Community Scrapbook: Our Second Annual International Autostraddle Meetup Week

It’s that time again, kittens. Time to make yourself a cup of tea, snuggle up with your laptop, and prepare to witness the beauty that is our Autostraddle community existing out in the wild. This year we celebrated our Second Annual International Autostraddle Meet-Up Week from October 25 – November 3 and I’m pleased to report that just like last year it was a rousing success.

graphic by geneva the great

graphic by geneva the great

Last year we hosted Meet-Up Week as a way to say thank you for helping us reach our IndieGoGo fundraising goal (and then some!) but we got so many emails requesting a repeat performance this year that we decided to make it an annual thing. Like so many cool things we are able to do offline and in person, we relied almost entirely on readers to host events in their locations, and you all came through so impressively! Allow me to take this moment to say thank you, thank you, thank you. We do these things because we love you, but also because you make it so easy. You all are the reason we keep striving to create tangible communities worldwide, and you are the reason we continue to grow and flourish both online and in the real world. When I say I love you, I mean it. When I say thank you, I mean that, too.

This year you guys hosted meet-ups in SO MANY PLACES: Beijing, New York, Amsterdam, Idaho, Australia, France, Alaska, Cambodia, California, Singapore, Vancouver, Toronto, Phoenix, Albany, and Florida, just to name a few. (And yes, I realize some of those are countries and some are states and some are cities but I am just trying to emphasize how many different places we exist in, and also I’m not that great with geography so please cut me some slack.) Some of you had so much fun you forgot to take pictures, which is totally okay, but some of you took really cute pictures and that’s what we’re gonna look at now!

Let’s pretend that we’re all sitting by a warm fire paging through a giant queer family scrapbook, because that’s what this feels like to me. Cheers, queers. Y’all are so damn beautiful.

Note: We did not include individual photo credits on images unless the photographer specifically requested it. If your photos are up here and you would like credit, please send an email to vanessa [at] autostraddle [dot] com and we’ll make it happen. Thanks!

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Vanessa

Vanessa is a writer, a teacher, and the community editor at Autostraddle. Very hot, very fun, very weird. Find her on twitter and instagram.

Vanessa has written 404 articles for us.

26 Comments

  1. Can I just say that I’m really glad I’m looking pretty good in the one picture I’m in? I mean, I’ve got nothing on the rest of you, DC! – but I’m feeling pretty all right about that.

    • Oh man I’ve never had the first comment before, I’m kind of freaking out a little (social anxiety, what)

  3. So many cute pictures! One day, I will live somewhere that’s near enough to an Autostraddle meet-up location for me to be able to go and hang out with awesome queer people. That will be a splendid day :)

    • Saaaame. I’m actually sad/surprised that my city didn’t host a meetup (not that i knew about the site when this happened).

  4. Did we not submit any pics from our 48 hour Dublin brunch exztravaganza? I seem to remember us taking photos of our halloween pancakes? And I’m sure we got some drag queen in the ladies bathroom to take a photo of our drunk-ass gang in the ladies loo at some point in the evening.

    Actually, Aimee if you’re reading this, and that picture still exists, destroy it immediately.

    • Yeh those photos were very blurry and then deleted if I recall.

      Trust the Dublin Straddlers to get too drunk to take any actual photos.

      • Well the moral of the story is that a fine time was had by all and we all looked fabulous. I can say that now that I know I’m not under threat of any conflicting evidence of my rum-face will surface!

  5. Beautiful queers everywhere. I can’t wait to host a meetup in Cincinnati via that new events website ;)

  7. So many great pictures! The Boston meetups were so much fun. Thank you for all your work on this, Vanessa, and everyone else who helped make it a success! :) As someone who’s newer to Autostraddle and kind of shy about commenting a lot the time, the meetups I went to really made me feel like a part of the community, and I so appreciate that.

  9. Oh yay Denver! Way to represent. Being able to show Anne Marie and Jeanie the magic that is Charlies was a highlight for sure.

  11. Wow, this looks great. Wish I was comfortable enough to go out in public like this. Maybe next year I’ll have the nerve to finally be me and go to a meet-up somewhere. You all (and Autostraddle) ROCK!

  13. I’m so glad I hosted a meetup! I had never been to one but there was someone else in the Ashland area and I just had to meet them. It was really beautiful that day in the park!

  15. So many adorable queers! Love it! Also, DC, way to go! I’m impressed with your numbers. Maybe I should look into heading that way sometime

  19. There was a Sydney one in a park that I know! I really hope I can go to the Sydney one this year, it looked heaps of fun!

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