Pop Culture Fix: Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe Are in the Ali Krieger Fan Club
Ali Krieger Fan Club Part of a Big Sports Weekend for The Lesbians
HARRISON, NEW JERSEY – OCTOBER 15: Ali Krieger #11 of NJ/NY Gotham FC reacts during her tribute after her final home season National Women’s Soccer League game against the Kansas City Current at Red Bull Arena on October 15, 2023 in Harrison, New Jersey. (Photo by Ira L. Black – Corbis/Getty Images)
Megan Rapinoe arrived in an “Ali Krieger Fan Club” t-shirt to her Decision Day game to support Gotham FC player Ali Krieger‘s final NWSL regular-season match, which was followed by a tribute to Krieger from her team and the fans. (News broke last week that Krieger and Ashlyn Harris were getting a divorce, which was not great timing for Ali!) Krieger’s 30-yard recovery prevented Kansas City from taking the lead in their game and ensured the Gotham FC a spot in the NWSL playoffs, so she’s not done yet.
Meanwhile, Sue Bird donned her “Ali Krieger Fan Club” t-shirt courtside at the WNBA finals match in Brooklyn.
All the cool kids are Ali Krieger fans. 😎
Get yours NOW: https://t.co/kI1FTQ3j6s pic.twitter.com/Zx3SH3xfzJ
— Gotham FC (@GothamFC) October 15, 2023
You can expect a full rundown of the WNBA championships from Autostraddle’s WNBA reporting team when they conclude, but in the meantime, let’s just briefly note that Sunday’s WNBA championship game between the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty was an incredible match-up! It could’ve been the season’s final game had the Aces pulled off a win. But the Liberty dominated, with 27 points scored by Jonquel Jones and 20 by Breanna Stewart. In more devastating news, there are no updates on Chelsea Gray’s injury and we are stressed, and also really upset that cameras continued rolling on Grey as she attempted walking down a hallway while wincing in pain.
Attendance at the game in the Barclay’s Center turned up the highest gate receipt ever for a WNBA game. (In a clarifying tweet, the original purveyor of that news noted, “gate receipts refer to the revenue earner from tickets sold. SO there *have* been a couple of larger crowds, but there have never been more dollars spent on the gate than we see in Brooklyn this afternoon.”) Aubrey Plaza and Robin Roberts were amongst the famous queers in attendance.
You can vote now for the WNBA’s Most Stylish Player.
Other Pop Culture Links:
+ Rachel Maddow Won’t Abandon You: “Every Time a President Gets Arrested, I Promise I’ll Be There”: “Producing the same kind of material for the same shaped box at the same time every day had me worried that my brain was getting squished into that box, too. I was not thinking in expansive ways because I didn’t have expansive deadlines.”
+ Greg Araki, in conversation with Richard Linklater: “There’s fun and there’s joy and there’s exhilaration the same way of going to a punk rock or new wave show. It’s a fun time as opposed to something like Euphoria, which is the sex and the drugs and the nihilism and all that, but it’s miserable. There’s no joy.”
+ Brandi Carlile is Out Magazine’s Out100 Cover Star.
+ Queer Relationships Make for the Best Reality Dating Shows: obviously! (and here’s a list of queer dating shows that prove it)
+ Chappell Roan doesn’t care if she’s going to hell: “How a drag persona helped a 25-year-old singer-songwriter with a strict Christian upbringing transform herself into a queer pop powerhouse.”
+ Joan Baez Talks Meeting Her Girlfriend Kimmie in This New I Am A Noise Clip
+ Gen V boss ‘excited to explore’ Jordan and Marie’s fan-favourite queer romance
+ Russell T Davies is ‘absolutely sticking’ to his opinion on gay actors as gay characters
Also.Also.Also: Queer Singer-Songwriter and Poet Jamila Woods on Letting Go of Fear
feature image photo by Bennett Raglin / Stringer via Getty Images
Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, and in the month of October no less! I’m planning a viewing of the original movie with pals, complete with themed snacks and bevs.
Queer as in F*ck You
What Water Taught Jamila Woods About Letting Go. For Them, my pal Mary Retta wrote this hybrid review of Jamila Woods’ new album Water Made Us and interview with Woods! The lede is so lovely:
“The cover of Jamila Woods’ latest album shows her floating ethereally underwater, arms outstretched to touch her reflection hovering above the surface. Though it appears effortless, capturing the picture was an arduous process because the Chicago-based artist was not a confident swimmer. As a child, she developed a fear of the water, in part from the embarrassment of being the only one in a group who couldn’t swim. Once, a life guard had to rescue her at a pool party. But a week’s worth of swimming lessons as an adult helped Woods feel comfortable enough to pose for the cover, and taught her a deeper lesson about releasing her fear. The more she tried to fight the water, she found, the harder it was to stay afloat; they were only able to capture the picture once she trusted herself enough to relax. The same principle applied to the record, her most intimate to date.”
Read the piece to hear some of Woods own words about the album, which officially releases tomorrow. Reading this, I was also reminded of the excellent 2020 interview between Fatimah Asghar and Woods in Interview. It’s worth going back and revisiting!
Book Bans Are a Conservative Plot to Destroy Public Schools, Says Randi Weingarten.
Speaking of books, I’m so excited to read the new Justin Torres novel. Justin Torres Explores the Queer History We’re Not Talking About in Novel ‘Blackouts.’
Saw This, Thought of You
Zadie Smith and Dev Hynes Grapple With the Eternal “Why.” What an interview!!!!
How Latinas in Film Have Fought To Tell Coming-of-Age Stories.
And now, a string of 19th News pieces on abortion and reproductive justice that together paint a pretty expansive picture of where the U.S. currently stands in terms of abortion access in our post-Roe world. Be warned! A lot of these are depressing as fuck! Hell, I get depressed every time I have to say or type “post-Roe.”
- Abortion Opponents Are Trying To Deter People From Traveling out of State for Care.
- She Was Told Her Twin Sons Wouldn’t Survive. Texas Law Made Her Give Birth Anyway.
- North Carolina was a critical abortion access point. Now, procedures have dropped by 30 percent.
- Abortion Rights Are on a Winning Streak at the Ballot Box. Ohio Could Test That.
- Indigenous People Unite To Navigate Abortion Access After Roe.
Political Snacks
Some voters rights fuckery went down in my home state: Virginia Democrats Push for DOJ Investigation After Voters Were Wrongfully Removed.
One More Thing
This Ada Limón poem is an all-time favorite:
https://twitter.com/nktgill/status/1710331647936118861?s=12&t=fBUJwd0mOZx5llOPDoTqfQ
Pop Culture Fix: Ousted Lesbian Exec Refused Marvel’s Gay-Erasing “Quantumania” Edits, New Book Reveals
Marvel Studios Demanded Gay-Friendly Signs Erased From Quantumania, Lesbian Exec Victoria Alonso said No
(Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
The comprehensive book MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, by Joanna Robinson, Dave Fonzales and Gavin Edwards, debuted today, and it contains some interesting behind-the-scenes information around censorship of LGBTQ+ content for some conservative international markets, and about the tenure of Victoria Alonso, once the highest ranked Latina lesbian executive in Hollywood, who was suddenly terminated this past March.
Alonso originally joined the studio in 2006, dating back to before the first Iron Man film, as chief of visual effects and postproduction. In 2021, she was promoted to President, Physical and Postproduction, VFX and Animation Production. Her March 2023 dismissal was seen as surprisingly abrupt and contentious — at a time when Marvel’s VFX workers were beginning to speak out about mistreatment and overwork. In April, the story got more complicated when it was revealed that there was a settlement over Alonso’s termination, and rumors swirled that she’d been let go for doing PR for Argentina, 1985 — a passion project film produced by Alonso that was in the middle of an Oscars run for Best International Feature Film.
At the time, in response to those rumors, Alonso’s lawyer Patricia Glaser released the following statement: “The idea that Victoria was fired over a handful of press interviews relating to a personal passion project about human rights and democracy that was nominated for an Oscar and which she got Disney’s blessing to work on is absolutely ridiculous. Victoria, a gay Latina who had the courage to criticize Disney, was silenced. Then she was terminated when she refused to do something she believed was reprehensible.”
In MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, the authors describe some of the cuts made by Marvel to de-gay its films for the Chinese market, including “cutting a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it relationship in Wakanda Forever and excising the queer-friendly signs and flags in the background of the San Francisco scenes of Quantumania,” which required some digital tweaks by the VFX department:
…but it frustrated Victoria Alonso, a queer woman, so much that she refused to make the edits. So did everyone on her team. D’Esposito then went around her and outsourced the job to a VFX contractor. This was a crack in the unified front of Marvel’s leadership team, one of many that would lead to a messy and public fracture.
This came after, also according to the book, “Alonso had broken one of [Marvel head Kevin] Feige’s cardinal rules: don’t speak out publicly against the company” for joining public pressure encouraging Disney to speak out against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in 2022. According to the authors’ sources, after the “Don’t Say Gay” outcry, Fiege reportedly cautioned Alonso to “‘keep her head down’ and ‘do the work.'”
It’s long been assumed by fans that Marvel has made cuts to gay storylines and relationships in part to make their films more palatable in conservative markets, though Alonso’s work in relationship to those cuts and projects has not been discussed before now. MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios is available wherever you get your books.
Feature image of Victoria Alonso by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney
Other queer pop culture news for your day:
+ According to showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Riverdale‘s final season originally had a more ambitious plan, thwarted by budget concerns: “Originally, when we pitched the season, one of the ideas that we pitched was that the first 13 episodes would be in the ’50s, and then starting around Episode 14 or so, we would start moving in time. So Episode 14 would be set in the ’60s, Episode 15 would be set in the ’70s, and then the ’80s, the ’90s… kind of working through to the present day.”
+ There’s a new trailer for the hotly anticipated Color Purple musical film, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Fantasia Barrino. Carmen just wants to know if it will finally be gay:
+ Reclaiming ‘Buffy’: How Amber Benson’s ‘Slayers’ Reintroduces Spike, Tara and Anya — and Finally Gets ‘Justice for Cordelia’: Variety talks to the cast of the new Audible production.
+ LOVE IS A LIE? Soccer Stars Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger Are Indeed Divorcing, Thus Deeply Saddening the Lesbian Community
+ Orphan Black Echoes!!
See you tomorrow. #OrphanBlackEchoes pic.twitter.com/VmpaltD6LT
— Orphan Black: Echoes (@OrphanBlack) October 11, 2023
+ Ranking the Greatest Scream Queens in Film History (we did a “ranked by lesbianism” ranking last year, obviously the gay one is better because it’s gay)
+ Going Behind the Scenes With LGBTQ+ Filmmakers Uncovering Queer Stories in New Hope, Pennsylvania
+ Hot: Polaroids from the big queer festival Muna called ‘Lesbopalooza’
Also.Also.Also: Georgia Police Who Killed “Stop Cop City” Queer Indigenous Activist Tortuguita Will Not Face Charges
This is a heavy one today, so take care of yourself as needed.
Queer as in F*ck You
Police Who Fatally Shot “Stop Cop City” Activist Tortuguita Will Not Face Criminal Charges. The Indigenous queer and nonbinary activist Tortuguita was shot and killed by police on January 18 was shot and killed following a raid on a tent in the Atlanta Forest where activists have been fighting against “Cop City,” the truly vile proposed police training facility. The police claim Tortuguita shot at them, but an independent autopsy released this spring discovered Tortuguita was sitting with their hands up when they were shot 57 times. Now, according to Them.us: “The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says it will not pursue criminal charges against the state troopers who shot and killed a nonbinary activist in January during a protest against Atlanta’s infamous ‘Cop City’ development project.”
I urge you to read more about Stop Cop City, its contexts, and what you can do to help even from afar.
We closed out Banned Books Week over the weekend, and here’s a relevant report from The 19th: Book Bans in Schools Jumped 33 Percent Last Year.
Nowhere To Party: The Decimation of Queer Spaces for Black Lesbians.
100 Easy Ways to Make the World Better for Trans People.
Elizabeth Warren Just Backed an ‘Online Safety’ Bill That Will Harm LGBTQ Youth.
Saw This, Thought of You
Gaza Is a Nightmare Today, but We Will Not Stop Dreaming of Freedom.
The Violence in Palestine and Israel Is the Tragic Fruit of Brutal Oppression.
The Fight Against Apartheid Was an International Struggle.
California Governor Vetoes Bill to Ban Caste Discrimination.
Decriminalizing Drugs Doesn’t Increase Fatal Overdoses: Study.
Death Threats, Closed Playgrounds: QAnon Queen Wreaks Havoc in Small Town Canada.
Political Snacks
Biden Promised Not “Another Foot of Wall.” Now, He’s Restarting Construction.
One More Thing
Instead of the usual embedded Instagram post containing a poem, I search around to see if I could find a person June Jordan favorite online: “Moving towards Home” by June Jordan.
Pop Culture Fix: NHL Bans Pride Tape From Its Sticks, Creates Its Own Ice Cold “Don’t Say Gay” Policy
NHL Doubles Down Against LGBT Pride
MONTREAL, CANADA – APRIL 6: Joel Armia #40 of the Montreal Canadiens tapes his stick before Pride Night warm-up for the NHL regular season game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Washington Capitals at the Bell Centre on April 6, 2023 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Vitor Munhoz/NHLI via Getty Images)
Last season, seven National Hockey League players opted out of pregame warmups on Pride or Hockey is For Everyone Nights because they didn’t want to wear Pride jerseys, saying it would violate their religious beliefs. This incident was followed by the National Hockey League clarifying for the upcoming season that players and teams will no longer be asked to wear rainbow-colored Pride jerseys, as these jerseys were determined to be a “distraction” from the special interest nights.
Now, in a crushing blow to rainbows, Outsports is reporting that the league has banned Pride Tape (rainbow tape that NHL players used on their warm-up sticks to signify support for the gays) for all warm-ups, games and practices. The Pride Tape was initially part of the Hockey for Everyone initiative, which some have considered “largely performative,” but regardless, Pride Tape was seen as a small yet important way for players to express solidarity. (In June 2021, the NHL celebrated that their adoption of Pride Tape as a practice was “spreading to other sports.” They apparently feel differently now.)
The NHL is in the spotlight currently following a “series of memos” released on Thursday clarifying their position on Special Initiatives (in response to teams asking if these new policies would also apply to practices like wearing poppies on their jackets for Remembrance Day), which included statements like:
“Players shall not be put in the position of having to demonstrate (or where they may be appearing to demonstrate) personal support for any Special Initiatives. A factor that may be considered in this regard includes, for example, whether a Player (or Players) is required to be in close proximity to any groups or individuals visibly or otherwise clearly associated with such Special Initiative(s).”
According to a source who spoke to ESPN, “the only off-ice restriction facing teams is that they can’t force players to participate in events regarding the specialty causes, because some players might fear retribution or embarrassment if they decide to not take part.”
Apparently, the NHL has done Pride Nights (and will continue to) and has a partnership with the “You Can Play project” that Outsports says gives them “decade of mostly good will to reflect on.” But things have changed and as per Outsports: “This is, as far as Outsports is aware, the most stifling, anti-LGBTQ policy any pro sports league in North America has ever issued.”
Outsports also noted that the NHL was the only sports league not to tweet anything nice about LGBTQ+ people during Pride Month or change its avatar to a rainbow (the NFL also declined to do so). The NHL is also the only professional sports league in North America to never have a single player or coach come out. There is, however, one out player who is currently a Nashville Predators prospect.
Other pop culture stories:
+ There were a lot of nipples on display at Paris Fashion Week.
+ An Alabama library added Read Me a Story, Stella to a list of books requiring further scrutiny due to the author’s last name being “Gay.” It was not a gay book though, so!
+ Big Brother UK, once a massively popular sensation, is returning to air with a focus on throwing people together who might never encounter one another in their everyday lives. Already, contestant Hallie has come out to her housemates as transgender.
+ Estonian coming-of-age title “Vera and the Pleasure of Others” has released its first trailer. Set to have its world premiere a the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, the film “follows 17-year-old Vera (played by Luciana Grasso), who divides her days between volleyball, school and a secret hobby: she rents out an empty apartment to teenagers looking for a place to have sex.” It’s a very pansexual trailer but I’m not sure what to make of it!
+ The New Yorker on how “Reservation Dogs” redefines the coming-of age story.
+ Nearly 35k fans turned out to celebrate Megan Rapinoe’s last home game with the OL Reign.
+ A really beautiful story with dreamy photographs: The pride of Houston: Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour was a safe space for fans, a homecoming and a coronation
+ Some Halloween help for you: 42 Queer Horror Movies and Shows To Stream This Month
+ How “Dicks: The Musical” created Megan Thee Stallion’s alpha anthem
+ Angelina Jolie embodies opera singer Maria Callas in first look at Pablo Larraín’s ‘Maria’
Also.Also.Also: How To Support LGBTQ+ Students, According to Those Actual Students
It has been raining quite literally all day — FLORIDA. I hope you’re having a good Thursday! The weekend is almost here!
Queer as in F*ck You
LGBTQ+ Students on What They’ve Learned — and What They Can Teach Schools — About Supporting Queer Kids. Yes, more features like this! Reporting on the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that directly impacts queer and trans youth should include actually hearing from the folks affected. I love to read these interview features that center queer youth and what they have to say about solutions and resistance to what’s happening around the country. This one features students from a range of regions: Texas, California, Michigan, and Alabama. One of the students from Texas who is still in high school spoke toward some of the nuances of living in a place where your rights are under attack:
“Texas is where I’ve grown up. I was born here,” they said. “There are really good parts of it, and it’s my home. I want to fight to be able to stay here, but at the same time, given [Gov.] Greg Abbott, the political climate, the bad bills, just everything, I’m pretty sure I’m going to go somewhere else.”
The Brian Jordan Alvarez Extended Universe. As a long-time fan of his brilliant and underrated webseries The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo, I love to see Brian Jordan Alvarez winning in the wake of “Sitting.”
How Queer Is “Frankenstein”? Between this and the Alexander Chee Dracula piece I linked in the last Also.Also.Also, horror lit gays, we’re eating.
Inside the Queer Punk Revolution. “A massive post-pandemic wave of queer bands is making New York the underground scene to watch again” writes Gabe Friedman for Brooklyn Magazine.
Images Exploring the Ideal of Queer Domesticity.
Lesbian Bar Watch 2k23: Nobody’s Darling Expands, Proves That Lesbian Bars Have Staying Power. (Nobody’s Darling is always a MUST stop on my Chicago trips.)
The Unstoppable Lesbian Lawyer Who Crushed the Status Quo & Was a “Guardian Angel” for Queer Rights.
Displaced and Queer: These Venezuelans Find Community Despite the Obstacles.
Saw This, Thought of You
The Crisis of Shelter in the United States.
Political Snacks
Upsetting: Despite Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills, Queer Republicans Are Standing by Their Party.
How DeSantis Is Using Sports to Hijack a Florida College.
One More Thing
A poem!
U.K. Prime Minister Represents a Dangerous Anti-Trans Minority — But It Is a Minority
feature image by Martin Pope courtesy of Getty Images
Yesterday, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirmed his bigoted anti-trans beliefs in a speech at the Conservative Party Conference.
As The Washington Post reports, after declaring his desire for harsher prison sentences, Sunak then listed other positions he believes shouldn’t be controversial.
“And it also shouldn’t be controversial for parents to know what their children are being taught in school about relationships,” he began. “Patients should know when hospitals are talking about men and women. And we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.”
Sunak has a history of transphobic comments and jokes, but this is the most matter-of-fact he’s been on his position.
It’s painful to wake up to a headline like this. It was painful for me, and I’m sure it’s even more painful for anyone who lives in the U.K. We can form insular communities, we can find other trans people and cis people who support us, and we can develop a strong sense of self. It’s still painful — not to mention scary — when our political leaders want to deny our existence.
These talking points aren’t just emotionally painful. They’re also connected to policy. Even before Sunak became Prime Minister, accessing trans healthcare in the U.K. was challenging. For people who can’t afford private medicine, waitlists can take years. With all the talk of pronouns and self-identity in the U.K., the U.S., and beyond, what’s often lost is the tangible repercussions of trans people’s genders not being respected. We want medicine, we want employment, we want housing, we want physical safety, we want to not be in prison — of any gender. Those are the priorities of most trans people.
But The Washington Post article doesn’t only include this speech — it also includes some comforting statistics. Citing a survey from 2022 of about 5,000 residents of Great Britain from the think tank More In Common, they report that less than a third of people disagree with the statement that “a trans man is a man and a trans woman is a woman.”
This might be a low bar for allyship, but it’s also worth noting another statistic from that same survey: Less than 2% of people think “the debate about transgender people” is one of the most important issues facing the country.
I wish we had more vocal allies. We’ll need them when leaders like Sunak are so vocally hateful. But there is some comfort in the fact that most people simply do not care about us one way or another. That apathy will not help us secure our rights, but it can be helpful to remember when logging on the internet makes it feel like every person in the world hates us.
It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to feel upset. I’m scared. I’m upset. But I also think speeches like this are given for two reasons: to rally a hateful base and to exhaust us so we don’t fight back as hard as we need to.
We can fight that exhaustion by remembering these people are a minority. We can fight that exhaustion by caring for each other. We can fight that exhaustion by registering the connection between Sunak’s “tough on crime” stance and his transphobia — and working to liberate every marginalized group who suffer due to these positions.
We can fight that exhaustion by just living another day in our beautiful trans lives.
How To Fight Back Against Book Bans
feature image photo by Chicago Tribune / Contributor via Getty Images
Deep in the pandemic lockdown of late spring 2020, cooped up in my tiny Boston apartment and incessantly doom scrolling, I started thinking about my gender. I was already openly queer — I’d realized in college and come out to my friends and family several months before when I’d started dating my girlfriend at the time — and I’d gotten to know quite a few trans and nonbinary people over the years, but I’d never considered genderqueerness to have anything to do with me. I mostly acted like how a girl was expected to act, and I certainly looked like one, which all seemed like confirmation enough.
But somewhere in that hazy period between April and June, faced with the unstructured free time to spend more hours on the internet than I had since my early-2010s Tumblr days, it occurred to me that the assumptions I’d made about my gender identity might be wrong.
I was certainly not the only person to have a coming-of-gender moment in the pandemic — a quick Google search will show you dozens of articles about the trans epiphanies so many of us experienced during those months in quarantine. Seeking confirmation and validation, I became a fiend for any media about and by trans and nonbinary artists. I read and watched probably every post Alok Vaid-Menon made (I’d loved their poetry and performance for years, but now I could connect to it even more), had a King Princess renaissance, and, crucially, began to work my way through an ever-growing stack of books.
Of all the books I read during that time, one has stuck with me as particularly clarifying: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. In this graphic memoir, Kobabe puts words to the incongruence of growing up as a girl when you’re not one, affirming to me that even though it’d taken me 23 years to realize, even though I still felt connected to the experience of girlhood, my nonbinary identity was real and true. I owe a lot to that book, and I see it as critical reading for anyone raised as a woman, regardless of their gender.
Gender Queer might be a familiar title, if not for its immense success and receipt of both a Stonewall Honor and Alex Award in 2020, then likely because it was the most banned book in the U.S. last year. Starting with a Virginia mother condemning Kobabe’s novel as “pornography” in a viral video and escalating all the way to Republican lawmakers like South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who confusingly deemed it “likely illegal,” the ire toward Gender Queer has been fierce, unhinged, and, unfortunately, unsurprising.
Book bans have been happening for decades, spurred by a litany of complaints such as violence, offensive language, and sexual explicitness — but hiding behind those seemingly well-meaning concerns is more often than not a legacy of deep bias and the desire to uphold systemic oppression. Several of Toni Morrison’s books, for example, have been challenged or banned numerous times, often following moments of major progress by Black Americans or events that raise consciousness about the racism people of color face. Official challenges claim that Morrison’s texts and their depictions of Black life are too “inappropriate” and “explicit” for unfettered access, particularly by children, but the timing and hysteria reek of racism.
In our current political climate, with misinformed campaigns against Critical Race Theory and a war on the rights of queer and trans youth, the phobic nature of such book bans has become clearer than ever. Kobabe’s novel, which at points deals thoughtfully and honestly with the confusion of sexuality in young adulthood, isn’t really being targeted because it talks about sex. It’s being targeted because it puts the experiences of a queer and trans person front and center in a society increasingly concerned with eliminating those identities entirely.
I say all this not to simply lament the rise of right-wing influence or imply there’s no hope for diverse books in our future, but to communicate the gravity of this reality and the necessity of fighting back. This week is the 41st annual Banned Books Week, when people from across the book community stand together to support free access to information in the face of moralistic challenges. As an Afro-Asian nonbinary lesbian writer who deals with all of those identities in my work, this week feels personal to my literary practice and the communities I belong to. But it’s important for any reader and believer in social justice, regardless of identity, to recognize these challenges and bans not just as threats to beloved literature, but as symptomatic of the larger tide of fascistic violence against people of oppressed genders, sexualities, and nationalities across the country.
So how do you get engaged in the struggle against book bans? I don’t have all the answers, but I sure do have some thoughts.
Avoid individualizing the problem
You might have heard the wild statistic that more than half of the book challenges in the 2021-2022 school year came from just 11 people. That’s right — 11. In some respects, it’s funny. All that fuss caused by fewer people than live on one floor of a New York apartment complex? On the other hand, though, we cannot dismiss the rise in bans on a few fringe fanatics. The racist, transphobic, and homophobic rhetoric of these individuals is not just echoing into the void but leading to material changes in schools and libraries that actively harm kids. This is not a case of your one uncle who’s never met a Black person saying something off-color at Thanksgiving dinner and then returning to his recliner for the rest of the year. These book challengers, few as they may be, are having an outsized impact that cannot be ignored.
Recognize the role of the system
In the process of de-individualizing the book ban epidemic, it’s also critical to recognize how the people who challenge books are feeding into racist and anti-queer social structures. Book challenges and bans would not have the significance they do if we didn’t live in a political environment that so stalwartly upholds division. But capitalism is our current reality and its cousin white supremacy have people in a chokehold. Book bans are just one way the right wing expresses its political agenda, but they are merely the foot soldiers for discriminatory legislation and outright violence down the line. To truly oppose book bans requires understanding and fighting the racist, capitalist system that allows them to thrive.
Get educated on the reality of book bans for authors
Somewhere in the history of book banning, a narrative developed that book bans, especially high-profile cases, are good for authors. Supposedly, the buzz of banning boosts sales and catapults the books onto bestseller lists. The reality is not so charmed. National publicity might inspire progressive readers to purchase banned books in indignation, but it also exposes those books to other critics who seek to get them off their local school and library bookshelves. Especially for early career authors from marginalized communities, who tend to receive lower advances and fight an uphill battle to get recognition, book bans can have long term career effects, especially when the bans are enacted in entire states or counties. Sales may increase for some, like Angie Thomas, whose seminal young adult novel The Hate U Give has been banned or challenged in school districts across the country and simultaneously topped the charts for years, but her experience is the exception, not the rule. When we “celebrate” Banned Books Week (if that’s the right word to use), it’s important to maintain a sober analysis of real consequences these bans have for authors.
Support youth activism
Who better to rally behind than the young people who are most affected by book bans and who are coming together in amazing ways nationwide to fight the threats to their education and identities? Teen readers in Florida, Texas, and other states facing book challenges are speaking out against bans and fighting to get books back on the shelves of their libraries and schools. Many students are forming banned book clubs, where they read and discuss banned and challenged books. Whether or not you live in a place that is actively navigating challenges, you can support these efforts by requesting banned books at your local library, petitioning your school board to keep inclusive literature on shelves, or even just picking up copies of banned books for the young readers in your life.
Get organized — wherever you are
Don’t get it twisted: Red states aren’t the only ones at risk of book bans. Our aforementioned current political moment has seen a rise in challenges to literature and curriculums across the country. I live in Massachusetts, which is often lauded as one of the most progressive states — the first state to legalize gay marriage, home to liberal darlings Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, etcetera. I could go on about the reasons why my state’s progressivism is, in many ways, a sham, but at the very least I have to mention that books are being challenged here, too — right in Liz’s backyard! And that’s true not only in Massachusetts, but in many states across the country who pat themselves on the back for being better than their “backwards” Southern neighbors.
What is to be done when our rights are at risk everywhere? Organize. I have no better advice for people who are angry about the powers that be, worried about the future, and ready for major systemic change than to join an organization and start fighting for your community. Again, book bans are only the tip of the iceberg — any struggle that fights racism, sexism, transphobia, or any other capitalism-based oppression is making headway against the same ideology that takes books away from the kids who need them most. My years as a community organizer have taught me to be hopeful even in the face of everything going on, because I know that a better world is possible if we fight for it.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if Gender Queer and other books like it had existed when I was a kid. Maybe I would have understood my queerness and transness sooner, saving me years of confusion and heartache. (Or maybe, more likely, the same conservative parents at my high school who banned the condom on a cucumber tutorial in sex ed class would have pitched a fit about having books like that in the hands of impressionable youth).
I’ve learned so much of what I know about myself through reading, spending hours of my adolescent years at school and local libraries and eating lunch in my English teachers’ classrooms. And the wealth of knowledge available to us in books is only growing as more people with oppressed identities are able to write and publish their stories. Protecting access to that knowledge, especially for young people, is imperative. However you choose to engage with Banned Books Week, whether it’s sending your school district a strongly worded email or finding a new read among the many titles that have conservatives up in arms, I hope you’ll think about the books that have led you to the person you are today. And I hope you’ll remember that feeling that everyone deserves to experience, when you see yourself on the page for the first time and the possibilities of who you could be unfold at your feet.
Autostraddle is honoring Banned Books Week 2023! For more information, visit BannedBooksWeek.org.
Pop Culture Fix: Josie Totah Is Kissing a Girl in the Rain in Edith Wharton Inspired “Buccaneers” Trailer
Apple TV’s “The Buccaneers” Debuts a Delightfully Homoerotic Trailer
Apple TV debuted its trailer and key art for new Edith Wharton inspired period drama “The Buccaneers” today, and my friends, girls do kiss in this trailer! Firstly, here’s what “The Buccaneers” is about:
“Girls with money, men with power. New money, old secrets. A group of fun-loving young American girls explode into the tightly corseted London season of the 1870s, kicking off an Anglo-American culture clash as the land of the stiff upper lip is infiltrated by a refreshing disregard for centuries of tradition. Sent to secure husbands and titles, the buccaneers’ hearts are set on much more than that, and saying “I do” is just the beginning.”
And now, here’s the trailer for “The Buccaneers”:
“The Buccaneers” was created by British actor/comic/writer Katherine Jakeways, features an all-female creative team, and was inspired by Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel of the same name.
The cast includes, first and foremost, beloved trans actress Josie Totah, who plays Mabel Elmsworth. The rest of “The Buccaneers” cast is pretty impressive also: Christina Hendricks, Alisha Boe (13 Reasons Why), Kristine Frøseth (The Society, Birds of Paradise), Aubri Ibrag (Dive Club), Imogen Waterhouse (Braid, The Outpost), Mia Threapleton (I Am Ruth). And the soundtrack is pretty queer-friendly too, with artists like Bikini Kill, Angel Olsen and Brandi Carlile.
The two women engaged in Sapphic kissing in the trailer are, much to our collective delight, Josie Totah and Mia Threapleton. Mia Threapleton plays Honoria Marable. Also, by the way, she is Kate Winslet’s daughter.
Gird your loins and dust off your corsets, the series premieres on November 8th.
Other Pop Culture Stories Today:
+ Boygenius’ Big, Emotional, Gay-as-Hell Night Out at Madison Square Garden: “Boygenius turned New York’s Madison Square Garden into the world’s largest bisexual convention”
+ Cheyenne Ewulu wants to see more Black queer women in nerd spaces
+ Brian Jordan Alvarez Isn’t Taking ‘Sitting’ Success Lying Down: Caleb Gallo discusses the runaway success of his TJ Mack character and how it feels for his comedy to gain attention outside of the queer community.
+ Rebel Wilson Says She Reveals ‘Deepest Secrets’ in Upcoming Memoir Rebel Rising: the actress will be covering topics including “her fertility issues, weight gain and loss, sexuality, overcoming shyness, rejection and more.” Harper Collins bought the book in a nine-way auction.
+ Los Angeles’s women’s soccer team, Angel City FC, is making a shit-ton of money. They’re also embracing their lesbian fans with both arms and their whole chests, just as a note to anybody who does not see us as a valuable market.
+ The WNBA is adding an expansion team to the Bay Area.
+ Da Brat and Jesseca “Judy” Harris-Dupart looked great at the 2023 BET Hip-Hop Awards.
+ A new exhibition in Paris explores how Tove Jansson imagined a kind world that reflected her values as a lesbian artist and ardent pacifist.
+ Hollywood Reporter Critics Pick the 50 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century (So Far): Vida, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin are amongst the honored shows on Hollywood Reporter‘s list.
+ How Many Sapphic Scandals Will Be in the New Season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?: big day for our resident Bravo Dyke because Kyle Richards had a lesbian affair and Denise Richards is returning for Season 13. In other Real Housewives news, Jenna Lyons and the New York Housewives hit up Henrietta Hudson.
Also.Also.Also: Why “Snack Closets” Are Essential Safe Spaces for Queer and Trans Youth
feature image photo by Su Arslanoglu via Getty Images
I started October strong with a Stephen King film adaptation day on October 1. I watched The Shining, Doctor Sleep, A Good Marriage, and Gerald’s Game. Have you been watching any horror stuff the past few days? Tell me about it!
Queer as in F*ck You
Inside the Snack Closets Providing a Haven for Queer and Trans Youth. This Eater feature on the rise in “snack closets” — spaces where teens can drop in and snack, spend time alone, and explore their identities — is really lovely and opens with some personal narrative by the writer. “As laws sweep across the country targeting queer and trans youth, spaces in which young people can eat and explore the map of their identities are essential,” Colleen Hamilton writes, continuing:
Snack closets have emerged across the country to support LGBTQ youth by operating as sites where young people can grab their favorite foods, free of charge or judgment. They are often tied to free “drop-in spaces,” where teens can nap or wash their clothes. From the Harlem neighborhood in New York to Spartanburg, South Carolina, snack closets provide a longed-for moment of safety, exploration, and rest. This is particularly important for unhoused queer and trans youth, who experience food insecurity at almost three times the rate of their housed LGBTQ peers.
There is indeed something quietly radical about not just providing space for queer and trans teens but actual sustenance in the form of snacks. A lot of these spaces have learned that LGBTQ youth are able to open up more and feel more comfortable and safe when snacks are provided. Snacks save lives!
Alexander Chee! On! Dracula! I repeat: ALEXANDER CHEE ON DRACULA!!!!!! When Horror Is the Truth-teller.
Florida and Kentucky Are Losing Educators to Extreme Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws.
What Beyoncé Gave Us. Bryan Washington, whose fantastic new novel Family Meal comes out this month, wrote theeeeee definitive Renaissance tour essay.
Two Days After Outfest Staffers Announced Union Efforts, Four Organizers Were Laid Off. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Hot Strike Summer has become Fair Wage Fight Fall.
Montana’s Ban on Gender-Affirming Care For Youth Has Been Temporarily Blocked.
Amy Schneider Is More Than “That Nice Lady on TV.” Amy Schneider’s new memoir is out now!
Saw This, Thought of You
The Amazon Is Getting So Hot That Dolphins Are Dying En Masse. Sorry for always putting climate horror stories in this section!
Sterlin Harjo Lays Reservation Dogs to Rest. Best show!!!!!
Political Snacks
Dianne Feinstein Leaves Behind a Long and Complicated LGBTQ+ Legacy.
VP Kamala Harris swears in Laphonza Butler (D) as California’s new senator. The seat became open after the death of Dianne Feinstein last week.
Butler’s seating makes her the only Black woman in the Senate and brings the number of Black senators to four, an all-time high. pic.twitter.com/ktlPeEnbXi
— The Recount (@therecount) October 3, 2023
One More Thing
An October poem for October!
Pop Culture Fix: Lunden Stallings and Olivia Bennett Marry in “The Royal Wedding of Lesbian TikTok”
Lunden Stallings and Olivia Bennett’s Lesbian Wedding
This past weekend, an apparently quite famous 26-year-old lesbian couple, Lunden Stallings and Olivia Bennett, tied the knot at their sun-dappled, tree-sparked and generally resplendent wedding venue in Roswell, Georgia. TikTok user @jcubedhax referred to this widely acclaimed event as “the royal wedding of lesbian TikTok,” a sentiment that has been echoed in social media comments across the web as well as ideas like “this is my Roman Empire.” Said wedding also garnered a People Magazine exclusive. The wedding peaked when the entire wedding party participated in a Taylor Swift singalong, as the lord intended.
Who are Lunden Stallings and Olivia Bennett? If you, like me, hadn’t heard of them until last night, here’s the story: they are social media stars and conventionally attractive white lesbians from the South who are beloved by the straights as well as the gays. Lunden and Olivia met in the summer of 2020 when Olivia, seeking a golden retriever, reached out to Lunden to ask where she’d procured her own Golden Retriever. When Lunden’s job transferred her to Atlanta, where Olivia lived, they met up for the first time, talked all night long over their mutual favorite soda pop (Doctor Pepper) and allegedly have spent every day since together! They then both planned to surprise propose to each other on the same day.
On TikTok, Lunden and Olivia share Outfits of the Day, beauty routines and Days in the Life, interspersed with wedding planning content (they did it themselves with the help of their mother) and sponcon for brands like Taco Bell and Sephora. They live in a very fancy house and their faces are radiant, like two women in their mid-twenties who did not spend the early 2000s inside a tanning bed but in fact were born in the late 90s and already have responsible skincare routines.
“It’s so much bigger than us, and if, just by us showing our life and being in love with each other we can share that with other people, and make people feel an ounce more comfortable about themselves, or change the way they think about people because of us, that means more than any sort of brand deal,” Lunden told People. “And I think that by showing two feminine women in a relationship in the south, I think that it breaks a barrier.”
Lunden & Olivia’s ceremony included 150 friends and family members, as the couple prioritized having everybody they loved present at the ceremony. Lunden wore a Safiyaa dress, Sarah Flint shoes, an Ann-Marie Faulkner birdcage veil and a long veil borrowed from her sister. Olivia wore a strapless Monique Lhuillier gown and Stuart Weitzman kitten heels.
Editor’s Note (10/04/23): After the publishing of this piece, it was brought to our attention that past tweets from Lunden Stallings have resurfaced, including a variety of tweets in which Stallings uses anti-Black language.
Other queer pop culture news for your day:
+ I thought this piece about gay men finding Heartstopper painful was gonna be more like how Trixie and Katya found Heartstopper painful but it’s actually not that kind of article at all: Heartstopper makes some gay men very sad for their younger selves. (also, Season Three is now offficially in production!)
+ ‘Home Economics’ Co-Creator “Hopeful” For New Network Home After Series’ ABC Cancellation
+ Beyoncé Announces Renaissance World Tour Concert Film: Watch the Trailer!
+ After having to work really hard to track down a way to watch the UK’s Naked Attraction in order to write this post about queer-inclusive reality television dating shows, I was pleased last week to see that the UK dating show was added to the Max catalog. This week, the Naked Attraction boss spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the casting process and the public reception of their program.
+ Queer actors Chrishell Stause and Diora Baird are playing expecting Mommis in a new Lifetime Thriller
+ Here is your guide to everything new, gay and streaming On Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Disney+ and Paramount+
+ An essay for you: Alice Wu’s “Saving Face” Told a Queer Asian Story When It Was Far From the Mainstream
+ A new Kew Gardens show in London “celebrates the astonishing diversity of plants – and looks at how they have inspired LGBTQ+ groups”
Laphonza Butler Will Replace Dianne Feinstein, Becoming America’s First Black Lesbian Senator
Feature image Laphonza Butler with her daughter, Nylah and her partner, Neneki Lee via EMILY’s List. Laphonza Butler is set to become the first Black lesbian to serve as a U.S. Senator.
In news first reported by Politico, California Governor Gavin Newsom has picked Laphonza Butler to fill the Senate seat once held by Dianne Feinstein. Once appointed, Butler will be the only black woman and the third LGBT woman serving in the Senate — alongside Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema — as well as the first ever out black lesbian to serve in Congress.
Governor @GavinNewsom has selected Laphonza Butler to complete Senator Feinstein’s term.
A trusted adviser to @VP Harris and leader of the nation’s largest organization dedicated to electing women, Butler will make history as the first Black lesbian to openly serve in Congress. pic.twitter.com/NTPcK2Wtve
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) October 2, 2023
“Laphonza Butler is eminently qualified to represent California well in the United States Senate and we are thrilled to congratulate her,” Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang said in a statement. “This historic appointment by Governor Newsom will give our LGBTQ+ community another voice in Congress at a time when our rights and freedoms are under attack across the country.”
The appointment, which Newsom confirmed late Sunday night and will announce later today, comes just days after Feinstein’s death but a slim Democratic majority in the Senate necessitated that Newsom move quickly. Butler could be seated as early as Tuesday, allowing consideration of Democratic priorities — like keeping the government open or aid for Ukraine — and judicial nominations to continue, unabated.
“As we mourn the enormous loss of Sen. Feinstein, the very freedoms she fought for — reproductive freedom, equal protection, and safety from gun violence — have never been under greater assault,” Newsom said. “Laphonza has spent her entire career fighting for women and girls and has been a fierce advocate for working people… I have no doubt she will carry the baton left by Senator Feinstein, continue to break glass ceilings, and fight for all Californians in Washington.”
Since 2021, Butler has served as the president of the DC-based EMILY’s List, a national political organization dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women to political office. But Butler’s California ties run deep: she built a career in labor organizing with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), eventually becoming president of SEIU Local 2015, the largest union in the state. She was also a partner at SCRB Strategies (now Bearstar Strategies), a political consulting firm with ties to Gov. Newsom. Butler is a longtime supporter of Vice President Kamala Harris and served as a senior advisor on her presidential campaign.
The appointment could ease some reservations about Newsom’s recent legislative vetoes. The governor had recently drawn the ire of LGBT organizations in California over his veto of AB-957, a bill which would have added “a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity or gender expression” to one of the many considerations a judge makes before deciding on custody. Likewise, he’d run afoul of labor unions with vetoes of Senate Bills 686 and 799 which would have extended workplace protections to domestic workers and paid striking workers California unemployment benefits after two weeks, respectively.
Laphonza Butler with her daughter, Nylah and her partner, Neneki Lee (via EMILY’s List).
But the tenure of the first out black lesbian in Congress may be a short one.
With Butler’s selection, Newsom fulfills a promise he made back in 2021 to appoint a black woman to fill Feinstein’s seat, if and when it became available. But, as recently as last month, Newsom’s also expressed his desire that the appointment be an interim one. The race to replace Feinstein had already begun, in earnest, after she announced her retirement in February, and Newsom wasn’t interested in interfering. But many black Democratic leaders didn’t relish the prospect of a black woman as caretaker and lambasted Newsom’s pronouncement. On the eve of Butler’s appointment, the governor’s office seemingly walked that idea back.
“If that person decides she wants to seek a full term in 2024, then she is free to do so. There is absolutely no litmus test, no promise,” Newsom spokesman Anthony York told the LA Times.
But even if Butler’s technically allowed to seek a full term in 2024, I’m hard-pressed to imagine she could. Reps. Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee are already locked in a competitive race to become Feinstein’s permanent successor, with the primary set for March 5, 2024. To launch a statewide campaign in California, in time to compete in that March primary, with no existing infrastructure or war chest seems improbable even for someone with Butler’s bonafides. Instead, Butler will serve until a replacement can be determined by the voters in a special election that’ll run concurrently with the existing 2024 race. Ultimately, Butler is likely to only serve 14 months in the United States Senate.
Still, that’s 14 months of the Democratic Party’s most stalwart constituency having a voice in the debate over the nation’s most important issues. That’s 14 months of having another prominent queer voice voting on the judges who stand between our community and calamity far too often. That’s 14 months of history being made.
The first out black lesbian ever to serve in Congress. It’s not everything but it’s damned sure something worth celebrating.
Also.Also.Also: Everything You Need To Know Heading Into Banned Books Week
feature image photo by Daniel Boczarski / Stringer via Getty Images
This is a books-heavy iteration of this column, so I wanted to share I just started reading Family Meal by Bryan Washington and quite literally cannot put it down!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Comes out October 10, and you can preorder it now 📣
Queer as in F*ck You
Banned Books Week starts in a few days, so let’s look at some recent news stories and features about LGBTQ book bans, censorship, etc. from the past week.
Here are news stories about the people and movements leading the nation’s increasing book bans:
- These Are the Far Right-Groups Leading the Book Ban Explosion: “Despite the fact that the majority of Americans do not support book bans, they have been skyrocketing in the U.S., with a new report from PEN America recording a 33% year-over-year increase in book bans in American public school classrooms and libraries.”
- Another look at PEN America’s latest findings (which are also summarized in infographic form below): Want to Know How Far-Reaching the Right-Wing Movement Against Free Expression in Schools Is?
- She Challenges One School Book a Week. She Says She’ll Never Stop. “The majority of all school book challenges in the United States came from just 11 people. Meet Jennifer Petersen.”
- Florida School District Pulls Queer Books: “These Characters and Themes Cannot Exist”
- The unfortunate unofficial capital of book banning is in Clay County, Florida, which is part of the greater Jacksonville area. Clay County Leads the Nation in Banned Books. It May Ban Thousands More.
- Appeals Court Gives Texas Book Ban Law The Green Light. “A Trump-appointed judge previously ruled that Texas’ new law is probably unconstitutional. An appeals court says it can go ahead.
And here are the news stories and features about resistance and who’s fighting the bans:
- How Libraries Are Fighting Book Banning. This opens with a simple but evocative quote issued by the American Library Association in 1953 that could just as easily have been said today: “The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack.”
- Brooklyn Public Library’s Leigh Hurwitz on Helping Young People Resist Censorship.
- ‘Reading Is Resistance’: Students and Parents Take on DeSantis’s Book Bans.
- Florida Churches, Groups Step Up To Teach Black History and Banned Books.
Unrelated to books, but here’s a small yet cool thing happening in Florida: Gainesville, Florida Is Giving Trans Punk Legend Laura Jane Grace a Key to the City.
And let’s delve into some queer history as well: One Magazine Secretly Built Community in the ’50s. Now It’s Celebrated in L.A.’s Queer History Festival.
Saw This, Thought of You
Hot Strike Summer is now officially Fair Wage Fight Fall: What’s at Stake in the UAW Strike.
Political Snacks
The GOP Debate Was a Sorry Spectacle.
One More Thing
It’s soup season.
Pop Culture Fix: boygenius Is Getting You a New Gay EP for Halloween
I don’t know about you but I am still riding high from last night’s WNBA games! So high I hardly slept! But I made you a Pop Culture Fix anyway, because I love you!
+ Well, Happy Halloween! boygenius’ new EP, The Rest, is coming at you on October 13th. Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus are releasing a four-song companion to The Record. The Rest will be released on 10″ vinyl in both black and a transparent yellow, and also on CD.
‘the rest’ EP out Fri, Oct 13th. available to pre-order on limited edition yellow 10” vinyl, CD, as well as pre-save now: https://t.co/4p5kD94xI8
Tracklist
Side A
1. Black Hole
2. ****** ** *******
Side B
3. *******
4. *****Cover photo by Matt Grub pic.twitter.com/WtP5hxqVEK
— boygenius (@xboygeniusx) September 26, 2023
+ How Todd Haynes’ May December channeled Mary Kay Letourneau and classic female melodramas.
+ In case you missed it, new from Hulu: “From the creators of Queer Eye, five fabulous, queer ghost hunters roam the country, helping the living by healing the dead. Our gay Ghost Hunties explore infamous haunted locations while pushing past boundaries with both the living and the deceased.” GHOST HUNTIES.
+ The Hollywood writers’ strike is over! The writers fuckin’ won — and big time!
+ From Jemele Hill over at The Athletic: The glorious exuberance of Sha’Carri Richardson’s hair.
+ You know, this isn’t gay, but I simply could not resist the headline: Katy Perry joins Peppa Pig, battles octogenarian.
+ The Last of Us season two writing will resume as soon as WGA strike officially ends (which is now!).
+ Golden Globes adds two categories for Best Blockbuster and Best Stand-Up.
+ Angelina Jolie covers Vogue this month. Her profile talks a lot about how much healing she’s had to do since her marriage to / divorce from Brad Pitt. She says she hasn’t been herself in ten years. :(
Also.Also.Also: Rosie O’Donnell Landed “League of Their Own” by Being Better at Baseball — Butch Excellence!
feature image by Mario Tama / Staff via Getty Images
Happy Timmy Tomato Tuesday. Timmy Tomato is the name of my new kitten, and Timmy Tomato Tuesday is a new tradition I have invented where I cook something with tomatoes for dinner (tonight, it’s chicken parm with a homemade red sauce) and Timmy gets to “choose” what movie my fiancee and I watch. WHAT WILL HE CHOOSE. 🍅
Queer as in F*ck You
Lit Hub published an excerpt from the new book NO CRYING IN BASEBALL: The Inside Story of A League of Their Own: Big Stars, Dugout Drama, and a Home Run for Hollywood by Erin Carlson. The excerpt provides a deep dive on the casting of the original A League of Their Own movie! When A League of Their Own Started Casting, Actresses Took Over LA’s Batting Cages. Turns out every white actress in Hollywood wanted a shot to be in A League of Their Own, as the movie promised placing women at the center of narrative instead of boxing them into supporting roles or cliche stocktypes. And they all had to prove they could play or at least learn to play baseball, so they took to LA’s batting cages to train. Among those who auditioned: Courteney Cox, Cindy Crawford, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tatum O’Neal, Kelly Preston, Brooke Shields, Elizabeth Perkins, Demi Moore, Daryl Hannah, Mariel Hemingway, Laura Dern, and Jennifer Grey. The 90s excellence!!!!!!! And according to the piece, iconic lesbian Rosie O’Donnell thought the following when she flew in for the audition: If I don’t get this part, I’ll quit show business. If there’s one thing I can do better than Meryl Streep, it’s play baseball.
The Writers Strike Is Nearly Over—So What Does That Mean For the Actors Strike?
United States Scores a C on Global LGBTQ+ Human Rights Scorecard.
Two pieces of news from my home state of Virginia:
- Virginia Beach Students Push Back Against Glenn Youngkin’s Anti-Trans Policies.
- Virginia Library Temporarily Avoids Closing Over LGBTQ+ Books Controversy.
Lesbian Bar Watch! Lesbian Bars Are Disappearing Nationwide, But There Are Signs of Life in Mass.
How Anti–Sex Work Legislation Is About to Get Worse.
Saw This, Thought of You
imo, Hannah Giorgis is one of the best culture writers in the game. Read her latest: The Horror Stories of Black Hair.
HANDS DOWN THE WILDEST THING I’VE READ ALL WEEK: What I Found in a Database Meta Uses to Train Generative AI.
Let’s dive into some literature!
- “To Be A Writer, You Must Write:” How Joan Didion Became Joan Didion.
- We Asked Book Lovers To Reflect on Hispanic Heritage Month. Here’s What They Recommended.
- It’s New Book Tuesday, so sink into Lit Hub‘s feature, Check Out the 27 New Books Out Today! My personal recommendations from this list would be the new releases from C. Pam Zhang, Eliza Clark, McKenzie Wark, and Isle McElroy.
Political Snacks
The Supreme Court Just Rejected Alabama’s Attempt to Deny Representation to Black Voters. Again.
America’s New Climate Corps Will Need to be a Lot Bigger.
One More Thing
God, this poem got me good:
Pop Culture Fix: Megan Rapinoe Says Goodbye to USWNT With Sue Bird by Her Side
Feature image photo by Daniel Bartel/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF
I got some apple cider donuts at the farmer’s market this weekend! I wish I could share them with you! But here’s a Pop Culture Fix, which is not quite but almost as good? (No it’s not, but still! I made it for you!)
+ Megan Rapinoe played her last game for the USWNT yesterday and was honored with cheers and hugs and trophies and tears and a smooch from her wifey Sue Bird. Fans cheered her in person and at home. Over at OutSports: Megan Rapinoe takes pride in having pushed LGBTQ rights as she makes USWNT farewell. And at The Athletic: Megan Rapinoe from those who know her: “She makes the tough times easier for everybody.” Thank you for everything, Megan Rapinoe! See you and Sue at the WNBA Finals!
+ WGA & AMPTP reach tentative agreement to end writers strike! Related: LeVar Burton, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Mark Hamill, and many more celebrate strike-ending deal!
+ An update on last week’s story: Angelica Ross has receipts.
+ The story behind Friends’ banned lesbian wedding episode, almost 28 years on.
+ Heartstopper’s repeated clarification of Nick’s bisexuality is more important than it seems.
+ Lil Nas X, Saucy Santana, Ice Spice: LGBTQ rappers are queering hip-hop like never before.
+ The sexiest queer horror movies of all time.
+ Mean Girls musical movie now will premiere in theaters, not Paramount+.
+ Shonda Rhimes and Lena Waithe will be honored at a Human Rights Campaign national dinner.
+ Troye Sivan, 070 Shake, Chappell Roan, and more land on Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week.
Also.Also.Also: Sha’Carri Richardson and the History of Respectability Politics Used Against Black Women in Sports
feature image photo by Christian Petersen / Staff via Getty Images
A very important life update is that I now have a new baby kitten, and his name is Timmy Tomato. 🍅
Queer as in F*ck You
Sha’Carri Richardson keeps outrunning her haters. In The Fastest Woman in the World Is Leaving Her Haters Behind, the 19th News looks at the long history of racism directed at Black woman in sports — especially queer Black women like Sha’Carri Richardson and Brittney Griner. Richardson is the central focus of the piece, though it touches on other sports and athletes as well as it unravels the respectability politics disproportionately leveraged against Black women who excel in sports. From the feature:
Despite the trauma she’s endured, it took her becoming the fastest woman in the world after winning the women’s 100 meter at the track and field world championships in Budapest in August to renew a skeptical public’s faith in her. And, after that feat, there’s no guarantee that she won’t continue to be subjected to the respectability politics that have long targeted Black women athletes, a pattern scholars say needs to change.
The Most Pressing Legal Questions Facing LGBTQ+ Students, Answered by an ACLU Attorney.
Queer dispatches from NYFW: Gypsy Sport Celebrates 10 Years of Queering Streetwear.
A Gay Couple Was Just Awarded $100,000 After Being Denied a Marriage License.
Trans Teens Challenging Utah’s Sports Ban Ordered to Share Their Medical Records.
Millions of LGBTQ+ Americans Overlooked in Census Data May Soon Be Able To Share Their Experiences.
This clip below of G Flip discussing the transphobia they experienced when the news of them dating Chrishell Stause broke is from an older episode of the SHE/HER/THEY podcast with the queer DJ KITTENS, but it hooked me enough to back-listen to some of the podcast, and it’s worth checking out! E.R. Fightmaster was a recent guest.
Saw This, Thought of You
The 19th News‘s survey results I shouted out in the last AAA continue: Nearly Half of Women With Disabilities Report Experiencing Sexual Harassment or Assault At Work, Poll Finds.
Appointments Fill Up As Abortion Returns to Wisconsin.
Political Snacks
Democrats Can Stand Up for Trans Kids—and Win. People should stand up for trans kids because it’s the right thing to do, but I understand why The Nation is taking the electoral politics angle here.
One More Thing
A poem for you!
Pop Culture Fix: Ali Liebert and Humberly Gonzalez to Fall in Queer Love at Christmas on Hallmark
Feature image photo by Andrew Chin/Getty Images // Shutterstock
Ho ho ho, it’s already holigay news time! Right here in your mid-week Pop Culture Fix!
+ Well, Hallmark has released its Countdown to Christmas preview and I am thrilled to announce that we’ve got another queer holigay movie on the way! This time it’s starring Ali Liebert and Humberly Gonzalez, and it’s FAKE DATING!
Daniella (Gonzalez) has recently moved to New York to pursue an art career and decides to stay in town to share the holidays with her circle of artist friends, instead of going home to see her sweet, if overbearing parents. Amelia (Liebert) is a talented entertainment lawyer trying to stay focused on her work after a broken engagement. When Daniella and Amelia are set up by their parents, they agree to pretend that they are dating, to appease them for the holidays. However, as they spend time in eachother’s worlds, they soon build a connection that is deeper than either of them could have hoped for.
+ Entertainment Weekly’s got a full-on fall TV preview — or, well, whatever “full-on” means when the Hollywood strikes are still going on because studios are being THE WORST.
+ Dungeons & Kittens mixes felines and fellowship.
+ Starfield’s pronoun-removal mod has been banned by NexusMods.
+ Vanity Fair’s “25 Perfect TV Episodes From the Last 25 Years” features a few queer faves!
+ Angelica Ross alleges “mind games,” transphobia from Emma Roberts on the American Horror Story set.
+ Related: Every American Horror Story season, ranked from best to worst.
+ The 20 best vampire movies ever made, from The Lost Boys to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
+ The Morning Show’s costume designer talks about how Bradly went from practical to powerful.
Also.Also.Also: Librarians Are Queer Heroes Right Now Because They Have To Be
feature image photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
I’m making pasta for dinner; what are you making?
Queer as in F*ck You
Librarians Didn’t Sign Up to Be Queer Activists—but This Year, They Are. As someone who is engaged to a queer librarian, this issue is of great personal importance to me. But we should all be paying attention to the work librarians around the country are doing in the face of anti-LGBTQ hate groups and campaigns, like the “Hide the Pride” campaign that targeted a library in Ferndale, Michigan back in June, which this feature in The New Republic opens with. Make no mistake, as the feature states: “The work of library defense right now is unapologetically queer.”
Also from the feature:
As much as fighting book bans is about fighting censorship, it’s also about confronting and demobilizing those who are driving that censorship and the attendant instability left in their wake. Because they are not just coming for the books; they are coming for the library and the people and ideas that make libraries possible. The work of library defense right now is unapologetically queer.
Speaking of banned books: ‘Gender Queer’ Author Responds to Kennedy’s Viral Senate Reading.
Queer Superhero History: Mystique.
I’ve got not one but TWO queer photo essays for you:
- Whole Festival: Photos From Berlin’s ‘Queer, Easy, Horny’ Utopia.
- Photographing an Imagined Queer Utopia.
Attention Bravo Dykes! In Below Deck news: Below Deck Med’s Captain Sandy Yawn Is Engaged to Leah Shafer.
How Personal Relationships Influence Views on Gender-Affirming Care. 19th News did a massive political survey that resulted in a bunch of features breaking down some of the data. Get into it, nerds.
Partner brag o’clock! My fiancée’s third novel was announced yesterday, and it’s really gay. I think you’re going to love it. I sure did!
Saw This, Thought of You
The Politics of Chronic Illness Memoirs.
Her Students Reported Her for a Lesson on Race. Can She Trust Them Again? This was a really devastating read.
Political Snacks
It’s Now Clear: “Cop City” Is About Democracy.
One More Thing
A poem for you!
Pop Culture Fix: Amber Benson Creates a New Spike-Centric Buffy Story for Audible
Here’s your Monday Pop Culture Fix, my friends! I hope your day is as wonderful as you are!
+ Buffy cast set to reunite on Audible for a new Spike-centric tale set 20 years after the finale. The story was written by Amber Benson, directed by Amber Benson, and will also star Amber Benson!
+ Suranne Jones’ Vigil has sold to Peacock for a second season.
+ Freeform’s 31 Nights of Halloween has announced its spooky October line-up.
+ Lorraine Hansberry’s queer archive.
+ Exploring sexual politics in Park Chan-wook film The Handmaiden.
+ Billboard’s Queer Jams of the Week includes new music from Demi Lovato, K.Flay, Vagabon, and more.
+ Horror film director Mariama Diallo on her latest project The Other Black Girl. (Nic’s got a full review coming at you Thursday!)
+ Julia Fox designs fashion competition series for NBCUniversal from Queer Eye producer.
+ Sophie Dupuis wasn’t ready to call herself queer — but making her film Solo changed everything.
+ TIME100 Next List is full of queer and nonbinary icons.
+ See the full line-up of films for this year’s NewFest in NYC.
+ 7 horror movies that aren’t too scary for wimpy queers. (It’s me, hi, I’m the wimpy queer, it’s me.)
+ Barbie is officially more financially powerful than The Avengers.