flyer or formal event but I did get it from informal gatherings and calls with folks. Sometimes, if I saw something advertised, I’d reach out to someone listed and ask for an off-the-record chat about their experiences. People were honest and sometimes really helped stray me away from dangerous situations.

      I know it’s tough, but I’d say keep at it. We can’t control how universities use us all of the time, but we can control the ways we use their resources organize and support each other informally. Maybe talk to others you work with to see if you all could set up a list of folks who would be willing to have these truth-telling chats with incoming people to help balance the false narrative be pushed by the school.

      Either way, good luck and thanks for fighting where you are!

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    • Laura, you completely understood the assignment! I apologize for my slow response, I’ve been mulling this question over for a while now and deciding what was the best advice I could give. Because what you’re describing is so real, and happens to so many of us! In my case, doing those “diversity tasks” were actually also my favorite parts of being there. But it is hard to shake the feeling that being there isn’t also masking/covering up systematic problems at the university. All while your work is simultaneously being undervalued and under-supported!

      My problem is that I don’t have any helpful advice, I ultimately ended up getting my degree and leaving to do the “diversity work” I cared about someplace else where I did feel like I could make lasting change, and also where I felt that work was intrinsically valued beyond a surface level. BUT I DON’T want to give advice that is “quit,” so I think you should take shea’s advice instead!

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    • I actually don’t ever remember this happening! The things people usually demand that we take down are like fandoms that are mad we did or did not love what they loved or did not love. For me, personally, I edited one thing that did need to be taken down. (Bisexual talking taco, if anyone remembers that far back.) And I wrote one thing that didn’t need to be taken down — that Emily and Alison were divorced in the Pretty Little Liars spinoff. Shippers were so mad about that one they were pretending to be Freeform PR people and lawyers in the comments! They literally threatened my life! It was bonkers! But in terms of celebs, I actually think queer stars like our coverage because it’s rooted in community and love.

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    • an actress we’d interviewed early in her career emailed me personally right around the time she got her big break — before it was announced or anything, so i didn’t yet know why she was making this request! — kindly asking me to take down that interview bc she felt she’d been a little too candid, a little toooo personal, especially regarding this one specific anecdote she’d shared. and listen, while i was annoyed as hell (especially when i realized why this was happening, bc it would’ve been very good for AS to get that inevitable traffic), she wasn’t wrong! it was the kind of story you should only share with your closest friends. now has that stopped me from sharing it with my closest friends, all these years later, if this actress happens to come up in conversation through no fault of my own?? no.

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    • i don’t think we’ve ever been asked to take down gay news about a celebrity ’cause we’re really careful about what we write! often by the time we publish a coming out post, we’ve been aware that said celebrity is queer for months, sometimes even years. usually things are taken down because we messed up and recognize that we messed up, not because someone on the outside asked us to take it down. we also don’t want to blow our relationships with celebrities by prematurely outing them! i do remember putting an actor on a list of “straight actors who play gay roles” and a friend texted to be like “that actor is 100% not straight” and i had to remove them, even though they weren’t necessarily officially out, it was also weird to have them on a list of straight people.

      we did have an interview with lady sovereign cancelled in 2009 bc her reps decided that doing so would make her seem gay and they were not ready for her to come out yet.

      i do think heather and i rushed to the presses with a speculation piece about a certain celebrity and her date to a red carpet event, only to realize in short order that actually the date was not only in a relationship with someone else and not the celebrity but that i actually was connected to them IRL through friends and well anyhow, we messed up and took it down! but that was for our own dignity, not by request!

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  24. Question for Heather (or any of the other editors who want to weigh in): I recently read all the back articles of Fan Fiction Friday and as someone who recently started reading and writing fan fiction I loved it! Would you ever consider bringing back another fan fiction and/or general fandom related column?

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    • I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, actually! What do you think would be a cool way to uplift fan culture like that on a site like Autostraddle? It’s a tough balance but I wonder about it all the time. I got my start writing fan fiction! It was some of the best years of my life, and some of the writing I’m most proud of. It seems like there has to be a way to celebrate those communities AND Keep It Pro, right?

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    • I used to live for fan fiction fridays!!!! My favorite part was actually just the straight up fan fiction round ups! I bet we could bring something like that back again, just like some writer recs. I do agree with Heather about having to find the balance between celebrating fandoms and also like recognizing our roles as also not being “in fandom” but a place where fandoms often come to congregate and hopefully also feel seen. It’s a thin, but so important, line of distinction and definitely one I’m always also thinking about! So much of my queer roots are in fandoms!! Grey’s, Glee, PLL, and OUAT are my ground zero of queerness.

      (there’s an avid conversation about…. Rizzles? And Fabrastings? Happening in the AS slack right now!!)

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    • well canned clam linguine is probably too obvious of an answer! but it’s def a staple of this household. also, i like the fishwife x flybyjing on top of sesame noodles!

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    • Feel like it’s my duty to chime in here…Love to throw sardines (the NOT smoked kind!) in a tomato sauce that’s heavy on the garlic and also has anchovies in it with a little bucatini. You can do this with olive-oil packed tuna, also. Either way, it’s fuckin’ GOOD.

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    • i’m very into bucatini with anything — recently did a shrimp/tomato/fennel seed/butter/bucatini situation that was legit to die for — and i like the way long skinny noodles can accommodate tinned fish, but my ultimate favorite pasta is the curly corkscrew kind, and so i make it work with my tinned fish addiction. i once had tinned lobster with cavatappi and i will probably remember that meal until i die.

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    • omg, yes, of course! So I think the biggest picture explanation of my job is that I work to improve and increase branded presence in the Autostraddle ecosystem — on our website, on social, in our newsletters, wherever! — all to support our editorial content and to make sure we get to stay around!! So in terms of advertising campaigns, this means everything from pitching, to concepting, to executing (which really means troubleshooting 😂), to measuring and analyzing results.

      It’s been a wild ride so far — about a year into the job, I’m just starting to feel like I have a real grasp of exactly how we can get brands/advertisers more into us, as well as what’s prohibiting them from doing just that. the biggest challenge right now (there are… a lot of challenges lol) is just, a lot of people don’t know who we are, so i’m constantly trying to talk with as many people in the media world as possible, to tell them about their favorite LGBTQ+ publication they never knew existed.

      A lot of my job is developing relationships with brands/agencies so that at some point, when the time is right, we can work together. I’m finding that the job requires a lot of “keeping the faith” on my part, because brands/agencies aren’t gonna spend money on a pub until they feel like they really “know” it (which means not only knowing our content, but literally knowing me!). So that can be hard, but at the same time — I truly, deeply believe that we’re an asset to brands, and once they understand that, they’ll want to work with us. It’s a journey, and we’re all on it, and progress is incremental, but we CAN do this!

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  28. What’s your favorite queer comfort movie? Drew’s recent interview with Annette Haywood-Carter, who directed Foxfire, has me thinking about this. I put that movie on a lot, but not necessarily for comfort bc there’s a lot of fucking stressful stuff happening in it, which is true of many queer films. So I guess I’m looking for recs like The Kids Are All Right, which I watch far too often, where the most stressful thing is maybe that Joni Mitchell singalong.

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    • Fun Home!!! Yes, that whole soundtrack.

      Also:
      Sullen Girl – Fiona Apple
      Two Slow Dancers – Mitski
      Weary – Solange
      Liability – Lorde
      cellophane – FKA twigs
      Trigger – Hayley Williams
      Landslide – The Chicks (or Fleetwood Mac depending on the mood)
      Once a Friend – Diana Gordon
      Praying – Kesha
      Everybody’s Mother – Kacy Hill
      Horrible Things – Future Wife

      (I don’t actually cry a lot so some of these are just like internal crying though the Fun Home soundtrack does often manage to get real tears)

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    • Great question. Mine is probably “Kiss” by Scout Niblett and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. I don’t know if I like LOVE crying to it but I have cried the most to it.

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    • So….

      For “GOOD/HAPPY/IM IN MY FEELINGS BUT NOT REALLY IN A BAD WAY CRYING” I will always and certainly go for Mereba – Black Truck. That song is my actual whole ass theme song.

      For “I’M SAD AND CONFUSED COS LIFE IS KICKING MY ASS RIGHT NOW CRYING” Emmy Rossum – Slow Me Down

      For “I WOULD LIKE TO CRY PLEASE BUT STILL WILL GET THRU IT” Rae Morris – Grow

      For “I KINDA GOT THE BLUES” Janis Joplin – Little Girl Blue

      For “I CAN DO IT MYSELF AND I DON’T NEED ANYONE CRY” Chet Baker – I get along without you very well

      Have fun on your emotional rollercoaster!

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    • I have so many musical songs that will make me cry every time but one non-musical song that was the most recent to make me cry and also so far as a 100% success rate is The 30th by Billie Eilish.

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    • she used to be mine from waitress can trigger tears to the point where i will skip it if it comes on and i’m trying to get shit done. also one moment in time by whitney houston. please don’t ask me why, i do not know

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  30. two-part question for those of you who review TV/movies/books as part of your Autostraddle jobs: do you ever get burned out on having to consume media critically and write stuff about it? like do you ever want to just sit down and watch/read something just for fun? and if so, do you deal with that by taking a break from TV/movies/reading, or do you have like a comfort show or movie you watch that is totally unrelated to your job?

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    • Mary last weekend I watched 15 hours of specifically just seasons 4-5 of Grey’s Anatomy, so.

      But more seriously, yes! I do find that I watch a lot less tv/film now that I write about it for a living. Which I didn’t expect going in, and honestly does bum me out. But I’m also lucky in that some things that I love a lot also fall outside of the realm of this site (like Black or Latine media that isn’t also queer) and that can be a really rewarding escape. Sometimes I’ll be minding my business watching a Black show and then when a queer character shows up, I groan! That’s only happened a couple of times lol, but you can imagine.

      My biggest unrelated to my job comfort shows are: A Different World, Living Single, and old episodes of Grey’s. I watch at least one of these things literally every day. I recently found out that rewatching old tv on repeat is an anxiety tick? Which I never knew, but makes perfect sense to meeeeee.

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    • I deal with this by always having some side viewing projects that aren’t for work. Like last summer I watched a ton of Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward movies, this winter I watched a bunch of Sanaa Lathan movies, currently I’m watching a bunch of George Cukor movies.

      Sometimes these turn into pieces unintentionally — Fast and Furious was like that — but most of the time they’re just for me. I like giving myself assignments or little classes, because it makes it feel equal to my work and therefore prioritized even if it’s not for money.

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    • I have a little pile of some heterosexual books I’ve been meaning to read that have had to wait until I finished my slate of queer books for review so it certainly does affect consumption or, like, the order of priority no longer just becomes about my own personal desires, but is also weighted by deadlines.

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    • I work in publishing as my full-time job, so between that and reviewing and recapping here, I think about this question a lot! When it comes to reading, I’m one of those folks who’s consuming multiple books in multiple formats at once and oddly enough that helps. If I’m reading an early copy of a literary fiction Summer 2023 book from my publisher digitally, then I’m probably also listening to a queer fantasy audiobook and reading a middle grade physical book. The variety keeps my brain interested, but I know the thought of reading multiple things at once is a non-starter for some!

      With TV, I haven’t found myself burned out quite yet (I’m still relatively new to writing!), but so far everything I’ve recapped or reviewed is something I would have watched even if I wasn’t writing about it. But right now, I’m doing a Criminal Minds first watch when I need breaks from “assigned” content. Like Carmen though, I have a pretty steady list of re-watches going at any given time — Steven Universe, LOST, The Walking Dead; basically anything to mix it up a bit!

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    • This is such a great question. I always read for fun and I’m always reading. I don’t talk about books TOO much unless it’s something I just love love love and want to share with the world. I was on a streak earlier this year where I read like six books I was berserk about, all in a row, and couldn’t stop tweeting about it — but generally I keep that love to myself. And that helps with burnout for TV *and* film *and* books because I know there are some stories that are just for me. I don’t get burned out on writing about TV too much because I just love TV and I love writing, but I will say that, overall, I feel very tired of my own opinions, but that’s been the case for years now. I really believe one of the reasons I fell so deeply in love with my wife is because I love talking about stories more than anything, and she has so many fascinating opinions about stories, so I have never felt like I have to carry every conversation about them. I don’t agree with her all — or even most of! — the time, but I still think she’s so smart and engaging when she talks about film and TV. It’s the same with my closest friends. One very excellent thing is that there are so many different kinds of queer shows and movies these days. Not enough, of course, but more variety. So we don’t all have to watch and form an opinion about EVERYTHING. We can choose that shows with the kinds of stories we most connect with. I can watch Derry Girls, for example, and laugh and laugh and laugh. And Valerie Anne and Nic can watch The Last of Us with its blood and trauma. And we’re both getting our gay teens on TV!

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    • THE ANSWER IS FUCKING YES!

      But I love what I do and every time I sit down to watch something I’m like “damn this is SOOOOO COOOL!! BABY SHELLI WOULD BE LIKE THIS IS FUCKKKKINNNGGG COOOOLLL!” — but that does not mean I don’t get kinda burned out by it. But the thing is my way to relax in general….is to watch films and talk about them with or at people LOL.

      So I’ve learned to start not saying yes to reviewing EVERY piece of media thats gay or that I like. Mostly because, even though it may not seem like it, there are Black or queer culture critics who will probably feel the same way I do about something and review it so it gets talked about to the world so I don’t ALWAYS have to be the one to do it.

      I also write about stuff for fun on my substack where it’s not paid, I can say it how I want fully, and im not worried about eyes on it so that feels really good.

      It’s kinda hard to juggle sometimes but I do it and have to learn to keep doing it and consuming media for funzies!

      and my comfort show that is COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO MY JOB…..New Girl!! I know it’s gonna be good, I always have a great time watching it and I can watch it for hours and just zone out and still laugh! NICK MILLER FAN CLUB FOR LYFE!

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    • This was originally why I started watching reality television, because I was like oh great I can watch things that aren’t for work, but then joke’s on me because within like 2-3 months of starting to watch Bravo shows, I wrote something about Vanderpump Rules for The AV Club and well the rest is history.

      The problem is, if I engage with art that I end up liking, I usually do genuinely have an impulse to write about it. So sometimes I WILL pick up a book “just for fun” and then still end up writing about it, because I want to! It’s a hard thing to navigate, but I’ve gotten better at balance through the years. TBH I do miss my tumblr days because I feel like I got to act a lot more like just a fan and just be idk thirsty for fictional characters, chaotic, horny, etc. in the ways I engaged with art and pop culture. I can still inject SOME of that energy in my work, but it’s different.

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    • Echoing the resounding ‘yes’ that everyone else said, and reiterating that it’s complicated! I’ve had shows that I’ve started writing about because I liked them but eventually came to feel more like a chore than something I look forward to. I’ve had shows that I could write about every day for the rest of my life. But like other people say, I try to make sure I have shows that I watch just for fun; with the TV Team growing it’s actually been great because it means there are more and more very gay shows that I can watch without them feeling like work, because I know someone else will be covering it. And even for a while I was the one watching the most sci-fi stuff, but now with more people on the team who also watch sci-fi, it’s not always on me. So I got to enjoy Willow just as a viewer and not as a recapper, for example. Though I’ll admit sometimes I get the itch to write about shows I don’t cover, because I’m so used to it! Like I said, it’s complicated haha But like Nic and Criminal Minds, I try to always have a background binge I’m working on so I have something easy to default to when I want to watch TV (because I do always want to be consuming stories, that never goes away for me) but a) don’t want to be Work-Watching – because sometimes even watching new episodes of TV I don’t cover can feel like work because my body is On the Lookout for queer things to report – or b) have choice paralysis. My binges are usually long-running shows that are off the air already thus irrelevant and definitely not write-about-able (unless I uncover a personal essay hidden inside me, but like, that didn’t happen while I watched Teen Wolf, you know?). It’s about forced balance for me!

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    • i don’t get burned out because we have a big enough team now that it’s rare i have to write about something i don’t want to — but i like to stay abreast on as much queer tv as possible because i do so many lists and round-ups and for the database! i actually love that i can claim pretty much anything queer i watch is “for work” and then i feel productive and what is the point of being alive if not PRODUCTIVITY do you know what i mean?!?!?!? i’ve also historically found ways to make straight shows into gay projects

      but i do sit down and read/watch things just for fun a lot — i read a ton and rarely write about books. i recently watched the entire marvel cinematic universe as a treat / method of detachment. for a while there when our team was smaller and i had to write about a lot more shows than i do now, i remember feeling like Scandal was my special private show for me. I think The Office is probably my comfort show!

      what i am burned out on is watching screeners of bad tv shows hunting for lgbtq+ characters for the streaming guide because the channels will not simply just TELL ME ABOUT THEIR QUEERS

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    • Well I’d like to chime in just to say that there are also in-between spaces! I did not self-pub, but I also would not say I took a traditional publishing route. My first book was published with a very, very small press (Burrow Press! They’re great!). There are, of course, disadvantages to this approach. I was not paid an advance and only made a (very small) lump sum of money upon publication of the book which was considered payment for the special edition hardcovers of the book. But that also means that now that the book has switched into Print On Demand paperbacks, I do get “royalties” and make a small small amount from each of those sold (and profits are split 50/50 with my publisher). But there are a tremendous amount of advantages to this style of small press publishing. I had a TON of say in the packaging and marketing of my book. I got to give input at every single step and actually was listened to. I got to design the pub day party of my dreams. At no point was there any pushback to the queerness of the book. I never felt boxed in or like a cog in the publishing machine, which is how it can sometimes feel at big publishers. I also was unagented when I went through this process, which also has pros and cons! But if you are trying to publish with a Big 5 publisher, it is pretty much impossible to do so without an agent.

      I also felt less pressure during the process than authors at mainstream publications are made to feel. I did not obsessively check my Goodreads review. I did not ask for blurbs at all. I self-marketed the book the way I wanted to, and I had a ton of support from Burrow Press.

      Self-publishing is its own specific world, and I’m far from an expert! We actually published a really great essay about a self-pub author’s decision to self-pub and I recommend checking it out! https://develop.autostraddle.com/self-publishing-taught-me-to-rethink-success/

      I do know it’s a lot of work! I think people erroneously think it’s “easier” to self-pub. In some ways, it can seem more accessible than the daunting world of traditional publishing, but it is a TON OF WORK!!!! You really have to be a pro at social media and at all the logistical parts of putting out a book, like marketing, cover design, etc! Or have the funds to hire people to do those things.

      Neither path is “easier.” They’re just different. A lot of it depends on what you want from the experience and who your perceived readership is. But also there are tons of “in between” paths, like the one I took for my first book! Lots of indie presses have chapbook competitions, which are worth looking into though of course not a guaranteed path to publication. If you have any follow up questions, lmk! I love talking about this stuff.

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    • my question is does anyone else have a low-key trauma response whenever they start to watch a new show and then realize at the end of episode one that it’s another Ryan Murphy

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    • I have very strong feelings about how mistreated Tina was in the whole series. She for real deserves justice!!! If you could write an alternative arc for any character on glee, who would you write and what would the arc be 👀???

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      • can i just firstly agree with you on tina i just want so much better for jenna every day all day

        the arcs for me are: literally every girl on glee getting 80% of rachel berry’s screen time. mercedes having storylines that weren’t *just* about how she is one of the most talented people in the room, like where did she go when she wasn’t gossiping with kurt or in the choir room???? a real look into emma’s ocd and how to manage it instead of centering shue. if we’re being honest when tina sang i kissed a girl i was ready for her to be that sapphic who dates every girl and is a heartbreaker but then falls for a cheerleader or something and has to navigate that. quinn. why did they hate her so much. she had a baby. the baby went to her nemesis’s mom. like, why did they do all of that. i want quinn and mercedes together just because quinn can be soft and i like how soft she can be with mercedes and mercedes deserves that especially since shes damn near fighting everyone just to treat her right all the time. listen. santana and brittany. like yes, separate arcs. how did santana navigate always being second best to the blonde head cheerleader, sure, but more than that just regular self-hate. the prettiest girls in school and one she fell in love with were both blonde white girls, what was her life outside of and before them? why was her mom supportive of her but not her grandma? we’re just ignoring brittany talking about losing her virginity to an alien invasion at cheer camp? absolutely not. dig deeper into that and (remembering i gave up on whenever they decided to make her a genius) how dangerous it is to keep laughing at her for being “stupid” when really she probably needs accommodations and extra help and that should be looked into and then acted upon. im sorry i dont have notes for the guys because i am simply full of Rage

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    • can i just say thank you for this honor

      AHEM

      brittana (brittany/santana, which you all know)
      quinncedes (quinn/mercedes)
      quinntana (quinn/santana)
      sancedes (santana/mercedes)
      quitt (quinn/brittany)
      and just came up with this one but let me see what tina and santana look like together too oh shoot wait actually i also believe in tina and quinn YES

      i am going to be extremely transparent and say yes faberry was a big part of my life andddddd i will still reread their fics but ive replaced rachel berry with a rachel berry of my own choosing not that lady who played her and thats how i navigate that

      recently added to the index is emma/sue thanks to the AS team thank youuuu

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    • Wowowowow not yall asking a question that I’m going to answer both vapidly and sincerly lol

      IT’S GREAT TO BE VERY TALENTED AND VERY GORGEOUS AND SUPER COOL! I mean, I think the younger me would have loved to see me, especially starting at age like 30 to now? Like, they would be like “Wow, people were liars and meanies and you have always been beautiful. The world tried to stop you but you STILL got to do something you love?! YOU GET TO IMMERSE YOURSELF IN POP CULTURE OUTSIDE OF OUR BEDROOM AND GET PAID FOR IT?! Yes, folks were right about you being weird but they were saying it in a jerky way but weird is actually cool and maybe they like didn’t know that but it doesn’t matter cos WOW YOU’RE SO COOL!!”

      But also – a bitch has her insecure moments lol and sometimes they suck and are hard and cut deep but even tho it’s taken years and years to learn, thats okay! BAD BABES GET INSECURE TOO!!

      Anyway, I am very stunning, very talented, and trying to talk my shit more without being concerned what folks think about me for doing so!

      Thank you for this question from the bottom of my sexy sweet stunning yummy genius little soul @danijanae @njnic23 @asmithers I adore yalll!!!

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