Disability Justice Needs To Be a Part of Climate Justice

At least three of the people who died in the Los Angeles area fires last month were disabled individuals who physically could not escape without assistance. Their deaths were met with shockingly cruel comments online, blaming them for not leaving—even though they physically could not evacuate on their own. This is not an isolated incident. Disabled people are frequently left behind in disasters, their needs ignored by emergency systems that fail to account for the barriers they face.

These tragic events highlight a devastating truth: despite the fact that more than one in four Americans have a disability, disabled people are often forgotten in emergencies, and their preventable deaths are largely ignored. This has always been an issue, but with the increase in disasters caused by climate change and cuts to services by the Trump administration, it’s essential we understand and fight back.

A History of Abandonment

A study by the United Nations found that people with disabilities are two to four times more likely to die in disasters compared to the general population. This risk is even higher for those who experience multiple layers of marginalization and oppression—such as LGBTQ individuals, BIPOC communities, and those from low-income backgrounds. In fact, these communities are also more likely to have a disability compared to the general population. For example, 40% of transgender adults and 36% of lesbian and bisexual women report having a disability.

During Hurricane Katrina, thirty-four residents of a nursing home in Violet, Louisiana, perished in the floodwaters. Twenty-three people died in a Bellaire, Texas, nursing home during Hurricane Rita. According to a White House report, 71% of those who died in Louisiana during Katrina were over the age of sixty (and most elders naturally become disabled as part of the aging process). A National Council on Disabilities (NCD) report found that many disabled individuals who wanted to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Katrina had no way to do so: buses lacked wheelchair ramps, wait times were hours long in sweltering heat, and some were even turned away from emergency shelters due to their disabilities.

The 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise, California, killed at least eighty-five people — most of whom were older and/or disabled. A state audit found that Butte County had failed to adequately prepare for the evacuation of people with disabilities, mirroring failures seen in other disasters across the country.

Why Disabled People Struggle to Evacuate

Evacuating during a disaster is not a simple task for many disabled people. Numerous systemic barriers prevent safe and timely evacuation, including:

• Inaccessible Shelters: Many shelters lack ramps, accessible restrooms, and even the most basic medical support. A 2023 report by the National Council on Disability found that many shelters failed to provide safe spaces for people with mobility impairments or severe medical conditions, forcing them to choose between staying in unsafe conditions or risking further harm by leaving.
• Public Transportation Limitations: Public transit, a lifeline for many disabled people, often shuts down or becomes limited during emergencies. A disabled individual may be left stranded when buses or trains are halted,
• Medical Equipment: Devices or medications requiring electricity, such as ventilators and power wheelchairs, can be difficult to evacuate with and may not be accommodated at a shelter.
• Health Risks: Respiratory viruses like COVID-19, RSV, and the flu spread rapidly in crowded shelters, posing a higher risk to immunocompromised individuals.
• Financial Barriers: Many disabled people live on low incomes and cannot afford transportation or alternative lodging.
• Communication Barriers: Emergency warnings are not always accessible to the deaf, blind, or cognitively disabled communities.
• Mobility Restrictions: Most buildings have non-functioning elevators during power outages, leaving those with mobility disabilities stranded.
• State-Dependent Medical Coverage: Medicaid and other medical coverage are often restricted by state, limiting evacuation options for disabled individuals who rely on medical care.
• Lack of Access to Caregivers: Caregivers may be unable to reach a disabled person to help or may be living in an area that was already evacuated.

The Consequences of Being Left Behind

The consequences of being left behind in a disaster are often devastating for disabled individuals. Those with medical conditions may lose access to life-sustaining medications, equipment, or treatments, leading to severe health complications. The loss of housing can also mean loss of access to accessible accommodations in that housing such as an accessible-entry tub, adjustable bed, or toilet grab bars. Others may be forced into institutional settings if community support systems break down, stripping them of their independence.

A study by the United Nations found that after disasters, 75% of disabled individuals lack access to basic disaster assistance like food and water. Similarly, following a disaster disabled people, compared to non-disabled people, have a five to ten times greater risk of experiencing food and water shortages, a lack of electricity, isolation, unsanitary conditions, fear of crime, and exposure to financial scams.

The trauma of being abandoned or struggling to survive in an environment that does not account for their needs can have long-term psychological impacts. These failures in disaster response not only endanger lives but also reinforce systemic neglect, making future emergencies even more perilous for disabled people.

Policy Failures and Neglect

Despite repeated tragedies, federal and state emergency plans consistently fail disabled people. A 2019 audit of California’s emergency planning found that counties lacked comprehensive plans for alerting, evacuating, and sheltering disabled residents. FEMA has issued best practices emphasizing the need for accessible transportation and shelters, but these remain largely ignored in the county plans.

In 2018, under the Trump administration, FEMA slashed the number of Disability Integration Advisors (DIAs) deployed to disaster zones from 60 to just five, drastically reducing the number of trained professionals available to ensure the needs of disabled people were met during disasters. Now, with a second Trump administration already attempting to slash staff and services at FEMA, the CDC, and other critical government agencies, these problems are likely to intensify.

The Path Forward

It doesn’t need to be this way. Disabled advocates have long been pushing for disability-inclusive solutions at both the federal and local levels, yet government response remains inadequate. The REAADI for Disasters Act would establish a National Commission on Disability Rights and Disasters, ensuring disabled voices are included in disaster planning. Passing the Disaster Relief Medicaid Act would allow Medicaid recipients to retain benefits when displaced across state lines due to disasters. The National Association of the Deaf recommends that emergency budgets should allocate at least 15% for disability accommodations. Governments must also improve emergency communications by ensuring all disaster warnings are available in accessible formats, including ASL interpreters and live captioning. Additionally, investing in community-led disaster response efforts, with disability-led organizations at the forefront, is crucial to effective and inclusive emergency planning.

In fact, a recent example in Guam shows that working with the disabled community directly saves lives. In May 2023, Typhoon Mawar devastated Guam with its strongest storm in over 20 years, leaving widespread destruction and knocking out power, water, and communication services. Despite the extensive damage, no lives were lost. To support disabled residents, FEMA teamed up with Guam’s Department of Integrated Services for Individuals with Disabilities, focusing on addressing mobility needs, medical equipment reliance, and access to essential aid. They provided assistance through home visits, aid distribution, and recovery centers. Although many villages suffered severe damage, these efforts helped protect the island’s most vulnerable communities.

In the face of government neglect, disabled communities have long taken matters into their own hands, relying on mutual aid to fill the gaps. Grassroots networks provide real-time support, offering everything from evacuation assistance to access to life-sustaining medical equipment. Unlike traditional emergency response systems, which often fail to prioritize accessibility, mutual aid operates on principles of solidarity and collective care, ensuring that disabled individuals are not left behind. Digital platforms and social media have further strengthened these networks, allowing disabled people to share resources, request help, and organize in ways that bypass bureaucratic red tape.

During the 2021 Texas winter storm, when many disabled residents were trapped in freezing conditions without power, disability-led mutual aid groups coordinated heating supplies, accessible transportation, and emergency food deliveries when state agencies failed to respond adequately. In California community-led efforts, such as the Disability Justice Culture Club and MaskBlocLA, have organized supply distributions, coordinated accessible transportation, and shared life-saving information tailored to disabled needs and the disabled community

“As a disabled community organizer I try to find things that I can do, sometimes in partnership with others, and things that I want to do that addresses a need,” said disability justice leader and founder of Disability Visibility Project Alice Wong. “When the wildfires broke out in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, it became very clear that the city, state, and federal government was not rapidly responding to needs on the ground. Even though disabled people have been advocating for mask wearing in public since the beginning of the pandemic, and hey, we’re still in a pandemic, a rapidly spreading wildfire with smoke clogging the skies is a public health hazard.”

On January 23, MaskBlocLA (MBLA) posted an update to their social media saying that they had distributed 281,690 masks to the community so far. “The need for masks at this moment remains more important than ever in this city since the air we breathe is toxic,” they described in their post. “The fires that burn through our neighborhoods release toxic material and particulates into the air that can linger for weeks to months and will continue to have both short-term and long-term health impacts. It’s been a race against time to get masks into the hands of community members and onto faces to minimize the acute and long term effects of breathing in this air. Over the past two weeks, MBLA has worked to distro masks at schools, workplaces, grocery stores, community centers and places of worship all over LA, which has been crucial in ensuring that BIPOC communities, disabled/immunocompromised people, unhoused community members, and children and elders have access to PPE. The same communities most harmed by COVID are the same ones most harmed by climate crisis.”

Wong launched a community fundraiser to help bring masks to Los Angeles communities affected by dangerous air quality by supporting the existing community-led effort of MaskBlocLA. “On Twitter I learned that mutual aid groups who were already in place, often made up by disabled and queer volunteers, have been distributing masks as fast as possible. So I decided to post on Instagram and my other accounts an offer for a signed copy of my latest anthology, Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire, for every one hundred dollar donation to Mask Bloc LA, a mutual aid group that distributes masks for the most impacted people. After a few posts I raised over five thousand dollars. Many organizations have been saying money is the most useful thing people can donate and in my small way I was able to raise an amount that I wouldn’t have been able to donate as an individual. It was an all out community effort that was manageable for me and I am so thankful and proud of the communities I belong to in these online trash heaps also known as social media. Community care is powerful and this was just one example of it in action.”

Disabled people are not dying in disasters due to personal negligence or an unwillingness to leave — they are dying because emergency systems are not built with them in mind. Until disaster preparedness prioritizes accessibility, these preventable tragedies will persist. The question is not whether another disaster will strike, but whether we will finally ensure disabled lives are protected when it does. As climate crises escalate, the fight for better policies and the expansion of disability-led mutual aid must go hand in hand. While systemic change is essential for true disaster preparedness, the ongoing failures of government planning mean that disabled communities must continue filling the gaps themselves, working to protect people who are often abandoned in times of crisis.

Autostraddle’s ongoing queer and trans political coverage is made possible by support from AF Media members. For $4 a month, you can help us keep doing this vital work!

The Queer Feminist Case for Palestine

feature image by Anadolu / Contributor via Getty Images

Have you noticed the movement in solidarity with Gaza and Palestine is often led by women, queers, and non-binary people? It first caught my attention in 2012 when I lived in Melbourne, Australia, protesting a previous round of deadly Israeli military aggression in the Gaza Strip. Thirteen years later, it was true again on the streets of Berlin, Germany, in the months after October 7, and, in the United States today, it is true again from Oakland to Miami.

It would be easy for women and queer people to protest the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza on the grounds that they are represented among the casualties, which have now soared past 26,000, though most observers estimate the real number to be much higher when accounting for Palestinians who remain under the rubble from Israeli bombings. Statistically, there are queer people among the 62,861 Palestinians injured since October 7, and women are undoubtedly playing a big role in the caretaking responsibilities of the orphans and newly disabled people in Gaza who live under air, sea, and land blockade, with no avenue for escape. Women in Gaza are having c-sections without painkillers, and Palestinian girls are forced to use tent scraps, cut up parts of towels, and old clothes in the absence of period products.

As a feminist, it angers me to witness a nuclear-armed superpower strangle a besieged parcel of land and force its displaced civilian population into a catastrophe of famine. It is infuriating to witness the wholesale destruction of Palestinian universities, graveyards, schools, municipal buildings, and apartment blocks. It feels maddening to follow citizen journalists on social media and feel helpless as they get hounded by drones or eradicated, often alongside their families, by Israeli weaponry that American taxpayers directly fund.

Yet, my outrage at the unjust massacre of Palestinians is not because there are women and queer people among the martyrs. I find it insulting to our collective capacity for solidarity to suggest my investment in the freedom of another people need only be for selfish reasons. Though there are plenty of queer people in Gaza, we organize against Israeli occupation and apartheid not because they exist but rather due to a deeper thread of queer and feminist solidarity that extends beyond identitarian constructs and requires a more sophisticated notion of queerness and feminism than the LGBTIQA acronym and/or womanhood alone can command. Many organizations during the Civil Rights movement understood this notion of solidarity well, including the Black Women’s Liberation Committee, which later turned into the Third World Women’s Alliance to recognize the shared struggles facing all class-oppressed women of color. The Black feminist poet June Jordan wrote poems about resistance in Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Lebanon, Bosnia, and Palestine because she keenly believed in this expansiveness of solidarity.

Queerness and feminism are overlapping politics that demand an internationalist framework of solidarity whenever abuses of power impoverish a people’s capacity for liberation. When I say queer, I mean hostile to the military industrial complex that generates profit by manufacturing weapons designed to kill people. I mean I am opposed to the notion that any nation-state should ever be able to control the electricity grid, clean water supply, and borders of another sovereign territory, let alone a nation-state like Israel that was founded upon the killing of 15,000 Palestinians and the displacement of 750,000 others from their ancestral homes. My queerness involves an estranged and at times antagonistic relationship to normative power and, in this instance, the power dynamics are clear. Israel has played a role in preventing meaningful elections from taking place in Gaza to minimize the possibility of Palestinian statehood, and even the Times of Israel noted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interest in propping up Hamas. My queerness instructs me to draw parallels between Israeli colonization and the colonization of much of the world by various empires driven by similar ethno-supremacist ideologies, and, more vehemently, it compels me to speak up and show out in defense of Palestinians without fear of professional consequences. The stakes are higher than any lost gigs or income.

As enumerated by the Palestinian Feminist Collective, feminists see daily acts of resistance as paving the path to a different future by disrupting the status quo wherein abuses of power are made possible. Since at least the 1930s, according to the collective, “Palestinians have regularly engaged in strikes, boycotts, and pickets as a grassroots means of resisting Zionist colonial settlement, land annexation, and labor disposability.” These feminists are asking those of us in the West who can influence the present genocide to join them in mutual struggle.

The first and most meaningful act of solidarity we can support is the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement for freedom, justice, and equality. Modeled off the successful campaign to apply economic pressure to end South Africa’s brutal system of apartheid in the 1990s, BDS calls international civil society organizations and people of conscience to boycott a select number of companies that are particularly complicit in Israeli occupation and settlement expansion. As consumers, we make active choices about the brands and companies we want to support. Targeted consumer boycotts are convincing retailers across the world to stop selling products from companies that profit from Israeli colonialism.

Hewlett Packard (HP) helps run the biometric ID system that Israel uses to restrict Palestinian movement. Siemens is complicit in apartheid Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise through its planned construction of the EuroAsia Interconnector, which will link Israel’s electricity grid with Europe’s, allowing illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land to benefit from Israel-EU trade. AXA invests in Israeli banks, which finance the theft of Palestinian land and natural resources. Do not buy insurance policies with AXA, or if you currently have an insurance policy with them, cancel it. Puma sponsors the Israel Football Association, which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Fruits, vegetables and wines from Israel are often wrongly labeled as “Produced in Israel” when they come from stolen Palestinian land. Boycott all produce from Israel in your supermarket and demand they are removed from shelves. Ahava cosmetics has its production site, visitor center, and main store in an illegal Israeli settlement. Sabra hummus is a joint venture between PepsiCo and the Strauss Group, an Israeli food company that provides financial support to the Israeli army.

The divestment arm of BDS urges banks, local councils, churches, pension funds, and universities to withdraw investments from the state of Israel and all companies that sustain Israeli apartheid, and the sanctions element of BDS encourages the banning of business with Israel by ending military trade and free-trade agreements, as well as suspending Israel’s membership in international forums such as UN bodies, Eurovision, the Olympics, and FIFA. The broader objectives of this three-pronged economic campaign are to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Arab lands and dismantle the wall that currently fragments it, to recognize the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, therein ending the conditions of apartheid, and to honor the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

The BDS committee also encourages supporters to reject organizations like Standing Together, which normalize the Israeli state and flatten the conflict to inter-group hatred. Moreover, in 2024, a broad coalition of cultural workers in Berlin announced a call to Strike Germany, which encourages international artists, academics, and cultural workers to withhold their labor from German state-funded organizations and institutions because of their complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians and German censorship of legitimate criticism of Israel. The US campaign for Palestinian rights has prepared an action toolkit for helping to end the genocide, and collectives like Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) organize in cities across the United States and have released a statement of solidarity that can be signed.

Our collective consumption habits are an issue with crucial implications for queer people and feminists alike. Where we choose to spend money and invest our labor has a major impact on the international apparatus that sustains Israel and enables it to occupy and disenfranchise Palestinians. As people of principle and conscience, it is our responsibility to wholeheartedly join the struggle for the liberation of Palestine and of all people strangled under the boot of empire.

Pop Culture Fix: Diablo Cody Better Not Be Joking About a “Jennifer’s Body” Sequel!

Diablo Cody Teases a Jennifer’s Body Sequel

Just the very idea of a Jennifer’s Body sequel has me foaming at the mouth.

I only had one foot out of the closet door when Jennifer’s Body came out, and in 2009 it was cool to hate Megan Fox for no reason, so I had to pretend I didn’t feel Some Type of Way about the Jennifer/Needy relationship. But I watched it again last year, as a gay adult with my gay adult friends, and I was able to fully enjoy this cult classic for the masterpiece it is. Not only is it pure camp (name more iconic dialogue than: “You’re killing people,” “No, I’m killing boys”) but it also really taps into the experience of teen girls (and/or people who thought they were or were perceived as teen girls.) I could write an entire thesis on this movie but I won’t, instead I will say this: we are in an era of remakes, and I don’t want that. The first movie is perfect just the way it is, it (perhaps sadly) doesn’t need to be modernized in theme, just maybe in some select language.

But a sequel, a follow-up, a similar movie from the same creators? Yes, please. It’s like how in Scream sequels, it’s the same thing happening to different people with different twists, but the same general lore and vibe. THAT is a movie I want to see. And this time, it can be even gayer.

But Wait, There’s More (Pop Culture News)

+ The MCU lost Ayo Edebiri for their upcoming project Thunderbolts, which is sad for us since we now won’t get Ayo + Florence Pugh banter. She is being replaced by Geraldine Viswanathan, someone who has previously played queer but does not seem to have any proof of queerness on the very surface of the internet where I briefly checked

+ Ella Hunt will play SNL alum Gilda Radner in upcoming movie

+ In case you went to a cabin in the woods this weekend and missed it, there’s some Nicki Minaj/Megan Thee Stallion feud going on

+ People are not loving Miller’s Girl, which I only tell you because it’s possible Gideon Adlan plays queer in this movie and may or may not kiss Jenna Ortega? This is a rumor that TikTok started, anyway. In one review Adlan’s character was referred to as a “provocatively dressed lesbian” but in that same sentence describes her as throwing herself at a man so everything is unclear at this time.

+ Mean Girls is still doing pretty well at the box office

+ Ice Spice and Victoria Monét, among others, are going to be honored at the Billboard Women in Music Awards

+ Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Morning Show, and more will be at Paleyfest

+ If you heard Reneé Rapp mention the Lesbian Masterdoc and you weren’t a tumblr gay, you may have had questions, look no further (You didn’t think I’d make it through an entire Pop Culture Fix without mentioning Miss Rapp did you?)

+ Ashley Benson is pregnant…I feel like there’s a sex bench joke in there but I’ll let it slide out of respect for the mother-to-be

Pop Culture Fix: Every Divorced Lesbian Needs Friends Like Ali Krieger’s Teammates

Ali Krieger Is Healing From Breakup With Ashlyn Harris, Ready for Next Chapter

(Photo by Joe Maher – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

In a cover story with SELF magazine, Ali Krieger talked about her volatile year, her retirement and of course her high-profile divorce from Ashlyn Harris. She told Self Magazine that she was training when the news about her divorce broke, but that she got through it with the support of her teammates: “My entire team came over for a dance party the night the news broke. And I will never forget that moment. I found out at training. I was on the field. And I came off the field, in the locker room, and I was obviously devastated.”

After cancelling her press conference and fitting, Krieger went home — and one by one, all her teammates came over to be with her, because they are real ones!! She told Self: “Until 2 in the morning, we were there, just hanging out, dancing, putting music on YouTube. We were sitting in the playroom, in my kitchen; we were dancing and hanging out, and they were all bringing wine and flowers, and just…themselves. They didn’t even think twice. They didn’t have to ask; they just showed up.”

Ali also talked about the work she was doing on herself, in therapy, and processing after meeting “the most broken version” of herself this year. When asked what she wants her life to look like in five years, she spoke of wanting happy and healthy kids, the opportunity to travel around the world, loving her job and being “so in love and in a new relationship.” Above all though, she hopes to be “fully healed from this past year in some way, shape or form.”

She sees that healing as a necessary part of this transitional period of her life, so she can be “ready and open” for the next relationship and prepared to give her full self. “I’m so ready for the new year, and just propelling myself forward into that,” she told Self. “And then I’ll be open, really fully open, to what’s next.”

Other Queer Pop Culture Stories For Your Day:

+ Anatomy of a Fail: Inside France’s Dysfunctional Oscar Committee: “France is known for separating the art from the artist in the name of freedom of expression, but it appears that Triet wasn’t granted that privilege. Her politically-charged speech at Cannes when she received the Palme d’Or ruffled feathers in high places and was seen as the epitome of rudeness.”

+ La Brea Boss, Star Talk New Step in Izzy’s Final-Season Journey: ‘It’s an Opportunity for Her to Shine: Is this show still bad? I remember it being very bad.

+ Award-Winning Children’s Magazine “Kazoo” Features Queer Experts

+ Cancelled ‘Lizzie McGuire’ Reboot Would’ve (Finally) Made Miranda Queer: This sounds like it could’v really been something.

+ Tessa Thompson’s Viva Maude Inks First-Look Film Pact With Amazon MGM Studios

+ Don’t forget to keep up with Drew’s coverage of Sundance here!

Pop Culture Fix: Renée Rapp Identifies as a Lesbian Now!

Reneé Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion Performed Together on Saturday Night Live, and Reneé Rapp Identifies as a Lesbian Now

I am here today because I am gay. Like this gay lighting. (Photo by: Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images)

Okay I know I only recently started doing Monday Pop Culture Fixes and I know that a disproportionate amount of them have been about Reneé Rapp but IN MY DEFENSE she stays being iconic.

This weekend, Reneé Rapp was the musical guest on SNL and with her she brought many joys. For one, she was introduced by the original Regina George, Rachel McAdams. When I tell you I screamed. Then, she brought out Megan Thee Stallion to perform their new song (from the Mean Girls soundtrack), “Not My Fault.”

She also was in a skit where she played a lesbian intern who was doing the internship as part of her court-mandated media training, a nod to the comments that she’s been delightfully unhinged in her interviews.

Also Reneé Rapp identifies as a lesbian now! She was sort of soft launching this information over the course of the Mean Girls press tour in various interviews, but she explicitly talked about it on Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM radio show recently. And also in this very hilariously captioned instagram story:

Where’s the lie?

The bisexual to lesbian pipeline is real, even though not everyone takes it. Not all bisexuals will later ID as lesbians and not all lesbians thought they were bisexual at one point, but some of us need that stepping stone and that’s okay. Some of us tried really hard to like boys to the point we convinced ourselves we were bi. And then some of us grew up and realized that feeling was just external pressure and we realized that actually we were just hella gay. (It’s me, I’m some of us.) So what we’re not going to do is be biphobic in our reaction to this news. We’re just going to adapt our language and move on with our lives. And keep lazily flipping our imaginary microphones to our imaginary audiences when reenacting her legendary performance of Poison Poison.

Non-Rapp-Related News:

+ Aubrey Plaza is gonna make you cry and you’re gonna like it

+ Kristen Stewart is going to make you squirm and I’m not sure if you’re gonna like it

+ Melissa Berrara and Indya Moore join hundreds in a Pro-Palestinian protest at Sundance

+ Mean Girls are tops… at the box office

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A post shared by Megan Thee Stallion (@theestallion)

+ D.E.B.S. is apparently 20 years old which makes me ancient but I’m always down to talk about that perfect film and Paste Magazine seems to agree

+ Gillian Anderson is going to be in Tron 3 and I guess this means I have to watch the second one

+ This isn’t necessarily gay news as it is news that gays might be interested in: Netflix picked up Sundance thriller featuring Alycia Debnam-Carey (are you keeping up with Autostraddle’s daily Sundance coverage?)

+ The Marvels will be available to stream on Disney+ on February 7th

+ Film Forum is having something called Sapph-O-Rama, and I love that name, no notes

+ And here are some sapphic fantasy books for you to curl up with!

Los Angeles Gay Bar The Abbey Faces an Overdue Reckoning

Feature image by FG/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images via Getty Images

This piece contains frequent reference to sexual assault.

I went to The Abbey for the first time in early 2019, a couple months after moving to Los Angeles.

New to the city and looking for queer community — and, let’s be honest, some post-breakup partying — I typed in lesbian bar on Yelp. I followed a mostly empty page advertising “Girl Bar” that ended up just being a defunct offshoot of The Abbey. Already there, I got a drink and did my best to talk to the few queer women amidst the crowd of cis gay men and straight people.

During my first year in LA, this was always the role The Abbey played. Nowhere else to go? Well, fine, let’s go to The Abbey. There are better gay bars on that very block, but with its size, lack of cover charge, and mix of genders — even if many were straight — it was a natural place for desperate queer women with limited options to end up.

But, from the beginning, I’d heard the rumors.

Spoken about with a regretful shrug, like the bar was a predatory actor still winning awards, people passed along warnings about The Abbey. Everyone seemed to know someone who had been drugged.

Open secrets — even ones that reference multiple lawsuits — are only so effective. That’s why it’s both upsetting and a relief to read the recent report on these incidents by Kate Sosin and Steven Blum for The 19th.

“More than 70 people interviewed by The 19th over the course of three years reported going to The Abbey… and experiencing disorientation to varying degrees or losing consciousness,” they write.

The piece goes on to highlight several of these incidents including Yvette Lopez who sued The Abbey in 2013, claiming she was drugged by an employee and then sexually assaulted, and Haely White, an actor and comedian who was sued by The Abbey after posting on Instagram in 2021 about being drugged. (Lopez settled; White is still fighting, “buried in legal fees.”)

It’s notable that most of the women who were drugged at The Abbey are queer. Since many of these incidents took place, bars like The Ruby Fruit and Honey’s have opened, but for years Los Angeles was completely devoid of lesbian bars. There are more dire consequences than boring nights when a lack of spaces exist for queer women and trans people.

This is emphasized by the fact that White was outed by The Abbey when they released a message exchange of White explaining she was on a date with a woman, even though she’s married to a man. “I was framed as a liar,” White said. The truth was her husband knew about the date — they weren’t monogamous even if she wasn’t ready to come out publicly.

Lopez also faced skepticism about her queerness — this time from detectives. She eventually dropped her case, because it was retraumatizing with victim blaming and detectives questioning whether she was, in fact, a lesbian.

Incidents such as these are allowed to continue for so many years, because there is an incentive not to report. Many of the individuals who spoke to the police or even just to management at The Abbey were dismissed or worse. Even White has faced emotional and financial consequences just for posting on Instagram.

In response to one incident when a woman did not report, the piece states: The Abbey said it had no record of this incident and went on to say that “anyone who believes they are a victim of a crime should report it to the police.”

It’s astounding to see this requirement of law enforcement stated by a gay bar. There’s an immense ignorance to queer history and queer present in this demand. I’m not surprised, but I am sick to witness this politic stated so brazenly.

The last time I went to The Abbey, I didn’t go inside. It was June 2020, the day of West Hollywood Pride, and I was at a protest. I asked if I could use their bathroom and was informed only patrons having brunch were allowed to use their facilities. The peak of a pandemic, amidst protests against police brutality, and they wouldn’t let a trans woman take a piss.

I hope this excellent reporting and the brave women who have come forward result in The Abbey experiencing a long overdue reckoning. I also hope there continue to be more spaces available for queer and trans people where we can dance and get drunk and do drugs while also feeling a greater amount of safety and care.

It’s impossible to create a completely safe space, but The Abbey is, at best, complicit and, at worst, entirely responsible for over a decade of harm.

How Bluestockings Bookstore Is Fighting To Keep Serving Houseless, LGBTQ, and Other Marginalized Communities

all photos courtesy of Bluestockings Cooperative

To have a bookstore is to have the opportunity to create magic. It’s the opportunity to give people the words and stories they need. At their best, bookstores are built around the values of listening, being listening to, care, being cared for, and community. Because to write, read, and share stories is to reach towards others, to reach something beyond yourself. To me, that’s about as close to magic as you can get.

When I think of bookstores which best embody that magic, NYC’s Bluestockings Cooperative comes to mind. The space is queer, trans, and worker-owned, meaning they work from a cooperative model, following the guiding principles and wisdom of Black communist and leftist organizing in Harlem as well as the Borinquen organizations of Loisaida. Instead of having bosses or managers, each employee is a worker as well as a partial owner within the cooperative.

Together, these worker-owners are continuing Bluestockings’ longstanding mission grounded in the principles of abolition feminism, solidarity, and transformative justice practices. Their mission operates in three parts: 1. distributing literature and resources about oppression, intersectionality, community organizing, and activism by sharing the stories of marginalized people, 2. maintaining a space in New York City for dialogue, education, and reflection where all people are respected, and 3. building connections, knowledge, and skills in their communities.

You’ll see this mission reflected directly in the space and its practices. Masks are required and available for those who didn’t bring their own. As long as people are wearing a mask and abiding by Bluestockings Safer Space Policy, they can spend as much time as they want in Bluestockings sitting, browsing, and using the wifi without having to make any kind of purchase. One of the many toxic byproducts of late-stage capitalism is that warm, safe, free, indoor spaces where people simply exist with access to wifi and restrooms are becoming more and more difficult to find. This is especially true in New York City, as Mayor Eric Adams recently cut millions from New York City’s library budget forcing them to close on Sundays.

The shelves are full of books centering queer voices, intersectional feminist voices, abolitionist voices, and voices calling for liberation from colonialism. Behind the main counter there’s a “free store” maintained through a donation system with shelf-stable food, hygiene products, and first aid supplies. Through a government program, Bluestockings is also able to provide Plan B. All anyone needs to do to access these resources is ask. According to worker-owner Al (they/them) who is responsible for building out their free store, “I’ve ordered and disturbed 2,496 Plan B doses to date. We take surveys on our free store and on average we service 75-100 community members who utilize the snacks and protein drinks as well as our sanitary products and hand warmers.”

In addition to its inventory choices and free store, Bluestockings practices care towards its community by providing free Narcan training and fentanyl test strips. Given that fentanyl (a powerful opioid up to 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin) cannot be detected by sight, taste, smell, or touch, fentanyl test strips can be life-saving. Naloxone (the brand name version of Narcan) is a medication that blocks opioids in the brain for 30-90 minutes and can reverse opioid overdoses. Bluestockings conducts free Narcan training sessions every Saturday afternoon. If people aren’t able to make it to those trainings, they can get a 15 minute individual training from any of the worker-owners (all of whom are certified) or schedule a larger group training. The Narcan kits and fentanyl test strips Bluestockings gives out come from an OOPP (Opioid Overdose Prevention Program) registered with the New York State Department of Health. Bluestockings has been able to give 1,050 Naloxone kits and at least 4,000 fentanyl test strips since November 2023.

I wish this were just a piece on how a longstanding queer bookstore and refuge is finding ways to continue practicing care and love for their community. Unfortunately, this is also a story of gentrification and white supremacist capitalism not caring about what’s right and medically safe.

Last winter, Bluestockings began receiving threats and complaints from neighbors about the unhoused people on the block, pressuring them to stop their community care programs (something they have absolutely no intention of doing). When asked to describe their interactions with the surrounding neighborhood, Al said, “The neighbors were violent toward us with slurs, hammers, and bb guns. We fought back with education, facts, and community support. What we do for our community is part of our mission statement. We show up. I didn’t know how invested I would be in the lives of our community or how they would impact me. That’s my Bluestockings highlight.”

Despite Bluestockings’ efforts to educate the surrounding neighborhood, they’ve mostly been met with shut doors, ignorance, and additional harassment when they stated their intentions of continuing their programming. Once neighbors realized they weren’t going to scare Bluestockings out of their values, they took it to the next level.

In May, a petition titled “Save Suffolk St.” began to circulate with the intention of getting City Council member Christopher Marte to assess Bluestockings’ ability to operate harm reduction programs. The petition reads: “While we support all that Bluestockings does for the LGBTQIA+ community, they are not equipped to service harm reduction and thus their unprofessional management has sadly brought illegal activity that has made our street unsafe.”

Not only is this petition feeding into the harmful belief that unhoused people are scary and unsafe to be around, it’s also just factually inaccurate to what Bluestockings does. Bluestockings is not operating as a facility providing comprehensive harm reduction services or a needle exchange program (though they do point people to local organizations who are able to offer those services). All they are doing is providing a safe place for people to sit down, access to kits, and information on additional resources.

The pressure from the neighborhood soon dominoed into action from their landlord, who this past October issued a 15-day notice to cure (the first step to a formal eviction process). Their violation was listed as, “unauthorized use of the premises as a medical facility” (again, untrue) and goes to state their practice of “permitting homeless individuals to use the basement restroom” and handing out food are creating a “hazardous condition” for residential tenants. These violation claims are not backed by any factual violations of the conduction of the OOPP Bluestockings is registered with. Nothing about these services is illegal or against the terms of their lease which allows Bluestockings to operate as a “bookstore/café/community center.”

Thankfully, Bluestockings was able to retain a pro bono lawyer who has assisted them in extending the window to cure during ongoing negotiations with their landlord’s lawyer. Ultimately, the goal of Bluestockings is to settle the situation outside of court and peacefully continue their community care programs. However, if they are not able to reach an agreement outside of court, they may pursue a Yellowstone injunction. This would put a pause on the eviction process while a judge evaluates the validity of the lease violations.

Until then, Bluestockings worker-owners continue to face verbal and physical harassment as they maintain their programs and policies. Worker-owners see the effect of their actions and their care reflected back to them every day. People come in and send messages letting Bluestockings know their programming helped them get through tough times, find housing, and/or get into recovery. When asked to share a bright Bluestockings moment, worker-owners told me about a local GSA who did a fundraiser at Bluestockings because they felt so welcomed and seen at the bookstore. Bluestockings’ programming with students gives those students a window into building queer community and living a full life as a queer professional. Sometimes, Bluestockings is the first place to provide them with that window. The value of this space where people can access necessary resources, experience safety and belonging, and exist in solidarity cannot be overstated.

The story of Bluestockings is not one which can be told in isolation from the racist, homophobic, transphobic book bans targeting schools and libraries all across the country. The worker-owners at Bluestockings are part of the larger tapestry of bookstore workers, librarians, and teachers continuing the fight to give everyone access to books and literary spaces. Ongoing community action and support is an essential part of making sure they aren’t fighting alone.

Some things you can do:

• Check out Daven McQueenss piece which breaks down how you can fight back against book bans.
• Support and share information about those working to distribute books to people who need them, like the Queer Liberation Library, which has hundreds of free queer narratives for those who may not be able access those titles physically and Firestorm Books, who are raising money to redistribute the 22,500 books removed from the Duval County School Systems to the children and young people of Florida. If you have another organization you love, be sure to drop it in the comments section!
• Get a library card and request the titles you’d like to see there. Not only does this help support authors and libraries, it also ensures books will be there waiting for people who need them. Added bonus: It’s really hot to have a library card!
• If you’re looking to support Bluestockings specifically and you’re affiliated with an organization purchasing books, please consider placing your bulk orders from Bluestockings Cooperative and using them as your official book supplier. You can also check out their membership program, which helps them pay rent and keep the space public and open to all. If you’re in New York, be sure to stop by and get a free Narcan training.

Pop Culture Fix: 2024 GLAAD Award Noms Include “Bottoms,” “Nyad” and of Course, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love”

GLAAD Announces Nominees for the 2024 GLAAD Awards

This morning GLAAD announced the nominees for the 2024 GLAAD awards which honor excellence in “LGBTQ visibility and representation across all media, from film, television, music, journalism, publishing and more.” This year’s nominees include a lot of movies and television programs we loved, such as Bottoms, Blue Jean, How to Blow Up a Pipeline and Nyad. Notably absent from the nominated films is the widely celebrated Anatomy of a Fall, which has a bisexual protagonist, and notably absent from the top albums is my personal favorite album of 2023, Joy Oladokun’s “Proof of Life”!

Here are the GLAAD Award nominees:

Outstanding Film – Wide Theatrical Release

All of Us Strangers (Searchlight Pictures)
American Fiction (Amazon MGM Studios)
Anyone But You (Columbia Pictures)
The Blackening (Lionsgate Films)
Bottoms (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
The Color Purple (Warner Bros.)
It’s a Wonderful Knife (RLJE Films)
Knock at the Cabin (Universal Pictures)
Moving On (Roadside Attractions)
Shortcomings (Sony Pictures Classics)

Outstanding Film – Limited Theatrical Release

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Blue Fox Entertainment)
The Blue Caftan (Strand Releasing)
Blue Jean (Magnolia Pictures)
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Neon)
Joyland (Oscilloscope)
L’immensità (Music Box Films)
Monica (IFC Films)
Our Son (Vertical Entertainment)
Passages (Mubi)
Summoning Sylvia (​​The Horror Collective)

Outstanding Film – Streaming Or TV

Cassandro (Amazon Prime Video)
Christmas on Cherry Lane (Hallmark Channel)
Friends & Family Christmas (Hallmark)
Frybread Face and Me (Array Releasing)
Nuovo Olimpo (Netflix)
Nyad (Netflix)
Red, White, and Royal Blue (Amazon Prime Video)
Runs in the Family (Indigenous Film Distribution)
Rustin (Netflix)
You’re Not Supposed To Be Here (Lifetime Television)

Outstanding Documentary

Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later (MTV Documentary Films)
Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate (Netflix)
Every Body (Focus Features)
Kokomo City (Magnolia Pictures)
Little Richard: I Am Everything (Magnolia Pictures)
Orlando, My Political Biography (Janus Films)
Rainbow Rishta (Amazon Prime Video)
Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed (HBO
Documentary Films)
The Stroll (HBO)
“UYRA – The Rising Forest” POV (PBS)

Outstanding New Series

The Buccaneers (Apple TV+)
Class (Netflix)
Culprits (Hulu)
Deadloch (Amazon Prime Video)
Everything Now (Netflix)
Found (NBC)
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Paramount+)
The Last of Us (HBO)
The Other Black Girl (Hulu)
Tore (Netflix)

Outstanding Drama Series

9-1-1: Lone Star (Fox)
The Chi (Showtime)
Chucky (SyFy/USA Network)
Doctor Who (Disney+)
Good Trouble (Freeform)
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
Quantum Leap (NBC)
Riverdale (The CW)
Station 19 (ABC)
Yellowjackets (Showtime)

Outstanding Comedy Series

And Just Like That… (Max)
Good Omens (Amazon Prime Video)
Harlem (Prime Video)
Harley Quinn (Max)
Our Flag Means Death (Max)
Sex Education (Netflix)
Somebody Somewhere (HBO)
Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)
What We Do In The Shadows (FX)
With Love (Amazon Prime Video)

Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series

Black Cake (Hulu)
Bodies (Netflix)
The Confessions of Frannie Langton (Britbox)
The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)
Fellow Travelers (Showtime)
The Full Monty (FX on Hulu)
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (Amazon Prime Video)
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (Netflix)
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Netflix)
Transatlantic (Netflix)

Outstanding Reality Program

Bargain Block (HGTV)
Family Karma (Bravo)
I Am Jazz (TLC)
Living for the Dead (Hulu)
Queer Eye (Netflix)
Real Housewives of New York City (Bravo)
Selling Sunset (Netflix)
Swiping America (Max)
TRANSworld Atlanta (Tubi)
The Ultimatum: Queer Love (Netflix)

Outstanding Reality Competition Program

The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula (Shudder/AMC+)
The Challenge: Battle for a New Champion (MTV)
Drag Me to Dinner (Hulu)
Love Trip: Paris (Freeform)
My Kind of Country (Apple TV+)
Next in Fashion (Netflix)
Project Runway (Bravo)
RuPaul’s Drag Race (MTV)
Survivor (CBS)
The Voice (NBC)

Outstanding Kids & Family Programming or Film – Live Action

Heartstopper (Netflix)
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (Disney+)
Jane (AppleTV+)
Power Rangers Cosmic Fury (Netflix)
XO, Kitty (Netflix)

Outstanding Kids & Family Programming or Film – Animated

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (Max)
Craig Of The Creek (Cartoon Network)
The Dragon Prince (Netflix)
The Ghost and Molly McGee (Disney Channel)
Hailey’s On It! (Disney Channel)
The Loud House (Nickelodeon)
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (Disney Channel)
Nimona (Netflix)
The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder (Disney+)
Transformers: EarthSpark (Paramount+)

Outstanding Music Artist

Billy Porter, Black Mona Lisa (Island UK/Republic Records)
boygenius, The Record (Interscope)
Brandy Clark (Brandy Clark)
Janelle Monae, The Age of Pleasure (Atlantic Records)
Kim Petras, Feed the Beast & Problematique (Amigo/Republic Records)
Miley Cyrus, Endless Summer Vacation (Columbia Records)
Renee Rapp, Snow Angel (Interscope)
Sam Smith, Gloria (Capitol Records)
Troye Sivan, Something to Give Each Other (EMI Australia/Capitol Records)
Victoria Monet, JAGUAR II (Lovett Music/RCA Records)

Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist

Chappell Roan (Atlantic Records/Island Records)
David Archuleta (Archie Music)
Fancy Hagood (Fancy Hagood Enterprises)
G FLIP (Future Classic)
Ice Spice (10K Projects/Capitol Records)
Iniko (Columbia Records)
Jade LeMac (Artista Records)
The Scarlet Opera (Perta/Silent Records)
Slayyyter (FADER Label)
UMI (Keep Cool/RCA)

Outstanding Broadway Production

Fat Ham, by James Ijames
How to Dance in Ohio, by Jacob Yandura and Rebekah Greer Melocik
Melissa Etheridge: My Window, by Melissa Etheridge
Once Upon A One More Time, by Jon Hartmere
The Sign in Sydney Brustein’s Window, by Lorraine Hansberry

You can read the full list of GLAAD Award nominees, including nominees for podcasts, graphic novels, children’s programming, and all the journalism they nominated instead of ours, on the GLAAD Awards website.

Other Queer Pop Culture Stories For Your Day:

+ The trailer for the second season of Vigil, starring Surrane Jones and Rose Leslie as lesbians in Scotland who are investigating “multiple unexplained fatalities at a Scottish military facility,” dropped this afternoon in anticipation of its debut on Peacock February 14th. In Season One, DCI Amy Silva (Jones) and DI Kirsten Longacre (Leslie) were separated because Silva had to investigate a thing on a submarine. This season, they are investigating a thing together!

+ Mean Girls Star Auli’i Cravalho on Making Janis Outwardly Queer, 20 Years Later: “When people call Janis a “pyro lez,” that just means that you’re calling her a hot lesbian! Slay.”

+ 1000-Lb. Sisters’ Tammy Slaton Says She’s ‘Like a Lesbian’ After Husband’s Death: ‘I Stopped Messing with Guys’: “I’m not trans. I’m just a supporter of everybody. I was saying I was pansexual but I kinda stopped messing with guys after my husband passed. So, I’m like a lesbian.”

+ Right-wingers are raging because this dating app advert featured one lesbian couple

+ World cup champion Jenni Hermoso has opened up about her sexuality, confessing it was ‘taboo’ growing up lesbian in Spain

+ “I’m With the GSA”: Ally Beardsley On Fantasy High Junior Year & Chaotic Lesbian Representation: It took me a long time to figure out that this article is about a video game (it is, right?)

+ Teletubbies actors now – lesbian sex scene, tragic death and Sun Baby becomes a mum: “After the show ended, Pui raised a few eyebrows by taking part in lesbian sex scenes during Channel 4 show Metrosexuality. “Yes, I was Po, but I am an actress, and the role looked interesting. I didn’t take the lesbian role to be deliberately controversial.”

+ Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls Is An LGBT Movie That Isn’t About ‘The Pain Of Being Gay’: We’ve written before about this upcoming movie, but one piece of new information in this article is that Tricia Cooke, who co-wrote the film with her husband Ethan Coen, “has identified as a lesbian since her teenage years, the pair describing their 30-year marriage as “unconventional.”

+ The third season of Yellowjackets won’t debut until 2025 which means we have a full year to convince Paramount+Showtime to advertise their program on our website

Pop Culture Fix: Reneé Rapp Is Being Biconic on the Mean Girls Press Tour

Bisexual Icon Reneé Rapp is Making Waves by Being Hilarious on the Mean Girls Press Tour

Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images

If your social media algorithms are anything like mine, Noted Bisexual Reneé Rapp is really having a moment. She is the highlight of every Mean Girls interview, she is providing hilarious sound bites and meme-able moments on all the talk shows she graces, and she is just being a goddamn delight at every turn.

What I love about her interviews is her unapologetic queerness. Whether she’s joking about Regina George being a lesbian, flirting with her costars, or just doing that thing she does with her eyebrows, she’s not letting anyone forget she’s bisexual, and I love that for her, and for us. She’s the kind of celebrity that would have helped me out of the closet a lot sooner if I had known her as a teenager, and I am so happy for the teens who have her today. When Stephen Colbert asked her if she had anything to say to her Regina George predecessor Rachel McAdams, she said simply, “Date me?” and I think that’s beautiful.

Some people don’t like her just saying whatever she wants in these interviews, but what’s clear to me is that she’s having fun. It’s so much more enjoyable to watch someone make their own enjoyment during what has to be an exhausting press tour and be entertaining as hell instead of just giving the same boiler-plate answers every time. People accuse her of not having “media training” but I disagree. I think Reneé knows exactly what she’s doing. While I’m sure this isn’t 100% of Reneé, I believe this celebrity persona is a genuine part of her, and I admire her for being so bold and funny and flirty and earnest.

Unrelated but my favorite moment that has come across my TikTok in the past few days was a clip from this Variety interview with the cast of Mean Girls where Auli’i Cravalho was showing off her double jointed arm and used Reneé’s knee to do so. The face journey Reneé goes on had me laughing for a long time.

Now on to Act II

+ Related, Mean Girls is doing well at the Box Office and also in my heart (I loved the movie despite them doing “Stupid with Love” dirty and have already seen it twice don’t @ me if you didn’t like it)

+ Ariana DeBose also didn’t think the Critic’s Choice joke about her “thinking” she’s a singer was funny

+ The Emmys are tonight and more queer wins could be in our future

+ The Last of Us has cast the queer character Dina for season two

+ A new Fear Street movie is coming, here’s hoping The Prom Queen is as queer as the first Fear Street trilogy

+ Harley Quinn is going on Spring Break with a special DC comics release

+ The last first trailer for Station 19 is here…fingers crossed for a Maya/Carina happy ending!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhW73DYAhn8&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=ABC

+ Queer artist Apolonia Sokol talks Frida Kahlo and upcoming documentary

+ Queer actor Aisha Dee is in an Australian miniseries that is now on Hulu called Safe Home that looks deeply unsettling (pos)

+ Billie Eilish gave more than just the theme song to the new season of True Detective

+ Queer actor Arienne Mandi (who you probably know from The L Word: Generation Q) has been cast in season two of The Night Agent

+ And if you want a laugh, this headline reads “Beyond gay – 40 celebrities you didn’t know were LGBT” then proceeds to list the most famously queer people in the universe — but hey, maybe there’s someone on this list you didn’t know about

Pop Culture Fix: Here’s A Gay Rundown of the SAG Nominees

Barbie, The Last of Us, and More Queer Faves Get Nominated for the 2024 SAG Awards

Photo by Frazer Harrison/FilmMagic vis Getty Images

The Golden Globes are over, but awards season persists, and today’s award show news is that the SAG Awards nominations are out. It doesn’t look too different than the Golden Globes nominations, but with a few fun categories like ensemble and cast awards.

Here are the nominations of note for you, gentlereader, who came here looking to find out who all’s gay here.

Of course, we have the Barbie cast recognized in most categories, along with the cast of The Color Purple, and Lily Gladstone for their role in Killers of the Flower Moon. Jodie Foster is nominated for her role in NYAD, Bella Ramsey for their role in The Last of Us, and Ayo Edebiri for her role in The Bear.

Then we also have queer people popping up in the lists of casts and ensembles, for example, Cynthia Nixon for being part of The Gilded Age and Tig Notaro for The Morning Show. And some shows that feature queer storylines and/or have queer creators behind the scenes, like The Morning Show, Abbott Elementary, Only Murders in the Building, and Ted Lasso.

I feel like not too long ago, shows with queer representation would be passed over, so to see so many shows we know and love on these lists is really heartening. I especially feel that way about The Last of Us, because too often sci-fi shows aren’t taken seriously and since they don’t have their own category in most awards that aren’t the Autostraddle TV Awards, they often get overlooked despite the fact that, statistically, sci-fi shows are often more likely to have queer characters. Here’s hoping all the future award shows are jam-packed with queerness. (And that someday we have an entire third category for Best Nonbinary Actor/Supporting Actor so our no-binary actors don’t have to choose which category to submit themselves for, or to choose to abstain altogether like Liv Hewson has spoken about doing in the past.)

More News Before They Play Me Off Stage

+ Just a little more award news: Lily Gladstone’s former classmates once voted them “most likely to win an Oscar” and I just think that’s cute

+ In a deleted scene for The Marvels,Valkyrie calls Carol and calls her “My Captain” and also makes a strap-on joke. Also not for nothing but her reaction to thinking Kamala was her wife was just that she wasn’t informed or invited confirms Carol’s queerness in my eyes. The whole thing is very flirty and gay.

Also Kamala’s reaction to potentially marrying Captain Marvel wasn’t exactly… straight. And she doesn’t say “I’m straight” in response, she says, “I’m single.” ANYWAY everything is gay and nothing hurts.

+ Speaking of Marvel, I consider myself fairly up on Marvel news, but somehow I totally missed that a Madame Web movie is happening. Maybe because it’s Sony Marvel vs official MCU? Anyway, I’m cautiously optimistic about it, and there is officially a trailer for it! I don’t know if any of the characters will be queer, but Mattie Franklin aka Spider-Girl is played by non-binary Kenyan actor Celeste O’Connor, so that’s exciting.

+ And one last bit of MCU news: they canonized the old Marvel Netflix shows like Jessica Jones, which means queer characters like Jeri Hogarth can be added to the alarmingly short queer MCU roster

+ Reneé Rapp, Megan Thee Stallion, Auli’i Carvalho and the rest of the cast got shiny for the Mean Girls premiere this week

+ Jodie Foster describes her role in True Detective as an “Alaska Karen” which made me laugh even though I’m in a fight with Jodie Foster, that she doesn’t know about, for calling Gen Z annoying to work with

+ Queer actress Jameela Jamil, queer fan favorite D’Arcy Carden, and someone who is not queer as far as I know but who I, a queer person, love deeply Renee Elise Goldsberry will lend their voices to an animated revival of Clone High

+ Wynonna Earp writers Noelle Carbone and Alexandra Zarowny are part of the team bringing us a new Canadian show called Wild Cards, which also stars Toni Topaz herself, Vanessa Morgan

+ And if you’re looking for some queer books to read this year, why not start off with this handy list

A New Author-Owned Bookstore Centering Banned Books Is Coming to Central Florida

Lauren Groff, author of the Lambda Literary award finalist novel Matrix (which was also one of Autostraddle’s best books of 2021), is opening a new bookstore in Gainesville, Florida this year called The Lynx. Fittingly named after one of Florida’s two native wildcats, The Lynx will focus especially on titles being banned in Florida, LGTBQ+ books, and books by Florida writers. Groff is opening the store alongside her husband Clay Kallman.

And if it seems random that I’m writing about super hyperlocal news of a bookstore opening in central Florida, I assure you it’s not. Florida is obviously at the epicenter of the book ban efforts sweeping the nation. And as I keep writing over and over in my missives on politics in the state where I live, for starters, Florida does not exist in a vacuum; anything happening here has ripple effects outward, and the state is often explicitly used as a test case for the ruling class to see how much they can get away with. In addition to that, coverage of Florida — especially when it comes to buzzy topics like book bans — is incomplete when it only focuses on the bad things and not the efforts to push back against them. “Florida Has the Second Most Book Bans in the Country” is apparently a more enticing headline than “New Independent Bookstore Celebrating Banned Books Opens in Florida,” but it doesn’t have to be that way! We can look at all the nuances of this state in order to better understand how these things happen and how to undo them.

One bookstore isn’t going to change everything, but it’s a significant reminder there are people fighting for this place and especially for its arts and culture spaces. Florida is experiencing a brain drain of educators, thinkers, artists, and writers, and I don’t fault anyone for leaving (especially as a transplant myself). But by opening a bookstore here, Groff is doing what I hope more Florida-based artists will do and insisting the answer isn’t to leave but rather to improve, to speak out against book bans and the far-reaching fascist policies they engender and create spaces where queer and trans art can thrive.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Lynx (@thelynxbooks)

Earlier this year, I wrote about anarchist independent bookstore Firestorm Books’ initiative to get banned books, especially queer and trans titles, back into the hands of Florida youth through the radical redistribution project Banned Books Back! Firestorm’s ambitious project has me feeling hopeful, especially as it’s an instance of a group outside of Florida deciding to invest in the community here instead of just writing it off as hopeless. And every time a new indie bookstore opens in Florida with a goal to specifically champion LGBTQ and BIPOC authors as well as banned titles, it’s a thrill. The opening of The Lynx — a “bookstore that bites back,” according to its indiegogo campaign — isn’t merely a one-off project aimed at the Florida community but rather an ongoing physical space where people will not only be able to get queer and trans books but also have access to programming centering such titles.

The Lynx promises to be an events-driven store, and in addition to platforming Florida authors, I look forward to the bookstore bringing outside authors into the state. While I do understand any concerns about one’s personal safety when it comes to trans artists, it always bums me out when I hear about artists who say they won’t do events in Florida, which usually just punishes queer and trans people living in Florida with little effect on the people who set the transphobic and queerphobic legislative agenda here. The Lynx will be just one of several great indies in the state celebrating LGBTQ books, and I hope more authors will realize how meaningful it is to visit a state where there are so many attempts to limit queer art.

There are, of course, limits to privatized spaces like a bookstore, but independent bookstores that also operate as community spaces aren’t only important in the face of book bans targeting schools and libraries but also just for the entire literary ecosystem, especially when it comes to books by. (I’m slightly biased; independent bookstores are the only shops that stock my own weird queer horror novelette.)

The Lynx will join the likes of Loudmouth Books, another author-owned bookstore specializing in banned books located in Indianapolis (Indiana libraries have been hit hard by book bans, too) and founded by Leah Johnson. It’s hard out here for indie bookstores though, especially as Amazon continues to decimate the book industry. One of my favorite indies in the country, Loyalty Books in DC, also highlights queer and trans books as well as books by authors of color and recently had to fundraise to stay afloat and ensure a more stable future. The Lynx is currently fundraising to help raise local and national awareness of the store and to support the costs of its buildout. There are several fundraiser perks available to folks, including a couple from yours truly. I’m offering a mini mentorship for an LGBTQ nonfiction writer. Also available as a perk is a Big Gay Night Out in Orlando with me and New York Times bestselling author Kristen Arnett (oh right, who’s also my fiancée). Whoever snags this perk can bring a +1 to hang out with us at our favorite spots in town for a night. Kristen is also offering some additional perks, and writers like Kaveh Akbar and Dantiel W. Moniz are offering perks as well. And you better believe once The Lynx open, Kristen and I will be making the journey from Orlando to Gainesville often!

Pop Culture Fix: Here’s All the 2024 Golden Globes Gay Goings-on

LGBTQ+ Stars Showed Up and Won in Style at the 2024 Golden Globes

Photo Credit: Billie Eilish and Ayo Edelbi by Rich Polk/Golden Globes 2024/Getty Images, Lily Gladstone via CBS

Awards shows have a history of letting marginalized communities down, and also me personally because my taste in movies is notably different than the voting pool of these shows, but this year’s Golden Globes gave us (at least) three queer winners of our collective interest:

• Lily Gladstone won Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama for their role in Killers of the Flower Moon
• Ayo Edebiri won Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy for her role in The Bear
• Billie Eilish won Best Original Song, Motion Picture for “What Was I Made For?”, from Barbie
• Anatomy of the Fall (which has a bisexual protagonist) won Best Motion Picture, Non-English Language, and Best Screenplay, Motion Picture

So I guess this year my tastes did align more with the Golden Globes voters because I do love Lily Gladstone, did enjoy The Bear, and “What Was I Made For” was at the top of my Spotify wrapped last year. That said, if it were up to me, both Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig would have won for Barbie, too, because that movie is so fun and unique and beautiful and queer and lovely (and pink!) and it didn’t deserve to be overlooked in various categories, given a seemingly made-up category for “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement,” and targeted in one of the host’s many unfunny jokes of the evening. But that’s just my opinion.

Other gay happenings last night include but are not limited to:

Gillian Anderson’s dress had vulvas on it and people have big feelings about it.

https://twitter.com/fiImgal/status/1744140018245923035

Bella Ramsey looked dapper as heck and gave some cute kiddos some advice about how to survive an apocalypse.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes)

And also Jodie Foster was there (she presented and was nominated for her role in Nyad).

In Other News

+ The Ariana Debose-lead (therefore queer-lead) animated movie Wish is doing great at the box office

+ You can listen to Reneé Rapp’s movie version of “World Burn” ahead of the Mean Girls’ release later this week (even though I won’t because I want to experience it for the first time in larger than life surround sound thank you very much)

+ The Arcane Season 2 teaser is here and I am so ready to dive back into that world

+ Peacemaker Season 2 will be officially part of the DCU and hopefully feature more of the lesbian character Leota Adebayo (played by Danielle Brooks)

+ Stranger Things Season 5 has started filming, and Maya Hawke smiles out from the cast photo, ready to step back into disaster lesbian Robin Buckley

She’s not sitting close enough to Natalia Dyer for my Robin/Nancy shipping heart but I’ll allow it.

+ Maybe you’ve already heard but in case you haven’t, shows with queer characters like Station 19, Umbrella Academy, La Brea, Hightown and Good Trouble are ending this year

+ And last but not least, Cosmo wants you to read these books about polyamory and ethical non-monogamy

Pop Culture Fix: Reneé Rapp and Coco Jones New Year’s Performance Is Living in My Head Rent Free

Reneé Rapp and other Queer Artists Helped Ring in 2024 on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp_4KrENPu4&ab_channel=CocoJonesSource%28FanAccount%29

In case you missed it, queer artists like Reneé Rapp, Janelle Monáe, and Cardi B performed at ABC’s yearly New Year’s Eve celebration, hosted by Ryan Seacrest, at the NYC, LA, and Miami outposts of the event.

Watching Reneé Rapp’s rise from Broadway darling to Sex Lives of College Girls breakout star to mainstream baddy has been truly a wonder to behold. Especially since she is so loud and proud about being bisexual, and brings it up herself in many an interview, it’s refreshing to see her gain so much momentum. We obviously have a long way to go as far as equal rights, but it’s exciting to see someone so young and talented not shy away from her sexuality or try to be coy about it or just avoiding talking about it altogether. Of course, it’s totally valid to want your private life private and not want to talk about your sexuality publicly, especially when you’re an artist or performer who would rather your interviews be about your craft. But in this day and age, we need both. We need people who say enough that it’s known and then don’t let that be the center of the conversation, but we also need people who are willing to shout it for the rooftops. So I’m grateful to Reneé Rapp for being so very herself in every way.

In general, I think it’s great that out performers are featured in such a highly consumed show like Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, a show that honestly is probably mostly watched by older generations who might not otherwise be exposed to queer artists. There were a lot of strange things happening on the show (I’m at my parents’ house and we watched it, and it was a bit of a mess), but highlighting queer performers? I’ll call that a win. All in all not a bad way to kick off 2024.

+ Hollywood film studios lied about being dedicated to hiring more women and people of color, and I’m sure everyone is shocked

+ Jodie Foster is apparently killing it (but hopefully not killing people) in the new season of True Detective

+ Lesbian fitness trainer Jillian Michaels wishes celebs would quit taking drugs to lose weight and honestly same

+ I’m sure you’ve heard this by now but it’s too cute not to share again: Mae Martin is dating Survivor star Parvati Shallow

+ Gaytimes wants you to know about these queer musical artists going into 2024

+ Noted bisexual Kate Siegel discusses the recasting of Roderick in The Fall of the House of Usher

No I didn’t need an excuse to post a picture of Camille Usher but I’ll take one anyway.

+ The movie Rebel Moon had a nonbinary actor in it but was otherwise quite awful (in my humble opinion) and Screenrant remains hopeful for sci-fi in 2024 somehow

+ Gay actress Marsha Warfield will return as Roz in the Night Court reboot

+ And why not give this post beautiful bisexual bookends by showing you Reneé Rapp in one last Mean Girls: The Movie: The Musical: The Movie trailer before next week’s premiere

This Bookstore Is Giving Banned Books Back to the Florida Community They Were Removed From

When radical anarchist bookstore Firestorm Books in Asheville, North Carolina was entrusted with 22,500 books removed from the Duval County Public Schools system in Florida, they knew what they had to do: redistribute them back to the community they came from.

The books, which feature diverse characters and stories centering marginalized identities, were removed as a result of the DeSantis-backed push for widespread censorship and book bans. As a result, over 47 titles were flagged and expelled from the district, and over half of those centered LGBTQ+ characters or history. In addition to queer and trans titles, many of these books candidly explored racism, colonialism, and activism/organizing in accessible ways for kids.

According to Firestorm Books, in November 2022, a contractor tasked with the disposal of the more than 20,000 books removed by this ban contacted the bookstore and offered to ship them for free if they had a place to store them. If they couldn’t take them, the books were set to be destroyed.

Yes, that’s right. In case you think “book bans” are somehow a softer policy to “book burning,” make no mistake. Just because you don’t see the flames doesn’t mean there’s no fire. Book bans are every bit as fascist and violent as the historical practice of book burning. And book bans can lead to more hate and violence, normalizing the erasure of queer and trans life. Banning LGBTQ books, for example, further enables homophobic and transphobic hate groups to terrorize children at drag story hours.

But Firestorm, thankfully, took the books. And now they’re giving them back. Through a new project called Banned Books Back!, Firestorm plans to redistribute the confiscated books back to youth in Florida for free. Kids and their allies can fill out an encrypted form to request either picture books for ages 4-8 or chapter books for ages 8-12. Five to six books will be sent per ask, so each kid will receive a range of LGBTQ+ books, and the packages will also include zines and stickers, including one of a possum reading a book that reads TRASH FACISM NOT BOOKS.

The plans are to ship at least 2,000 packages and a total of 10,000 books directly to the youth who need them. The first phase focuses on Florida, but there are plans to open it up to more states facing rampant book banning (as a reminder: book bans happen in all regions). This is, of course, an enormous task, and Firestorm is currently raising $30,000 to cover the costs of the project, most of which will be used for shipping. They still have a long way to go to meet this goal.

The collective behind Firestorm knows this is just one small way to fight book bans. The real fight is much bigger.

“We understand book bans as a symptom of authoritarian power, so it isn’t effective to focus solely on access to individual titles without addressing the underlying power relations,” the collective tells me. “Yes, we want kids in Florida to have these 22,500 books, but we also want to live in a world where there aren’t powerful adults imposing their worldviews through bans, punishment, and policing.”

Proponents of book bans push the false narrative that it’s about protecting children. But we all know they’re solely about protecting a dangerous status quo that does not include all children and in fact hurts a lot of kids and teens. Books don’t make kids unsafe. Guns do. Groups like Moms for Liberty do.

Banned Books Back! was conceived as a project within the overall struggle against fascism, “because we know that these titles were removed from schools by the same insurgent Far Right movement that’s seeking to crush liberatory possibility and erase us from public life,” the collective asserts. Indeed, in November 2023, I wrote about the direct connections between school-based restrictions like sports bans, rules about pronouns, and book bans as part of a larger project to push LGBTQ people out of the public sphere and further into the margins.

According to the Firestorm collective, effective resistance requires organizing our communities against white supremacy, patriarchy, and adult supremacy. That last one is crucial in my opinion since it’s so under-talked about. Current policies in Florida and beyond seek to restrict and control the lives of children in ways that do not actually serve them. Children are targeted specifically because they’re easy targets for authoritarianism and far-right conservatism. The Firestorm collective urges for organizing against all these threats simultaneously. “Yes, that includes handing out free books, but it also includes self-organizing access to abortion services and hormones, defending drag shows, bailing neighbors out of jail, and blocking the expansion of police power,” the collective says.

Banned Books Back! builds on a history of specifically queer activism. The project’s name is a nod to Bash Back!, the late aughts queer and trans liberation movement that started in Chicago and led to the formation of chapters throughout the country committed to political disruption. Bash Back! was an anarchist movement that critiqued the mainstream gay rights movement for prioritizing heteronormative assimilation. Bash Back! imagined more, imagined life where queer and trans people could be truly liberated.

“Like Bash Back!, we believe that the stakes are existential — the end game of the Far Right isn’t to shield their children from our stories, it’s to fully erase us as queer and trans people, along with anyone who doesn’t fit into a white supremacist, Christo-fascist world,” the Firestorm collective says. “And while many adults are still minimizing this as ‘polarized’ discourse, young people are experiencing the real world harms and consequences. We’re working to return these books as an act of solidarity with the kids from whom they were taken; and in doing so, hope to connect with, and contribute to, a broader antifascist struggle.”

Firestorm Books proves bookstores can be a crucial part of this fight. As public spaces with an emphasis on serving the communities they’re in, libraries have long been an important space for providing access to resources, education, and more, but libraries are also beholden to city and state laws, making them susceptible to policies like book bans. We’re seeing some creative, mutual aid-driven efforts and spaces pop up to fill some of these gaps, such as The Rolling Library in NYC, which I’ve written before. Through Banned Books Back!, Firestorm provides another model for what resource redistribution can look like.

In addition to Banned Books Back!, Firestorm regularly collects donated books to give to Asheville Prison Books and distributes books for free in the community with a focus on young readers. The collective tells me they’re passionate about solidarity, direct action, and experimentation. “Banned Books Back! gives us space for all three, and draws on our familiarity with the short-term infrastructural patterns used by mutual aid disaster relief organizers,” the collective says.

If you’re outside of Florida and you’ve been wondering how you can help with what’s happening down here — particularly when it comes to queer and trans youth — consider giving to Banned Books Back! Turn your outrage into action.

“It’s impossible for us to imagine the end of book bans without imagining the end of capitalism and the state,” the Firestorm collective says. “Without systemic change, we’ll continue to have a publishing industry that engages in the ‘soft censorship’ of deciding whose stories are worth telling, and we’ll continue to have millions of people in cages where book access is subject to extreme restrictions.”

The Most Important Movie of the Year Is a Documentary From 1976

Best Films of 2023 lists have been filled with art that grapples with the genocidal actions of powerful men. Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest attempt — with various degrees of success — to display the mundanity of large-scale violence. From the atomic bombs to the assassinations of Osage people to concentration camps, the killing is meticulously planned. And yet each film shows how little the perpetrators of this violence reckon with their actions — at least until it’s already been done.

Unfortunately, these works of history remain relevant. The same justifications of greed and fear have motivated Israel’s latest U.S.-backed escalation of violence against Palestinians. Meanwhile, here in the States our cruel immigration policies and prison system steal millions of lives. Few people carrying out these modern atrocities connect their actions with the actions of the past. People take what they want from history and rarely see themselves in the villains.

There is an undeniable power to Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest, but there’s also a limit to their depth. What do they reveal about the evils of men? They are artful, emotional documentation, and there is value in that. But the only film I saw this year that really confronted the perpetrators of this kind of violence was a four and a half hour documentary from 1976, Marcel Ophuls’ The Memory of Justice.

Unlike Ophuls’ more famous Holocaust documentary The Sorrow and the Pity, The Memory of Justice does not allow its continued relevance to remain subtext. It’s one thing to say we must study history so as not to repeat it — it’s another to place past and present side-by-side. In The Memory of Justice, Ophuls focuses on the Nuremberg trials and the continued reckoning within Germany. But he wisely acknowledges there is nothing uniquely evil about the Nazi regime. The film draws parallels between the Holocaust and the more recent horrors of the French occupation of Algeria and the American occupation of Vietnam.

The Nazis who Ophuls interviewed use the same excuses and justifications that people use today. One Nazi refuses to admit he was ever antisemitic. Another Nazi understates the suffering at the concentration camps because “at a camp you can walk around when you like and where you like.” Other Nazis claim to not have known the scope of the violence. Even Albert Speer who notably admitted responsibility and spent his life supposedly atoning is unwilling to admit the entirety of his role. His narrative of himself as the good Nazi, the apologetic Nazi, is just as self-serving as the Nazis who deny their guilt.

The film is very explicit about the atrocities of the Holocaust. It also questions why the Nuremberg trials focused on the German actions alone. What about the bombing of Dresden? What about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Only the losers of war are forced to answer for their crimes against humanity.

Calling political opponents Nazis is seen as cheap and dramatic. But this film highlights the validity of the comparison. The United States and France have carried out many holocausts, and have been led by people who acted like the Nazis. To truly reckon with the Holocaust is to remove the evil from its pedestal and recognize it as common.

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers and revealed the extent of the U.S. evils in Vietnam, makes one of the film’s most frightening observations. He notes that within the Pentagon Papers there is no debate about ethics or legality, only practicality and effectiveness. Amorality is more frightening than immorality.

Showing evil on-screen — in narrative or documentary form — is not enough to stop it. But the clearest work, the most impactful work, uses history to confront the violence of today. We need more media like The Memory of Justice that excavates the past without allowing people to dismiss or misinterpret its relevance.

“No more genocide in my name,” a woman sings during a protest at Kent State. Watching this, my stomach dropped. I’ve heard that said so many times over the past few months as American Jews plead with our politicians to stop funding Israel’s violence. It’s easy to feel despair at this endless cycle. But there’s also inspiration to be found in the parallel history of resistance.

The Memory of Justice makes it clear that the greatest perpetrators of violence will never acknowledge their villainy. But we can acknowledge it for them. We can refuse the easy narratives of the powerful and fight for a world where human life — all human life — is valued. We can fight for a world of true justice.

The Memory of Justice is not currently available to stream.

“Queer People Are No Friends to Israeli Apartheid”: LGBTQ+ Artists Sign Open Letter for Palestine

feature image photo by SAJJAD HUSSAIN / Contributor via Getty Images

Over 240 LGBTQ+ artists across arts and culture industries have signed an open letter, as Them initially reported, calling for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine and condemning Israel for the ongoing genocide as well as the pinkwashing propaganda campaigns that have been used to bolster oppression of Palestinians. The letter also crucially includes a commitment to boycotting Israel. As the letter puts it:

Today, we demonstrate our solidarity with Palestinians by pledging not to perform or participate in public events in Israel until Palestinians are free. We believe that showing our work in Israel would dishonor the radical histories of queer activism and self-expression, which stand opposed to violent systems like apartheid and military occupation. Palestinians remind us that none of us are free until we are all free. That “queer liberation is fundamentally tied to the dreams of Palestinian liberation: self-determination, dignity, and the end of all systems of oppression.” We will continue to speak out for Palestine, to educate ourselves, and to uplift Palestinian voices.

Open letters and statements of course can be meaningful on their own, but it’s the ones that have commitments to action — such as the stated boycott of events in Israel in this Queer Artists for Palestine letter — that carry the most weight. In history, we saw how the cultural and academic boycott of South Africa moved the needle on ending apartheid. A cultural boycott is similarly an arm of the BDS movement. “Israel celebrates visits by international artists as a sign of support for its policies,” as the BDS website explains.

Among the signatories are Indya Moore and Kehlani, who have been seen at many protests and actions over the past couple months. Moore was arrested last month as part of a Jewish Voice for Peace sit-in at Grand Central station in New York City alongside Cecilia Gentili, who is also a signatory.

The letter comes from artists across the music, performance, film/television, and literature industries. All three members of the band MUNA and all three members of boygenius also signed on along with several past cast members of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Authors and poets include Michelle Tea, Fariha Róisín, Zeba Blay, and more.

Fatimah Asghar, whose brilliant essay on the links between queer liberation and Palestinian liberation was republished today on Autostraddle, is also a signatory. I recommend reading their essay in full and holding it in mind when reading through the open letter and its list of names, because it really gets to the heart of why a specifically queer call to solidarity and action is not only necessary but a part of queerness itself. As Asghar puts it: “It is our duty as queer people to show up, and to show what being queer really means.”

Being queer means standing against oppression, against the dehumanization of a people, and certainly against genocide.

Pop Culture Fix: Boygenius Covers Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” And It’s Swoonworthy

feature image of Boygeinus by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images

Queer Supergroup Boygenius Covers Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One” And It’s Swoonworthy

If your timeline is anything like my timeline, it is full of boygenius. I don’t even listen to them that often (though I do enjoy them when I do), but I have seen performances from various concerts and interviews, and I feel intimately familiar with their personality quirks, because no matter which social media app I open, my friends are joyously sharing clips and videos, and I can’t help but be charmed by them.

In case your algorithm isn’t as generous with boygenius clips as mine, a quick recap: boygenius is an indie/folk rock supergroup made up of solo artists, all of whom are under the big beautiful rainbow LGBTQ+ umbrella: Julien Baker identifies as a lesbian, Phoebe Bridgers as bisexual, and Lucy Dacus as queer or pansexual.

Whether or not you care for their music, it’s hard to deny that they’re blowing up, and since they are unapologetically queer, it’s really nice to see. Even though we’re no longer at the point where coming out will necessarily tank someone’s career automatically, it’s still a risk; Billie Eilish lost thousands of followers when she started speaking more publicly about being queer. So even though it seems to come so naturally to them, it’s no small thing, in my opinion.

This week, boygenius covered Shania Twain’s You’re Still The One, and Shania herself approves, as do, it seems, all the sad gays on my timeline. If you’re subscribed to Rolling Stone you could read even more than I can about it.

Watch these charmers put their own spin on the country classic here:

And in case you were curious, the country queen herself tweeted her reaction, saying it’s “so fucking cool” complete with an emoji whose eyes are filled with happy tears.

So fucking cool 🥹 dying@xboygeniusx @BBCR1 https://t.co/CtSyO8UUrW

— Shania Twain 💎💎💎 (@ShaniaTwain) December 19, 2023

While it’s unclear if boygenius will be making another album together in the near future, I think its safe to say that these three aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

More Queer News for Your Noggin

+ Sarah Paulson is “vicious and dynamic” in “Appropriate” on Broadway

+ Kesha is officially free of Dr. Luke, legally, and is going her own way

+ Season 6 will be the last for What We Do In the Shadows, the comedy with coffins full of pansexual vamps

+ The bad news: A cop went into a Massachusetts school looking for the book Gender Queer (ACAB)

+ The good news: A school in Maine voted to keep the book Gender Queer in its library despite one (1) parent’s protest

+ A drag-themed revenge thriller is on its way (beware this review is pretty spoilery)

+ We might get to see the queer Joker parody movie after all

+ Trixie Mattell will return as host of recap show The Pit Stop

+ Listen up, sports fans: Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi are hosting an NBA alt-cast on Christmas

Pop Culture Fix: Kate McKinnon and Billie Eilish Gay Up SNL (Meow! We Love to See It)

Kate McKinnon and Billie Eilish Bring Big Gay Energy To Saturday Night Live’s Holiday Episode

The cat puns are also purr-fect.

SNL had a doubly gay billing this past weekend: the host was ex-cast member and gay icon Kate McKinnon and the musical guest was recently publicly out Billie Eilish. Kate brought in old pals Kristin Wiig and Maya Rudolph, doing an Abba bit that had me in hysterics as they struggled to keep from breaking. She also sprinkled little bits of gayness all over the place, one of her characters casually mentioning a wife, etc. Billie sang two songs, my personal most-played song on my Spotify Wrapped “What I Was Made For” from the Barbie movie and a soulful rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” (Make the Yuletide gay, amiright?)

Kate and Billie joined queer forces to rekindle one of McKinnon’s classic bits as they donned curly wigs to be the lesbian employees of a cat rescue called Whiskers R We. They share a lot in common, including their favorite movie (Tar), and celeb crush (Mariska Hargitay.)

You can watch it now and be as delighted as I was:

One of the digital shorts of this episode was also quite gay, starring Kate and Billie, but also Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and gay former SNL writer (and current Girls 5 Eva standout star) Paula Pell. In this short, they sing an adorably hilarious song about running a tampon farm. It’s a gay ol’ time.

More Queer News For You:

+ Ali Liebert and Humberly González starred in the gay Hallmark Christmas movie Friends and Family Christmas that aired last night, and it was a sweet addition to the still-to-small pile of queer holiday movies. The bar is low but this one exceeded it, in my opinion.

THANK YOU! From the bottom of my lil queer heart for watching & loving our movie!!! It means the world to me that you feel seen. #RepresentationMatters 🌈#FriendsAndFamilyChristmas @hallmarkchannel pic.twitter.com/ObiLLPi3Uf

— officially ali liebert (@AliLiebert) December 18, 2023

+ Demi Lovato is engaged to a man who goes by the nickname Jutes, and they seem really happy. And after everything Demi has been through, I genuinely wish them nothing but joy and happiness.

+ The online project Queer Liberation Library is fighting against queer book bans

+ V.E. Schwab reflected on the limited queerness of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

+ Author Michelle Tea, credited with starting Drag Queen Story Hour, is starting an independent publishing arm called Dopamine

+ There are some gay goings-on over on General Hospital between Kristina and Blaze

+ Bi, Black author Bethany Baptiste weighs in on the Cait Corrain review bomb Goodreads scandal and how it’s linked to racism in publishing

+ This year’s Miss France pageant winner has short hair and a supposedly “androgynous” look and people are big mad about it which sounds like homophobia to meeeee

Florida Teachers Fight Anti-LGBTQ Policies As the State Punishes Schools That Dare To Resist

feature image photo by Anadolu / Contributor via Getty Images

I strongly believe that any media outlets frequently covering the anti-LGBTQ policies running rampant across the U.S. must also couple that coverage with stories about resistance to those efforts. Resistance is happening in myriad ways, both in more systemic maneuvers such as utilizing the courts to challenge policies as well as in more community-driven approaches to direct action and protest. Yesterday, three teachers went the former path by filing a lawsuit against the state of Florida over its law which bans public school teachers from sharing preferred titles or pronouns with students.

The group of teachers, represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, includes AV Vary, the nonbinary teacher at statewide online public school Florida Virtual School who was fired last month for using the honorific Mx. The complaint asserts that the pronouns law discriminates against transgender and nonbinary school employees and violates their constitutional rights

This move builds on some efforts already made by Florida teachers in response to the Ron DeSantis-led attacks on LGBTQ people, which has targeted education in particular. Teachers are losing jobs throughout the state as a direct result of these policies. While the conditions that have made this lawsuit necessary and urgent are disheartening and I wish these teachers didn’t have to fight for their right to be themselves in the workplace, there is a small bit of hope in the fact that some teachers are pushing back rather than getting out. There’s a massive teacher shortage in the state right now, and while I don’t fault anyone for leaving to find work in safer, more supportive states, it’s so important that there are some people staying and fighting the policies. The fact of the matter is not everyone can leave. While I understand the impulse behind campaigns outside of Florida to welcome teachers considering leaving, what teachers need in this state is actually more material support, more people willing to take a stand against these policies who are here and committed to staying here.

It’s not just teachers and school employees who are trying to fight these anti-LGBTQ policies; it’s the students, too. When the staff at a Florida high school ignored the state’s trans sports ban, hundreds of students walked out in support of the staff and the trans girl who was allowed by them to play on the girls’ volleyball team. And one walkout wasn’t enough; students did so twice. Despite these brave acts of solidarity on the part of the students, the Florida High School Athletic Association has hit the high school with a massive fine in what is the first instance of a school being penalized for not following the new state guidelines but sadly will likely not be the last. It sets a scary precedent and is likely intended to quell further resistance, which means it’s more important than ever to keep pushing back, to not give in to fear. The more schools that flout the rules, the more difficult they will become to enforce.

And unfortunately we can’t only think of these as problems facing public schools. They’re touching the entire education system here. Earlier this year, the state expanded its private school voucher program, which means more state funds are being funneled toward private schools, so curriculum and sports restrictions on schools that receive state funding can be enforced beyond public schools. We’ve also already seen how the voucher program actively harms LGBTQ students by allowing private schools that explicitly forbid queer and trans students to still receive state funding. And voucher programs, despite what proponents claim, do not actually help lower income students. So the impact of anti-LGBTQ education policies in the state are huge; LGBTQ students and educators face the possibility of punishment and reprimand for violating these state-enforced regulations in public and private schools, and pushback will have to come from both sectors.

All of DeSantis’ efforts to silence and oppressively legislate students and educators in the state are connected and should be confronted simultaneously. As he’s busy trying to get pro-Palestine groups on campuses shut down, we’re seeing ripple effects throughout the education system: A math tutor at an elite South Florida private school was fired due to posts on her personal social media account in support of Palestine, and then her kid was expelled from the school, too.

If you live outside of Florida, you might be wondering how this impacts you. Well, first of all, DeSantis’ policies have already started seeping into other states. Second of all, another Trump presidency could mean an expansion of a lot of these policies at the federal level. Third, we should all care about policies that impact LGBTQ people outside of our personal communities.

I spoke with Autostraddle writer and Florida educator Stef Rubino while writing this story, and they had some powerful words to share:

“People look at Florida and they think this problem will stay contained here. We’re seeing everything from attacks on curriculum to attacks on people’s identities to attacks on people speaking out against the genocide in Palestine here, but it’s spreading and will continue if we don’t change the way we’re fighting back against these injustices. Legislation and lawsuits can’t be the end of it. We have to stand up and do something in our everyday lives as well. And we need to get organized. Those of us on the left have very little chance of succeeding in the battle against these oppressive forces if we don’t actually come up with material strategies to make sure these things stop happening.”

Pop Culture Fix: Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian Look Hot In Bodybuilding Movie Described As “Pain & Gain For Indie Lesbians”

Kristen Stewart’s Lesbian Bodybuilder Movie “Love Lies Bleeding” Releases First Look, Will Debut at Sundance

Kristen Stewart’s hotly anticipated (by us) A24 movie Love Lies Bleeding has released a first look image. Kristen Stewart plays the love interest of a lesbian bodybuilder (played by queer actor Katy M. O’Brian, an actor who also does stunt work and is swole year-round). Co-written by Rose Glass and Weronika Tofilska, and directed by Glass, Love Lies Bleeding was shot last summer and screened this past spring in New York City. According to World of Reel, the audience had intense reactions to the movie at the spring screening:

Test screened in NYC tonight. Audience was having visceral reactions to the gore, blood and puking throughout. Has a strange ending that will make this a love it or hate it type movie. “Pain & Gain” for indie lesbians. Ed Harris is great and Katy O’Brian as well.

World of Reel also wrote that the film is “said to be about an aspiring bisexual bodybuilder in the late 1980s who moves to a small rural Nevada town from Oklahoma and falls madly in love with Kristen Stewart’s character who works at the local gym.” Kristen Stewart’s character is the daughter of the bodybuilder’s new boss, and she introduces the bodybuilder to the world of steroids! According to IMDB, Jenna Malone is also involved in this film somehow and it is about “A romance fueled by ego, desire and the American Dream.”

Katy O’Brian’s wife, Kylie, posted the first look images on her own instagram feed and described the grueling process Katy went through filming the movies, which included 12-16 hour days followed by three hours of lifting/cardio every night, and getting surgery for a Chrons scar just before reshoots. She gushed:

She absolutely devours this role, it is breathtaking. It is the performance of her life. The first day I arrived in New Mexico, she showed me something she was working on for a scene and I broke down crying it was so beautiful.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by TheKylieChi🇵🇸 (@thekyliechi)

There’s no set date for release, but it will make its world premiere at Sundance 2024.

Other Queer Pop Culture Stories For Your Day:

+ Netflix released a bunch of its viewing data from January – June 2023, but honestly it’s difficult to draw any real conclusions about cancelled gay content from it without seeing monthly or comparative data — like we’d have to see the numbers for First Kill’s first six months of life to have a genuine grip on its performance. Glamorous, which was very gay and pretty bad, logged 36.6 million hours of viewing, thus earning it the 490th spot on this list of 17k shows, but it was released eight days before the report’s data is cut off, so hard to know how it fared going forward. Regardless, it was cancelled.

Hours of watching, as a metric, obviously favors television over films. That said, I am truly sorry that so many people watched the Jonah Hill / Lauren London comedy You People (I am one of those people) (it has a small lesbian character) —  You People comes in at #35, with 181.8 million logged hours. Another Netflix original with a minor lesbian character, Your Place or Mine, is at #43 with 163 million hours.

Most of the queer-inclusive shows released during this time period have great numbers: XO Kitty (released mid-May), Ginny & Georgia, BEEF, Shadow & Bone,The Diplomat, Never Have I Ever, Welcome to Eden, Perfect Match, etc. However, Welcome to Eden has been cancelled, so!

+ TOMMY DORFMAN IS DIRECTING THE ADAPTATION OF MARIKO TAMAKI’S GRAPHIC NOVEL LAURA DEAN KEEPS BREAKING UP WITH ME

+ Romy’s “She’s On My Mind” music video is queer as fuck and stars Maisie Williams.

+ The Critic’s Choice Awards Nominees were announced today — Bottoms was nominated for Best Comedy, and Nimona for Best Animated Film! As in the Golden Globes, Anatomy of a Fall is up for Best Foreign Film and Jodie Foster for Nyad.

+ Sophia Bush discussed her divorce from Grant Hughes on a podcast, and also was at Art Basel with Ashlyn Harris last week.

+ Bella Ramsey creating ‘scary’ film they’ve been writing since the age of 14: Ramsay has been working on a feature film centered on mental health, specifically a girl with an eating disorder. They say the story is done in “an interesting, slightly spooky way.”