Hello AF Media and AF+ Members,
We (Riese, Kayla, and Drew) are writing to you, because we assume weāre all feeling a lot of the same things: fear, confusion, anxiety, despair, frustration, anger. Itās the first stretch of a second Trump presidency, something none of us wanted, but alas, here we are. Here we all are together!
The media industry has been a tough landscape for a long time, and it feels especially fraught now in a time of escalated misinformation exacerbated by AI, an administration visibly endorsed and supported by an oligarchy of tech giants, social media algorithms that favor fascism and isolation over community-building, and politicians and lawmakers who seem intent on pedaling false and harmful ideologies about the most vulnerable members of our community: queer, trans and gender-nonconforming individuals. Autostraddle remains committed to fighting these forces. We are proud to be a QTPOC-owned company and continuing to survive as a queer- and trans-led magazine that isnāt owned by a corporation and maintains editorial freedom in a way few other publications do.
Weāre going to keep doing the things we do best, whether thatās straightforward and candid political explainers that skip the bullshit and the fear-mongering, even if that means our headline isnāt quite clicky enough; in-depth coverage of queer art and entertainment that doesnāt hinge on respectability politics; hyperlocal reporting on queer communities and scenes; or bringing you the best personal essays by emerging and established queer and trans writers. We will keep publishing queer and trans content thatās for LGBTQ people and not merely about us. This administration can try to legislate queer and trans people from public life, but weāre not going anywhere, and weāre not backing down from putting out complex, authentic, and real stories of queer and trans life.
We wear a lot of hats on our three-person editorial team, and we want to make sure weāre using our time and energy in ways that ultimately serve you best, because we need you to make all of this happen and because there isnāt a point to our work if itās not connecting with our communities meaningfully. So you tell us: What do you want more of? What stories do you want to read? What kind of news do you want to read? Where are you getting your news āĀ are you stepping back from certain social media platforms and if so, whatās the best way to reach you? If you have thoughts on any of these things, feel free to just write back to this email with any of āem.
Autostraddle is in a unique position to deliver news with a clear point of view and eye toward collective justice and challenging the status quo. We donāt have the biggest staff or the most resources, but weāve got a lot of heart and hustle! Weād love to hear from you about how and what youāre reading now. We hope to always provide a good balance of fun articles that can bring our readers joy, but we also want our audience to remain informed. Sometimes the stories weāre really excited about donāt end up being read as widely as we hoped, so we want to better connect with our most loyal readers āĀ you, our members āĀ to make sure weāre getting the things you want to read to you.
We canāt control the algorithms that put content in front of you on social media, and we cannot control the proliferation of AI-generated search engine results. But we can control our priorities in what we want to cover and what our readers want to read, especially if weāre all working together here. We can bring you the queerest news and culture writing youāll read all day, and even if the algorithms donāt value it, we know you do. So we also hope youāll consider going back to some old school news/media habits and actually physically go to our homepage and make Autostraddle a part of your daily routine. Relying on social media to deliver news you actually want to read means being as beholden to biased algorithms as we are, and this is one small way you can circumvent that.
And if you like a story you read, tell us in the comments! That really means so much to us! Whereas other publications keep comments sections around to encourage trolls and endless internet fights (that thereby increase traffic and encourage people to return to the page), we have comments sections because we actually want to have conversations. We read all of them! And our writers love to hear compliments! It also helps them know what readers want and therefore what to pitch and prioritize.
While we wonāt pretend like sustained reader and member growth isnāt important for our longevity, we arenāt merely interested in quantity when it comes to our readership; weāre also deeply interested in the quality of our readership, by which we mean having readers that are engaged with the work weāre doing and less distance between our readers and ourselves. We take a community-based approach to journalism, and often our best stories are born out of reader requests and conversations we organically have as editors based on what we see people responding to.
All of this is to say: We genuinely want to hear from you. We want to feel connected. Tell us what you want.
Iāll have to think through more details but one thing i want is exactly this sort of question being asked! Iāll muse on it
Totally! I also was missing asking these sorts of questions which was part of why I wanted to do so. Please think on it! And def feel like you don’t have to get it all out and once and can ask/say things piecemeal! Muse away! <3
Love this energy Katie
First off, thanks for asking this. Itās really nice to be so appreciated and respected.
Unfortunately, I think my biggest ask might not be something you can achieve, which is – more non-US coverage. Iām Canadian. Since the election in November I have been trying to limit my intake of US news and politics and focus on news and politics in my own country. Unfortunately, since the inauguration, those things have become indelibly intertwined.
But also, I know you have Canadian writers and contributors. So maybe this is possible!
Also – more PWHL content!!!! The best female hockey player on the planet got gay married to her teammate last September and yāall never mentioned it! There is so much queer stuff happening in and around the league! Please get to know Carly āCJā Jackson!
I upvote this!
Noted!! This is definitely something we’re working on, especially since there’s a lot more non-US representation even on the full-time team (specifically, UK). Totally agree about US and Canadian politics being intertwined. I’m eager to cover that EXACT topic and can prioritize it. Thank you for the feedback!
Drew did do this list for the PWHL but I agree we need to do more and will chat with Drew about it since she is closest in proximity (dating a Canadian lol and also spends a lot of time there)!!!!!! https://develop.autostraddle.com/all-the-gay-pwhl-hockey-players/
Drew = Autostraddle’s Ambassador to Canada šØš¦
I will take on this title with the utmost seriousness!
Yes I loved that list!! But just compared to the WNBA or the NWSL the PWHL has gotten very little coverage (granted itās still very new so I know itāll take time).
Every time I think of the Canadian content I want to see on AS I start thinking should I be pitching something??? Weāll see if I have time lol.
Pitch us! Do it!
PITCH PITCH PITCH PITCH
I feel old school because the Autostraddle website is one of my morning go-tos, along with the Guardian and New Zealand (where I live) sites the Spinoff, RNZ and Stuff. Do you feel like saying what the stories were you thought were exciting rhat didnāt get read, even generally? That might help orientate comments.
I will always read queer history, politics, advice, book reviews, personal essays. Iām not overly interested in celebrity culture (tho I read no filter).
This is not a topic, but I really love nuance and shades of grey in writing. Sometimes Iām (probably stupidly) shocked at how righteous and frankly judgemental commenters are (esp on your instagram posts), and I urge you not to give into moralising views. I am particularly thinking about these examples, an advice question on age gap relationships and a personal essay on a relationship the writer had with their professor. The censorious comments were wild and made me concerned for our communityās lack of ability to take a nuanced, layered perspective.
Thank you for asking this question. I love Autostraddle and will always read you. Keep up the amazing work x
so yes this is always the tricky thing because queer history, politics, book reviews, and personal essays are some of our least read categories, especially lately and ESPECIALLY politics+news. I know this could be partially because our political coverage sort of dwindled in recent years, especially when I initially came on after Rachel left bc Rachel did SO MUCH and I was not interested in doing politics coverage myself at the time. I have since changed my mind on that and have been doing political coverage for about two years and am committed to beefing it up again, but it’s hard when so few people read it. I also fear people are getting so much of their political news from social media, which has some real drawbacks to it!! anyway, I’m just sort of rambling here, but this is all good to know so thank you for sharing!
thank you for these words about nuance and shades of grey, because i too deeply value that. yes, our IG posts tend to draw polarizing and black-and-white comments, but don’t worry, most of us have pretty thick skin when it comes to that. we will always strive for nuance and authenticity, especially in our personal essays!
Oh damn haha. Iām sorry to hear that content isnāt much read. This is troubling. What are the most popular genres currently?
I’ll let Kayla actually take this question, but ftr some of our most read content these days is her deranged quizzes, leading me to believe we’re helping a LOT of people dissociate these days š
Including me! I like the less cerebral content too. You guys have quite the dilemma tho. I hope other commenters have useful suggestions.
This is such a hard question to answer! I’ve been reading AS since I started identifying as queer. You all were what brought me here – the stories about your lives and experiences helped me figure out who I am. I love AS and owe so much to you all.
The past few years have felt less intimate and haven’t had the same level of vulnerability. This is totally valid after everything that happened a few years ago, and also I find myself engaging less with AS (still supporting of course!).
Also, my life has gotten busier! I’m a mom now, my job demands more now, I am more established in my queerness and also feel less tied to it.
So…I’m not sure what I’m looking for? I love stories about queer love, about queer family (bio and chosen), about how hard and also magical being a parent is, and how to keep being hella gay as a middle-aged lesbian mom.
I will definitely try and be more vulnerable and comment more. There is so much great writing happening on AS, and I need to take time to connect with it.
We’re def on the same page! We’ve seen the intimacy and vulnerability dwindle, too, and I’ve been desperate to rebuild it, but it has been tough, especially when I put out a personal essay and it’s just like *crickets*, it can be hard to then muster the effort to keep writing them because they take so much time and care. i’ve been writing her for nearly a DECADE and the internet has shifted a lot, along with other factors, but yeah! all this to say: I hear you and agree with you and want to get to that place again or at least some new version of it
Totally makes sense about feeling more established in your queerness!!
“queer love, about queer family (bio and chosen), about how hard and also magical being a parent is, and how to keep being hella gay as a middle-aged lesbian mom” thank you for all this!! will definitely take it into consideration
we really really appreciate you saying you’ll comment more! i do feel like it’s mutually beneficial for both the readers and the writers when some conversation starts in the comments. <3
Thank you for the thoughtful reply! I will certainly make an effort to read and comment on more personal pieces. They do mean a lot to me.
thank you so much! the other advice i have is to seek out the content you like rather than it “coming to you” āĀ at least if you mainly rely on social media or newsletters to find our work. if you already do this, great! but yeah for example if you know you like personal essays, the “First Person” category on the navigation is the place to look! algorithms bury us, so I know it creates more work for the reader, but if you go to the homepage + navigate to relevant categories, it really is the best way to find what you specifically like!
Good advice! I’m a homepage visitor, but I do find my attention span isn’t what it used to be. I’ll work on that.
Thank you, echoing everyone else that I really appreciate being asked these questions.
It’s very useful to hear that comments mean a lot to you and how much they’re taken into account, beyond just clicks, when shaping future content. Most often, chronic illness and brain fog mean that by the time I reach the end of an article I don’t have the energy to gather my thoughts into anything coherent, let alone anything articulate enough to engage with frequently personal and/or complex topics, much as I want to. (Case in point, the embarrassing literal hour it’s taken me to draft this.) Having been assured that even a super brief comment like “Love this!” still has more value than the act of clicking alone, from now on I’ll try my best to get past my overthinking that it sounds flippant and just write something when I can.
I’ll have to come back to you with my thoughts on the actual question of what I most love to read here – oops! Brain is powering down for the day.
Truly even just a “Love this!” means a lot! Or even just a heart emoji! Brain fog is real, thanks for engaging here <3 but truly even the smallest comments that may seem inconsequential do mean something to us and help make us feel like we're not shouting into a void lol
Iām not sure if this is the kind of answer youāre looking for, but I think my answer is more about community. I really miss some of the opportunities to connect with other readers that you used to have sometimes, like the A+ Discord. I think in these turbulent times, the opportunity to connect with other queer people and build community could be very valuable. I think that works two-fold: it could be valuable to be able to discuss the issues weāre facing and how to deal with them but I think it could be just as valuable to be able to connect around other things that came up in the Discord in the past like books, tv, hobbies, astrology etc. in order to get our minds off of things.Ā
In terms of content, I echo what someone else said about trying to limit exposure to American news as a Canadian but I appreciate the nuances of your political coverage when I do read it. Some more practical advice on how advice about what people – both inside and outside of the U.S. – could do to fight and protect themselves and their communities from the threats weāre facing could also be very helpful (along the lines of Nicoās piece right after the election).Ā
I hear ya! And yes we’re looking for any and all answers, and this fits the bill! Stay tuned on potential updates for more community-focused things like Discords etc. That’s all I can say for now!
Heard on more practical advice and will chat with some of our leading writers on the topic (Nico as you mentioned but also Stef) to see what we can come up with!
I know this isnāt what youāre after butā¦ I miss Rachel and Shelli and Heather and Carmenās voices! And so many others! But on this topic? My call in the internet wilderness is to Rachel to please tell me what is going on and how to see the patterns through the swirling dumpster fire!
I miss them, too! Thank you for sharing!
Rachel indeed taught me so much not just about the political news itself but about how to WRITE it. I really really encourage you to read and engage with the pieces Stef Rubino is writing for Autostraddle. They are so thoughtful and thorough and approachable in their political analysis, and they would be super open to hearing what readers want to read more of and catering to that in ongoing political coverage!
Oh I love Stefās writing!!!! If I see a Stef article, I always read it no matter the subject š
amazing! if you ever have special requests for things you’d like for them to cover, let us know!
Maybe before the new year, I made a resolution that I would no longer read any āNewsā news and only read local news. I even bought a physical copy of the local weekly (Ā£1.70!) as well as several editions of Womenās Football News (statistically guaranteed to be the most lesbian print media).
I think what I was hoping for in local news was endless stories about seagulls falling into vats of curry and turning orange, or incensed shoppers unable to buy pies at 8am. Instead, I am now very well informed about potholes, planning permission applications and roadworks that occurred some time ago.
My resolution did not last, but I do find myself with a newfound equilibrium, having uninstalled news apps and generally found tactics to avoid the doomscroll. Iād been trying to detox from American cultural hegemony for a while anyway, and the great thing there is that because of the US domination over media in the Western world, if you cut out your Netflix, Prime etc. subscriptions and prioritise non-US authors, what you are left with is a reasonable scarcity of queer stuff to choose from, which I find a blissful cognitive relief. I mean, I watched a middling crime drama with incidental lesbianism in Gaelic the other week! Truly nirvana.
Anyway, what I am looking for in Autostraddle is pretty much the same as Iāve always wanted, which is things that are extremely silly and extremely clever at the same time. If you could do some stories about seagulls falling into vats of curry too, I wouldnāt complain.
probably not a “silly” piece as it is about my dog who passed, but there are def some silly moments that sit inside it lol but seagulls falling into vats of curry just reminded me of when i STAINED MY DOG WITH TURMERIC, which i do indeed write about in this (sad, with pockets of humor) essay: https://develop.autostraddle.com/roasting-a-full-duck-because-you-miss-your-dog/
Oh I definitely canāt read that piece unfortunately. The moment I realised I loved my dog was the moment I realised I will be unable to cope with her inevitable death, and therefore I must spend ~15 years in denial of canine mortality.
Truly incredible that you stained your dog with turmeric though and wrote about it, which is spiritually like falling into a vat of curry, thus you have already fulfilled my wildest desires.
FAIR hahahaa
Thank you for this question! Itās lovely to hear from you all :-).
Things I love: Posts about books/book lists, style guides, articles about dogs, and You Need Help posts.
Things Iām interested in that you post about currently: Your personal lives (like Rieseās baby blog), WNBA happenings, TV Show recaps and lists
Things Iāve seen before but Iād like to see more of given the current political climate: Information about how to get involved and how to help. Information about rallies across the US, organizations to support, other ways to get involved. Also the reporting youāre doing on ways the administration is attacking our rights as LGBTQ+ people, which I think are things legacy media is less likely to post and talk about right now. So generally staying informed on things other news sources may not be reporting!
Iāve been reading Autostraddle for 15 years. Thank you for all you do.
thank you! hoping to beef up style guides again. and i’ll always be delivering as much books content as possible because it’s definitely my passion!
yes, we can do more actionable political coverage. it’s hard to provide information about rallies beyond national actions because our readers live in so many different places. we do try to write up any actions we personally attend AFTER the fact to provide context and create an archive of queer+trans actions across the country where we can. and yes it is definitely our goal to cover political topics in ways legacy media won’t touch.
THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE FOR 15 YEARS THAT IS INCREDIBLE!!!! i’ll be celebrating my 10 year anniversary of writing for the website later this year <3
Thanks for asking. I’ve been reading and subscribing for a bunch of years.
I love the movie reviews, especially for the Sundance film fest. Ya’ll do such a good job of staying on top of the queer indie films. Kudos.
There have been a few personal essays that have blown my mind, and I’d love to see more.
Didn’t you have a NSFW feature, too? That was fun.
One more thing: my wife and I are going through menopause and it is wild AF! I’d love to see more stories about aging queerly. Heck, I’d be happy to write about it.
I enjoy the advice columns, book content, lyrical personal essays, TV recaps, high reviews of queer romcoms, political analysis that feels original/local/personal, style columns, and anything about the nuances of building and sustaining queer connection and family in ask shapes
Awww yaaay this is exactly the kind of stuff I have been missing on AS lately – interaction! I’ve been a reader for at least 15 years, maybe more (the swamp of my teenage years is hard to navigate, as you might imagine). I’ve sent in multiple reader questions and the answers have always meant a lot to me! What I truly miss the most is AS as a sort of ‘hanging-out’ spot. The comment threads, the comment awards, little in-jokes, events… All these things used to make me feel connected to the other readers and the authors, and I haven’t felt that way in some time. The way the comment awards column suddenly disappeared was jarring (is queergirl ok???) The For Them takeover certainly didn’t help (as grateful as I am that it’s allowed AS to keep existing, the brand feels… well, like a brand, and any community fostered therein feels hollow. And nobody responded to my comment on their first podcast episode, but they did change things in the description, and now my comment makes me look like a crazy bitch, and I’m still a little bitter about it!). I miss Ro and Vanessa and Shelli Nicole and don’t think this website or its community ever recovered from their firing. I miss slightly older, more experienced authors writing in on the advice columns. I miss NSFW content and our old tarot columnists. I miss Nico’s personal writing. I miss Carmen and sooooooo many other authors who have come and gone throughout the years, but alas, I know that is what happens when you run a website for 15 years lol. As always, I long for more international coverage (not just Canada either, the world is bigger than just North America????) BUTTTT like Arvan12 I realize that might mean I need to pitch something myself. I’ll work on it once grad school is done, promise.
Lately I’ve really enjoyed Stef’s coverage of serious topics, Riese’s baby writing, everything Drew and Kayla write ever (seriously some of the only authors who have the power to convey that sardonic AS mix of seriousness and silliness that I keep coming back to). I don’t give a fuck about celebs but hey, if it keeps the lights on, I’ll continue reading AS articles about them.
In the past couple of years I have seen more little errors slipping through the cracks – when that happens should we as readers point it out or just ignore it?
Ok that is all for now I think. Thanks for talking to us, it’s a lonely world out there.
Oh also I miss reader surveys! Are those still a thing? And the A+ insider?
I really want to echo this comment – I know it’s hard to build community and interaction but that was part of what made me gravitate to AS when I began reading (even though I have generally been a lurker!! I loved seeing folks discuss things and argue, it’s taught me so much)
I also really feel this comment – I’m also still grieving the old AS comments section and sense of community and I don’t know how to rebuild it.
I do love the ridiculous quizzes and the comments on the quizzes have some of that old community feeling.
I still read Autostraddle close to every day in a browser from the main page and try to comment at least a few times a week. I hugely appreciate the posts at the intersections of queerness and personal essays, disability justice/COVID awareness, and education. I also enjoy the movie and TV reviews and recaps.
Maybe it’s just me and my burnout, but I feel like there have been fewer medium length articles? Or maybe just too many really long ones. I appreciate the time and effort that go into the epic deep-dive articles, but I feel like I appreciate them most when they’re more special occasions? It seems like recently there have been a lot of articles that were somewhat tangential to my interests that I was open to trying to learn something new, but I ended up closing out of them because they were super long. (Again, that could just be me. Or maybe it was that they felt long? Unsure.)
Logistically, something happened recently where the sign in in back to my needing to put in a password instead of click an emailed link, which is fine by itself, but now I keep getting logged out of A+. Even for this article this is I think my 4th time, maybe 5th logging in between reading it, starting a comment that got lost when I got logged out, and finally writing this. I mostly read Autostraddle on my phone when I get random short breaks during the day, so having to relog into A+ every time I want to read another article adds up fast. I hope whatever’s causing that issue can be fixed soon.
I have found the log-in challenges very trying too and I only persevere because I love Autostraddle. Right now I have to log on every time I come to the site, even if I was on it logged-in half an hour ago. Needs a stay logged-in box! This kinda technical thing will put new readers off unfortunately :(
I also have big problems logging in every time and “I only persevere because I love Autostraddle” is too real š I log in and then it takes up to 10 minutes until AS realizes that I am logged in? I truly hate it so much. However I was ecstatic when we got the option to use a password instead of the “sending a login link” system, that was even worse. Not sure why it has been changed to yet another type that still doesn’t work, but here we are.
I started off this year with every intention of stepping back from Facebook. Problem is all of my real world local friends are still there!! If I want to connect with them, thatās where we go! However, for auto straddle content, I am particularly enjoying the For Them app experience. I would very much recommend having a presence on mastodon, which has no algorithm and no ads!! I am on mastodon at. Jessica the VI Artist @kind.social wish I could convince my friends to go there so we could all ditch Zuckerberg together!
Debated whether to respond to this b/c I donāt think Iām your demographic. My wife and I had kids in the early 90s. We are now retired and take care of grandkids a couple of days a week when both parents are at work. Weāre old gays ā been through some shit ā involved in civil rights and trying to make the world a better place. Right now, it feels like all we worked for and civil society is being destroyed in a way that will be difficult to recover from. Iām interested in organizations and efforts, real time, to stop the evil underway. I know we need breaks from that. You canāt help the world if you burn yourself to a crisp. I like reading queer books (appreciate your sometimes lists) and watching media. Some escape. The AS staff seems to have aged out of ācoming out/baby gayā stuff a while ago. Not to diminish that ā itās needed ā but not always a group with the resources to support much. Not much content for my age group, thatās ok. Donāt envy you trying to figure out how to do media with stretched out rubber bands and string thatās too short. Where are your hearts at? Iām culling things down, looking for less input, and trying to decide when we might need to leave-never thought Iād need to consider that. Sorry ā not a happy post, but maybe it provides some support for what youāre likely feeling/experiencing too.
Long-time reader here! This letter has me leaving my first comment after YEARS of reading & supporting AS :) Hello everybody!!
I want to start off by saying that I’m happy AS is still here and that I know how tough it is for smaller online zines (RIP Bitch magazine <3). Given the challenges AS has faced, I totally get why the content here looks different nowadays. Not to mention the fact that your audience base is always shifting and the queer community keeps evolving & wanting different things. However……. I still find myself so nostalgic for the way AS worked just a few years ago. I miss when you'd publish more things that were "uniquely Autostraddle". There is still nowhere else on the internet with a good strap-on 101 tutorial – something like that was totally in the AS niche!! And I miss the often-TMI and bizarre questions that would get submitted to 'Into the A+ Advice Box' back when sometimes a single advice box would have 10 questions. And I reallyyyy miss the active comment community! I also used to really enjoy it when AS published more material on sex/sexuality/dating: from the dating app reviews you used to do, to the topping & bottoming roundtables, to the surveys on AS members' romantic and sexual histories/preferences. I have to admit that I do really miss the 3 subject editors who were let go 2 years ago, their writing was phenomenal and they attracted contributors who spoke on lots of the topics I listed above.
In terms of current materials, I love when you publish personal essays on material that isn't accessible elsewhere online: things like Riese's recent series (Baby Steps), which is one of few in-depth personal narratives on gay parenthood and which I really enjoyed. I absolutely adore Drew's film reviews (my twin is also an avid Drew fan actually so she is actually a household name for us!!) and I really like Kayla's literature roundups/reviews and also her lifestyle writing (I really like it when AS publishes on lifestyle/cooking in general, actually!). Summer's answers to advice questions are thoughtful and nuanced and I always look forward to reading them.
Thanks for prompting this discussion, excited to see where it might lead <3 I know not all of the suggestions I've listed are feasible but maybe you can devise a 2025 twist to some of the things I miss about the way AS used to be :)