“In short: This gorgeous movie featuring two famous Rachels and lesbian spitplay will probably make you cry. It’s sad throughout but not exactly tragic. The ending, like any good one, is open to interpretation without being wishy-washy. One last urgent, desperate kiss says more than Esti and Ronit can bring themselves to utter. The invisible thread between them persists.” — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
In 2018, Lesbian and Bisexual TV Characters Did Even Better
At the conclusion of 2017, which occurred approximately two decades ago, I declared that “although most Quality of Life indicators for LGBTQ people and civilization in general nose-dived this year, one thing got notably better: television for queer women.” We saw remarkable gains between 2016 and 2017: less death, more queer women on prestige television, more compassionate and complicated coming out stories and increased visibility for bisexual women and queer women of color. Many of the year’s most talked-about shows had LGBQ women front-and-center, like One Day at a Time, The Bold Type, The Handmaid’s Tale and Master of None. There were more LGBTQ women leads than ever before, on shows including Wynonna Earp, One Mississippi, Transparent, American Horror Story: Cult, The Good Fight, Gypsy and How to Get Away With Murder. There was so much good stuff closing out 2017 and opening 2018 that we were able to host our first-ever Gay Emmys in 2018.
Still, there was a lot of room for improvement: butch representation remained devastatingly inadequate, QPOC rep was plentiful but uneven in execution — with black women specifically almost always receiving small roles, problematic storylines, cancellations, no girl-on-girl romances or being killed off. And, as usual, trans women characters — queer or straight — were few and far between.
So, what got better and what got worse in 2018? Let’s dig in.
The Numbers on Lesbian and Bisexual TV Characters in 2018
In 2018, there were 128 scripted shows with regular and/or recurring lesbian, bisexual, pansexual or otherwise queer women characters. (Henceforth, I will abbreviate “regular/recurring” as “R/R.”) This is up 12% from 114 shows in 2017, which was up 36% from 80 shows in 2016. An FX study suggests that the number of overall scripted original shows in 2018 was up between 7%-9% from last year’s number, 487. So we are outpacing growth overall, due to our immense charm, rabid fandom and generally being on the cutting edge of everything that matters in this strange broken culture.
In addition to those 128 programs, there were two queer-inclusive anthology standalone episode shows, Electric Dreams and High Maintenance. Because each queer woman only appeared in one episode each in 2018, they didn’t qualify as R/R. However, it’s worth noting that well over half of High Maintenance‘s episodes included queer characters. Three additional shows had trans women or non-binary characters but no lesbian, bisexual or queer women characters: Pose (five trans women R/Rs), Heathers (one non-binary regular) (and one advertised “black lesbian” who turned out to be straight and also died) and Billions (one non-binary regular).
Some notes on methodology: we got our numbers from the database I built last year and have continued updating this year, which contains entries for every English-language television program to feature LGBQ female characters in all of recorded history. This year, I personally watched 57 of 2018’s queer-inclusive shows, and other team members bring the “Autostraddle saw this show” count to 113. For the rest of the shows in the database, I relied on recaps, reviews from other sites, GLAAD reports, YouTube clips, Wikipedia, show-specific wikis and the LezWatchTV database. There’s some subjectivity in these numbers — I noticed that some of the characters the LezWatchTV database qualified as “recurring” we had as “guest” and vice versa.
Some big differences between last year and this year on the network level:
- The CW more than doubled its count of queer women characters. Now almost all of their original programming has at least one! Thanks Greg Berlanti.
- Hulu also doubled its count, thanks to new shows Light as a Feather, The First and The Bisexual; as well as adding even more queers to Harlots and Marvel’s Runaways.
- Amazon Prime took a major nosedive due to Transparent‘s hiatus and the cancellation of One Mississippi and I Love Dick. Plus, the shows Amazon still earned points for included three queer-coded but not explicitly-queer characters (on Forever and Mrs. Maisel) and two minor characters from The Man In The High Castle.
Another noted change was in genre, as the world begins to notice that in addition to being very dramatic, as a people, we’re also very funny: we showed up in 42 comedies and dramedies this year, up from 28 last year.
Lesbian and Bisexual TV in 2018: Highlights
Here are some of the many programs this year that centered lesbian, queer or bisexual women:
New Shows and New Gays
A whopping 108 of the characters we counted were new this year, and another 22 were existing characters who came out this year. (I’ve got some theories about the appeal of late-in-life lesbian revelation storylines in a culture growing increasingly skeptical of men!)
Jane the Virgin, Riverdale and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend all made the smart choice of turning their assertive strong-minded badass hellions — Petra, Cheryl and Valencia, respectively — into bonafide lady-lovers. All of these moves, but Petra’s specifically, reflected showrunners’ growing awareness of what fans want. Specifically, we would like everybody to be gay. “The wildest thing keeps happening this year on television,” wrote Valerie in March. “Characters I wish were queer keep… being queer.” Even Once Upon a Time finally did some real gay shit before fading into the dark woods forever. Law & Order SVU has yet to do the right thing and Make Olivia Gay, but they did finally introduce a recurring lesbian psychiatrist character. We also correctly predicted who would turn out queer on This is Us, witnessed The Flash giving in to The CW’s gay agenda and with two new queers, and, as per our request in that same “Make It Gay” Roundtable, Doctor Who has a new sexually fluid female doctor and one of the people fighting alongside her is a bisexual Pakistani Muslim woman.
2018 opened with a slate of new queer-inclusive shows that took fresh approaches to familiar genres. The team of first responders in Murphy/Falchuk’s enjoyable (if often ridiculous) procedural 9-1-1 includes Hen, a black lesbian played by Aisha Hinds (married to one of three black lesbian characters played by Tracie Thoms this year!). Black-ish‘s socially conscious college dramedy spin-off, Grown-ish, dropped on Freeform with a bisexual Jewish Nomi Segal in the lead ensemble and Starz debuted Counterpart, a spy thriller with a dreamy masculine-of-center lesbian assassin hiding in dark alleys while wearing a leather jacket. The unfortunately ultimately cancelled Everything Sucks! was a charming, hopeful teen drama set in the ’90s with a lesbian coming-of-age front-and-center. Black Lightning brought us network television’s first lesbian superhero in a grounded CW series with a supernaturally-gifted black family at its center. Then, of course, we have the year’s most-talked-about most-beloved televised experience: Killing Eve, which “subverted every male-centered trope of espionage thrillers.”
Over the summer, G.L.O.W. finally put some homosexuals where its homoeroticism was and Dear White People compensated for a problematic 2017 with Lena Waithe and a cute coming out storyline in 2018. Bisexual badass Sara Lance became the soul of Legends of Tomorrow and got her first post-Arrow woman-on-woman relationship with Ava Lance.
Then autumn came and with it, so many more LGBTQ women than we even expected. And we had some expectations, like the Charmed reboot with a Latinx lesbian lead and Bre-z playing a masc black lesbian in All-American. But there were surprises, too: lesbian Theo was central to Netflix’s buzzy remake of spooky drama The Haunting of Hill House, somehow half the cast of Camping ended up queer by the end and raunchy, delightful and hilarious Derry Girls crossed the ocean and landed upon Netflix just in time for Christmas!
Supernatural and sci-fi has always been a hotbed of queers, existing as it does outside of actual society and its unfortunate ideas about homosexuals and our recreational activities and how the Bible feels about us. That remained true with this year’s new sci-fi shows. Pretty much all of them debuted with gay spirit, including but definitely not limited to Legacies, Siren, The First, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Star Trek Discovery, Krypton, The Innocents, Light as a Feather and Nightflyers.
Getting Real
The most resonant queer stories, the ones that reflect the specific quirks and references and behavior of Our People are often written or, even!!, acted by actual queer people. We lost a lot of those this year (One Mississippi, Sense8, I Love Dick, Take My Wife), but we got some new ones too: Pose didn’t factor in to most of our charts ’cause all the women on it are ostensibly straight (which we really hope changes in Season Two) but it’s clearly the pinnacle of this trend — trans women of color playing trans women of color written by trans women. Pose has changed the landscape entirely and it’s brilliant.
On Hulu, Desiree Akhvan’s The Bisexual gave us a full, thriving ensemble of queer characters, and Akhvan herself noted her program is “the only show on TV where you can watch two Middle Eastern women in a car, talking, taking up the screen with their different bodies and different ethnicities.” Vida was an actual revelation, boasting a diverse writer’s room telling heartfelt, sexy stories set within East Los Angeles’ queer Latinx subculture. Co-creator Katja Blichfeld came out between Seasons One and Two of High Maintenance, and 2018’s stories were thus imbued with even more rapturous affection for contemporary queer culture, with Season Three looking to be more of the same.
Bisexual non-binary writer Rebecca Sugar is behind Steven Universe‘s groundbreaking youth-oriented queer content which continued testing the ground’s ability to be broken with a lesbian wedding episode. Lesbian showrunner Noelle Stevenson delivered a She-Ra reboot that pissed off all the right people. While haters were lamenting the de-sexualized protagonist, Heather applauded the show for its “gender equity, legitimate racial diversity, body diversity, a variety of gender presentations, and so much casual queerness I could hardly believe it.”
Fresh off the Boat, with queer showrunner Nahnatchka Khan, continued delivering resonant storylines for Nicole, and the queer women on One Day at a Time‘s writing team bestowed Elena with non-binary girlfriend Syd. Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Madam Secretary have also earned praise for involving their queer actresses in shaping their queer characters’ storylines and coming out arcs.
What Got a Little Bit Better for Lesbian & Bisexual TV Characters in 2018
More Women of Color — Not Enough, But More
All of the above factors united this year to provide us with more queer characters of color than ever before. “2018!! I don’t know if you’ve felt it yet, but we certainly have,” wrote Carmen this summer. “This is the year where lesbian, bisexual, queer, and trans women of color are taking over your television screens. Not just in terms of volume (though it does feel like more of us are getting our time on screen), but in terms of quality and depth and agency.”
GLAAD found that for the 2018-2019 TV Season, LGBTQ characters of color (50%) actually outpaced white (49%) characters. Our numbers, which looked exclusively at women in the year 2018, weren’t quite that high, but were encouraging nonetheless. The number of Latinx characters more than doubled. As Carmen wrote, “Across almost every platform, some of the best and most beloved performances of the year came from queer Latinx characters.” Black characters were up 36% and Asian/Pacific Islanders by 50%. Indigenous representation went from zero to two, and Middle Eastern characters from four to seven.
Historically, television has preferred its POC characters to date white people. According to our database, only 27% of all romantic situations ever involving QWOC on television included two POC characters, but this year 45% of them did. Notable relationships include Anissa and Grace on Black Lightning, Yolanda and Arthie on G.L.O.W., Kat and Adena on The Bold Type, Emma and Cruz on Vida and Patience and Coop on All-American.
But one trend with respect to POC characters remains troublingly stalwart…
R.I.P.
The campaign that began when Lexa died has been, by all accounts, a resounding success. Showrunners have been made aware: it’s impossible to plead ignorance of the cultural context or potential unconscious bias around killing lesbian characters.
This year’s deaths mainly took place on violent, death-ridden shows, like The Purge, Killing Eve, The Handmaid’s Tale and Condor. It’s hard to take issue with that. But, as the above graphic suggests, it remains profoundly messed up that the few queers television still does feel killing off are almost always black. The Last Ship, The Arrangement, Star and Snowfall win the award for Most Frustrating Lesbian Character Deaths of 2018. You is only exempt from this trophy ’cause the queer woman died in the book it was based on, too. The Purge gets an honorable mention, as discussed here.
What Didn’t Get Better for Lesbian & Bisexual TV Characters in 2018
Masculine-of-Way-Out-In-Centerfield
We got more gender non-confirming lesbian and bisexual characters than we have in years past — and more Latinx butches specifically — but that’s not saying much. Here they are, the very soft and semi-soft and imprisoned butches of television:
Being a masculine-of-center or otherwise gender-non-conforming actor in Hollywood results in a lot of typecasting but, more often, it results in never getting cast at all. So we applaud the few cases in which we’ve got mascs playing mascs: Bre-Z in All-American, Ser Anzoategui in Vida, Vicci Martinez in Orange is the New Black, Samira Wiley in The Handmaid’s Tale (on the very very soft end of this spectrum), Roberta Colindrez in The Deuce, Fortune Feimster in the (swiftly cancelled) Champions, Kate Moennig in Ray Donovan, Sara Ramirez in Madam Secretary, Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher in Take My Wife and Lena Waithe’s guest spot on Dear White People. Lea DeLaria only appeared briefly on our screens this year, grabbing a few seconds of screen time in Orange is the New Black and a few minutes as Lip’s sponsor in Shameless.
What’s particularly interesting is that it seems masculine-of-center women rarely appear as normal civilians. We’ve got five prisoners; one lesbian who just murdered somebody and will therefore be a prisoner if she returns next season; three cops and five characters who are involved, to some degree, with a criminal or otherwise-suspect-underground enterprise. In fact, all but two of the masc characters who are not criminally-adjacent, cops or prisoners, are the ones played by queer actors. In some cases, this might mean the characters only seem masc because of the actors who play them — not because anybody intentionally wrote them that way.
Still, just 25 slightly masculine queer women — including one who’s yet to actually come out — is a paltry percentage, and likely due to Hollywood’s persistent reluctance to cast female actors who are not sexually appealing to cis men.
Following Best Actress Emmy Awards for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Godless, Mariella Mosthof wrote in Into, “Awarding straight, feminine actresses Emmys for playing butch characters in the same year that we’ve seen the devastating cancellations of TV shows that feature butch actors contributes to a problem long suffered by queer performers.” The problem is, of course, “queer actors losing work while straight women ascend to queer roles.” I’d argue another problem is that there’s nobody on set who understands the importance of making these characters openly queer. Alex Borstein is incredible as Susie Myerson, but my heart yearns to see what Julie Goldman could’ve done with the role.
I don’t think gay roles need to be played by gay actors, but much like the situation with trans actors, it’s frustrating to see masculine-of-center and non-binary actors struggle to find work while straight women get haircuts.
Transgender Women: More Please
Pose made 2018 a very big year for trans women of color and is simply revolutionary. It’s incredible. Supergirl broke ground too, with TV’s first trans superhero, Nia Nal, played by trans actress Nicole Maines. Those are only small gains because so much more is deserved.
Without a new season of Transparent, Sophia Bursett and Nomi Marks were the only explicitly queer trans women on television this year, and with Sense8‘s cancellation and Sophia’s early release, it’s unclear if we’ll see either again. The vast majority of trans women on television, whether guest spots or regulars, are straight, despite the fact that 77% of trans people are not straight. Furthermore, as GLAAD wrote in their 2018 report, “in some instances it appears that the series creators and producers haven’t given much thought to the fact that trans people also have sexual orientations.”
Although R/R trans characters remain rare, there is a rising consciousness around the importance of casting trans folks in trans roles and we are seeing slightly more trans women working, in general, even in non-trans-specific roles. Alexandra Billings had a major role in Season Two of Goliath, Hari Nef was in Camping and You and Jen Richards showed up in Take My Wife and Blindspot and will be in Tales of the City next year. There were also some memorable guest spots with trans actresses playing trans roles on shows like Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Doctor.
Still, in the U.S., Jamie Clayton’s Nomi in Sense8 remains the only trans woman regular character played by a trans actress in a relationship with a cis woman regular character. That’s… really bad.
Looking Forward at Lesbian and Bisexual TV
Late last year it felt like every three days there was a new queer woman or revelation on television — Manifest! God Friended Me! The Sinner! Detroiters! American Vandal! Wanderlust! Sally4Ever! Fuller House?!?! — somebody new to plug into the database or with which to update the Fall/Winter TV Preview, and surprisingly few new gay men. Most of the new shows slated for 2019 have new gay or bi male characters, but not so much for the ladies.
In addition to 26 cancellations, there are quite a few shows that were ambiguous structurally regarding a seasonal schedule and have yet to announce additional episodes being shot: Forever, The Bisexual, Camping and Sally4Ever. Of course, YMMV on which of those shows you’d like to see more of.
Next year will unleash a dashing lesbian Batwoman upon us, played by lesbian heartthrob Ruby Rose. She will be the icing atop a multi-layer cake of lesbian and bisexual women showing up on programs focused on highly talented human-shaped creatures who can fly or turn into luminous iridescent visually fluid aliens with waves of rainbow-like light flowing out of their bodies or whatever.
We’re also eager for the Tales of the City reboot from lesbian showrunner Lauren Morelli, starring Ellen Page and Jen Richards. Barbara Garrick is returning to play lesbian character DeDe in a show that dared to portray LGBT relationships before most of you were born. Other great expectations for 2019 include Fosters‘ spinoff Good Trouble, Monica Raymund’s turn as a queer detective in Starz’ Hightown, Lena Waithe and Halle Berry’s Boomerang on BET, and a queer Two-Spirit character on the much-anticipated and tumultuous Season Two of American Gods.
It does seem networks have come to depend on websites like ours to track their inclusivity and promote their efforts, but it bears mentioning that none of these programs ever purchase advertising on our website, Netflix still won’t give us access to screeners or their online press room, and we still often struggle to get interviews. (However — Vida, which not coincidentally has a queer showrunner, gave us tons of access.) Often our heads-ups about upcoming queer-inclusive programs come from friends who work in mainstream media. Online media is a tough business, especially now, and it would be a mistake for networks to continue take our existence for granted or to overlook our ability to reach LGBTQ audiences. If you value us, invest in us.
In conclusion — I said it last year and I’ll say it again this year — with so many white cis men recently fired for misconduct and abuse, the television industry has a major opportunity right now to elevate the voices of women, LGBQ people, trans people and people of color. We’re damn good at telling our own stories, and we’ve got so many left to tell.
28 LGBTQ Women Who Came Out Or Otherwise Revealed Themselves To Us in 2018
Friends, gays, countrywoman, the tides are turning: we are really running low on famous lesbian and bisexual women who haven’t come out yet! I mean, we’ll always have Queen Latifah and I can think of a few Taylors who might have something to add to the conversation. But this year we went nearly four months before anybody famous came out at all, which just turned out to be a prologue to the year’s biggest coming out story (Janelle Monáe). Also FYI many publications are saying Sasha Lane came out in January, but she’s actually been out since 2015!
But here’s what we still have: people realizing they’re gay and then coming out, new stars coming out, people we hadn’t heard of yet coming out, and women continuing to come out by dating Cara Delevingne! There’s also lots of girls who are canoodling suspiciously, who I did not include on this list because I’m saving them for next year when they confirm.
This year, as in last, around half of the women on this list came out on social media — instagram is becoming the most popular platform on which to do so, with twitter rolling up for a close second.
April
Janelle Monáe, 33. Musician and Actress.
After years of speculation / unconfirmed knowledge, our lordess and savior Monáe told Rolling Stone Magazine:
“Being a queer black woman in America — someone who has been in relationships with both men and women — I consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker.”
Deidre Downs Gunn, 38. Doctor and Former Miss America.
via twitter
Gunn, Miss Alabama 2004 and Miss America 2005, married her wife Abbott James at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama this past April, becoming the first Miss America national titleholder to enter a same-sex marriage.
Kehlani, 23. Musician.
Kehlani came out as queer on twitter, saying, “Cuz i keep geddin asked.. i’m queer. Not bi, not straight. i’m attracted to women, men, REALLY attracted to queer men, non binary people, intersex people, trans people. lil poly pansexual papi hello good morning. does that answer your questions?” After some backlash about how she had described people of various genders, she apologized and said she wanted to be corrected when she offended people, thus displaying superhuman ability to withstand the slings and arrows of the queer community.
I felt gay always insisted there was still a line drawn as to which “label” of human i was attracted when i really jus be walking around thinking ERRYBODY FINE .
Ashley Benson, 29. Actress.
Cara Delevingne’s magical lesbian transformer powers touched upon Pretty Little Liars actress Ashley Benson this past April when the two were spotted canoodling in public several times. They have since continued to engage in physical displays of affection and other romantic gestures, because I guess being queer is NBD now so.
Abbi Jacobson, 34 Actress, Writer and Comedian.
After a rumored relationship with Carrie Brownstein and wedging a permanent place in every queer girl’s heart via Broad City, Abbi Jacobson revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that she is single and ready to mingle with both men and women.
I kind of go both ways; I date men and women. They have to be funny, doing something they love. I don’t know—I’ve never really been interviewed about this before.
Alyson Stoner, 25. Actress and Singer.
In an essay for Teen Vogue, Disney starlette Alyson Stoner discussed her journey towards self-acceptance as a woman who is “attracted to men, women and people who identify other ways.” She later broke the internet by printing a childhood school pic of herself on a t-shirt with the words “Most Likely To Be Queer,” which was an inspiration to us all, as was her super-gay music video!
Anne-Marie, 27. Singer.
The UK-based multi-platinum pop star came out as bisexual in an interview with The Line of Best Fit, telling them, “I’ve never ever just been attracted to men. I’ve never just been attracted to women.”
May
Rita Ora, 28. Singer/Songwriter/Actress
via Rita Ora on instagram
The release of Ora’s single “Girls,” produced with Cardi B, Bebe Rexha and Charli XCX, raised a lot of controversy when Hayley Kiyoko criticized it for “marginalizing the idea of women loving other women.” Ora apologized and also came out as being a fan of boys and girls:
“‘Girls’ was written to represent my truth and is an accurate account of a very real and honest experience in my life. I have had romantic relationships with women and men throughout my life and this is my personal journey.”
Cassandra Bankson, 26. Model and YouTuber
via instagram
Bankson, whose videos often discuss skin care and her experiences with uterus didelphys, came out as a lesbian on her YouTube channel in a video entitled “Surprise! I’m Gay! In her video description, she wrote:
“I am who I’ve always been, and I feel so liberated expressing that fully. I can’t thank my friends, family, and YOU for accepting and loving me for exactly who and what I am, even during the times I couldn’t Life is a journey, and I feel so free being able to openly share these other dimensions of myself I’ve previously hidden.”
Lizzie Marvelly, 29. Singer/Songwriter & Political Commentator
via Lizzy Marvelly on Instagram
New Zealand Singer Lizzie Marvelly, who has engaged in activism on issues including the trans bathroom debate, came out when she turned down her LGBTQI Award nomination for Celebrity Ally of the Year. She explained on Instagram:
“I can’t accept the nomination, however, and I feel it’s time that I shared the reason why with you. I am bisexual. He takatāpui au. Over the last few years, I’ve slowly been going through the process of coming out. First, I came out to my friends, then to my family, then to my colleagues, and now I’m coming out to you. I know it’s 2018 and it shouldn’t be a big deal, but honestly, it hasn’t been easy. I didn’t know I was bi until my early 20s.”
June
Jessie Paege, 19. YouTuber.
Paege, the author of the books Think Beyond Pink and Hey, It’s Okay to Be You, came out in a two-part YouTube video. In a follow-up interview with the Advocate, she shared:
I’ve wanted to come out for years now and I kept telling myself I’d do it without actually taking the actions. Once I would actually start coming out, I’d realize how difficult it can be, emotionally, and I’d tell myself “tomorrow.” I started posting a lot more LGBT-related content this month and I think it was a subconscious sign that I really needed to come out.
Tessa Thompson, 35. Actress.
In a cover feature for digital luxury fashion magazine Net-a-Porter, Thompson told the interviewer:
“I can take things for granted because of my family – it’s so free and you can be anything that you want to be. I’m attracted to men and also to women. If I bring a woman home, [or] a man, we don’t even have to have the discussion.”
Amandla Stenberg, 20. Actress.
Stenberg came out as bisexual in Teen Vogue back in January of 2016, but stepped forward to revise her former orientation this past June. In an interview with her girlfriend King Princess for Wonderland Magazine:
I had a few big Gay Sob moments when I realised I was gay. One might assume that they were mournful sobs, but actually quite the opposite in my lived experience. They were joyful and overwhelmed sobs – socialisation is a bitch and a half and kept me from understanding and living my truth for a while. I was so overcome with this profound sense of relief when I realised that I’m gay – not bi, not pan, but gay – with a romantic love for women. All of the things that felt so internally contrary to my truest self were rectified as I unravelled a long web of denial and self deprivation.
Hennessy Carolina, 22. Influencer.
via instagram
Carolina, who is Cardi B’s sister, came out on instagram by posting a picture of herself kissing her wife in Paris. Her caption was in response to the backlash over the song “Girls.”
If you can’t accept the B In (L)LGBTQ..(L)lesbian(G)ay(B)BISEXUAL(T)transgender (Q)ueer, then please don’t speak up for the community if you can’t fully understand ALL of us! A bisexual girl expressing that she sometimes likes to kiss and hook up with girls especially when she gets a little loose when she drinks wine, Sounds human and normal to me!
July
Paris Jackson, 22. Model.
Back in April 2017, Stef published, “Maybe Paris Jackson Is Bisexual Perhaps, Who’s To Say.” This is definitely why the daughter of legendary pop star Michael Jackson already considered herself to be “out” when she told fans in an instagram interview that she is bisexual, although it’s not the word she’d choose for herself: “That’s what you guys call it so I guess, but who needs labels.” When her “coming out” made headlines, Jackson insisted that this “is not news,” adding on twitter, “Like how many pictures are there with me kissing females?????? Jesus I can count pics of at least 4 different girls that were leaked in the past 6 years. WHY IS THIS A THING?” [The reason is that APPARENTLY much to our collective chagrin, a picture of a girl kissing another girl is not necessarily evidence of them “coming out,” as I was informed when I tried to make Aisha Tyler Bisexual happen.]
Emily Tarver, 36. Actress, Comedian and Singer.
Everyone fell in love with Vicci Martinez all over again when she showed up on the most recent season of Orange is the New Black and one lucky Orange is the New Black cast member fell in love with her for the first time and then realized she was queer! Isn’t that great.
August
Rina Sawayama, 28. Singer.
via instagram
The British-Japanese pop sensation talked about being pansexual in an interview with Broadly, in which she also pointed out that all her songs have been about girls. “For me there’s still a lack of representation,” she told Broadly. “I just think the reason I wasn’t so comfortable with my sexuality was because there was no one on TV or anywhere that I could point to and go, ‘Look mom! This person is what I was talking about!”
Josie Totah, 17. Actress.
via @josietotah
In a powerful essay in Time Magazine, the Glee and Champions actress came out as transgender, writing:
“…I realized over the past few years that hiding my true self is not healthy. I know now, more than ever, that I’m finally ready to take this step toward becoming myself. I’m ready to be free. So, listen up y’all: You can jump on or jump off. Either way this is where I’m heading.”
September
Brigette Lundy-Paine, 24. Actress.
In the second season of Atypical, Brigette Lundy-Paine’s character Casey comes out as queer — and Brigette did the same on the brink of its debut in an interview with The Advocate. Talking about Sam, the autistic character at the center of Atypical, Brigette said:
“Sam feels like a deep part of myself that I am only now beginning to let out: the insecurities and the complete confusion with the system and the rules that have been laid out for him.”
Andrea Russett, 23. Actress and Social Media Star.
Social media star and actress Andrea Russett came out on twitter, talking about her experiences coming out as bisexual to her friend Sandra — with whom she shared a “very close, very public friendship” — who turned out to be homophobic. She wrote:
“To anyone who is struggling with anything similar in their life, you are not alone. You are not any less of a person because of who you may choose to love. How you make others feel about themselves says a lot about you. Love is love.”
October
Karina Manta, 22. Ice Dancer.
via @karinamanta
Manta became the first female figure skater to compete on behalf of Team USA to come out when she came out as bisexual by posting a video on instagram with her cute girlfriend Aleena. “Thank you for waiting through every conversation that I’ve referred to you as my best friend,” she told Aleena in the video. “Not because you aren’t my best friend, but because I’ve had to swallow the words ‘my love, my love, my love’ each time instead.”
Anna Akana, 29. Actress and YouTuber.
While accepting her Drama Streamy Award for her work on the YouTube show Youth & Consequences, Akana, who played a queer role in Stitchers, stressed the importance of voting in the upcoming midterm elections, saying it was important to her both as a queer woman and as a woman of color. “I guess I came out on the Streamys,” she tweeted afterwards.
Daya, Pop Singer, 19
Pop singer Daya celebrated Coming Out Day the traditional way: she came out as bisexual and revealed that she’s in a relationship with another woman. On instagram she declared:
“One day late but happy 1st national coming out day to me! What a crazy thing!.. All I gotta say is follow your gut and don’t feel like you owe any sort of explanation to anyone. Your sexuality is yours only so build with it at a pace that works for you.”
Donna Missal, 28. Singer.
via @donnamissal
“My style and fluid preference has no intention of diminishing gay culture but rather embracing and celebrating it sis,” she wrote on instragram. “I’m not playing dress up and being with a man doesn’t make me less bi read: it’s not a phase :)”
Betty Who, 27. Singer.
The pop musician, who has long courted a gay fan base, came out on instagram after being asked by a fan about if she ever felt it was exploitative to be a straight woman in a room full of gays. Her response included the following revelation:
“Not that I should have to justify myself to you or anyone, but I have been in relationships with both men and women. I have been deeply, earth shatteringly in love with both men and women. Just because I happen to be engaged to a man doesn’t mean that I haven’t found a home within the gay community.”
November
R.O. Kwon, 35. Author
via ro-kwon.com, photo by Smeeta Mahanti
Bestselling author of The Incendiaries, R.O. Kwon, came out as bisexual on Twitter, inspiring a wave of even more love for this human who we already loved so much!
Hi, all, I’m bisexual. Haven’t really talked publicly about it, I think in part because I married my first boyfriend, & in part because this could be hard on my parents & family. But there aren’t many publicly queer Korean American writers, & I just want to say hi, we’re here.
December
Mel Reid, 31. Golfer.
In an interview with Athlete Ally, 6-time Ladies European Tour winner and LPGA Golfer Mel Reid revealed that she’d initially kept her gayness quiet from the media because she thought it’d influence her ability to get sponsors, adding:
“Then I started to wonder why these companies would want to sponsor me and have me represent them if I can’t be my authentic self. There is only one of you in the world and you have one life, so be the best version of yourself and be proud of who you are. That’s when you attract the right people around you to make you better, and ultimately, happier.”
Your 2018 Gal Pal Roundup: The 8 Couples(?!) Who Won 20GayTeen
Guys! What a year! I don’t know about you, but I went on TWO WHOLE DATES in 2018! (This is bullshit, please come at me, 2019.) Instead, I spent the majority of my free time pouring over the love lives of a bunch of rich and famous people I don’t actually know! Please join me on this vicarious journey through other people’s relationships!!!
Ellen Page & Emma Portner
Honestly, I feel like this year has aged me approximately 10,000 years, but it believe it or not it was only January 3rd when we first reported the marriage of Ellen Page and her very flexible new wife! Since then they’ve smiled together in a lot of Instagrams and made a Christmas soup.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrwDiS3BPlb/
Sarah Paulson & Holland Taylor
In dark times, Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor have reminded me that love is (maybe) real. When they tweet adoringly, I swear I can hear the sound of woodland creatures singing.
*gasp*
Sweetheart.
— Holland Taylor (@HollandTaylor) August 18, 2018
Cara Delevingne + Paris Jackson
Listen, I know that Cara is (most likely) dating Ashley Benson these days, and Paris Jackson swears up and down that she and Cara never had any kind of monogamous situation in place. Still, the photos/video of Cara and Paris dancing outside a restaurant, while a bemused Macaulay Culkin watches on, remain one of my favorite visuals in this sizzling trash heap of a year. This video is to 2018 as that footage of Miley Cyrus groping Stella Maxwell in the parking lot of a steakhouse was to 2015.
YOU’RE WELCOME.
Hayley Kiyoko + That Girl She Turned Gay
The power of Lesbian Eye Contact cannot be denied.
https://twitter.com/vannyhearts/status/985284390136590336
Emily Hampshire & Teddy Geiger
These two lovebirds seem to treat their entire social media presence as one giant multimedia love letter to one another, and it’s goddamn adorable. They only confirmed their relationship to the internet at large in mid-August, and already they were engaged in November. Since then, they haven’t stopped staring at one another, and I for one am extremely here for it.
Rutina Wesley & Chef Shonda
My favorite thing about these two is how clearly over-the-moon-in-love Rutina is, and how much she GUSHES about it on Instagram. They got friggin’ ENGAGED at the very tail end of 2017, so I’m including them on this list. I’m primed and ready for many pictures of their goofy smiles in years to come.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbQP0VygM6g/?utm_source=ig_embed
Kristen Stewart & Whatsherface
Kristen Stewart is perhaps the most important jewel in the Vapid Fluff universe. Not a day goes by that I don’t search the wild internet for freshly harvested pictures of her walking grumpily around Los Feliz with a latte. Can you believe she spent nearly two years dating international supermodel Stella Maxwell and I still wouldn’t recognize that girl if I tripped over her on the street????
Anyway, over the last week and a half, Kristen’s been spotted walking dogs and picking up to-go juices with a Los Angeles-based stylist named Sara Dinkin, so I guess that’s her girlfriend now! Whoever Kristen Stewart is dating, it will always be news. I hope these two eat so many salads together, in front of so many photographers!!!
Oh cool, juice! I LOVE juice!!!!!
Janelle Monáe + Tessa Thompson
Are they or aren’t they? Were they or weren’t they? Would they tell us if they were? Or if they weren’t? Or if they had been? At this point it honestly doesn’t matter if these two were best friends or a couple. Their alleged romantic dalliances captivated us all year long and we covered them exhaustively.
Janelle officially came out! Tessa officially came out! This year Janelle blessed us with the “Make Me Feel” video, captivating audiences and contributing to the popularity of bisexual lighting. Just when we thought things couldn’t get any gayer, the “Pynk” video happened to us and taught us how two very good friends can enjoy each other’s company while wearing vagina pants.
Even if they’ve broken up, or even if they were never actually together to begin with (they SO were), Tessa Thompson and Janelle Monáe reign supreme as Most Important Gal Pals of 2018.
It’s so nice you ladies are such good friends!!!!!
Tessa, play us off with that song Janelle wrote for you that one time.
20 of the Best Personal Essays on Autostraddle in 2018
2018 was a year in which many things seemed unstable and the world felt like it was constantly shifting under our feet; it was reassuring to have the constant of queer people willing to share their most precious and complicated selves through writing with the rest of us. We published a lot of incredible personal writing this year, and our 2018 themed issues Bad Behavior and But Make It Fashion brought us a lot of new writers and new writing. We’re proud of everything we published this year and the writers who published with us. Here are 20 pieces from 2018 we think stand out in particular.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/on-loving-butch-women-and-flyover-country-409738/
This essay gets so beautifully at the ways our queerness and how we relate to it (or other queer people) is inseparable from who we are and where we come from — in this case the land, our dads good and bad, and our complicated histories.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/migration-season-418428/
“Before I lose you entirely, let me lay down the basic difference between birding, and birdwatching.” You might think that an essay about birding isn’t going to work its way inside you and live there. I would invite you to find out you’re wrong.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/every-trans-girl-i-meet-is-from-the-future-422046/
One of the most lyric pieces we published this year, the language and images here will leave you stunned for days. It’s an exploration of the complicated and vital sisterhood between trans women, and how “love becomes familiar in these liminal encounters,” the “long lost aunts and cousins and grandmothers and sis’s, time-travelling girls who have initiated the Butterfly Effect.”
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/cravings-426352/
It’s hard to describe what this essay is about — different places that become home, the way we rely on food for constancy and comfort when those things are threatened elsewhere, but maybe most of all about the feeling of washing dishes and having the girl kiss your neck as she walks behind you.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/butch-slut-428354/
This essay is so thoughtful and engaging in the stakes it brings to thinking about presentation and how presentation impacts existing, moving through the world in and fucking with a body. Also, it’s really sexy! Truly something for everyone here.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/stories-about-beyonce-that-are-really-about-the-first-girl-i-ever-loved-441309/
It’s not enough to say that this will break your heart and put it back together again, but it’s true. So many of us grew up alongside Beyoncé and grew up with her music; Carmen had her first love and her first heartbreak to Beyoncé very literally, and the story of her falling and rising afterward is so worth your while.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/raising-baby-t-rex-my-mom-says-were-exactly-the-same-407974/
I think we’ve all admired KaeLyn’s transparency and vulnerability about the process of becoming a parent. This essay brings that same honesty to parenting itself, and all the things she wasn’t expecting as an adult adoptee who’s now a parent.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/like-rabbits-425535/
This year we published some really incredible personal pieces that use visual storytelling in one way or another to explore a story, and this essay really stands out as one of them. It’s deeply affecting for any queer person who’s thought about what their family might look like, and the illustrations are both sweet and haunting.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/the-sociopath-who-loved-me-enough-428585/
Sometimes a piece comes through in submissions that sparks an immediate conversation among the editors, making sure we’ve all read it right away so we can talk about it. This was one of them. It’s unforgiving and unforgettable in the best way.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/femme-fashion-is-queer-fashion-438475/
Reneice writes so beautifully and incisively here about how painful femme invisibility can be — how at its core, the pressure she felt to present more “visibly queer” was pressure to “alter my body solely because I’d been convinced I wasn’t enough” — and the power she found in actively owning her style and presentation.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/how-i-learned-to-tie-a-tie-without-my-dad-436706/
This was so moving when Audrey read it at camp, and continues to be so now — it does incredible work illustrating the power in the relationship between our clothes and our bodies and our histories, and why these matter so much to queer and trans people.
These Shirts
I don’t know if Laneia thinks of these as personal essays, but not including them here would feel criminal. This series is one of the most special and unforgettable things we’ve done this year and also ever. The fragments of shared history tied in with These Shirts are exactly what Laneia does better than anyone on earth, turning what in anyone else’s hands would feel mundane into something transcendent and piercing.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/willie-and-waylon-made-me-a-lesbian-427171/
Part of what got explored in our Bad Behavior issue were the implications of who “gets” to be “bad” — what behavior becomes “bad” depending on who’s doing it. What happens when a teenage girl takes on the foibles and flaws of a cowboys, “people who are difficult to love and refuse to commit, people who give their loved ones songs instead of expensive gifts, people who are misunderstood and prone to die early or disappear in other ways, people who love dingy barrooms as much as they love wide-open spaces, people who know they’re right but are too proud to waste any time trying to prove it?”
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/the-nothing-between-your-legs-429450/
Questions of gender, body and self are complicated, and this essay beautifully refuses to attempt to answer them, but instead takes us on a journey through vignettes that explore and expand into the present.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/something-wild-427010/
There’s breaking rules handed down to you by culture or community norms, then there’s breaking commitments you’ve made to yourself and to others, like promising to love them most and then failing. This is a heartbreaking, beautifully honest piece about what happens when finding the love you deserve means breaking somebody else’s heart.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/how-bad-girls-made-a-good-girl-gay-427903/
I am never more in awe of the breadth and depth of Heather Hogan’s talents and generosity than when she writes a personal essay like this: unsparing but also endlessly compassionate, looking at difficult experiences clearly but with tenderness. This essay from Heather in particular can only be described as a gift, and an exploration of what a gift it can be to give up on the ideal of goodness.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/i-used-to-break-into-houses-426999/
One of the first pieces published in our Bad Behavior issue, this essay on breaking rules and literally breaking into houses got to the heart of so much of what that issue was about: “existing incorrectly, but damn it, I was there.”
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/a-love-letter-to-butch-people-that-is-accidentally-about-my-dad-421668/
Al read this piece out loud at A-Camp X and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It’s a really resonant meditation on the ways that our relationship as LGBT people to cis patriarchal masculinity ultimately impacts (and is healed by) our relationship to queer masculinity.
https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/lyings-the-most-fun-a-girl-can-have/
This essay feels like the best explanation for why A+ exists; it’s deeply personal and involves a level of trust and intimacy that it would be difficult to imagine granting to the entire internet. It’s the kind of generous, expansive work that diehard Autostraddle (and Autowin) readers would appreciate in a way that no one else ever can. It’s also a precious piece of Riese’s brain and heart, and as you would expect, it’s something you’ll carry with you for a long time.
11 of the Best Dressed LGBT Celebs in 2018
It’s been a wild year for gay pop culture, and a great year for some very well dressed queers. While this is objectively great, style and taste are subjectively determined; that’s how we got to this very subjective but deeply felt top 10 11 as based on an internal Autostraddle staff survey.
11. Hayley Kiyoko
Honestly we were gonna do top 10 but voting led us here and we CANNOT close #20GAYTEEN without honoring the one who started it all. Our lord and savior lesbian Jesus, gifted us look after look, video after video of endless fits, color, pattern, and boldness; inspired style thiefs and bras as tops. Hayley’s style is vast, and mutable and she moves in that spectrum because she owns it like no one else.
10. Amandla Stendberg
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrB5N95FtIV/
Literally what can Amandla not pull off? That Sagittarius moon was shining all through 2018! From calculated and elegant pieces carefully put together to carefree and dynamic fits showing color and boldness — Amandla’s style really showed her growing more and more into herself this year and that makes me so excited for what they’ll bring in the future.
9. Indya Moore
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bjv8_mWAKgf/
What a breakout year it’s been for Indya Moore. From her amazing fits as Angel on Pose (we all remember that pink fuzzy jacket?) to her radiant IRL looks on the red carpet PLUS cute selfies on Twitter, Indya’s style is brilliant and real.
8. Kiersey Clemons
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlQzeKxnm-v/
You know when people are like “no one wakes up like that?” I really, truly believe Kiersey does. From hats and tshirts to elegant gowns back to sports bras and sweatpants, she is literally never out of style and I’m ABSOLUTELY still not over this look, THANKS.
7. Janet Mock
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrGAuBDF_JX/
I just wanna say that Writer looked really good on Janet Mock to begin with but she continues to out-style herself, because Director and Producer look REALLY fucking good also. She blessed us with some serious business mommi this year and I cannot wait to see what 2019 brings.
6. Jasika Nicole
She not only continues to wear cute (handmade!) dresses and knows perfectly how to combine colors and keep it fresh but consistent; she also conquers the perfect balance between soft vintage motifs AND slick and modern aesthetics. And did you miss that she also makes a lot of these clothes? I am CONVINCED absolutely NO ONE looked better in a jumpsuit or wide leg pant in 2018 than Jasika Nicole, thank you for coming to my TED talk.
5. Samira Wiley
I mean, she breaks everyone’s heart no matter what she wears, and truth is everything she wears is on point. From understanding color and CUT to pull off red carpet looks one after another to the boyish California edge of a simple tee and snapback, Samira killed it in 2018 just like she did every year prior.
4. Tessa Thompson
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqIJ0vIhq2B/
Tessa, the gift that keeps on giving — what a busy year she’s had! She didn’t just like serve looks in the 55 movies she did in 2018, she also did IRL and on the red carpet. If Jasika won best jumpsuit/wide leg pant award, absolutely no one looked better in green in 2018 than Tessa Thompson. Honorary mention to her role/look in the PYNK video with same-frequency pal Janelle Monáe. Loved this journey for them.
3. Sara Ramirez
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrOezl_gBuT/
THRILLED Sara made it to the top three. The Latinx style icon we all deserve, she blessed us every week with her Kate Sandoval style posts, particularly killing it in the boot and sock department (in my humble opinion). Later in the year because she clearly didn’t think that was enough and started serving some woke bae looks while never being caught with an off-week haircut. Excited for where the boot collection takes us next year.
2. Lena Waithe
How do I even begin to speak about Lena Waithe? It took me a WHILE to pick a photo for this because the thing is just endless you know what i mean? Hair on point, shoes, on point, fit on point, no one looks better in a hoodie, no one looks better with a snapback, and I SURE KNOW no one looks better in a rainbow fucking cape. When Lena’s cover for Vanity fair came out I went around the whole damn city to find a copy. When she buzzed her hair, I buzzed my hair. Lena Waithe is my personal Regina George, kinder but equally iconic. If she punched me in the face I would for sure be grateful. Lena Waithe wasn’t just one of the best dressed celebs of the year, she’s crowned herself as a style icon and she made sure WE ALL KNEW IT.
1. Janelle Monáe
https://www.instagram.com/p/BinEaCbBJnU/
Let’s not act like we didn’t see this coming. Anybody who didn’t see this coming is BLIND. As resident fire sign I am SO happy and GRATEFUL the crown for best dressed celeb of the year is given to a Sagittarius. Janelle represents the best of the sign; her style is just another avenue where she explores her endless creativity and imagination. Honoring both the past and the present, her arrow always looking ahead. Her style this year showed more than ever that perfect balance between the spontaneity and youth of her boldness and the carefulness, intentionality and heart of her soul. Janelle has always been a style icon, and this year she established herself even more. Whether it was her red carpet looks or video visions inspiring us to dress up for her concerts, she’s been a style icon all of 2018. I cannot wait to see what ride she will take us next year, because she’s never going to stop surprising us.
20 of the Best LGBTQ Graphic Novels of 2018
From memoirs to how-to’s to love stories to sports to space, 2018 was another brilliant year for graphic novels written by queer people about queer people. Below are 20 of our favorites.
A Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns, by Archie Bongiovanni and Tristan Jimerson
Archie and Tristan’s easy-to-understand guide is accessible for people who are new to the idea of pronouns outside the binary, while being fun and affirming for people who’ve been living there their whole lives.
Bingo Love, by Tee Franklin
A love story for the ages! Two women who fell for each other as teens, but couldn’t be together because of the time and place, meet over bingo in their later years and find their connection as strong as ever.
The Legend of Korra Turf Wars: Parts Two and Three, by Michael Dante DiMartino (Author), Irene Koh (Illustrator), Vivian Ng (Illustrator)
If watching Korra and Asami hold hands and walk off into the sunset together was only the beginning for you, you’ll love Turf Wars. They continue to kick ass and have a very canonical on-paper love life.
On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden
Another mesmerizing collection from Tillie Walden weaves together two timelines and explores queer love, chosen family, and literal space as a ragtag spaceship crew rebuilds literal pieces of the past way out in the universe to try to understand their present.
The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang
A prince who keeps up appearances during the day and secretly delights the nightlife crowds at the dawn of Paris’ modern age by showcasing the dresses made by his best friend Frances at night. A fairy tale like you’ve never read before.
Moonstruck Volume 1: Magic to Brew, by by Grace Ellis (Author), Shae Beagle (Artist), Kate Leth (Artist)
It starts with a werewolf barista who takes her girlfriend to a magic show where one of their other friends gets cursed! A hilarious, deeply imagined, gay gay gay romp crafted by a trifecta of your faves.
My Two Lesbian Ants, by Lisa Franklin
Just a couple of gay ants dating, mourning the loss of One Mississippi, going to therapy, and processing while they work-work-work out in the wide world.
Girl Town, by Carolyn Nowak
A collection of queer stories that are full of life and wonder, snappy and witty dialogue, and a deep understanding that there’s nothing in the world like the connection of women.
Woman World, by Aminder Dhaliwal
The print edition of Woman World collects Aminder Dhaliwal’s beloved webcomic into one glorious tome. The premise: A birth defect wipes out a planet’s entire population of men and the women are left to reorganize, rebuild, and repopulate. Full of pop culture references, feminist philosophy, and skewering dialogue.
Pinky & Pepper Forever, by Ivy Atoms
If you’re a recovering Christian, you will be delighted by Ivy Atoms’ dark comic about a devoted girlfriend (Pepper) who follows her dead girlfriend (Pinky) into hell and is shocked to find that she’s a superstar in the eternal abyss. The official book description describes it as full of “gay Catholic guilt.” But hilariously so!
Heavy Vinyl: Riot on the Radio, by Carly Usdin (Author), Nina Vakueva (Illustrator)
If want a long-haired soft butch working in a record store in New Jersey in 1998 who gets recruited into a girl gang to fight the patriarchy, look no further than Carly Usdin’s Heavy Vinyl. It’s whip-smart, action-packed, hilarious, and full of more ’90s pop culture references and tributes than you can catch on one reading.
The Hidden Witch, by Molly Ostertag
The other boys in Aster’s family are shapeshifters, but he’s got a talent for witchery, which he hones by training with his grandmother. His non-magical best friend, Charlie, is trying to outrun a curse. Together they fight to save the world while finding out more about who they really are.
Crossplay, by Niki Smith
Smut Peddler cartoonist Niki Smith’s first erotic graphic novel is a journey of self-discovery, self-acceptance, and self-love through the freedom of cosplay.
Lumberjanes Vol. 9, by Kat Leyh and Carolyn Nowak
Oh you know, just your standard roller derby match between our beloved Roanokes and the sasquatches to win back their treehouse while not disrupting the camp’s power flow and melting all the ice cream!
Lost Soul, Be at Peace, by Maggie Thrash
Maggie Thrash follows up her critically acclaimed graphic novel, Honor Girl, with a memoir abut her teenage battle with depression. It’s real and raw and full of small triumphs and hope.
Forward, by Lisa Maas
One woman mourning the loss of her wife, another nursing a year-old broken heart. A meet-cute. A queer rom-com, but something much deeper too. An exploration of desire and grief and the power of healing love.
Kim Reaper Vol. 1: Grim Beginnings, by Sara Graley
Kim Reaper works part time as a grim reaper, guiding souls to the afterlife. Becka doesn’t know that, though. All she knows is she’s got a crush on Kim. When she accidentally falls through a portal to the underworld, she disrupts Kim’s job and the ghoulish balance of power, forcing them to work together to fight off wacky enemies while confronting their big gay feelings for each other.
Lara Croft Was My Family, by Carta Minor
Carta Minor’s bio webcomic explores her childhood relationship with her family, and how she grew to understand more about them and their dynamic as she watched them relate to the Lara Croft character they gathered ’round to watch her play on her Nintendo.
Love Letters to Jane’s World, by Paige Braddock
Love Letters to Jane’s World collects Paige Braddock’s favorite strips from her revolutionary, groundbreaking, long-running webcomic, which ended just this year. A must-have for any queer comics historian.
Roadqueen: Eternal Road Trip to Love, by Mira Ong Chua
Mira Ong Chua’s first full-length graphic novel is a lesbian rom-com revenge story about a Princess Andromeda Academy senior named Leo who loves her bike, Bethany, way more than any of the many, many girls who have crushes on her. The girl who finally steals Bethany’s heart also steals her bike, and she is determined to get both of them back.
We’d love to hear your can’t-miss graphic novels in the comments!
2018’s 30 Best TV Episodes Featuring LGBTQ Women
This is it! Our final TV list of 2018! Thus far, Riese opined on the 25 best TV shows of 2018 with LGBTQ women. Our TV Team weighed in on our favorite and least favorite characters of the year. I ran down our favorite lesbian and bisexual couples. I made you a list of best feminist movies that weren’t explicitly gay. And I made you a list of best queer films.
Now it’s time to talk about the best TV episodes featuring LGBTQ women! “Best,” of course, is always subjective. There’s no objectivity in art. To accomodate a broad range of opinions, I asked our TV Team to join me in ranking each of the episodes below on a scale of one to five in the following categories: queer representation, episode quality, entertainment value, and overall show diversity. Then I did some math, and these are our rankings.
We look forward to hearing about your favorite TV episodes of 2018 in the comments!
30. Adventure Time, “The Ultimate Adventure: Come Along With Me”
The Adventure Time series finale saw Marceline and Princess Bubblegum finally kiss on screen and settle into their happily ever after.
29. BoJack Horseman, “INT. SUB”
In one of the best episodes BoJack Horseman‘s fifth season, the show reframes all the characters through the lens of a a lesbian couple — played by Issa Rae and Wanda Sykes — who happen to know everyone because of their careers as a therapist and mediator.
28. High Maintenance, “Scromple”
The melancholic “Scromple” finds Julia by The Guy’s side in the hospital, after the revelation that he’s still on her health insurance because they’re still married. The episode juxtaposes the ease of Gwen’s camaraderie with her ex-partner and the strained state of her relationship with her new partner, Gwen, who thinks she’s not herself when she’s high and who hasn’t had sex with her in three months. It’s sweet and melancholic and maybe even a game-changer.
27. Grey’s Anatomy, “All of Me”
Arizona Robbins said goodbye to Grey’s Anatomy after 224 episodes, making her the longest-running lesbian character in primetime TV history. She departed Seattle for New York City and a chance at rekindled love with Callie.
26. Madam Secretary, “Refuge”
Sara Ramirez played Kat Sandoval’s coming out episode pitch-perfectly, and in doing so Kat became one of the only bisexual butches on television.
25. All American, “All We Got”
Bre-Z has absolutely delighted as Coop in All American’s first season. In “All We Got,” the show explores her blossoming relationship with Patience and the shame both of them are hanging onto because they live with families that don’t fully accept them.
24. Riverdale, “The Hills Have Eyes”
After a whole lot of speculation and fan anticipation, Cheryl Blossom finally came out on Riverdale — and began her romance with bisexual badass Toni Topaz. Turns out Cheryl was never in denial about her sexuality; her mother had forced her not to acknowledge it.
23. Legends of Tomorrow, “Wet Hot American Bummer”
Sara and Ava tag-team as co-counselors at a summer camp to explore a missing children mystery. Along the way, Sara relives some of her youth as a now grown-up queer adult and Ava gets to experience a youth she never had.
22. The Bold Type, “Feminist Army”
Kat and Adena’s relationship took a nosedive in The Bold Type‘s second season, but before all that happened Kat came to terms with some of her own shame and fears around sex and answered Adena’s very public worry that Kat wouldn’t go down on her. They really came together (ahem) before they fell apart.
21. Wynonna Earp, “Jolene”
In “Jolene,” Wynonna Earp finally answered a question it’d been asking for a long time: Who exactly is Waverly Earp? Well, a literal angel, of course. The way she found out was by facing down a Zoie Palmer-shaped devil.
20. Everything Sucks, “Sometimes I Hear My Voice”
Like so many lesbians in the ’90s, Kate Messner found her voice listening to Tori Amos’ voice. And at her first Tori Amos concert, she saw two girls kissing for the first time and found out a whole other thing about herself.
19. Black Lightning, “Black Jesus”
I’ll just let Carmen Phillips tell you about this one: “The black lesbian superhero saved her bisexual Asian-American girlfriend. It’s the fantastical fairy tale I would have never felt brave enough to dream for myself. Not as a child, and as much as I hate to admit it out loud, not even now, as an adult. Still, here it is.”
18. The Good Place, “The Ballad of Donkey Doug”
The Good Place had been hinting at Eleanor’s bisexuality for a long time, but only in relation to Tahani. In “The Ballad of Donkey Doug,” her attraction to other women finally played out on-screen when she found herself accidentally seducing Simone inside a simulation where she was supposed to be breaking up with her on Chidi’s behalf.
17. 9-1-1, “Hen Begins”
In 9-1-1′s second season, Hen finally got her own episode! The Henrietta Wilson Origin Story! She remembers the first time she met Chimney and Athena, and all the things that led her to becoming the paramedic and firefighter she is today.
16. This Is Us, “The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning”‘
Tess became one of the youngest characters to ever come out on TV on this year’s midseason finale of This Is Us. After playing a cute kid for two seasons, Eris Baker turned in a stunning performance, capturing all the complicated emotions of Tess’ decision to reveal that she’s gay.
15. Haunting of Hill House, “Touch”
Valerie Anne’s got you on this one: “Each Crain sibling gets their own episode; ‘Touch’ was child psychologist and literal empath Theo Crain’s. It flashes back and forth between her childhood, when she first learned she could sense more through touch than most people, and present-day, where she uses her touch on what her sister calls a ‘pussy parade’ to and from her bedroom.”
14. Charmed, “Pilot”
When we found out CW’s Charmed reboot would feature three Latina sisters, we were hyped. When we found out one of them would be an out-and-proud lesbian we were stunned. The reboot pilot placed Mel’s sexuality and her feminism front and center, paired perfectly with her badassery.
13. Killing Eve, “I Have a Thing About Bathrooms”
You know how every time someone mentions Killing Eve being queer, they show you that screencap of Villanelle pinning Eve against the refrigerator with her own knife at her throat? This is that episode — the one where the show started paying off on its wicked, twisty promises.
12. The Fosters, “Where The Heart Is”
It was hard to say goodbye to our all-time favorite lesbian TV mamas, but The Fosters sent Stef and Lena off with a renewed commitment to each other and their relationship and the promise of some uninterrupted evenings of marital bliss (at long last!).
11. G.L.O.W., “The Good Twin”
G.L.O.W. came through with legit queerness in its second season. In “The Good Twin” we got to see Yolanda as the Fred Astaire to Arthie’s Ginger Rogers, as both of them finally start giving in to their feelings for one another.
10. Marvel’s Runaways, “Metamorphosis”
Fans of Runaways comics were eager to see Karolina and Nico’s romance play out onscreen. In episode six, their slow burn really ignited as they got ready to go out together (but not together-together), sharing a mirror and lipstick and hairplay and such longing lesbian glances.
9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, “Jake and Amy”
As if Rosa Diaz’s coming out wasn’t perfect enough, her first woman love interest was played by Gina Rodriguez (who scored the role after an intense fan campaign, led by Gina herself) in the sixth season finale of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I confess, Jake and Amy’s wedding made me swoon, but not as much as the intense love eyes coming off Rosa.
8. She-Ra: Princesses of Power, “Princess Prom”
“Princess Prom” took She-Ra‘s queerness from subtext to maintext; not just with Catra and Adora (see above), but with all the characters who showed up to the Princess Prom in varying gender presentations dancing unabashedly with characters of all genders. But also yes, with Catra and Adora, who spent half the episode clutching at and pinning each other against things.
7. Jane the Virgin, “Chapter Seventy-Four”
Jane Ramos awakened Petra’s bisexuality, and Petra finally gave into it, in “Chapter Seventy-Four.” Petra’s sex dream led to some real life action and one of the most romantic, in-character coming out arcs we’ve seen in a long time.
6. Claws, “Scream”
“Scream” is the perfect title for the first Ann-centric episode of Claws. She may be quiet, she muses (that is, after all, how she got her nickname), but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a voice. “Scream” explores all of her relationships, and the way people choose (or choose not) to hear her.
5. Steven Universe, “Reunited”
Steven Universe broke more ground in 2018 by putting on the first queer wedding for all-ages TV. Ruby and Sapphire said I do, but that wasn’t all — they also joined forces with all the other Gems to fight to save the Cluster. You’d be hard pressed to find a more romantic, action-packed, emotionally satisfying episode of TV in 2018.
4. The Bisexual, “Episode 4”
Episode 4 of “The Bisexual” deals with the fallout of Sadie finding out that Leila — who she thought was a lesbian — is sleeping with a man. It also examines the generational differences of sexual fluidity and features a dramatic group confrontation that’s as real as anything you ever saw on The L Word.
3. Vida, “Episode 3”
The sexiest half hour of TV in 2018? Quite possibly. And revolutionary too, as Carmen noted in her recap: “It’s about saying that [Latinx] love, our sex, our sticky sweat is valid. It’s about fighting tooth and nail for pleasure in a world that would rather us be criminalized for waking up in the morning.”
2. Pose, “Love Is the Message”
Patty and Angel’s confrontation on “Love Is the Message” is a microcosm of the fight trans people are still having in every area of their life, every day. “Everything I can’t have in this world is because of what I have down there,” Angel explains to the cis woman married to the man she’s sleeping with. “If you really want to know who I am, that is the last place you should look.” Pose makes good on that challenge, showcasing the fullness of humanity in all of its trans characters.
1. One Day at a Time, “What Happened”
There are plenty of tear-jerking scenes to choose from in the first two seasons of One Day at a Time, but one of the most moving of the entire series is Elena’s confrontation with her father, who bailed on her quinceañera and still refuses to accept that she’s gay. Elena doesn’t back down. “You taught me a valuable lesson,” she says to him. “The fact that I’m gay means a lot of people hate me without knowing anything else about me. I kind of always knew that was part of the deal; I just never expected it from my own father.” Their current timeline is juxtaposed with Elena’s birth, which happened very near September 11, and was the catalyst for Penelope reenlisting in the army. It’s heartbreaking, for sure, but it’s also supremely triumphant.
The 25 Best TV Shows Of 2018 With LGBT Women Characters
‘Tis the season for various media outlets to reveal their list of the 10-40 Best TV Shows of the year, and this year we decided to get in on that. With a caveat, of course — to us, no matter how critically acclaimed any given show is, we cannot personally crown it “the best” unless our specific interests (read: queer women) are included within it. I’m sorry that’s just who and how we are!
To prepare for this undertaking, I looked at 18 Best TV of 2018 lists across mainstream media, both high-brow and middle-brow: The Decider, The New York Times, Paste, Vulture, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The New Yorker, TV Guide, AFI, Complex, The AV Club, Verge, The AP, Variety, Slate, The Daily Beast and The Atlantic. On the list below, you’ll see in parentheses a number: that number represents the number of other Best-Of lists the show appeared on.
Last year I documented what felt like — finally— a shift wherein regular and recurring queer women characters were just as likely to show up at the forefront of prestige television as they were in our previous homes of “soapy teen dramas,” sci-fi/supernatural epics and very small parts in aforementioned prestige television. This year that trend has continued mightily. Three shows that turned up on pretty much every Best-Of list — The Good Place, Killing Eve and Pose — had queer or trans leads. Frequent inclusions on those Best-Of Lists that did not include queer women were exactly what you’d expect: The Americans, Homecoming, Atlanta, Better Call Saul, Lodge 49, Barry, Bojack Horseman (which did have one lesbian-themed episode but that didn’t feel like enough to warrant inclusion on this list, I’m sure you will @ me re: this) and Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. Most baffling to us all was that Lifetime’s You showed up on SEVEN Best-Of Lists, despite being insufferable and killing its only queer woman character. It’s not on this list.
This list is not, then, our favorite shows of the year, or the shows that brought us the most joy or the best representation. We’re doing a lot of lists this year about teevee, and most of them are our Favorites, not “The Best.” This list are the shows that have regular or recurring queer women characters and that I personally believe were, objectively, the best. The opinions of other critics weighed heavily into these rankings, and only in a few cases did I pick a show that wasn’t on any other Best-Of lists.
I look forward to witnessing your disagreements and agreements in the comments! Also I know there’s 27 shows here but 25 seemed like a better headline.
28. Marvel’s Runaways Seasons One & Two (0)
“Marvel’s Runaways” Hasn’t Achieved Its Full Gay Potential Yet, but It’s Already a Thrilling Ride
The timing couldn’t be better for this lovely comic book adaptation about a group of fierce, supernaturally talented teenagers challenging the abhorrent compromises their parents made, supposedly in their best interest, for a “better world,” at the expense of, you know — human lives, wealth inequality, and our planet. Plus, Virginia Gardner literally shines as Karolina Dean, a human-alien hybrid initially hiding her superpowers and her lesbianism ’til coming out near the end of Season One. Her revelation is refreshingly well received by her crush, cynical goth Nico Minoru, in what feels like a fairly honest depiction of Generation Y’s alleged tendency towards nonchalant sexual fluidity. Season Two sees the lesbian couple trying to make it work amid pretty challenging circumstances. Despite an enormous ensemble — six children and ten parents for each — Runaways has mostly succeeded in making each of them count. At times it fumbles, having bit off more than it can chew thematically and w/r/t sheer population, but it still manages to combine the easy joy of a teen drama with the satisfying anxiety of suspenseful sci-fi. — Riese Bernard
27. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Season Two (7)
Undoubtedly the most cheerful show on the list and a bona-fide critical darling, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is hawkishly agreeable, floating through its second season on unmistakable charm, its trademark breakneck quip-laden dialogue, and a generous budget devoted to picturesque sets and locations that leave no affluent late-’50s stone unturned. Then there’s Mrs. Maisel herself, a plucky heroine who occasionally does wrong but when she does, it’s always very cute, and often laugh-out-loud funny. It’s frustrating that Susie’s lesbianism remains bafflingly unspoken, especially when Mrs. Maisel’s primary flaw continues to be its chronically low stakes, like a cake inside another cake inside another cake slathered in buttercream frosting. I do love cake, though! Regardless — Susie deserves a sexuality. I hope in Season Three she finally gets it. — Riese Bernard
26. Sally4Ever Season One (2)
HBO’s “Sally4Ever” Is Hilarious, Horrifying, Tries to Make Lesbian Toeing Happen
Earning points for sheer pugnacity, Sally4Ever, described by The Guardian as “a lurid lesbian sitcom,” is a disgusting, often offensive and downright bizarre comedy about an absurdly passive middle-aged woman, Sally, who leaves her droll underachieving partner for a wildly manipulative narcissistic lesbian musician / actress she first sees on the Underground. Julie Davis’s Emma is a madcap creation only Julie Davis’s mind could’ve created. Sally4Ever is one of four reminders on this list that you can always rely on British television to wallow in discomfort and failure in a way optimistic American TV is rarely willing to do. — Riese Bernard
25. Legends of Tomorrow Seasons Three & Four (2)
How “Legends of Tomorrow” Became One of the Best Queer Shows on TV
Legends of Tomorrow is one of the weirdest shows on television. With everything from Julius Caesar on the loose in Aruba to a stuffed animal worshipped as a god of war, you truly never know what’s going to happen next. On paper, it seems like the writers play mad libs with storylines, picking random nouns and locations out of hats and running with it. The most dramatic lines of dialogue are, simply put, absurd. But in 2018 this goofy-ass show has blossomed into something truly spectacular, as bisexual badass Sara Lance became, in the words of Zari, “not just the captain of the ship, but its soul.” It was still everything we love about the show – the misfit camaraderie, the wacky storylines, the outfits, the heart – but turned up to eleven. Sara also got her first post-Arrow longterm relationship with another woman. Their love story was fraught, sweet, sexy, complicated — and oh so rewarding. Best of all, it’s still going strong. — Valerie Anne
24. Everything Sucks! Season One (1)
Everything Sucks! is a Bangin’ TV Show With a Sweet Lesbian Lead
Sure, everything sucks, but something that specifically sucks is that this show only got one tiny season to breathe. Sweet and nostalgic, Everything Sucks! made the noteworthy choice of placing a lesbian character front and center of a tender coming-of-age dramedy set in Boring, Oregon. Amid pitch-perfect references to Frutopia, “Wonderwall” and the Columbia House Music Club, we have two girls on separate journeys towards queer revelations (and each other) and in this story, the pre-teen boys in their crew aren’t the main event. Considering all that, I suppose, perhaps it’s not so surprising it got cancelled.— Riese Bernard
23. Forever Season One (3)
Maya Rudolph’s Forever is Finally Here and Quietly Queer
Every critic on earth adored Forever, partly because of the show’s unique and brilliantly executed concept, but mostly because of Maya Rudolph’s stunning and triumphant return to TV. What made Forever even rarer than those two things was the central conflict for Rudolph’s character, June, who experienced a middle-aged queer awakening at the hands of an enigmatic, furious, and sometimes even unlikable(!!) Kase, played by Catherine Keener. It does seem like maybe some vital character development for Kase was left on the cutting room floor in an effort to make sure the audience didn’t root too hard for her relationship with June — but what remained was still breathtaking and frankly revolutionary. — Heather Hogan
22. Counterpart Season One (3)
After years of lurking in the Showtime/HBO shadows, Starz has emerged over the past few years to, intentionally or not, feature queer women characters in nearly all of their original programming. And what original programming it has been! A lot of the well-deserved praise for this taut, suspenseful, dystopian spy thriller has gone to J.K. Simmons for his riveting performance as two versions of the same man, one in each of the show’s two parallel worlds. But the reason I tuned in was for one of the year’s few masculine-of-center lesbian regulars: Baldwin, a trained assassin never given the chance to develop a true emotional life or any dreams of her own, a fact laid bare when she’s forced to watch her counterpart, an accomplished classical violinist, die in an alternate dimension. She struggles with her sexual and emotional connection to a sleeper agent and an unexpected romance with a waitress, as brooding butches are wont to do, but we never struggle with our affection for this unique point of connection in a really good story.— Riese Bernard
21. Adventure Time Season 10 (1)
Princess Bubblegum and Marceline Smooch On-Screen, Live Happily Ever After in the “Adventure Time” Series Finale
Adventure Time is easily the most influential show in Cartoon Network’s history; echoes of its style and themes reverberate far beyond kids TV. And really Adventure Time never was kids TV. Yeah, it was animated and as silly as bing bong ping pong. But as it evolved, it became as philosophical weighty and psychologically curious as Battlestar Galactica. Fans of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline enjoyed growing canonical support of their favorite couple over the seasons, both on-screen and in spin-off comic books — but they’d never actually confirmed their relationship physically until the series finale when Bonnie got womped in the dome piece and almost croaked and Marceline rushed to her and caressed her and professed her love and they smooched right on the mouths. — Heather Hogan
20. The Handmaid’s Tale Season Two (4)
“The Handmaid’s Tale” Season Two Gets Even Darker, Queerer, Curiouser and Curiouser
Season Two of Handmaid’s Tale was darker than Season One, which’s saying a lot. I mean we opened with a fake-out mass-hanging and before long Offred was basically slicing off a chunk of her own ear, then staring at the camera while we watched her bleed. And there would be so much more blood where that came from! But damn, the artistry of this brutal show and its magnificent cast, capable of communicating entire worlds without a single spoken line. The season’s most unspoken message, though, was this: pay attention. Look up. Don’t wait for them to come for you. Clea Duvall and Cherry Jones graced us with winning cameos and lesbian characters Moira (Samira Wiley) and Emily (Alexis Bledel) took greater prominence. So did Gilead’s persecution of lesbians in a specific dystopia designed by religious fundamentalists who are obsessed with traditional gender roles and able to rationalize their actions in the wake of a fertility crisis. It’s not a pleasant world to witness, yet it remains a seductive watch. Every moment of dark humor is hard-won, like, I suppose, freedom itself.— Riese Bernard
19. The End of the F*cking World Season One (5)
I Demand a Lesbian Cop-Show Spin-off of The End of the F*cking World
Sure, we could watch fresh-faced teen dreams fall in love in the lemon-scented hallways of suburban California high schools, or we could watch … whatever this was? A 17-year-old self-diagnosed psychopath who loves knives goes on a traveling caper with the only girl in town who’s sad, alienated and nihilistic enough to wanna run away with him. Hot on their tail are two lesbian detectives who had a thing once and definitely deserve their own show. — Riese Bernard
18. Dear White People Season Two (4)
In this current television landscape, binges come and go. A television show drops on streaming, you watch it, maybe even obsess for a spell, and then it fades to the recesses of your memory to make room for whatever trendy new show is coming next. In those dips and waves, sometimes something really special falls through the cracks. I say that because there’s a chance that you didn’t watch Dear White People last year and that’s a mistake.
The first season of Dear White People was regrettably uneven, particularly in regards to its lesbian representation, but the second season aired this year and came back stronger, more focused, and razor-sharp! It’s a stylized and poignant exploration of being a black student at a predominantly white university that is as smart (if not smarter) than almost any other comedy I watched last year. The weekend of its drop, I finished all 13 episodes in two days. The next weekend, I watched it again. I couldn’t shake how insightful it was, how bright, how one-of-a-kind. You can watch the second season with no knowledge of the first and follow along easily. As a bonus, it comes with the bittersweet gift of two smaller, but significantly better executed black lesbian plots. One of those plots stars Lena Waithe. It also features Tessa Thompson as a parodied take on a Stacey Dash’s “black republican television pundit” figure. Her character plays out over a series of cameos, but as far as I’m concerned her final scene is worth the entire season by itself. — Carmen Phillips
17. Steven Universe Season Five (2)
“Steven Universe” Makes History, Mends Hearts in a Perfect Lesbian Wedding Episode
Steven Universe continues to explore more adult themes more fully than nearly every non-animated show on TV: family, grief, depression, commitment, betrayal, duplicitousness, forgiveness, puberty, gender, gender presentation, sexuality — and it does so in a way that’s warm and engaging and funny and, most of all, hopeful. This season, Rebecca Sugar’s beloved non-binary lesbian gems, Ruby and Sapphire, broke more ground by becoming the first same-sex couple to get married on all-ages TV. Their wedding featured masc gems in dresses, femme gems in tuxes, kisses right on the mouth, and swoon-worthy proclamations of eternal love. Also, of course, ass-kicking. Steven Universe remains one of the best shows on television, full stop. — Heather Hogan
16. Black Lightning Seasons One & Two (0)
Recaps of Season One & Two of Black Lightning
The CW has delivered a very entertaining batch of fresh-faced white superheroes determined to battle off some wacky Big Bads, but Black Lightning really elevates the genre and takes notable risks. The story is rooted halfway in this world, too, spotlighting a family wrought together over love and a deep commitment to their community and social justice, while divided on how best to manifest that commitment. Annissa Pierce, aka Thunder, became network television’s first out lesbian superhero when she debuted in early 2018. “I’ve said before that bullet proof black people is my favorite superhero trope,” Carmen wrote in a Season One recap, “but there is also something so sweet about a television lesbian who can’t be shot.” We hope to see more in future episodes of her girlfriend Grace, played by Chantal Thuy. Don’t sleep on Black Lightning. Wherever it’s going, you’ll want to be on board.— Riese Bernard
15. The Bisexual Season One (2)
Hulu’s “The Bisexual” Is Here to Make Every Queer a Little Uncomfortable
This has been such a great year for queer weirdos with their fingers acutely upon their own pulses. In between impeccable L Word references and fetching fashion choices, The Bisexual is an uncompromising journey of sexual discovery, jump-started when Leila breaks up with her much older girlfriend (and business partner) Sadie. Akhvan’s world feels undeniably authentic — she points out that “it’s the only show on TV where you can watch two Middle Eastern women in a car, talking, taking up the screen with their different bodies and different ethnicities.” Fumbling and unafraid of its own potential, The Bisexual also portrays a multi-generational, diverse network of queer and often gender-non-conforming women in London’s East End in all its messy, self-reflexive glory. — Riese Bernard
13. The Good Fight Season Two (9)
The Good Fight lives in that very special sweet spot that I like to call organized chaos, almost ballet-like in its sweeping rhythm. It is very much a playground for Christine Baranski and Cush Jumbo to do their impeccable work. But it also, better than any other show, captures the collective meltdown that has become a ceaseless hum in Tr*mp’s America. It’s sharp, and it’s dark, and it’s still funny and fun, with a very women-driven, diverse cast. And one of its central lawyers, Maia Rindell (Rose Leslie), also happens to be a petite lesbian mired in staggering lesbian drama, and by lesbian drama I mean her girlfriend literally testifies against her in a massive court case that Maia’s parents have her swept up in! Also, in season two we learn that Maia was in love with her tennis instructor as a closeted baby gay, and I have never felt more Seen. — Kayla Kumari
12. Harlots Season Two (0)
Harlots Season Two Is Here, Queer and Transcendent
Harlots might be the year’s most underrated show (Seriously, how does this show earn a nearly perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes but not make it onto anybody’s Best Shows Of the Year list? I endeavor to suggest that the reason is Men). I declared Harlots the most accurate portrayal of indoor-market sex work ever represented onscreen in Season One — surprisingly more resonant to me as a former sex worker than any contemporary portrayals — and its extra queering in Season Two made it moreso and then some. If Season One was about sex work, Season Two is about the reality that what’s done to sex workers is inextricable from what’s done to all women — the lessons about power, violence, solidarity and struggle in stories about sex work are ones that the larger conversation about gender ignores at its peril. — Riese Bernard
11. High Maintenance Season Two (6)
In between High Maintenance‘s first and second season, a lot happened for husband-and-wife co-creators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld — including Katja coming out as gay, thus ending their marriage. Although the split hadn’t been finalized at the time, Season One ended with the reveal that Sinclair’s “The Guy” marijuana-delivery character lived down the hallway from his ex-wife, who’d left him for another woman. Its Season Two, then, is a long time coming and imbued with a rapturous affection for contemporary queer culture. The characters calling upon “The Guy” negotiate languid lesbian sexual dynamics, LGBT-affirming churches, sexually fluid teens and anti-Trump feminist gatherings attended by well-intentioned, hysterical liberals. Particularly touching was a bittersweet episode that saw “The Guy” visited in the hospital by aforementioned now-lesbian ex-wife. But honestly, with few exceptions every story in this scene is like a nice hybrid edible that makes you giggle, relax, and occasionally feel profound.— Riese Bernard
10. Vida Season One (2)
“Vida” Review: Starz’s New Latinx Drama Is Sexy, Soulful and Super Queer
Tragically overlooked by mainstream critics, one of 2018’s most innovatory offerings sees emotionally estranged sisters, bisexual attorney Emma (Michel Prada) and Lyn (Melissa Barrera), reuniting in their home of Boyle Heights after the death of their mother who, it turns out, was in fact dating her butch lesbian “roommate,” Eddy. Showrunner Tanya Saracho’s writing team is entirely Latinx and mostly queer, and they deftly address the complications of “gente-fication” and the joys of living breathing loving community with all the nuance and authenticity it requires. But perhaps most notable for all of us here was the graphic butch/femme sex scene that opened Episode Three. “It isn’t just about the hot sex — though the sex is very hot — it’s about creating spaces where Latinx queer bodies can feel ownership,” wrote Carmen in her recap. “It’s tearing down shame. It’s about saying that our love, our sex, our sticky sweat is valid.”— Riese Bernard
9. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Seasons 4 & 5 (4)
“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” Is Singing Our Song: Valencia Has a Girlfriend!
Maybe we should’ve seen it coming — after all, soon after we meet Valencia for the first time, she’s kissing Rebecca on the dance floor and lamenting the fact that everyone wants to have sex with her — but it wasn’t until Valencia met Beth that we got to see her bisexuality as something other than comedic fodder. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has always been a queer-friendly show but with Valencia and Beth, it finally put lady-loving ladies on centerstage. Valencia’s bisexuality was the pitch perfect end to a show-long character arc: she’s evolved from the vain yoga instructor who couldn’t build meaning relationships with women to loving, working and living with one.
The Golden Globe-winning series is currently in its fourth and final season and Valencia and Beth are still together, happy and, in an unusual twist for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, relatively normal (unless you count the $8000 they pay in rent for their new closet size NYC apartment). We feared that the couple’s recent relocation meant that we wouldn’t get to see as much of them but the show’s found a way to bridge the distance between West Covina and New York. Hopefully, Valencia’s recent return for “the rest of the series of holidays” means we’ll finally get that lesbian loving musical number we’ve all been craving. — Natalie Duggins
8. Jane the Virgin Season Four (4)
While Jane the Virgin has been rightly critically acclaimed since day one and praised for its revolutionary diversity, it’s always had a complicated relationship with its queer characters. Luisa started off strong but was ultimately relegated to a one-dimensional punchline before essentially disappearing, and Rose was never really fully formed. This year, though, the writers picked up on the long-running fan theory that Petra is bisexual and agreed. Unlike Luisa, Petra actually started out as a caricature and became more layered and complicated as the show went on. Her coming out journey was essentially realizing she’s into women because her chemistry with Jane Ramos spawned a sex dream into her subconscious — and then just going for it. The self-revelation, the exploration, even the way she told Jane and Rafael about it was so sweet and sexy and prickly and Petra. Jane the Virgin has gotten better every year, and the surprise of Petra and JR’s storyline was one of the reasons season four was its best ever. — Heather Hogan
7. The Haunting of Hill House Season One (4)
Netflix’s New “Haunting of Hill House” Gave Us a Lesbian Who Lives, Took Our Whole Weekend
The Haunting of Hill House had a challenge ahead of it with adapting its queer storyline; the original text had one of pop culture’s first recognizably lesbian characters, but preserving her “authentically” would mean falling far short of today’s expectations for representation, as in 2018 we look for more to signify lesbianism than “wears pants” and “is unmarried.” So Haunting gave us Theo, a lesbian character whose sexuality isn’t her whole storyline, but does tie into it; who goes through some wild and traumatizing stuff, but on a level that’s comparable with the also very wild and traumatizing stuff that her straight siblings go through. And in a show where romantic relationships are rocky at best, Theo does manage to both survive and get the girl. —Rachel Kincaid
6. Brooklyn 99 Season Five (6)
As evidenced by our very own Gay Emmys, this year was a very good year for Stephanie Beatriz and her character Rosa Diaz, who came out as bisexual — like, actually said the word! — on this season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The show itself had a good year, too, almost annoying in how persistently it outdoes itself year after year with its annual, always excellent Halloween episode. The Backstreet Boys lineup might go down as one of the greatest comedy cold opens of all time (up there with The Office’s “Fire Drill”). And even though we’re now five seasons into the series, that doesn’t mean the writers are just coasting by on humor that relies on how well we know all of these characters. It still regularly serves up new, emotional character arcs that peel back the layers to this lovable squad, as with Rosa’s personal life developments. Above all else, the show celebrates earnestness and friendship in a really lovely way that proves you don’t have to be mean or cynical to be really fucking funny. — Kayla Kumari
5. One Day at a Time Season Two (6)
“One Day at a Time” Brings Even More Heart and Humor and Gayness to Season 2
There’s an easy reason that One Day at a Time shows up on so many critics’ “End of the Year” Best Lists. It’s quite simply that damn good. One Day at a Time is the most generous, compassionate, loving family sitcom on television. It’s also not afraid to have frank, sometimes dark discussions – PTSD, depression, the fragility of age, the perils of being a young queer teen, the financial struggles of being a working class family in the 21st century. It’s all on the table.
As I wrote in my Season Two review, some of the show’s brilliance comes from leaning into its multi-cam sitcom roots. One Day at a Time uses an old school format, and they are proud of it. They leverage the intimacy and familiarity of the genre to their advantage, luring their audience into cutting edge and weighty conversations from the comfort of the Alvarez’s living room. It’s a stand-out in a class of stand-outs and I would put it against any other comedy on television. In fact, I’ll go further. The fact that One Day at a Time has now gone two years without any acting or writing Emmy nominations is one of the most shaming indictments of the white, male majority of the Television Academy that we have right now. Yes, it’s just that damn good. — Carmen Phillips
4. Pose Season One (13)
“Pose” Is Full of Trans Joy, Resistance, and Love
This show just flatly rejected the idea that the best way to tell our stories is slowly, character-by-character, putting one white cisnormative queer in one show and then another show until we somehow achieve critical mass. The problem with that has often been that that’s not how we live — we’re not out here one by one, lone queers in schools/towns/families composed entirely by normals. Enter Pose: a show written by and for trans women of color, set in an era when the only thing louder than the daily trauma of oppression and omnipresent fear of HIV/AIDS were the LOOKS, and all the beautiful ways a body can move to express itself. Pose radiates with a glittery, gorgeous aesthetic and complicated characters. Trans bodies are so often portrayed as somehow tragic or compromised, and Pose — in addition to being a story about real human lives, love, friendship, and “chosen family” — is about the triumph of the body, its ability to mean as much to the world as it does to itself. — Riese Bernard
3. G.L.O.W. Season Two (11)
G.L.O.W. Season Two Doubles the lesbians, Doubles the Fun
After a first season that bafflingly pursued outlandish homoeroticism yet was seemingly void of homosexuals, Season Two introduced a Latina lesbian fighter and pulled Arthie off the bench for a romantic awakening. G.L.O.W., based on the real-life Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, was a delightful mid-summer ride that took a more decidedly feminist bent as the Gorgeous Ladies explored how to advocate for, instead of against, each other, in an industry hell-bent on exploiting women for male fortune. Still, with its electrifying outfits, ostentatious costume drama and carefully-calibrated balance of comedy and drama, it only failed at one thing: an ensemble this dynamic needs longer episodes or a longer season, or both. — Riese Bernard
2. The Good Place Season 3 (12)
The Good Place, like The Office and 30 Rock before it (although I’m, admittedly, not a 30 Rock fan), has accomplished nothing short of a complete re-imagination of what the half-hour network comedy can be. It’s got everything: prestige sci-fi level world-building, cartoonish aesthetics, highbrow esoteric wit, running gags and plenty of ‘ships. Its premise, writes Sam Anderson in The New York Times, “is absurdly high concept. It sounds less like the basis of a prime-time sitcom than an experimental puppet show conducted, without a permit, on the woodsy edge of a large public park.” And yet it works. And in Season Three, The Good Place amped up Eleanor’s bisexuality and Janet’s particular take on non-binary, and we are so pleased, because that means we can put what will undoubtedly be one of the most legendary television programs of all time on lists like this one. — Riese Bernard
1. Killing Eve Season One (17)
Killing Eve is Your New Queer Obsession
Crescendoing, relentless, all-consuming obsession fuels the narrative of Killing Eve, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s sexy, smart, distinctly feminine action thriller starring Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer as the toxic spy-assassin duo who can’t stop thinking about each other. Watching Killing Eve feels exactly like that: seering obsession. This category was stacked with great, complex dramas, but there’s something just purely intoxicating about Killing Eve that sets it apart. Though it’s the phrase most often used to describe Eve and Villanelle’s dynamic, “cat-and-mouse” hardly covers what Oh and Comer bring to these characters or what’s even on the page. It’s never quite clear whether they want to murder each other or make out. Hunting each other, longing for each other, Eve and Villanelle might be one of the most complex queer relationships on television. But beyond that dripping subtext, it’s just a very good thriller with compelling twists and turns and sharp edges that refuse to be dulled. — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
50 of the Best Feminist Books of 2018
It sure has been a year! Somehow, God bless them, many people managed to write and even publish books this year, despite everything. Here are 50 of the best books from this year that are by and about women, feminism or gender and related intersectional issues. (Some of these picks will overlap with our list of LGBT books published this year, for obvious reasons!) There seem to be strong recurring themes of dystopia, anger, and navigating violent structures of power. What a coincidence!
Fiction
My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh
Moshfegh has quickly become a must-read for anyone interested in “unlikable” female characters in fiction. In her latest, Moshfegh’s narrator embarks on a quest for the ultimate in avoidance as she tries to medicate herself into hibernation in her Upper East Side apartment. Described as “tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate,” it’s a must-read if you’d like a literary meditation on an impulse we’ve probably all felt this year!
The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner
Kushner’s newest work focuses on Romy Hall, a single mother who’s moved from a life as a stripper at the rundown Mars Room to two life sentences in a California correctional facility after she kills her stalker. In what the Guardian calls an “unflinching portrayal of what it means to be poor and female in America,” Kushner puts intensive research on prison life for women to work in a literary indictment of the system and the nation that perpetuates it.
Those Who Knew, Idra Novey
Set in “an unnamed island country” where a US-backed regime has collapsed, a woman watches a well-liked senator gain power and credibility and wonders whether she should speak out about her own violent history with him. When another young woman associated with the senator turns up dead, she must reckon with the risks and rewards of saying something in this “riveting exploration of the cost of staying silent.”
Insurrecto, by Gina Apostol
In an innovative novel that plays with structure and form through “interlocking voices and a kaleidoscopic structure,” Apostol follows two women on a road trip through Duterte’s Phillipines working on a film script about a massacre during the Phillipine-American war. A white American filmmaker writes a script about the atrocity, and a Filipino schoolteacher reads it and rewrites her own version; both scripts are woven through the body of the story in this compelling, engaging and fully funny novel about the interwoven lives of women and how they articulate them.
The Mere Wife, by Maria Dahvana Headley
Oh just a modern, literary retelling of Beowulf set in American suburbia! Grendel and his mother are transformed into Gren and Dana, a war veteran who finds herself in heated battle with Willa Herot, suburban soccer mommy extraordinaire. Called a “consciousness-altering mind trip of a book” by Kelly Link and “genius” by Carmen Maria Machado, this is a must-read for anyone interested in myths and monstrosity in modern times.
Vox, by Christina Dalcher
The author’s debut novel explores a United States where women are allowed to speak only one hundred words per day; soon, they can’t hold jobs or learn to read and write. For the protagonist, formerly a neurolinguist, it’s too much to bear. One of several titles this year exploring Atwood-esque dystopias, Vox asks questions about women’s voices in larger society and also about language itself.
Before She Sleeps, by Bina Shah
In a dystopian Southeast Asia, the ratio of men to women has motivated the government to forcibly ramp up women’s reproduction, making them take multiple husbands to have more children as quickly as possible. Shah dives into the complex relationship or lack thereof between sex, reproduction, intimacy and power in a near future technocracy, and the toll it takes on the people who live it — as well as the underground collective of women trying to resist.
Circe, by Madeline Miller
Also included, of course, on our best witchy books of the year, Circe is a revisitation of one of mythology’s most compelling women (and one who managed a respectable #35 on our list of witches ranked by lesbianism) as a real person, not just a figure in Odysseus’s story. As she struggles with her power and choosing between the world of gods and that of mortals, Circe deals with other key figures from mythology (including fellow unpopular mythological maiden Medea).
Red Clocks, by Leni Zumas
In a plot that is only just barely dystopian, Red Clocks explores the lives of five women in an America where abortion has once again become fully outlawed along with IVF, and the constitution grants full personhood to unborn embryos. When the fates of the women in a small Oregon town become intertwined over questions of pregnancy, they’re inexorably drawn into a “modern-day witch hunt” when an herbalist is put on trial.
She Would Be King, by Wayétu Moore
This debut novel follows three characters through the early life of the nation of Liberia and especially Gbessa, a West African woman who’s survived against all odds and becomes bound up in the founding of a nation. Combining reimagined real historical events and magical realism, Moore’s first book was called “engrossing” by the New Yorker and compared to Gabriel Garcia Márquez by Harper’s Bazaar.
Nonfiction
90s Bitch Media Culture & the Failed Promise of Gender Equality, by Allison Yarrow
The 90s are having a comeback moment; it’s a perfect time to read Yarrow’s deep dive on women and girls of the 90s and the legacy of girl-power feminism and “bitchification” it’s left us with. There’s a reason Anita Hill, Tonya Harding and Monica Lewinsky are all back under discussion; if you’d like to think through why, check out this “must-read for anyone trying to understand 21st century sexism and end it for the next generation.”
The Real Lolita, by Sarah Weinman
The Nabokov novel Lolita was a cultural watershed that crystallized a lot of confusing ideas about gender, sex and power dynamics into the larger cultural consciousness, to say the least. The actual child that Lolita was based on, Sally Horner, was 11 when she was kidnapped in 1948. The subsuming of the real violence she experienced into a man’s literary work that creepy men at parties now aggressively reference at you is too on the nose to handle; Weinman’s telling of Horner’s story “echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves.”
Stealing the Show: How Women Are Revolutionizing Television, by Joy Press
You have only to look at Shonda Rhimes’ incredible work and career to know that women are dominating television in a way they never have before; Press’s book looks at the rise of the female showrunner and how it’s changed the entertainment world — hopefully forever.
Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China, by Leta Hong Fincher
Through interviews with China’s famous Feminist Five, arrested in 2015 on orders of the Chinese government, and other leading Chinese activists Hong Fincher draws a portrait of the modern Chinese feminist movement and its pushback against interpersonal, governmental and digital control over their lives. She argues that the widespread movement with roots throughout China’s population “poses the greatest challenge to China’s authoritarian regime today,” creating a “feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists, and online warriors prompting an unprecedented awakening among China’s educated, urban women.”
Text Me When You Get Home, by Kayleen Schaefer
Both a personal and sociological text, Schaefer’s work explores the challenging, changeable project of female friendship: both the ways that women are encouraged to see each other as competitors and the ways that we save and support each other. If you’ve ever celebrated a Galentine’s Day, this might be the read for you.
Bad With Money, by Gaby Dunn
You already love friend of the site Gaby Dunn’s podcast Bad With Money; now the podcast comes to you in the form of a thoroughly useful and relatable financial literacy book covering “how to make that #freelancelyfe work for you, navigate money while you date, and budget without becoming a Nobel-winning economist overnight.”
Cultural Criticism
Against Memoir, Michelle Tea
From queer lit veteran Michelle Tea, this collection explores topics near and dear to your heart and hers: lesbian biker gangs, recovery, adolescence, and more. Although the title itself defies memoir as a category (and I guess it worked, as it is not listed with the other memoirs here), the book copy also admits that “in the process of excavating and documenting these queer lives, Michelle Tea also reveals herself in unexpected and heartbreaking ways.”
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, by Brittney Cooper
Cooper writes about the anxiety and defensiveness around anger, having been forcibly labeled an ‘angry black woman’ or ‘sassy’ unceasingly — and what it would look like to reclaim anger as “a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting,” or as one of her students puts it, “eloquent rage.”
Revolting Prostitutes, by Molly Smith and Juno Mac
Joining the ranks of texts on sex work written by sex workers, like Melissa Gira Grant’s Playing the Whore, Revolting Prostitutes situates questions about sex work in contemporary life in the context of labor rights, white supremacy, critique of police and the global sex workers’ rights movement. As sex workers face increasing legal threats and decreased safety in the US, it’s a more urgent read than ever.
Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, by Rebecca Traister
Anger is something of a theme this year — who would have thought! Traister narrates a political history of women’s anger in the US: “women’s anger at both men and other women; anger between ideological allies and foes; the varied ways anger is perceived based on its owner; as well as the history of caricaturing and delegitimizing female anger; and the way women’s collective fury has become transformative political fuel.”
Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, by Soraya Chemaly
If Traister’s work is a sort of historical framework of women’s anger, Chemaly’s is a more philosophical investigation of it. What progress can anger fuel, and in whose interests is it to repress it? She argues that “anger is a vital instrument, a radar for injustice and a catalyst for change.”
So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
It comes as no surprise the Ijeoma Oluo of The Establishment wrote the indispensable book this year on explaining issues of race and racism in America to readers who are struggling to digest the current conversation on them. If you’ve ever shared one of her pieces from The Establishment with everyone you know — and you have! — check out this book!
Girls Resist!: A Guide to Activism, Leadership, and Starting a Revolution, by KaeLyn Rich
You are perhaps familiar with our very own beloved KaeLyn Rich, and also her book, which Heather Hogan called a guidebook for intersectional feminist superheroes! I’ll let her describe it:
“Girls Resist! is part introduction to intersectional feminism and part actual workbook with detailed information and plans for how to engage in various forms of activism that contribute to toppling the patriarchy. So many of us have felt so lost these last few years, overwhelmed by the daily onslaught of horrors perpetrated against minorities by our government. While I was, at times, cowering under my covers, KaeLyn was hovered over her keyboard, all day and all night, writing to teach every generation of girls and women how, exactly, to proceed.”
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence, by Kristen R. Ghodsee
Beyond the pithy (but important!) title, this book promises an exploration of the ways capitalism works with sexist power structures to harm women in specific ways — from relationships to family to career, Ghodsee outlines the ways that “unregulated capitalism disproportionately harms women, and that we should learn from the past.”
Essay Collections
Meaty, by Samantha Irby
You’ve likely already read Samantha Irby’s unforgettable, incomparable voice elsewhere on the internet or in her first collection, We Are Never Meeting In Real Life; her latest essay collection brings you new observations and reminiscences that truly earn the title “tragicomic.”
The Reckonings: Essays, by Lacy M. Johnson
Lacy Johnson’s previous book, The Other Side, dealt with her kidnapping and rape; her newest tries to answer the question of what she would want to happen to her rapist. Exploring questions of justice and violence as well as compassion and grace, Johnson gets at both structural themes of violence and the particularities of femininity and gendered experience.
This Will Be My Undoing, by Morgan Jerkins
Coming recommended by Roxane Gay, Jerkins’ essay collection investigates pop culture and personal experience, relying on both and everything in between to ask the question “What does it mean to “be”—to live as, to exist as—a black woman today?”
Tonight I’m Someone Else, by Chelsea Hodson
With accolades from Miranda July and Maggie Nelson, this collection speaks to “anyone who’s ever searched for what the self is worth,” looking at work, bodies, and the experiences of being human in both bizarre and everyday circumstances.
Dead Girls: Surviving an American Obsession, by Alice Bolin
The Dead Girl Show is a time-honored American tradition, with campy, confusing trainwreck Pretty Little Liars a prime example. Bolin explores the genre and the implications of our obsession with it while also bringing in other foundational American cultural texts, from Britney Spears’ work to James Baldwin’s for the project of “interrogating the more complex dilemma of living women – both the persistent injustices they suffer and the oppression that white women help perpetrate.”
Art of Feminism: Images that Shaped the Fight for Equality, 1857-2017, edited by Helena Reckitt
The history of any cultural or political movement is always accompanied by a history of imagery and iconography; here, the authors assemble images to create a story of feminist art over the last 160 years accompanied by essays “examining the legacy of the radical canon.”
Anthologies
Well-Read Black Girl, edited by Glory Edim
“Well-Read Black Girl” is already a popular book club thanks to Glory Edim; now it’s also an incredible anthology featuring such voices as Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Barbara Smith, Morgan Jerkins, and more. Oprah endorsed it in O, no big deal.
Can We All Be Feminists?, edited by June Eric-Udorie
It’s easy to say it would be ideal if everyone were a feminist; in reality, what that would look like and the particular roadblocks remaining between many of us and feminism is more complicated. In this anthology, 17 writers grapple with the reasons why many women don’t identify as feminists, and the ways that intersecting identities like race, religion, sexuality and more impact the ways the authors relate to feminism.
Our Stories, Our Voices: 21 YA Authors Get Real About Injustice, Empowerment, and Growing Up Female in America, edited by Amy Reed
YA as a genre is tackling some of the most important issues of our day, from police violence to challenges faced by queer teens and beyond — so it’s not surprising that these major YA authors came together in this volume to write twenty-one essays on justice, injustice and “topics related to growing up female in today’s America.”
Not That Bad, edited by Roxane Gay
In this highly anticipated anthology, authors explore topics related to rape culture as a broadly lived experience and pointing up the internal measuring stick women live with that calls us to ask ourselves constantly whether it was really “that bad.” Bracing and honest, the authors in this collection have come together to “saying something in totality that we cannot say alone.”
Becoming Dangerous: Witchy femmes, queer conjurers, and magical rebels on summoning the power to resist, edited by Katie West
As if you weren’t excited enough to read an anthology about the rituals and systems of power that these witches and witch-adjacent humans have come up with to grant themselves power and protection in a world bent on harming us, you will be pleased to know that Autostraddle contributors Mey Rude and Laura Mandanas are both included in the authors of these 21 essays!
Generation F: The Girls Write Now 2018 Anthology
Foreworded by Ashley C. Ford, the Girls Write Now anthology is created by mentors and young mentees and this year coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Girls Write Now mentorship program for young female voices.
Memoir/Biography
I’m Afraid of Men, by Vivek Shraya
Musician, visual artist, and writer (who recently joined the creative writing faculty at the University of Calgary) Shraya writes about “the cumulative damage caused by misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, releasing trauma from a body that has always refused to assimilate,” and the violence of the ways that masculinity was forcibly imposed on her throughout her life.
Trauma Cleaner, One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster, Sarah Krasnostein
Sarah Krasnostein writes about the unique life and career of Sandra Pankhurst, founder of Specialized Trauma Cleaning (STC) Services Pty. A trans woman who’s held a dizzying range of positions in life, Sandra now works cleaning up the last site of a person’s life and death — “the extraordinary true story of an extraordinary person dedicated to making order out of chaos with compassion.”
The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, Leslie Jamison
The celebrated author of The Empathy Exams returns with a memoir that unpacks addiction — her own alcoholism, but also the cultural narrative of alcoholism at large, especially as it relates to art and artists. Throughout her investigation of her own addiction, Jamison is in conversation with “John Berryman, Jean Rhys, Billie Holiday, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, and David Foster Wallace, as well as brilliant lesser-known figures such as George Cain,” exploring what addiction and the human needs and damages that fuel it have to do with art.
Sick: A Memoir, by Porochista Khakpour
Sick is Khakpour’s memoir of having been sick for much of her life, and also the ways in which illness can become a whole life, or take over the one you wanted to have. In her writings about her long-undiagnosed late-stage Lyme disease, Khakpour looks at “the physiological and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life.”
How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don’t, by Lane Moore
In this celebrated memoir, Moore gets into the harrowing, upfront account of moving through the world largely without a support system, and what it’s taught her about human connection (or the lack thereof). It’s unfailingly honest, compassionate, and of course as funny as you’d expect.
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
Patrisse Khan-Cullors is one of the three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement; this deeply affecting memoir chronicles the life that brought her to that moment, and how she’s continued to carry herself through it with deep love and commitment to community and to the lives of those she loves as a north star. As Al described it in our book club post on the book:
“After Erica Garner’s untimely death to heart attack, the book is also asking us to look at what living in a constant state of emergency and trying to defend one’s right to live their life without fear does to a person’s mind, body and soul. Khan-Cullors reminds us that taking care of ourselves is just as important to the movement as more obvious forms of direct action. It’s a reminder that we who are marginalized are also whole people and need to take care of ourselves as such, even if systems that are supposed to protect us don’t.”
And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready, by Meaghan O’Connell
O’Connell was surprised by an unplanned pregnancy in her twenties and decided to have the baby; she found that nothing she read prepared her for the experience. Since then, she’s written a memoir that gets brutally honest about “the pervasive imposter syndrome that comes with unplanned pregnancy, the fantasies of a “natural” birth experience that erode maternal self-esteem, post-partum body and sex issues, and the fascinating strangeness of stepping into a new, not-yet-comfortable identity.”
Becoming, by Michelle Obama
The former first lady (and current first lady of our hearts)’s hotly anticipated memoir just came out in the last few weeks, and is already being talked about as one of the most important books of the year. Read it to find out about Michelle’s work to create “the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history,” and the life that brought her to the position she’s held.
Poetry
The Carrying, by Ada Limón
Limón’s newest collection brings sharp, precise imagery and expertly turned language to “exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance.”
The Mobius Strip Club of Grief, by Bianca Stone
Have you heard the one about the guy who walks into the strip club and everyone’s dead? Stone’s book is set in a “burlesque purgatory where the living pay―dearly, with both money and conscience―to watch the dead perform scandalous acts otherwise unseen,” inventively asks us to consider grief and its complicated economies.
If They Come For Us, by Fatimah Asghar
Celebrated writer and co-creator of the webseries Brown Girls Asghar’s debut poetry collection “captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America” as she’s navigating questions of sexuality, race, and identity.
Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, by Diane Seuss
Seuss’s voice is irreverent, unsettling and unmistakable; her newest poems “escape gilded frames and overturn traditional representations of gender, class, and luxury. Instead, Seuss invites in the alienated, the washed-up, the ugly, and the freakish.”
Bound, by Claire Schwartz
Schwartz’s work is incisive and haunting in the best way, a voice that stays with you after the book is closed; her Button Poetry Prize-winning collection “investigates queerness, Jewish identity, and kinships through a consuming series of narrative and lyric.”
Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, by Alice Walker
Literary legend Alice Walker’s latest work “offers us a window into her magical, at times difficult, and liberating world of activism, love, hope and, above all, gratitude,” exploring both her internal world and “bearing witness to our troubled times.”
The Top 10 Feminist Movies (That Weren’t Technically Gay) of 2018
As I’ve written and tweeted and whispered into the night repeatedly, 2018 was a fantastic year for queer women on the big screen. It was also a very good year for women, in general, in film. So good that I decided we need a list of the most feminist movies of the year. This one’s tricky because there are still several movies coming out in December that will likely deserve a place on this list. Don’t worry, though, I’m keen to update it and make it bigger! There’s also a caveat to this list: It’s for feminist movies that weren’t technically gay. (If it were for all feminist movies, I’d include five of the ones from the gay list I already made.)
I’m eager to hear your choices in the comments. Unlike TV, I can’t keep up with every movie.
10. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
“Is the Mamma Mia! Cinematic Universe propaganda in favor of queer family structures? Once again, I’m pretty sure the answer is YES. Amanda Seyfried has essentially been raised by Meryl Streep, three bisexual dads, and two bisexual aunts who are married to each other but enjoy lots of dalliances on the side. Seriously, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters wear matching kaftans for a good portion of this movie. They are wives, and you cannot convince me otherwise.” — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
9. A Star Is Born
There are enough takes about this movie to fill a fleet of charter buses. For me, what set this incarnation of A Star Is Born apart is the fact that it charts the stellar trajectory of Lady Gaga’s Ally and the steep tanking of Bradley Cooper’s Jack, in a way none of the other films — all of which emasculate their main male characters in diferent ways — have done. She eclipses him, in every scene, once she gets going. She comes into sharper focus. He fades. She is born. He, in a sense, dies. She’s better than him and she’s rewarded for it. If only real life were so fair.
8. A Private War
Rosamund Pike, who I know best as Jane Bennet from Pride and Prejudice and you know best as Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, plays iconic war correspondent Marie Colvin in one of the many woman-fronted movies that are generating Oscar buzz at the end of the year. What’s particularly wonderful about Matthew Heineman’s biopic is that it doesn’t gloss over Colvin’s personal struggles as it showcases her celebrated career. She’s brilliant and powerful and deeply, deeply flawed. It’s a masterful exploration the complexity of one woman’s bruised and bleeding — sometimes literally — humanity.
7. Crazy Rich Asians
“The themes of matriarchy and the importance of mothers is central to the film. It seems so Asian to me that the main conflict doesn’t arise from a series of misunderstandings like they would in a typical white romantic comedy… Not only is it momentous to see stories with Asians at the forefront, this film does one better by centering on the experiences of different generations of Asian women. All of them are well-developed and have their own unique motivations spurring their arcs — a far cry from the meek and submissive portrayals we typically see.” — Fiona Li
6. A Wrinkle In Time
Reviews were mixed on Ava Duvernay’s Disney adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved novel. I, for one, loved it. Oprah Winfrey as Mrs. Which, Reese Witherspoon as Mrs. Whatsit, and Mindy Kaling as Mrs. Who are inspired. And Meg Murry will always be one of my favorite young adult book characters for the reasons Constance Grady outlined so beautifully at Vox earlier this year: “It is all the things about Meg that are most unlikable, that our culture teaches girls to reject — her anger, her prickliness, her inability to perform social pleasantness — that make her a formidable opponent to IT, ultimately able to defeat IT where her beloved father failed. It’s astonishing to read about Meg as a small girl, to slowly come to the conclusion that perhaps it is possible, and even valuable, to be something other than nice and accommodating. And, not for nothing, it makes it all the more exciting that in the 2018 movie adaptation Meg is black, played by Storm Reid, because black women’s anger is policed even more fiercely and more stringently than the anger of white women.”
5. The Hate U Give
Amandla Stenberg is brilliant in the film adaptation of Angie Thomas’ best-selling novel. I will refer you to Tanisha C. Ford’s review at The Atlantic: “The Hate U Give joins an even smaller, but nonetheless powerful, body of work that takes black girlhood seriously and portrays it with emotional complexity… Hollywood would do well to make more films exploring such realities. By seeking to paint complete portraits of their young protagonists — by fleshing out their many motivations, regrets, fears, and hopes — films like The Hate U Give force viewers to recognize the characters as fully human, to reckon with them on their terms. With heroines like Starr at the fore, audiences can imagine not only new possibilities for black girls, but also new visions of our collective humanity.”
4. Ocean’s 8
”Because Ocean’s 8 is already a very, very good movie. There’s almost no conflict, and that’s refreshing. Why force conflict when you can just show women working together really well and having a lot of fun while doing it? It delivers all the style and thrills of a heist movie but also just feels like a bunch of women hanging out, doing crimes, bonding, and being really good at their jobs. Daphne joins the crew literally because she wants more female friends.“ — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
3. Incredibles 2
“The Parr’s salvation seems to come in the form of billionaire entrepreneur Winston Deavor and his genius designer sister Evelyn, who want to help supers rebrand, starting with Elastigirl. Helen’s reluctant, mostly because Bob’s got Don Draper-itis and can hardly stomach the thought of staying home with the kids while his wife is out saving the world, but she can’t say no when they offer to furnish the family with a house, and Elastigirl with a new bike and new supersuit and all the PR she can handle. They even introduce her to a whole gaggle of B-list supers who are her super fans. Elastigirl is the star of this movie, the main hero around which the entire brave new world of superheroes is built. Also she kind of falls in love with another woman?” — Heather Hogan
2. Widows
“This isn’t a film where the diversity on screen is just for self-congratulatory pats on the back. Every woman on the team is dealing with her own race and class intersections that impact her life, and the movie doesn’t shy away from them. These women check in with each other about childcare before their planning meetings; they are forced to live with the consequences of terrifying run-ins with police; they light candles when they pray; they are survivors and sex workers. In some instances, they have to train twice, if not three times, as hard as their husbands once did. Even when not the central focus, Widows quietly and elegantly weaves all of these elements into the their narrative.” — Carmen Phillips
1. Black Panther
“In Wakanda, there are no meek damsels in distress waiting to be saved. Nyong’o, Gurira, and Wright each spent weeks in combat training with the film’s stunt team. They’re equal partners in the fight to protect their home. They also have full fledged, varied, personalities. They are funny, or serious, wise, sneaky, nerdy, and geeky. Black Panther gives us more women, in more speaking parts, kicking more ass than any other Marvel film. More than the previous 17 Marvel films combined. In many ways, they are everything I could’ve hope for.” — Carmen Phillips
9 of the Best Witchy, Astrological or Otherwise Woo Books of 2018
2018 has been the Year of the Witch. While “witchy” aesthetics have been dominating Instagram for the last few years — crystals, altars — and queer astrologers with cult followings like Chani Nicholas have broken through into the popular consciousness, with coverage in places like Shondaland, 2018 has really brought astrology and other witchcraft-associated practices into mainstream coverage. It seems like every major website (Autostraddle included) has regular coverage, and all of your favorite occult practitioners are getting book deals — and not just with classic occult publishers like Llewellyn (who still put out some of the best books on the market).
Whether you’re into some kind of witchery yourself or you’d rather keep it fictional, here’s an overview of some of the best books from 2018.
Non-Fiction
Inner Witch: A Modern Guide to the Ancient Craft by Gabriela Herstik
Gabriela “Gaby” Herstik, the writer behind Nylon’s popular “Ask a Witch” column, published her first book earlier this year to much acclaim. Gaby covers Witch Basics in this book: casting a circle, writing and casting spells, candle magic, crystals, building altars, reading tarot, and the very basics of astrology.
This book is accessible, comprehensive, and a must-read for anyone just starting out – and even for folks who are more advanced in some areas (like, say, tarot reading) but who want to get into others (like, say, casting or candle magic).
Note that in the U.K., this is published under the name Craft.
Astrology for Happiness and Success by Mecca Woods
You may have read Mecca Woods’ horoscopes and astrology articles in Bustle, Essence, or I Am & Co. Her first book is a comprehensive breakdown of every sign: It doesn’t just offer descriptions, but also specific activities geared to each sign’s relationships, finances, and communication and conflict patterns. When it comes to those who are inclined to witchcraft, the information about colors, scents, and other more associations with each sign will definitely impact your altar building, wardrobe choices, and intention setting.
The book is a must-read for anyone just getting interested in astrology, but even as someone who is more advanced, I found a ton of useful information. This is a reference I’ll be coming back to for years.
P.S. Mecca advises folks to read the sections not only for their sun but also for their rising, moon, and Venus.
Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries by Lee Harrington and Tai Fenix Kulystin (editors)
This intersectional, multi-genre anthology weaves together academic essays and first-person narratives alongside comics and other styles of art to explore the relationship of magic to identity. “Drag queen magic, Inclusive witchcraft, and magic for healing and survival. Gender transition in Rome, possession practices, and DIY divination. Social justice, queer black tantra, and polarity beyond gender. Honoring ancestors, fluidity of consciousness, and reimagining the Great Rite. Queer sex magic, power sigils, deities that reflect diversity” – odds are good that this anthology has something for everyone.
Queer Magic: LGBT+ Spirituality and Culture from Around the World by Tomas Prower
Similar name, very different content than the previous book on the list. In this Queer Magic, Tomas Prower takes us on a deep historical dive into the intersection of queer sexuality and spiritual practices from around the globe. One example? Prower traces the practices of pre-modern native cultures (and their acceptance of what we would call queer sexuality) and the devastating effects of Christian colonialism.
There is a practical component to this book, as well. Prower includes stories from LGBT+ magical practitioners – Pagans, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, and others – in sections such as “Wisdom of a Welsh Druid Drag Queen” and “Being a Blatina Bisexual In The Catholic Church”. Alongside the researched explorations of queer sexuality and magical practice, there are spells, rituals, and other meditations and exercises.
This book is unique in that it is not entirely a history and not entirely a “how-to” reference, but an essential marrying of the two.
Enchantments: A Modern Witch’s Guide to Self-Possession by Mya Spalter
Spalter has worked at the iconic occult shop Enchantments in New York’s East Village for years. Her book is part memoir, part how-to. It’s gorgeously illustrated and focuses on how to incorporate witchcraft in the everyday: money magic starts with tipping well; aspirations start with an altar. Cleaning up your life starts with your bedroom. And on it goes.
Enchantments is built on the idea that intention and self-possession is the foundation of a magical practice – and really, isn’t that how all we all start down this path?
Llewellyn 2019 Witches Datebook
Released by occult publisher Llewellyn every year, the Witches’ Datebook is a planner that is also essentially a witches’ almanac. It has all the information about moon cycles, sabbats, equinoxes and solstices, and other significant dates to plan around. There are recipes, witchy tips, and other assorted information on each page. A must for any witch or occult practitioner.
Fiction
Circe by Madeline Miller
Odds are good you’ve heard about this book or seen it on endcap stands in bookstores and libraries. It made all the lists (and is currently making all the end-of-year Notable Fiction lists), even though it was shut out of the major literary awards.
The TL;DR is that this is the novelization of the story of the goddess Circe, who here is figured to have been born less of a goddess and more of a witch. You know the plot already (caught between gods and men – plus, pretty much every character from The Odyssey is in here), but it is so very, very worth a read.
Toil and Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft by Jessica Spotswood and Tessa Sharpe (editors)
Is there anything more powerful than a girl learning to believe in herself? Here are some of the highlights from this extraordinary collection (which includes a LOT of queer romance!): A young witch uses social media to connect with her astrology clients — and with a NASA-loving girl as cute as she is skeptical. A priestess of death investigates a ritualized murder. A bruja who cures lovesickness might need the remedy herself when she falls in love with an altar boy. In Reconstruction-era Texas, a water witch uses her magic to survive the soldiers who have invaded her desert oasis. And in the near future, a group of girls accused of witchcraft must find their collective power in order to destroy their captors.
Teenage girls overturning the patriarchy FTW!
Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno
“On the island of By-the-Sea you could always smell two things: salt and magic.”
This novel has everything – and I mean everything. First off, it’s magical realism in the vein of Practical Magic (the book, not the movie). The atmosphere is lush. The main characters are Georgina and Mary, almost 18-year-old twins from a family of witches. There’s a horrible murder which disrupts the town. There is also a queer romance for one of the sisters that unfolds in the sweetest way – you just have to read it.
50 of the Best LGBT Books of 2018
2018 was a bang-up year for queer books. Here are 50 of this year’s best, from a range of genres and on a range of topics!
Literary / Historical Fiction
Theory by Dionne Brand
What happens when love and intellect collide in academia? Three lovers — Selah, Yara, and Odalys — are about to find out in this poetic, witty, sensual novel.
Stray City by Chelsea Johnson
This funny, smart anti-romantic comedy set in 1990s Portland lesbian underground features Andrea Morales; when a drunken hookup with a cis dude leaves her pregnant, to her own and her friends’ shock, she decides to keep the baby.
Little Fish by Casey Plett
This debut novel has beautifully messy, complex characterization. 30-year-old trans woman Wendy has a lot going on in her Winnipeg life with her chosen trans family and her Mennonite family of birth: friendship, sex work, suicide, poverty, and finding out her grandfather might have been trans too. Read more from Plett in this trans women writers’ roundtable.
Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg
Contemporary scholar Dr. Voth discovers forgotten queer/trans history in the story of Jack Sheppard, a legendary 18th-century London underground thief. Corruption and conspiracy past and present eventually threaten both men amidst the academic comedy and period erotica.
Paper Is White by Hilary Zaid
In 1990s San Francisco, Ellen and her girlfriend want to get married. Ellen realizes she can’t do it until she comes out to her grandma. The problem? Her grandma died in the Holocaust; Ellen consequently becomes entangled with a mysterious Holocaust survivor.
Memoir/Biography
When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrice Khan-Cullors
In this Black Lives Matter memoir, Khan-Cullors writes about her experiences as a queer Black woman in contemporary America. In poetic and powerful prose, the memoir tells what led her to co-founding the Black Lives Matter movement. Check out Autostraddle’s discussion of the book.
Would You Rather? A Memoir of Growing Up and Coming Out by Katie Heaney
Heaney’s poignant collection of personal essays discuss coming out in your late twenties, the trials of NYC queer dating, navigating your first relationship, and figuring out how to be an adult. Her trademark neurotic wit and relatable intimate tone are in full force.
I Might Regret This by Abbi Jacobson
What to do when you’re reeling from your first big breakup with a woman? Drive across the country alone (despite the reservations of your friends), then share your vulnerabilities, drawings, and other stuff in a hilarious and moving collections of essays.
Amateur: A True Story about What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee
Using as a springboard his experiences training to fight in a charity boxing match, McBee untangles the troublesome relationship between masculinity and violence. From his perspective as a trans man, he tackles the limitations of conventional masculinity, and maps a path forward to a new kind of masculinity.
Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride
Highlighting her work as an activist and the key issues for trans communities, McBride’s book is a welcome dose of contagious optimism. She weaves in her personal story — including the life and death of her late husband Andy, a trans health advocate — with politics.
nîtisânak by Lindsay Nixon
nîtisânak is a genre-defying, funny, sad, and witty memoir about chosen and blood kin by this two-spirit Cree-Métis-Saulteaux writer. In beautiful poetic prose, Nixon writes about queer love, being a prairie punk, the intersections between queer and Indigenous identities, and more.
Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry
Mid-20th-century Black artist, activist, and intellectual Lorraine Hansberry’s story has unjustly been neglected until now, with Perry’s meticulous biography. Perry chronicles Hansberry’s tragically short life, including her anti-racist and lesbian activism, her writing — which includes A Raisin in the Sun — and more.
Middle Grade
Drum Roll, Please by Lisa Jenn Bigelow
In this tender novel, introverted tween Melly has a newfound love for playing the drums. At summer rock camp, though, things are all messed up: her parents are breaking up, her BFF ditches her, and she has a crush on a girl.
Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake
12-year-old artist named Ivy is dealing with a lot in this emotionally pitch-perfect novel: she’s feeling left out of her family with two new twin babies; a tornado destroyed their house; and she’s realizing that she likes girls instead of boys.
Hurricane Child by Kheryn Callender
This magical realist book is complex, moving portrayal of a 12-year-old queer black girl from “Water Island” in the Caribbean. Grief and love collide when Caroline connects with a new friend, who seems to see the same things Caroline sees.
One True Way by Shannon Hitchcock
Two seventh grade girls, Sam and Allie, realize that the crush they have on the other is mutual. But it’s the 1970s in the South, a hard time and place to be true to their queer selves.
P.S. I Miss You by Jen Petro-Roy
Petro-Roy’s resonant epistolary debut novel deals with questioning what you’ve been taught to believe. 11-year-old Evie writes letters to her teen sister Cilla, whose pregnancy resulted in their strict Catholic parents sending her away; she especially needs Cilla’s advice as she begins to question her newfound feelings for a girl.
Mystery
The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco
In this twisty dark historical crime novel set in the 1880s, Alma Rosales is a trained spy with a penchant for going undercover in drag and other miscellaneous “bad behavior.” Her latest case is recovering some stolen opium for her former lover’s smuggling ring — but this job is also another chance to engage in the double-crossing she’s so good at. Read about the real-life LGBT outlaws who inspired this book on Autostraddle!
Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht
This exhilarating spy thriller is also a character study and coming of age set in turbulent 1960s NYC and Argentina. Vera’s quick wit and radio tech skills get her recruited by the CIA; betrayal, crumbling governments, and war lead her to take extreme measures of self-preservation.
What You Want to See by Kristen Lepionka
The second installment in Lepionka’s series about bisexual PI Roxane Weary is even better than the first. The detective plot, following a complicated web of murder and fraud, is as compelling and complex as the characterization of Roxane.
Nonfiction
Written on the Body: Letters from Trans and Non-Binary Survivors of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence edited by Lexie Bean
This anthology written by and for trans and non-binary folks is comprised of letters. These letters, however, are not what you might expect: they’re addressed to bodies and body parts to offer hope, support, and guidance.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
This groundbreaking book brings together the many areas of activism Piepzna-Samarasinha has been working in for years: justice for sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people. In powerful and moving writing, she presents a tool kit, celebration, and a road map. Read the Autostraddle review.
The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia by Gayle Salamon
Taking the case of the murder of Latisha King, a 15-year-old trans teen, Salamon looks at the media coverage and subsequent trial using feminist phenomenology. It’s a stark and disturbing look at the violence of misreading gender identity as sexual identity.
I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya
Shraya’s book-length essay is an essential, moving, and accessible account of her experiences with masculinity and femininity as a trans woman. While recording the cumulative damage of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, Shraya also presents a challenge to reimagine gender in a way that would free us all.
A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns by Archie Bongiovanni and Tristan Jimerson
As quick and easy as the title promises, Bongiovanni and Jimerson’s guide to they/them pronouns is a great introduction for both people who use or want to use gender-neutral pronouns and for people who want to learn more. Check out Archie’s comics on Autostraddle!
Poetry
Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway
Benaway’s third lyric poetry collection is a stunning exploration of the intricacies of being a contemporary Indigenous trans woman. In the confessional mode using both English and Anishinaabemowin, she writes of the daily burdens and violence of transphobia and colonialism, romantic and sexual partners, and the wonder and power of trans Indigenous womanhood.
Drive Here and Devastate Me by Megan Falley
Falley’s fourth poetry collection is what Vanessa at Autostraddle calls “a love letter to the queer community.” With alternating lush imagery and clever wit, Falley tackles queer love, gun violence, toxic masculinity, femme invisibility, suicidality, misogyny, body positivity, and above all, a love of language.
Shame Is an Ocean I Swim Across by Mary Lambert
Lambert’s second book of poetry is a powerfully vulnerable and beautiful collection about mental illness, sexual assault, and body acceptance. Check out the Autostraddle interview with Lambert about the book.
High Ground Coward by Alicia Mountain
This lively and sensual debut collection maps new queer territory with its poems that are alternately lyrical, confessional, and narrative. Mountain offers “fists full of soil, leftovers for breakfast, road trip as ritual, twins of lovers and twins of ourselves” while addressing how to satisfy our own appetites while also nourishing others.
Nothing Is Okay by Rachel Wiley
Breaking down the conventional ways we’ve been taught to think about gender, sexuality, race, fat bodies, and dating, Wiley offers on the other brand new ways of viewing ourselves. It’s at once a celebratory and critical second book of poetry by this fat positive activist.
Romance
Blend by Georgia Beers
In this classic girl next door meets ice queen romance, Piper (the owner’s “icy bitch” daughter) and Lindsay (the “do-gooder hippie” general manager) are left in charge of a vineyard. Working together is going to be… difficult, but not falling in love might be even harder.
Bingo Love by Tee Franklin
In this ungodly adorable graphic novel, Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray fell in love at church bingo in 1963, but were forced apart. Decades later when they are reunited in their 60s, they realize their love is still alive.
Just for Show by Jae
Claire Renshaw is an overachieving couples therapist whose perfect life crumbles when her fiancée breaks up with her, ending not only their relationship but also potentially Claire’s relationship advice book deal. Enter her fake fiancée: Lana Henderson, a hot mess actress who, at least, Claire knows she will definitely not fall in love with.
The Music and the Mirror by Lola Keeley
This feel-good age gap romance features a younger bi woman, Anna, and an older lesbian, Victoria. They meet at an elite ballet company, Anna being the newest recruit and Victoria being the mentor/teacher. Along the way to the new season with Anna as its star, they discover they have more in common than their talent at ballet.
When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri
Katie and Cassidy have some serious obstacles to overcome in this traditional NYC rom com: Katie thinks she’s straight and has internalized a lot of anti-queer feelings and Cassidy is a womanizing butch heartbreaker. Read Molly’s full review on Autostraddle.
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Speculative Fiction
Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn
Amber Dawn’s second novel is a lesbian supernatural thriller set in 1990s small town Ontario. Starla’s story is at once a (queer) ghost haunting, family drama, and a classic queer-person-returns-to-their-hometown-as-as-adult narrative, all the while inventively subverting your expectations.
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
This unsettling, dark, extraordinary debut novel with startling prose is based on the Igbo legend of ogbanje. Emezi has crafted an original story about gender, duality, and identity featuring a young Nigerian, Ada, who develops separate selves.
So Lucky by Nicola Griffith
This fierce novel is an unflinching look at how terribly chronically ill and disabled people are treated as well as a declaration of self-love and hope. Griffith addresses this through the life of Mara Taragelli, who is diagnosed with MS and whose wife leaves her in the span of one week, leaving murder plots and shadow creatures in the wake of disaster.
The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai
This wild and visionary cyberpunk thriller imagines a future community of parthenogenic women, including doctor apprentice Kirilow, her lover Peristrophe, a “starfish” who can regenerate her own limbs, and Kora, a “girl-woman” bent on stopping an epidemic aimed at women. The women must go to war against disease, technology, and the men in power.
The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror by Daniel Mallory Ortberg
These unsettling and mischievous tales are based on familiar fairy tales, drawing out the dark threads to feminist and queer delight. Soothing childhood bedtime stories become chilling fables about gender, grown-up humor, and psychological horror. Check out the Autostraddle interview with Ortberg about the book.
Two Moons by Krystal A. Smith
Smith’s debut collection of speculative short stories / prose poems concerns itself with women’s bodies, infertility, miscarriage, drug addiction, magical healing herbs, astral bodies and the lines between human and animal. The tone throughout the book seamlessly goes from unsettling literal heartbreak to romantic Black lesbian love.
The Descent of Monsters by J.Y. Yang
The third installment in Yang’s gender creative silkpunk fantasy revolves around an investigation of atrocities committed at a classified research facility. This time Yang widens the perspective, telling the story using journal entries, letters, and reports.
Young Adult
Inkmistress by Audrey Coulthurst
In this unique bisexual fantasy about love and found family, demigod Asra’s love for Ina sets her on a dangerous path: a spell horrifically backfires and she is forced to follow Ina across the kingdom to stop disaster. Along the way she finds herself and falls in love with a boy.
Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
In this first book in a lush new fantasy series, Lei is a part of the Paper caste, the most oppressed class in the kingdom of Ikhara. When she’s chosen to serve as a king’s consort — supposedly an honor, but actually a cruelty — she does the unthinkable: she falls in love with one of the other girls and becomes part of a plot that could topple the regime.
Final Draft by Riley Redgate
18-year-old fat, pansexual, Ecuadorian American Laila is an accomplished sci fi writer whose final semester of high school is ruined when her favorite creative writing teacher is replaced. Her new instructor is critical of and unenthusiastic about her work, leading her to push herself out of her comfort zone — but how far is too far?
The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding
In this light-hearted feel-good romance, 17-year-old Abby is obsessed with fashion, fat, and gay. One summer, she finds herself falling for her fellow fashion boutique intern Jordi and participating in a project that involves eating burgers all over east L.A.
Sadie by Courtney Summers
A dark, scary thriller mystery, Sadie centres on tough, queer 19-year-old Sadie, who sets out to find her little sister Mattie’s killer. Told alternately in Sadie’s raw, grief-stricken voice and that of a Serial-esque podcast transcript, Summers’s novel is an extremely well-written gut punch.
Pulp by Robin Talley
The dual narratives of this novel are set in 1955 and 2017, both centering on lesbian pulp stories: Janet Jones discovers lesbian pulp novels in the age of McCarthyism and Abby Zimet works on her senior project about lesbian pulp books of the 1950s. The two girls’ lives are woven together through the power of queer narratives.
Lost Soul, Be at Peace by Maggie Thrash
In this follow-up to her acclaimed graphic memoir Honor Girl, Thrash continues the story of her teenage lesbian self. The story brings to painful and authentic life the before and after of depression, as Maggie wishes she could take back the summer of queer revelation that changed her life.
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
This graphic novel set in Paris at the turn of the century is a story about a genderfluid prince who goes out at night as the fabulous Lady Crystallia. Wang’s heartfelt story about love, romance, identity, and family is a beautiful heart-warming fairy tale.
What were your favorite 2018 queer books? Share them in the comments!
Autostraddle’s Favorite and Least Favorite Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans TV Characters of 2018
This has been an unbelievable year of representation for lesbian, bisexual, queer, and trans women on television. Riese broke down GLAAD’s findings just a few weeks ago, but the bottom line is: there are more of us than ever before, on more kinds of shows than ever before, and there are more ways to watch us than ever before, and there are more queer people of color to watch than ever before. In fact, as Riese pointed out, “for the first time ever, LGBTQ characters of color (50%) outpace white (49%) characters! Just barely but still!” All of those things are evident in our TV Team’s annual list of our favorite and least favorite characters. There were so many really good LGBTQ characters on TV in 2018 that there were only a small handful of shows that we all watched (Jane the Virgin, Pose, One Day at a Time, The Bold Type, and Black Lightning.) For the first time ever on this list, you can actually see the personalities of our writers shining through in the things they chose to watch and how they chose to write about them because we weren’t all forced to watch and argue about visibility on the same six shows. Below are our choices; we’d love to hear yours!
None of these write-ups are the Official Position of Autostraddle on any of these shows or characters; they are the individual opinions of our TV writers.
FAVORITE
Riese, Editor-in-Chief
Nancy Birch, Harlots
Nancy Birch pinged from the jump, but in Harlots’ second season, she finally rang the bell and said out loud that she was queer, and specifically that she was in love with Margaret Wells. Maybe she always had been. Nancy — a dominatrix who’d do anything for the women she loves — sort of dresses like a low-rent pirate, and always looks vaguely hungover or that she did her makeup and then slept on it. She’s like an old-fashioned hyper-aggressive Mommi, you know? I want her to like, punish me.
Villanelle, Killing Eve
Wow, why are all of my favorite characters this year basically women I want to have aggressive sex with? I’m not sure. Anyway, Villanelle is a psychopath serial killer. You know the scene where she’s eating chicken pot pie leftovers out of the container and she’s got that long winter underwear shirt on and the shirt is on top of another shirt and her elbows are on the table and she’s eating like a medieval man? Wow, right? Anyhow, Villanelle is everything we don’t want lesbian characters to be (besides dead) (and yes, I know that some people read her as bisexual and I think that’s valid and perhaps even correct, I just read her differently and I think that’s okay don’t @ me) and yet she is so fucking weird that she won my heart. I can’t wait for season two of this very bizarre show.
Leila, The Bisexual
Ah yes, and here we have yet another slightly unstable, sexually creative, broad-shouldered woman. This show was wholly original and brutally honest and felt really fucking real. A lot of shows were like that this year — tangibly authentic because they were written by people who understood deeply the stories they were telling. Akhvan has been called “the bisexual Lena Dunham” and although it’s safe to say Lena Dunham usually sucks (although I should admit AGAIN DON’T @ ME that I did enjoy the HBO series Girls), I get the concept behind it — Leila is a little destructive and sloppy, looking for love in all the wrong places, often shooting herself in the foot. At the same time [unlike any of the girls on Girls], she is somebody I feel deep affection for. I understand why she’s doing what she’s doing, and listen, I support her journey. Plus, she is very tall and hot.
Valerie Anne, Staff Writer
Waverly Earp, Wynonna Earp
Waverly Earp continues to be such a lovely, bright spot on TV for me this year. Nicole was a strong contender for this favorite list, being a loving girlfriend, a badass sheriff and a loyal friend to the Earp girls, but the Jolene episode really cemented Waverly as the one who owns my whole soul. I’ve always identified with Waverly in some ways, and aspired to be more like her in others, so I’m obviously biased, but I think she had a really strong season. She traveled the journey of having and almost losing hope, and learning things about yourself, some that hurt and some that make you stronger. And I mean she was revealed to be a LITERAL angel. A literal queer angel born of a creature from actual heaven. She’s the light I really needed in this dark, dark year.
Sara Lance, Legends of Tomorrow
Sara Lance, and Legends as a whole, delights and surprises me week after week. It just keeps getting stronger and funnier and weirder in the best ways. And seeing Sara in a semi-domestic relationship with Ava, giving other people the same advice she needed two years ago – it’s been truly a wonder to behold. The show just keeps leaning into the queerness (in all senses of the word) and I think they’re better for it. I mean they have a blonde, bisexual, badass babe as the undisputed Captain of this band of time-traveling weirdos and even when they travel to times that hesitate to accept her, her team never falters.
Theo Crain, Haunting of Hill House
I went into Haunting of Hill House looking for spooks and maybe some feels and it delivered on both tenfold. It had all the makings of the best horror movie you’ve ever seen, but then added a layer of character development that’s otherwise hard to accomplish in only 90 minutes. I have a special place in my heart for all the Crain siblings (except Steven… fuck Steven,) but Theo Crain wrapped her be-gloved hand around my heart and hasn’t let go since. As someone who considers herself an empath in the least supernatural sense of the word, Theo’s journey really spoke to me, and it didn’t hurt that she was also queer. Plus, (spoiler alert) despite being a queer woman in a horror scenario, she survives! It’s a miracle.
Mel Vera, Charmed
The new Charmed is, well, charming me way more than I expected. I went in hesitant because I loved the original, but hopeful because I loved the actresses cast as the new sisters. The show has proven to be so much fun, with a pointed and hopeful tone reminiscent of season one of Supergirl. I love Mel because she’s out and proud and smart and bold and not afraid to speak her mind. Well, unless she’s talking to Niko, but that’s just because she loves her a lot and can’t tell her she’s a witch! You know, normal girlfriend stuff. Anyway, I love her a lot. This season took a surprising turn for Mel and Niko’s relationship, but so far the show has given me faith that they aren’t about to sweep Mel’s queerness under the rug anytime soon.
Karolina Dean, Marvel’s Runaways
Honestly I can’t tell you what it is about Karolina Dean that I love so much. There’s something about her story, her loyalty to her friends, her disillusionment in her parents, her discovering the power within her –and discovering she likes kissing girls (well, one girl in particular) — I love it all. Karolina and Nico’s first kiss and the way she smiled after, like she finally let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, it was so perfect. And their second, too! As much as I love me some angst, the EASE with which Karolina came out to herself was so inspiring and I think important for people to see; you’re not any less queer for not having struggled with it, you know? Anyway, I love this sunshiny rainbow and her goth girlfriend so much and can’t wait to see what they get up to in the new season.
Natalie, Staff Writer
Annalisa “Quiet Ann” Zayas, Claws
There’s a scene in “Scream,” the Ann-centric episode in Claws‘ second season, where Desna’s trying to figure out whether to side with the Russians or Uncle Daddy and the Dixie Mafia in their ongoing feud. She turns to her crew for advice and, eventually, lands on Ann. The voiceover comes in, revealing Ann’s thought: “You’re gonna ask me about loyalty?”
That Ann’s angry at that moment isn’t a surprise to the audience — the day’s been filled with reminders of what she lost: her child, snatched from her arms at 17; her freedom, taken away when she’s sent to prison for stabbing her cheating girlfriend; her family, lost to her when she returned from prison, changed; the love of her life and her would-be family, sacrificed so that Desna could skate on a murder charge. Ann’s rage is not a surprise. What is surprising is that, rather than letting the silence lay thick or worrying about how she’s heard, as is her wont, Quiet Ann speaks for herself, “I think you got a lot of nerve asking me about loyalty.”
It’s a fundamental shift in how Claws has treated Quiet Ann for the prior 13 episodes. It also addresses one of the show’s fundamental flaws from the first season. At the time, I lamented that, despite offering us intriguing but brief glimpses into Quiet Ann, “each and every time there’s a possibility to make this show’s butch Latina into something other than a plot device, the writers go the other way.” Thankfully, with this scene, the show’s writers’ uncorked Quiet Ann. Her genie is not going back into its bottle ever again.
Blanca and Angel Evangelista, Pose
For the longest time, I didn’t see myself on television, but still, I had that impulse to find commonality between myself and the people that I welcomed into my home. I wouldn’t get to see all of me, but I’d always find something — Dwayne Wayne’s nerdiness, Brian Krakow’s unrequited love for Angela Chase, Pacey Witter’s “black sheep” status — to ensure that I could see some part of myself in stories that looked nothing like mine. As time passed, I started to see more characters on television that looked like me and loved like me and shared my experiences… and that representation, in a word, was amazing.
It is amazing. It’s amazing that we’ve reached a point where a person can wrap themselves in a cocoon of characters that affirm who they are on a regular basis. Is this how cis white dudes feel all the time?
This year, I’ve started to wonder — to worry, honestly — if we’ve grown too attached to the need to see ourselves on-screen. There’s value in representation, always, but there’s also value in seeing and investing in the stories that aren’t your own, particularly those from other marginalized communities. It’s how we build empathy. Are we choosing to be seen over seeing others? And, if so, what implications does that have for our community?
I stepped into the world of the 1980s New York ballroom scene over the summer, not because I saw myself in the characters immediately, but because even if I didn’t, their stories were ones worth hearing. Cis folks hear trans people’s voices most often in protest: of bathroom bills, of military service bans, of cis folks’ collective silence in the face of their community’s deaths. There’s more to the trans community than that. Pose gives trans women space to be sing, act, dance, direct and write. The show is worth watching for that reason alone.
But when you dig into Pose, you find yourself investing in these characters because, whatever our differences, we share a common humanity. I saw myself in Blanca Evangelista (played exquisitely by Mj Rodriguez), the matriarch of her chosen family. A woman who, instead of being content to inherit something, someday, took a step out on a ledge, and built something of her own. She is a woman who wants to leave a legacy, to leave some proof that she was here. She is a woman who, in the face of discrimination, keeps coming back over and over again, to move us a little closer to justice. She is a woman who cares for others and works tirelessly to secure their future. She is me, in every way that counts.
If Blanca is the person I am, Angel is the person I wish I were. There’s such a certainty to her – a certainty that I keep thinking she shouldn’t have yet, she’s so young – that I envy. Angel’s been through some stuff. As Stan says, sometimes it feels as if she’s been “disinvited from the rest of the world.” Still, she’s a believer in the possibility of it all. I long for her sense of belief and, as the season progresses, find myself drawn to Angel. That’s in part because Indya Moore is magnetic, but also because I’m desperate to protect that spirit in her. A spirit I want so desperately to see in myself.
Carmen, Associate Editor
Eddy Martínez and Emma Hernandez, Vida
I thought about separating Vida protagonist Emma Hernandez from her stepmother Eddy for the purpose of this list. Certainly, the commanding performances by Mishel Prada and Ser Anzoategui each deserve their own recognition.
Prada’s Emma is tightly wound and multi-layered, an iceberg whose mass is 90% beneath the surface of its tip. It’s brave to deliver such a careful performance for a character that, quite honestly, it takes a couple of episodes to even like. That’s perhaps what is most wonderful about Emma; her love is hard won. But once you’ve opened yourself to her, there’s no turning back. She’ll consume your thoughts. I know she has consumed mine.
As Eddy, Anzoategui took the complete opposite approach. They opened their emotions wide and gaping right from the first moment we meet. Eddy’s eyes are mournful and haunting, her heart feels so visceral that you can almost see it beating on the table. She’s desperate to find any way forward after the death of her wife, she’s desperate to build a relationship with the daughters she’s left behind. Anzoategui never loses themself to Eddy’s rawness, instead choosing to shade the widow’s emotions with nuance. There’s a silent bathtub scene in Vida’s third episode that I still haven’t put down nearly six months later. It’s a testament to Anzoategui’s work.
Still, the most gripping performance I saw between a pair of actors this year was the dance created between Prada and Anzoategui together. They found honesty, even when its ugly, between their characters. They found love between all the rubble and broken hardness. For that, I’m pairing them together. (The fact that Prada also had this year’s hottest sex scene certainly doesn’t hurt.)
Blanca Evangelista, Pose
I’ve tried writing about Pose at least four times, and each time it’s ended up in the scrap pile because, really, what is there to say? Its goodness has surpassed words. Yes, watching Pose is important and culturally significant because it boasts the largest cast of trans women of color in television history. I do not want to shortchange that fact. I also wouldn’t want the historical weight of this moment to overshadow the fact that Pose is just damn good, supremely crafted television. It’s not a stretch to say that you’ll see it on a lot of critic’s year end lists, and not just the gay ones. This show is a powerhouse; it’s a force to be reckoned with.
Natalie is absolutely right: it’s important to watch television that doesn’t necessarily reflect you. I’d go as far as to argue that as a queer community, it’s our responsibility to lift up those voices of our siblings who aren’t being heard. We have to see our own humanity, because few others will grant us such grace. That said, the reason I love Blanca Evangelista (richly colored and portrayed by Mj Rodriguez) is because of how much she reminds me of myself. I wrote this summer, “Blanca Evangelista is the kind of character I’ve been waiting my whole life for. She’s an Afro-Latina, Puerto Rican, and fighting like hell to keep her queer chosen family together and make a name for herself in this world.” It’s still true. She’s the closet I’ve ever come to seeing all of me at once. And for that, she will always have my heart.
Annalisa “Quiet Ann” Zayas, Claws
Judy Reyes proved this year that it’s not the size of the role, it’s what you do with it. I’m selecting Quiet Ann for this list based on the strength of one single episode.
“Scream” was an episode of queer women’s television unlike almost any other this year. It’s a stand out in a year full of stand outs. In fact, I’d argue that even when we take a long historical eye towards the queer women’s TV canon, this episode is still going to hold its own. In less than 45 minutes, Reyes took a someone who previously had not been much more than a silent comic relief and perfunctory side character, and found the depths of her soulfulness. It’s hard to do much with a character who rarely talks, a character for whom “quiet” is literally in her name. Yet, Reyes proved that Anne isn’t quiet because she’s an afterthought. She’s quiet because she’s interior to herself. She’s thoughtful and considerate. She’s full of pain and remorse, but also stubborn hopefulness in the face of hopeless surroundings. It’s hard to bring such meditative introspection to a television dramedy that’s made a name for itself in over the top parody, but the Scrubs alum is the exact right woman for the job. She threads the needle every time.
Anissa Pierce, Black Lightning
ANISSA. MOTHER F*CKING. PIERCE. If you didn’t think I was going to include our very own black lesbian superhero on this list, you were gravely mistaken. Before she even made her debut last January, Anissa’s bonafides spoke for themselves. She’s the first lesbian superhero on the CW. She’s the first black lesbian superhero ever. She’s a bullet-proof black lesbian on the very network that, until perhaps recently, was most famously tied to the killing of one of their lesbian characters with a gunshot. She’s a bullet-proof black lesbian in a country where black people are still fighting for the very respect of our lives as we continue to be shot down as victims of police and state violence. And that was all before the first episode aired.
What followed was even better. Anissa is brave; she’s tenacious (okay, and a little impetuous); she’s smart – like nerdy book smart, she’s in medical school smart; she loves her family and fights against systemic injustices in her community. She also has relatable flaws. She puts up walls and flits between romantic loves because the very idea of commitment startles her. Did I mention she’s been gifted with some of the best fight choreography this year? And that those fights happen almost exclusively against other women badasses? Nafessa Williams has delivered an easy-to-love performance this year, and I can’t wait to keep on loving her!
Catra, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
I recently came across a tweet on my timeline where a fan described Catra’s storyline as one of the best origins for an antihero this year. And sure, maybe that sounds hyperbolic, but I think that fan was on to something. It’s easy to care for Catra right from the beginning. She has a comeback for every putdown. She’s almost effortlessly cool with her torn up black jeans and perfectly spiked hair. She’s all edge and dark, warm colors in She-Ra’s otherwise pastel rainbow colored We’re Going To Win in the End! world. Most interestingly, Catra is dangerous. She’s legitimately threatening.
I intended for She-Ra to be pleasant background noise while I completed my Saturday morning chores, but Catra demanded all of my attention. What became clear was how much Catra hurt. She deeply felt the loss of her best friend. Her funny comebacks were thinly veiled covers for the old wounds she didn’t want you to see. She self-sabotaged herself at every turn, as if she was afraid to really try. By the time I arrived at the episode dealing with the emotional abuse that Catra and She-Ra dealt with in their childhood, I was in tears. I don’t remember the last time I cried at animation not made by Pixar! Here was Catra, filled up with a lifetime’s worth of pain and just trying to bottle it before it poured over everything.
It’s hard to make an animated villain that doesn’t feel, well, broad and cartoon-sh. Catra was completely three-dimensional. Also, did you catch her in that tux at Princess Prom? Can you swoon over a cartoon character? Because I think I just did.
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Staff Writer
Sadie, The Bisexual
The second I set my eyes upon the gay art Mommi that is Sadie, I was smitten! Look, like all characters on The Bisexual, she has her flaws. She makes Leila’s own sexuality journey kind of about herself. And then she rebounds with her employee. But, would I gladly volunteer to co-parent the child she desperately wants to have? Fuck YES. Ruin me, Mommi!
Theo Crain, Haunting Of Hill House
I really, really loved Haunting Of Hill House and aside from its technical stunner of a sixth episode, the best chapter is easily the one dedicated to its resident empathic lesbian Theodora Crain. Because of her, I firmly believe that gloves should be a lesbian fashion trend. Let’s just say that an emotionally withholding, somewhat messy lesbian who tries to fuck way her problems is… something I’m very drawn to.
Jane Ramos, Jane The Virgin
Am I listing my favorite television characters or the television characters I want to date? SAME THING! Jane Ramos’ intense confidence and the way she gradually melts over Petra Solano was easily one of my favorite parts of Jane The Virgin this year.
Arthie Premkumar, GLOW
Okay, so we barely got a glimpse at Arthie’s sexuality questioning or the potentially blossoming romance between her and Yolanda last season of GLOW, but I’m so starved for queer South Asian representation that I gotta give her a shoutout. Hopefully next year on GLOW brings much more!
Emma Hernandez, Vida
She’s hot; she’s complicated; she’s a control freak; she’s an emotional disaster. So Vida’s Emma hits all the right buttons when it comes to the television characters I enjoy watching. Crying while masturbating? A goddamn icon.
Heather Hogan, Managing Editor
Rosa Diaz, Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Brooklyn Nine-Nine has always been one of my favorite can’t-miss shows, but in 2018 I became a full-on evangelist for it, largely because of the way it handled Rosa’s coming out storyline. First of all, because noted bisexual Stephanize Beatriz was consulted by the writers on it; and second of all, because it was just so good. It’s very rare to see a character come out as bisexual and say the word “bisexual.” It’s even rarer when it’s an established character on a broadcast network show. What made Rosa’s story great was more than just the stats. It was just so Rosa. The sheepish, but gruff, way she told Boyle she was dating a woman. The time limit she gave the squad — exactly one minute and zero seconds — to ask questions. And then her heartbreaking, heartwarming, uncompromising coming out episode with her parents. It was so funny and so real and so Rosa.
Elena Alvarez, One Day at a Time
One Day at a Time has been on for two seasons and I’ve probably watched it more than any other comedy ever, besides The Golden Girls. (And, as you’ll see by comparing my list to everyone else’s, my heart beats for comedies.) Often times sitcoms stop with the revelation of a queer character’s sexuality — but ODAAT gave Elena a season two storyline that was as sweet and awkward as any first time queer romance I’ve ever seen on TV. I scooted closer to the TV when she was trying to figure out if Syd liked her, cheered when they had their first kiss, and swooned like a cartoon character when they went to their first dance together. Plus, Elena had lots to do outside of her relationship; she grew as an individual person, too, learning more about herself, her culture, her family, and even her gender presentation.
Leila, The Bisexual
Because I am a human afflicted with humanity’s narcissism I am most drawn to TV characters whose bumbling, sweet nerdiness (see above) remind me of myself or whose sense of moral courage and heroism (see below) show me the me I want to be. What I am not drawn to is messy TV characters, especially messy queer women TV characters — but among the many revelations I had while watching Desiree Akhavan’s The Bisexual this year was that messy queer women TV characters are usually just sloppily written queer women TV characters. Akhavan’s Lelia is generous and selfish and hard and sharp and still full of wonder and boi is she messy! But that only made me love her more! She’s authentic in a way I’m not sure I’ve experienced from a mid-30s queer woman on television. And the way the show explores her bisexuality is definitely not something I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t indict anyone; it just asks a lot of questions and generously explores the answers.
She-Ra, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
I was more excited about Netflix’s She-Ra reboot than anyone I know and was also more surprised than anyone when it exceeded every one of my expectations, including the fact that it’s maybe the queerest thing I have ever seen on TV in my life. Just so casually unapologetically queer. Adora, to me, is the perfect metaphor for growing up in an oppressive, oh let’s say, conservative white evangelical Christian community and lucking your way out of it to fight on the side of the good guys (who you’d been taught were the bad guys). She’s tough and smart and destined for greatness as she chooses goodness and also she just loves horses! (And Catra.)
June, Forever
I know this show has been out for several months now, but I still don’t want to spoil anyone who hasn’t seen it. I’ll just say that if Maya Rudolph doesn’t win an Emmy for playing a middle-aged woman whose simmering desires and rage are awakened by another middle-aged women who’s even angrier than she is, I will be shocked. This is one of those rare shows that when I was watching it, I was like, “Wait, have I never seen this queer story before? I haven’t! I really haven’t!” (Also, if you still haven’t read Caity Weaver’s profile of Maya Rudolph, you really have to rectify that.)
Ruby and Sapphire, Steven Universe
That they got married on Cartoon Network and smooched right on their non-binary femme Gem lips would be enough, but it’s not just the revolutionary representation that made them so great (again) this year; it’s that they’re brilliantly written characters who grow together and apart. They’re badass and they’re adorable and when Garnet marched into the most epic battle of her life, in her wedding dress, her battlecry was the best description of a relationship I have ever heard: “I am the will of two gems to care for each other, to protect each other from any threat, no matter how vast or how cruel!” Y’all couldn’t stop her 5,750 years ago and you cannot stop her now.
LEAST FAVORITE
Riese, Editor-in-Chief
Lila Stanton,The Purge
I started watching The Purge to see AZMarie do pull-ups in a sports bra, and found myself surprisingly drawn into the show as a whole, primarily into a love triangle between Lila, Jenna and Rick. Mostly because I was certain Rick was an asshole and Jenna was going to leave him for her true love, Lila, with whom she exchanged sweet kisses by the pool at a white supremacist murder party. Lila was not like her terrible parents! She was a lesbian who loved equality for all mankind! Then, over the course of two episodes, she slipped directly into the gaping maws of the psycho lesbian trope, which led to her eventual death.
Valerie Anne, Staff Writer
Jenna Betancourt, The Purge
Like Riese, I also had high hopes for Jenna and Lila at the beginning of this show, with the sexy flashbacks and the sexier poolside kiss. I thought for sure she was going to ditch her scheming, potato-of-a-man husband before things got too insane. Alas, she chose wrong. I also quit this show before having to watch Lila be tripped up by tropes because it’s 2018 and self-care is important.
Just, everybody, Shameless
I get that V didn’t have a lot of experience with bisexual people before she started being in a throuple with Kev and Svetlana, but I feel like she was very willing to go back to IDing as straight after Svetlana left (well, after she ACTIVELY made life miserable for Svetlana) and try to chalk it up to being kinky. Also, I’m mad that after eight full seasons of wishing for Fiona to realize she was bisexual, and really thinking they were going to go there with Nessa, they made DEBBIE be the Gallagher sister in a relationship with a woman?? DEBBIE??? I love this show, but hoo boi they made me mad this year. Don’t even get me STARTED on the Gay Jesus cult. JUST DON’T. I’m going to finish out the season but if they really think they can go on without Emmy Rossum they have another thing coming.
Peach Sallinger, Hashtag You on Lifetime
Peach is on my “worst” list not because I didn’t like her, but because i didn’t like her storyline. She started off so great. Shay Mitchell delivered her strongest acting performance to date, and Peach was the only voice of reason for miles around. However, if people who read the book hadn’t already told me she was a lesbian, I wouldn’t have known until it was revealed that she was maybe a psychopath and had dozens of photos of Beck sleeping and/or half-naked that didn’t appear to be taken with consent. :deep sigh: I stopped watching after she was smashed on the head with a rock but before she was murdered, and frankly I think the new exorcism movie Shay is in will treat her better than this show did.
Natalie, Staff Writer
Nova Bordelon, Queen Sugar
This one hurts, y’all.
I wanted Nova Bordelon to be great. I wanted this character, an original creation of Ava DuVernay’s designed to add to the rich tapestry penned by Natalie Baszile, to be great. I wanted this character, imbued with the spirit and identity of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, to be great. And, most of all, I wanted this character, played by Rutina Wesley, who I’ve adored (read: thirsted over) since long before she came out as queer last year, to be great. I wanted Nova Bordelon to be great – for Rutina, for me, for the culture.
But, oh no…
Because, even though it’s 20GAYteen, and even though GLAAD gave Ava DuVernay an “Excellence in Media” award, Nova Bordelon was not great this season. Over the last two years, Queen Sugar has erased Nova’s bisexuality from her identity and it’s been so disheartening to watch. Hearing Nova cry out for freedom, echoing the very words she said to her girlfriend in Season One, to her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Remy, of all people has been like pouring salt in an open wound.
Carmen and I talked about a lot of this back in August when the latest season of Queen Sugar wrapped, so I won’t belabor the point too much, but I will say this: one of the things that made this television show great, from the outset, was its full-hearted embrace of revolutionary politics. Carmen, quite rightly, called the first season a “black feminist masterclass.” It stood firmly on the side of justice and representation and was unapologetic about it. What worries me about Queen Sugar’s bisexual erasure is that it might be symptomatic of a shift, away from the revolutionary, and more towards the respectable.
And if that’s the case — if this once revolutionary show is going to embrace respectability politics — then it has become a shell of its former self and may not be worth investing in at all anymore.
Bárbara and Mercedes, Perdona nuestros pecados
Earlier this year, when I was putting together our March Madness competition, I decided to create an International region, as a small way to acknowledge Autostraddle’s international readership. I scoured the Internet in search of 16 kisses worthy of inclusion in our contest and, in doing so, I stumbled upon Perdona nuestros pecados (Forgive Our Sins), a Chilean telenovela set in the fictional town of Villa Ruiseñor during the 1950s. The lesbian storyline on the show features Mercedes Möller, the sheltered daughter of the town’s mayor, and Bárbara Roman, the cosmopolitan but stifled wife of the town’s new police commissioner. They grabbed my attention in a way that few shows I discovered would — I’m pretty sure it was the couple’s second kiss in the church that hooked me — and I grew to love this pairing.
I’d watch the show live and glean what I could from the context and what little Spanish I know. I’d follow the hashtags on social media, discuss the show with other fans and eagerly wait for clips of the show and their translations. And, if the show had ended with its first season (which, by the way, included one of the best lesbian love scenes I’ve ever seen on TV), I would have no doubt included Bárbara and Mercedes among my picks for the Best of 2018. But apparently, even though it’s 20GAYTeen, I still cannot have nice things.
In an unprecedented move, the network decided to extend the telenovela for a second season and, for a while, it was good. With the romance between the women cemented, the story became more about the drama which was to be expected. Then the wheels came off and the writers subjected this couple to one awful trope after another and dug themselves into a hole so deep that they couldn’t really get out of it — and, in the process, diminished this once great couple.
Because we’re talking about our least favorite characters and we include pictures with our posts, it’s easy to attach our scorn to the actors but, honestly, it’s hardly ever about them (María Bello and Soledad Cruz were amazing). As with so many queer stories on television, Bárbara and Mercedes faltered because the writers got lazy. Too often, writers pen beautiful storylines about women falling in love because, even if they’re not queer women, that’s the part that they understand.After that, when it’s time to write about what a relationship between two women actually looks like, they can’t even fathom it. So, instead, they reach for tropes, either not realizing they were tropes or wrongly believing that they could succeed where so many others failed (spoiler alert: you can’t).
We need writers to do better. Be creative or, better yet, hire queer women to tell their stories. I only hope the writers behind Bárbara and Mercedes learn that lesson before the possible spin-off.
Carmen, Associate Editor
Lila Stanton, The Purge
That sure was a rollercoaster! Like Riese, I came to The Purge with very low expectations, just wanting to see AzMarie sweat a bit in a sports bra (by the way, not nearly enough of that! Thanks for nothing, show). And much like Valerie, I was a goner from the first poolside kiss. I was 100% certain that The Purge was going to end with Jenna and Lila was the quintessential horror movie “final girls,” raising the sword of justice and holding each other in their arms as daybreak rose on another day. They were going to be the Lesbian Avengers! The complete set up was there! Instead Jenna decided to raise her baby with a potato sack and Lila got a complete and total personality transplant! Why? I have no idea! I assume because without turning her into a psycho trope at the last minute, her death wouldn’t have made any sense! So the writers forgot all their character development, Lila turned into some caricature from The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and then she died. Good times, folks. Good times.
Nova Bordelon, Queen Sugar
Natalie said all that needed be said upthread. The only thing I have to add are my tears.
Do you want the salted water from my very body Queen Sugar? Take it. You’ve already taken everything else.
Heather Hogan, Managing Editor
Peach Sallinger, You
This was the weirdest year because almost no one on our TV team could think of any characters we hated. Even when we started digging down into, like, “Okay, but who was just written poorly?” I don’t know if that’s because there was so much excellent queer TV, none of us watched what was subpar; or if most things really were just good this year. Either way, that’s an excellent problem to have and my answer to this question is Peach Sallinger. It’s not because she was a lesbian psycho; I don’t mind that trope anymore and, frankly, it was refreshing to see Shay Mitchell play just a hardcore bitch. But like Valerie said, she was so underwritten it was hard to tell if she really was going to be a lesbian at all and then she got walloped in the skull with a rock almost as soon as we found out. Honestly, even if she’d lived, it wouldn’t have been worth the investment because every goddamn minute of this show was voiced-over by Dan Fucking Humphrey.
The 16 Best Lesbian and Bisexual TV Couples of 2018
When Riese wrote about GLAAD’s Where We Are on TV report this year, she mentioned that she created and has been maintaining a comprehensive database of LGBTQ TV characters, so she wasn’t too surprised to read that GLAAD’s findings were mostly positive, and that they now have stats to back-up something we’ve been saying forever: “showrunners are listening to GLAAD, they’re listening to fans, and they’re increasingly aware of how specifically passionate queer women are about our stories.”
That’s more obvious on this list — and what’s not included in on this list — than maybe any of the other year-end lists we’re compiling this year. In the intro for the best lesbian and bisexual movies of 2018, I noted how weird it was to be able to create a queer women’s pop culture list and leave things off of it — because, finally, we had enough good content to set some parameters for inclusion. Well, here I am making a list of best lesbian and bisexual TV couples of 2018 and the same thing is true! There’ve definitely been enough queer women pairings to fill out lists like these the last few years, but it would have been unheard of until very recently to leave off any two women whose mouths had touched each others’. But here I am, doing just that! I counted 60 TV shows that featured women smooching this year. 16 shows made this list.
Even more interestingly/awesomely, there are at least a dozen fan favorite lesbian and bisexual TV characters this year who aren’t on this particular list because they had excellent queer storylines that didn’t include being in a relationship. (Don’t worry, our annual list of Best/Worst TV characters is coming next week!)
The couples on this list had to include: a non-guest queer character who had noticeable character development; sex/affection/screentime that was equivalent to the sex/affection/screentime given to straight characters of the same status (main character, recurring character, etc.); and the majority of our TV Team had to agree on their inclusion. And here they are!
Jane and Petra, Jane the Virgin
Jane the Virgin fans had been reading Petra as bisexual for a few seasons, and while the show didn’t match her up with Jane Villanueva, they sure did give her a whole other Jane to fall for! Petra’s coming out storyline was so real and so sweet and so funny and so sexy and — best of all — it ended with her getting the girl (at least for a minute!).
Nico and Karolina, Marvel’s Runaways
Nico and Karlina’s relationship is special because both characters have their own storylines, and their own relationships to their queerness, so they’re just as dynamic and fun to watch when they’re apart as they are together. Their relationship had been highly anticipated by fans of The Runaways comic books, so it was really rewarding to see the usually-gay-reluctant Marvel actually go there on-screen, and do it so well.
Stef and Lena, The Fosters
Stef and Lena will go down in history as one of the all-time great lesbian relationships on TV. It was sad to say goodbye to them in their final season, but easily worth the tears for the five years of laughter and love and late-night swims and pancake breakfasts they gave us. In the end, they renewed their commitment to be home with each other, always, right where they belong.
Syd and Elena, One Day at a Time
Elena’s season one coming out storyline was perfect and profound. And so was her first love storyline in season two. Syd, Elena’s nonbinary queer pal, went from being her activist buddy to her partner over the course of the season. They shared their first kiss together, their first school dance together, and their first Doctor/TARDIS cosplay together. A romance for the ages.
Princess Bubblegum and Marceline, Adventure Time
After the slowest slow burn in the history of slow burns, Marceline and Princess Bubblegum finally kissed on-screen in the Adventure Time series finale (fittingly, as Ooo was literally burning to the ground around them). Marceline stopped hinting that her affection for Bonnibel had never gone away and said it right out loud. Did they live happily ever after? Well, time is an illusion. But they did live, and together!
Sara and Ava, Legends of Tomorrow
We loved Sara with Nyssa. And it was always fun to watch Sara romp through time and make good girls go gay. But watching the strength and vulnerability it took for her to fall in love with Ava and fight for their relationship peeled back even more layers of her character. They make each other so happy, and that makes us happy. These two have suffered enough! Let them live and love!
Kate and Emaline, Everything Sucks
Riese and I were both kind of stunned by how much we loved Everything Sucks and how bummed we were that Netflix cancelled it. Kate’s storyline spoke to both of our gay-but-unaware ’90s teen lesbian souls, in large part because Kate’s relationship with Emaline just felt so real. Lots of people agreed with us. Lots and lots and lots of people. In a shocker, these two won our March Madness Best Kiss competition! You’ll always be our little Wonderwall, Kate Messner.
Emma and Cruz, Vida
When Autostraddle Associate Editor Carmen Phillips recapped the season finale of Vida, she wrote, “Over the course of Vida’s first season, there have been quite a few moments where I had to pause the television slack jawed in disbelief and mutter to myself, ‘I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to see this on TV.'” And about their beautiful, blossoming relationship: “Listen, Emma never falls asleep at a hook up’s house. But with Cruz everything is safe, you know? It’s warm and gentle and soft. Emma’s built her whole world into sharp edges. Cruz brings out parts that she long thought she buried. And despite herself, she craves it.” And so did we!
Mel and Niko, Charmed
The news that trickled in about the CW’s Charmed reboot over the course of this year surprised us in so many ways. That the main characters would all be Latinx, that one of them was going to be an out-and-proud lesbian, that she would have a girlfriend from the get-go. None of those facts prepared me for the biggest surprise of all: that I was going to fall in love with Mel and then Mel and Niko immediately, and that it was going to break my heart when Mel had to save her girlfriend by setting her free.
Ruby and Sapphire, Steven Universe
Ruby and Sapphire have not stopped breaking ground since they showed up, individually, on our teeves. This year, they just went right on ahead and got married and kissed right on their cartoon mouths on primetime TV on Cartoon Network. Plus: masc Gems in dresses, femme Gems in tuxes, throwbacks to Ruby and Sapphire’s other most romantic moments. There were an awful lot of awful things we could have be thinking of, but for just one day we only thought about love.
Waverly and Nicole, Wynonna Earp
We go now to our official WayHaught correspondent, Autostraddle Staff Writer Valerie Anne: In their third season together, Waverly and Nicole are a fully established couple with their own separate relationships with each of the other characters, their own roles in this wacky shitshow, the new Sheriff and a literal angel. We got to see a little more of a domestic side to them this year, having Big Gay Dinners and Nicole meeting Mama Earp, but they still had their fun (see: the Christmas episode) and there was never a moment of doubt that they’re head over heels in love. Plus, they may or may not have gotten engaged before Waverly got sucked into the Garden of Eden/Evil and Nicole went missing.
Kat and Adena, The Bold Type
Kat and Adena went all this season, and while it didn’t end happily ever after, it was an excellent growing experience for Kat’s character — as a person who’d never been in a serious relationship and as a newly out queer lady. Plus theirs continued to be the most resonant relationship on the whole show.
Grace and Anissa, Black Lightning
It’s wild to think that all of the first season of Black Lightning and half of the second season happened in 2018! And it’s a good thing, too, because if it’d just been season one, these two superheroes would never have made our list. Grace disappeared! Luckily, in season two, she returned to our screens and to Anissa’s loving arms. Their story is groundbreaking in so many ways, and so tender and so angsty and so sexy. We can’t get enough.
Toni and Cheryl, Riverdale
Cheryl is another character who got a girlfriend because fans were reading her as queer and the actress who plays her (Madelaine Petsch) pushed for it. I believed in Toni and Cheryl from the second their paths crossed before that inexplicable drag race in season two. And look at them now! Toni broke Cheryl out of conversion therapy! Cheryl joined the Serpents! Just two Slytherin babes from opposite sides of the tracks, constantly saving each other from getting axe-murdered.
Violet and Amelia, Harlots
Violet Cross and Amelia Scanwell’s love story is so star-crossed it makes my heart hurt just thinking about it — but it’s so wonderful, too. On paper, they have nothing in common, and their connection happened so slowly and subtly in season one it was hard to tell if it was really a thing or if I was just Seeing Gay People (again). But it did happen! And in season two, they got to explore their fraught connection further. If you haven’t read Riese’s review of season two, do that now, and I will quote it anyway: “Basically, what I’m telling you is that stories about sex workers are not niche, they are transcendent and universal, and often the truest and most enduring stories about Western Civilization ever told.”
Yolanda and Arthie, G.L.O.W.
We were all so annoyed that the first season of G.L.O.W. was so dang gay without being gay. In season two, though, we got the real deal with Yolanda and Arthie. Yolanda knew she was gay and said it right away, and over and over until everyone was forced to get comfortable with it. Arthie didn’t have any queer feelings at all, until she shocked herself when she started feeling things for Yolanda. They wrestled each other, danced around their feelings, and finally kissed (on national TV!).
The 15 Best Lesbian and Bisexual Movies of 2018
2018 was a stunning year for lesbian and bisexual women in film. First, just the sheer number of films that were available to us. This is the first time we’ve ever even been able to assemble a year-end list of best films. We might have been able to cobble together a short one last year, but there were enough movies this year that we had to leave some off. And this list doesn’t even include the very queer but somehow not exactly canonical gay favorites like Ocean’s 8 and Incredibles 2. Second, the production value of these films. Lesbian and bisexual movies have always been notoriously underfunded and it shows in areas as small as sound design and as big as acting. The caliber of talent that was drawn to making lesbian and bisexual movies this year is frankly unbelievable.
Finally — and in my opinion most remarkable — is the fact that none of the movies on this list trip over the same sad tropes that have been plaguing our film canon forever. There are some heartbreakers in here, but not in a cliched way. No one’s getting a bullet in the eyeball that lands in their brain as punishment for enjoying a single sexual encounter with another woman. In fact most of the movies on this list have hopeful, happy endings. I don’t need to tell you what a balm that was this year.
Below are the 15 best lesbian and bisexual films of 2018. (To be included on this list, these films had to be available in theaters or readily streamable in the United States.)
15. Lez Bomb
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“Families are messy and complicated, and holidays are messy and complicated, and there are dozens of movies about women taking home their boyfriends (and men taking home their girlfriends) for the first time on Thanksgiving or Christmas — and all the messy, complicated hijinks that ensue. Lez Bomb, by writer/director Jenna Laurenzo, is the first feature film to take that age-old formula and put a queer woman at the center of it.” — Heather Hogan
14. Bad Reputation
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“Jett’s sexuality isn’t relegated to its own very special narrative segment, and that’s because it’s everywhere — as it should be for a rock star, and as it should be for all of us. Jett’s brand of queer is as much about Elvis being a pretty boy with swishy hips as it is Miley Cyrus famously trying to bed her, Kristen Stewart portraying her, lyrics that suggest anything but cisheteronormativity. Jett’s anti-war, pro-animal, pro-woman politics follow suit, less a label than they are actions: performing for troops in the Middle East and Bosnia, openly calling for an end to the seal slaughter while continuing to wear her decades-old leather, and fundraising women’s self-defense classes after the singer Mia Zapata’s horrifying murder. Bad Reputation reminds us that people with a knack for keeping their cool during trying times aren’t apathetic. Sometimes, they’re exactly what we, and our headphones, need.” — Sarah Fonseca
13. Annihilation
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“Gina Rodriguez steals the show with a standout performance. And no I don’t just say that because she plays a confident and muscly soft butch lesbian with an undercut who opens a beer bottle in that way where you slam it against a table edge with your hand (something I have never been able to accomplish without hurting myself). But yes, those details are also important! She’s funny, delivering some of the movie’s rare but needed bursts of comedic relief. But she also encompasses the emotional complexity of what it really means to enter the shimmer. She starts with a lot of swagger that, like the shimmer itself, suddenly and disorientingly becomes something much more insidious. Rodriguez flips that switch in a wholly convincing way. Her character’s confusion and paranoia instantly pulls you right into that dark, uncertain place.” — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
12. The Feels
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“The thing that surprised me the most about The Feels is how relatable it was. I’ve never had Andi and Lu’s specific relationship drama, but I’ve been in that cabin with that friend group more times than I care to count. Surrounded by people you love who also drive you bananas, the family members you constantly judge but need by your side, the lesbians you learn to like just because they’re lesbians, those lesbians lesbianing in the lesbianest ways, and that one dude everyone wants to throw into the river. It’s authentic and it’s tender and while the climax is a little bit rushed — eh hem — it’s a gay happy ending. And that, itself, is still revolutionary.” — Heather Hogan
11. Lizzie
“Lizzie is brutal, historically attuned, and committed to exploring effeminate trauma and retaliation. As you might remember, Lifetime took a shot at a telling this story in four years ago with Christina Ricci in the lead role. While I enjoyed Lizzie Borden Took an Axe’s anachronistic blues rock soundtrack and Clea Duvall’s sour-faced Emma, it’s pretty impossible for a television network to craft a period slasher movie when its most risqué rating is a PG-14. Macneill also refrains from watering Lizzie into a mischievous bombshell. Grappling with health issues, reading books aloud to her pets, and living under her father’s thumb, she’s anything but cool. Perhaps this is what makes this movie so alluring: there’s a little of Lizzie in all of us.” — Sarah Fonseca
10. Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart: Lorraine Hansberry
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“Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, fourteen years in the making, is a great example of a work that thoughtfully and creatively layers ideas about gender and sexuality alongside race. In addition to readings from Lorraine’s private journals, the film features a ton of esteemed folks familiar with her, from feminist scholars and theater critics to legendary actors like Sidney Poitier and subversive writers like Ann Bannon; some of whom weren’t afraid to spar with one another’s ideas or Hansberry’s work on-camera. Like Lorraine’s second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart fearlessly and gracefully tackles the mix of identities—femininity and queerness among them—that Peck found too overwhelming.” — Sarah Fonseca
9. A Simple Favor
“A Simple Favor gets off on blending and blurring genres. Not quite an all-out dark thriller in the vain of Gone Girl, it does borrow from that genre but, even more accurately, from Lifetime movies. Incest, revenge arson, frame jobs, affairs, and secret siblings all make appearances in this tableau of fuckery. It’s a Mommi murder mystery that knows exactly how ridiculous is, the whole cast in on the joke.” — Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
8. Blockers
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“These lesbians are adorable and they’re supported by the people they talk to about their sexuality; it’s actually one of the happiest gay storylines I’ve seen in a movie. It’s rare that a high school movie gives audiences a chance to root for one of the main girl characters to get another girl, but that’s exactly what this movie does.” — Mey Rude
7. Disobedience
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6. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
“Can you ever forgive me?” is a line from one of Lee Israel’s forged letters. It’s one she crafted for Dorthy Parker. In fact, she was so proud of it she called herself “a better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker” and even used the quote to title her autobiography. Amazingly, Heller doesn’t seem to care if the audience is willing to forgive Israel. She has a better question, one we never ask about lesbians on TV and in film: Can you not see the humanity of this brilliant, complicated woman who never let herself be loved? — Heather Hogan
5. Colette
“The story of Colette is only a fragment of her life, the one in which France’s most prolific writer realizes she cannot be contained; not by her want of a dowry; not by her lack of education or formal training; not by the laws governing sexual conduct and gender presentation in turn-of-the-century Paris; not even by the room her husband locks her in to write her Claudine series, which he publishes under his name… On the whole, though, Colette is a lush, brilliantly scored, perfectly acted, beautifully directed biopic about an iconoclastic bisexual woman many modern scholars believe deserves to share the title of Greatest French Writer with Proust. Her legend is realized in Westmoreland’s film.” — Heather Hogan
4. The Favourite
“The most stunning thing about The Favourite isn’t the dialogue, which features the word “cunt-stuck” more than once; or the improvised break dancing to Handel; or the cheeky camera work; or even the dazzling acting. The most stunning thing about The Favourite is how it slices open three queer women and lets their messy humanity bleed all over you, the way it adamantly refuses to allow you to love or hate any of them.” — Heather Hogan
3. The Miseducation of Cameron Post
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“There are lots of ways I could review Desiree Akhavan’s film adaptation of The Miseducation of Cameron Post. I could tell you that its unhurried character exploration, quiet charm, and nuanced social critique are Sundance catnip and no wonder it won the Grand Jury Prize when it premiered there this winter. I could tell you it distills the source material to its essence while maintaining the spirit of Emily M. Danforth‘s beloved novel. I could compare it to its queer cinematic matriarch — softer than But I’m a Cheerleader, the quintessential queer conversion therapy movie; sharper, too; less camp, more satire. Warmer than Disobedience, the other major lesbian movie centered on oppressive patriarchal religions thati hit theaters this year. Harsher — though still hopeful, in its way — than Hearts Beat Loud, the other coming-of-age lesbian indie film that hit theaters this year.” — Heather Hogan
2. Rafiki
“Rafiki tells the story of two girls from rival political families who fall in love against the odds. Seven years in the making, Rafiki is directed by a Kenyan woman, Wanuri Kahiu, and features Kenyan women as lead characters. It’s based off the 2007 Caine Prize winning short story “Jambula Tree” by Ugandan writer Monica Arac de Nyeko. In short, it is Black African Woman Excellence at its best… an inconvenient love story for a country that wants to bury its queer history; present and past. But as history has proven so often, only one side of this story will be remembered: that of the victors.” — Kari
1. Heart Beats Loud
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“I just love this movie. It’s light, perhaps even fluffy, and yes a bit twee. But you know what, who cares? When was the last time a motion picture centered itself on the premise that a teenage, mixed race, black lesbian is worthy of support and love from everyone surrounding her? It’s simple and tender and because of those things it’s groundbreaking. It sneaks right up on you and barrels into your heart.” — Carmen Phillips