Impossible Machinery: On (Not) Coming Out to My Dad as Bisexual

My father and I are walking through Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the dark. The old creaky houses are quiet and sleepy all around us, the streetlights glowing orange-gold through the branches of trees heavy with new leaves. He, a mechanic by profession and by heart, is describing the experience of taking a transmission completely apart, removing every nut, bolt, and cylinder, one by one, laying them on the ground like a neatly ordered explosion.

“It’s easy to take it apart. But then you have to put it back together. And that’s where things get hairy.” He laughs, a dry sound that comes from the back of his chest, and I wonder how something so familiar can still surprise me.

This is the weekend of my college graduation, a harried, hectic mess of dinners and drinks and dressing up, of siblings and parents and grandparents and godparents. Until a few days ago, when he arrived on a plane from Colorado, I have not seen my father in two years. During that time we spoke only twice, once on my birthday, the other time when he called to say, “I want to come see you get that diploma.”

“But can’t you just put it back together the same way you took it apart?” I ask about the transmission.

He laughs again. “Now that’s a good point. You’d think so, wouldn’t you, Ree? Unfortunately, that’s not always how it works.”

At this moment in time, I’m dating a boy, a boy my father has met, a boy my father likes (as far as I can tell). I’m dating a boy but I’ve also dated and fallen for women, some of whom remain stripped screws stuck in the wood of my heart. My father knows nothing of this, knows me and my romantic life only from a distance. There are already so many things he doesn’t know, where am I even to start? The prospect of telling him about my sexuality feels like trying to tear down a wall and build it at the same time.

I’m sixteen and dating a girl for the first time, or whatever counts as dating in high school, mostly making out in my Volkswagen Jetta while listening to Brand New in the precious few minutes before curfew. The first time I see her naked, in the bare bright light of early afternoon, during a free period from school which we use to sneak back to my empty house, I am breathless and exposed and undone.

I come out to my mother during a fight we’re having about how my girl friends never say hello upon immediately entering our house. My mouth, before my argument-rattled brain can stop it, blurts out that I am, in fact, dating one of those friends — so she’d better be nice, regardless of greetings. My mom stops, mid-sentence, and stands there, looking pensive, holding the dish towel she’s been brandishing at me.

“You know, I’ve had a lot of very close friendships with women,” she says finally. “But I just never felt that way about them.” Later, when that first girlfriend’s dad calls our house in an attempt to get the two of us in trouble by outing us to my mom, she tells him gently but sternly: “Your daughter is always welcome here, and I support the two of them one hundred percent. I hope you will do the same.”

At this point, my father had been absent and unreachable for so long that my mother has issued a court order that will allow his social security number to be traced. That way, any reported income that is tied to it will be immediately garnished for outstanding child support payments. It returns nothing for years, but he will resurface to see me graduate high school. By this point, my girlfriend and I have broken up. Even though he will come to the ceremony and related celebrations, there will be no reason to introduce her to him as anything more than a friend. So I don’t.

Then he will disappear again, a fish back into a stream.

I am old enough to have missed my ten year high school reunion, drinking a beer and sitting in old movie chairs out in front of a bar on a chilly April night. I’m talking to a friend who is about to marry a woman after a lifetime of dating men. We are talking about family, about how damn hard it was for her to tell her dad about the love of her life and future spouse, even as much as she wanted to share that part of her life with him, with everyone in the whole world.

“We spent every morning together for two weeks, drinking coffee, talking, and the whole time I didn’t tell him. I waited until the very last day, until he was dropping me off, and he said, ‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’ and I said, ‘Dad I’m gay.’ And then I had to get out of the car and he had to go to work. And I missed getting to have that conversation with him about it.”

It had been easy to tell her mother, her sisters, her grandparents. “I don’t know why,” she said. “I don’t know why it was so hard to tell him.”

I tell her about my very same reticence, and she exclaims, “Damn internalized biphobia!” so loud that passersby glance at us.

“But is it more than that,” I wonder out loud. “Is it the cultural expectations around dads being the strong silent type, and that you’re not supposed to talk about things?”

“There was definitely some of that,” she says. “My father and I don’t talk, we go fishing. I was always the one doing the things with him that a son would have.”

I reflect on this for a long time after the conversation ends. Is it internal or external? Is it us or is it them? Is it the emotional boundaries of proscribed gender and parent roles, all wrapped in a big tangled up, rusted-out engine?

And the question that begs to be asked, the one we perhaps don’t want to consider the answer to, even as it glowers at us from the shadows of our minds: would she have spoken up, would she have been honest about her sexuality, if she didn’t have a reason? If she didn’t have a woman in her life, who she loved endlessly, to do it for? Would I?

Or does the reason why matter less than the fact that we do it anyway.

“I HATE you,” I shout at my mother, all fourteen years of me rife with angst and isolation and devastation about getting rejected from the school play. “I want to go live with Dad because he isn’t CRAZY.”

And for some reason, instead of countering with her usual, “Oh yeah? Do you think he’s going to drive you to school in the morning and pay for your cell phone and make sure you have the right clothes? You’re dreamin’ girl,” she goes to the phone, picks it up, dials, and before I know it I’m sitting in the back seat of our giant ruby Astro Van, my hastily packed backpack on the seat next to me and my Discman on my lap. A soft but persistent snow is tumbling out of the sky, collecting dangerously quick over the ground and roads and trees and houses.

My father is waiting in the parking lot of a Village Inn off the side of the interstate, his cigarette smoke turquoise in the glow of the sign. The snow has accumulated quickly: it will reach blizzard level before we get back to his house, so we drive his 70s Ford pickup colored Super Banana Yellow down the center lane of the highway at a crawl, inch by inch, the heat blasting and the hunched shadows of Rocky Mountain foothills looming up around us like sentinels. We pass only one other pair of headlights in two hours. It’s as if we’re moving through the deep ocean, suspended in space, the last people on earth.

“Your mom can be a pain in the ass,” he says finally. “But she’s trying her best.”

The metal plate embedded in my father’s forearm is from a nasty tumble he took out of the back of a truck when he was a teenager. When I was a child I pressed my fingertips into his skin over and over, searching for the tiny heads of the screws that hold it in place. The other wounds, irregularities embedded in his body are not visible, and for a long time I do not realize that they exist.

The first time he talks openly to me about taking medication to treat his depression, I put an answer to all the questions that had piled up in my mind over the years, the questions I thought simply did not have answers that I would be able to name. This feels nothing like relief.

“It made me foggy,” he says about the pills the VA clinic had prescribed to him. “Like my mind couldn’t catch up.”

Because he always seems to appear during rites of passage, we are at my younger brother’s high school graduation party. We’re standing at the end of the driveway in front of the house I grew up in, the very same driveway I, as a child, hoped and hoped and hoped his banged-up Toyota Corrolla would be sitting in at night when my mother drove us home.

“I couldn’t work on cars,” he continues, and describes how he felt he like couldn’t listen to them right anymore, in a tone both shocked and resigned. “It’s like I was scared of them.”

“You know Ree, more people fall off than stay on,” he adds, making a shrugging motion underneath the worn leather bomber jacket I have rarely seen him without. It’s as if he’s trying to comfort one of us, but whether it’s himself or me I can’t tell.

It paralyzes me, this idea that the parent who has always felt like mine, struggles so deeply with something in himself. I cross my arms and watch the warm-gold sun plunge itself down below the neat lines of the houses across the street. I want to curl up, away from everything he is revealing about who he is, who I am, what I come from, the capacities I hold buried in my blood.

I am post-college and living in New York and I am going to spend Christmas with D, the woman I have been dating for over two years, the first woman I have ever imagined, wanted, a wide and full future with. We are going to the small New England town she grew up in to be with her family, the majority of whom I have already met: her grandmother and aunts and uncles and cousins, all warm and lovely, none of whom know about our relationship (or have at least not been expressly told). She justifies her refusal to be open about us with her intensely private nature, her coveted government job, her family’s traditional leanings.

I agonize the most over what to get for her father.

She has already said to me, by this point, that she is not sure she will ever tell her father about her sexuality. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she explains once, in a rare moment when the subject does not reduce us to tears and harshly flung arguments. When I met him, I both understood and didn’t. His was a quiet, unassuming presence. He had her same restless intelligence coiled inside of him. He spoke seldom, loved cooking and motown, stayed up late listening to records. My answers to his questions always felt superfluous, and he seemed to regard me with both amusement and suspicion.

I hunt down an obscure Southern cookbook; he grew up in a coal mining town in Kentucky, and his family owned a barbeque shack. (That’s how my girlfriend describes it, as a shack. She also says that they put crushed up Coco Pebbles in the sauce.) I feel almost more nervous when he picks it from under the tree and opens it, turning it over slowly, than I did when I kissed her for the first time. He sits in the corner with it for a long time, reading. I want to believe he knows the place I occupy in his daughter’s life, what she means to me, but I can not convince myself that he understands.

I feel as if I am filled to the brim, fit to spill, with how much I love her and how much I resent being a secret. It makes me feel invisible and alone but I stand by her. I stand by her until I can’t anymore.

When we break up, I am more determined than ever to come out to my father.

I am sitting at a table in a trendy craft brewery in my hometown, across from my father who I haven’t seen in four years. When I walked in, he got up to hug me and his eyes filled with tears and I felt strange standing before him, tall in new shoes and a post-breakup dress, as if I had been swapped out, replaced with someone completely new, or completely un-new, someone more darkly sketched.

He’s brought a woman along that he’s seeing, and when she smiles I can see all of her gums. My head buzzes with the effort of talking casually, listening, when all I want to do is find a way to fix the fact that I am sitting here a hypocrite. I sip a hefeweizen.

“It used to be that when you put your foot on the brake pedal, it was connected to a break line that engaged the brakes, you know. But now it’s all digital signals. It’s all programming. They’re not actually connected,” he is explaining about cars these days, about how the work he has done all his life seems to be shifting out from under him. “And only the car dealerships have the codes. So they control everything, and can charge up the ass for you to come and get something fixed, even though they just have to press a bunch of button.”

I decide that every time I can, I will say the words My Ex-Girlfriend and I do, all the blood rushing to my face as I try to make the mentions seem off-hand or casual, searching my father’s face for any sign of surprise, or recognition or understanding. At one point, I think he nods. But he does not address it outright, and I cannot bring myself to do so when we say goodbye. After he gets in his car, drives away, I stand outside with my brother as he smokes a cigarette, mentally kicking myself. I feel, incongruously, like I have let D down.

It feels similar to the conundrum presented by a disassembled piece of impossible machinery. By the signals that guide hulking tires over the perils of icy roads. That sometimes the connections need to be reset, and none of us have access to the codes. Do I have to just roll up my sleeves and try, and keep trying, to fit all the smallest parts back into their places? To remember, recreate again, the shape of it whole?

If Women’s Magazine Covers Were Aimed at Queer Women, Pt. 2

Welcome back to covers of JKLAFGHD Mag, the Magazine for Women Who Aren’t Straight. Every so often we check in here to catch up on the latest not-straight trends, get updates on the not-straight classics, and check in with our favorite not-straight celebrities. Up next in our September through November issues are Evan Rachel Wood, Kate McKinnon and Stephanie Beatriz.

September – Evan Rachel Wood

October – Kate McKinnon

November – Stephanie Beatriz

Lord Ivar Mountbatten is Bisexual, First Member of Royal Family to Come Out

Just in time to kick off Bisexual Awareness Week, 53-year-old Lord Ivar Mountbatten has become the first out member of the British Royal Family by coming out as bisexual. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mountbatten said he’s known he was bi since he was a teen, but “just did not want to go there because there would have been so much grief.” Mountbatten, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, married wife Penny in 1994, and they divorced in 2011. Mountbatten says that he was out to his wife as bisexual and dated men after their divorce, but never came out publicly until he met now-boyfriend James Coyle, who he says wasn’t willing to be with someone closeted for the long term.

Lord Ivar Mountbatten, left, with boyfriend James Coyle, right/photo credit Daily Mail

Although Mountbatten doesn’t face many of the challenges that bi people worldwide tend to, like poor health and poverty, due to his wealth and class, it seems that his family’s stature hasn’t insulated him from some other forms of biphobia, like the fact that headlines seem to almost exclusively refer to him as coming out as gay even though he refers to himself as bisexual several times. (He also refers to himself as gay elsewhere, saying “I am a lot happier now, though I am still not 100 per cent comfortable with being gay,” but the nuance of his using both labels does not seem to be reflected in most coverage of him.) Additionally, when talking about his ex-wife, he says “Given my sexuality, I was quite surprised she married me in the first place. It was brave. Perhaps she thought she could change me but in the end she realised she couldn’t,” a sad statement — unfortunately, it’s far too common for bi people feel that their sexual orientation makes them undesirable as partners, or that their partners are with them in spite of their bisexuality.

Today, Mountbatten seems happy and settled with Coyle, an airline cabin services director; he says “everyone in our family knows and could not be more supportive.” Both are still close with his ex-wife, Penny, and Mountbatten is out to his three daughters, who he says love James as a stepfather.

Mara Wilson Knows Your First Crush Was Miss Honey: The Autostraddle Interview

Although Wilson is formerly famous, and now Twitter famous with 300 thousand followers, her writing feels deeply relatable to me as a twenty-something with a mish mashed career and a cloud of dreams.

And there’s also this — a few days after the Orlando shooting, Wilson came out as Bi/Queer on Twitter. Though in the book she describes herself as straight, there’s plenty of queerness in these pages (did I mention show choir?) for us to discover.

KT Tunstall, Self-Described Heterosexual, Has Feelings About Gender And Kissing Girls

KT Tunstall is, it turns out, definitively straight. She is thankful for her lesbian following, but she’s not a lesbian. She kissed and possibly did other things with girls when she was young, and it was not “just a phase,” but also, at the same time, she is heterosexual. She does identify as genderfluid, and also Donald Trump apparently used one of her songs?

All this clarity comes to us by way of an interview in PrideSource, throughout which hope seems to almost spring eternal that Tunstall might be one of us.

From day one when she put a picture of herself in rainbow suspenders on her album cover, “all the gay community thought I was gay — and they still think I’m gay! They’re just waiting for me to figure it out,” she says.

And, it seems, it’s time they quit holding their breath. Although KT speaks fondly of engaging in sexual dalliances with gals, she’s not looking for a girlfriend in the future.

“I think it would be disrespectful to call it a phase. It was part of life. It was learning about love and learning about lust and desire and sexuality and becoming an adult and experiencing people. It was a really important part of my formative years.”

She also spends a lot of time praising young women like Kristen Stewart and Cara DeLevingne for being label-free — who cares about a label! That’s the point! Meanwhile, KT decidedly uses the label of hetero, but it definitely wouldn’t be a big deal if she weren’t.

Other revelations from the article include that KT is a top-button-buttoning kinda gal, she describes herself as genderfluid, and she feels like she channels masculinity when she performs. She’s leaning into her dyke appeal, and she knows it. From the interview:

I don’t want to classify the last album, “Invisible Empire,” as having a “lesbian folk” sound but…

(Laughs) Listen, I was playing folk music and I was buttoning up the top button of my shirt – that’s all I need to say.

This raises some questions: Is KT queerbaiting us? Does KT know about bisexuality? Does she need someone to tell her? We may never know! It’s important to trust people to own their own narratives, even if their heterosexuality seems really super gay. So hopefully she’s happy, wherever she is.

Bella Thorne Is Bisexual: The Disney Star/Actress Comes Out On Twitter

ALLI HARVEY/GETTY IMAGES FOR FAST COMPANY

At age 18, Bella Thorne is an accomplished dancer, actor, singer and Disney star, and now, thanks to Twitter, we also know she’s an accomplished bisexual as well. The star of the Disney Channel’s Shake it Off, a dance show co-starring Zendaya, answered a fan who sent the question “are you bisexual?” with a simple “yes.”

https://twitter.com/bellathorne/status/768161844334735361

Obviously, coming out isn’t really ever simple, and I applaud Thorne for her courage. She recently broke up with her long time boyfriend, and the spotlight is on her. It must be especially difficult since she’s so young, at just 18 years old, and is a woman in Hollywood. Congratulations and we’re proud of you. We hope your life in the bisexual community and LGBTQ community is a good one and that you find acceptance and support and affirmation. You deserve it.

Thorne in a promotional image for Scream.

Thorne has been in the spotlight for a long time, and scored her first major TV role on the show Dirty, Sexy, Money, costarring trans actress Candis Cayne, in 2007 when she was only 10 years old. Since then, she’s also had roles in TV shows like My Own Worst Enemy and Big Love, as well as movies like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Blended, and last year’s Mae Whitman high school comedy The Duff. She then started co-starring in Shake it Up in 2010, which is when her career really started taking off and she started also dancing and recording music (as Disney stars are wont to do). Her single “Watch Me” reached number 86 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Autostraddle readers might recognize her from her role as Nina on the MTV television adaption of Scream.

https://twitter.com/gabydunn/status/768227957009592322

When the news broke, fans on Twitter were very supportive, so much so that Thorne Tweeted out “Aww thank you for all the accepting tweets from everyone. I love you guys” followed by three heart emojis and the hashtag pride. Noted funny person, celebrity millenial and bisexual social media superstar Gaby Dunn also offered her support, noting that Stephanie Beatriz, Mara Wilson and Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual are also there at the party. Hey, don’t forget Rebecca Sugar and Aubrey Plaza, who also came out as bisexual this summer. Now that sounds like a party I’d love to be at, unfortunately, I’m just a lesbian.

Again, congratulations to Bella Thorne, we wish you happiness, joy and success.

Anne of Green Gables Is Obviously Bisexual

Some people will tell you Anne Shirley (of Green Gables and eventually of Avonlea) was in love with Diana Barry because Anne Shirley is a lesbian. Other people will tell you that cannot be, that Anne Shirley was in love with Gilbert Blythe because Anne Shirley is straight. Well, my friends, I am here to tell you something and it’s that Anne Shirley was in love with Diana Barry and then later she was in love with Gilbert Blythe (though she never truly forgot her first, passionate blush of awakening with her bosom friend) because Anne Shirley is very clearly bisexual.

I’m bringing this to your attention because Netflix announced today that it will remake the classic series, which Canada originally gifted to us in the year 1985. That mini-series and its sequel remain two of the gayest things to ever arrive in the United States of America from Canada, and that list includes: Ellen Page, Tegan and Sara, Lost Girl, Bomb Girls, Rookie Blue, KD Lang, Wynonna Earp, Orphan Black, all the Degrassis, and that one Olympic hockey team (I know you know what I’m talking about).

Look, obviously you know Anne was in love with Gilbert, and honestly, who wouldn’t be? He’s the dreamiest man in all of literature after Captain Frederick Wentworth. What you need to understand is that she also was just so very, very, very in love with Diana. And Diana was in love with her too.

This is the evidence. (These are real quotes from the real book written by Lucy Maud Montgomery! Not some fan fiction I found on Archive of Our Own!)

Marilla Cuthbert foretold it

Anne tipped the vase of apple blossoms near enough to bestow a soft kiss on a pink-cupped bud, and then studied diligently for some moments longer.

“Marilla,” she demanded presently, “do you think that I shall ever have a bosom friend in Avonlea?”

“A—a what kind of friend?”

“A bosom friend—an intimate friend, you know—a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think it’s possible?”

“Diana Barry lives over at Orchard Slope and she’s about your age.”

And then they met

“Oh, Diana,” said Anne at last, clasping her hands and speaking almost in a whisper, “oh, do you think you can like me a little—enough to be my bosom friend?”

Diana laughed. Diana always laughed before she spoke.

“Why, I guess so,” she said frankly. “I’m awfully glad you’ve come to live at Green Gables. It will be jolly to have somebody to play with. There isn’t any other girl who lives near enough to play with, and I’ve no sisters big enough.”

“Will you swear to be my friend forever and ever?” demanded Anne eagerly.
Diana looked shocked.

“Why it’s dreadfully wicked to swear,” she said rebukingly.

“Oh no, not my kind of swearing. There are two kinds, you know.”

“I never heard of but one kind,” said Diana doubtfully.

“There really is another. Oh, it isn’t wicked at all. It just means vowing and promising solemnly.”

“Well, I don’t mind doing that,” agreed Diana, relieved. “How do you do it?”

“We must join hands—so,” said Anne gravely. “It ought to be over running water. We’ll just imagine this path is running water. I’ll repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my name in.”

Diana repeated the “oath” with a laugh fore and aft. Then she said:

“You’re a queer girl, Anne. I heard before that you were queer. But I believe I’m going to like you real well.”

This is the way they lived…

“I can give Diana half [my chocolate], can’t I? The other half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give some to her. It’s delightful to think I have something to give her.”

… and loved.

“I’ve a compliment for you, Anne,” said Diana….“We heard [the distinguished artist] say ‘Who is that girl on the platform with the splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint.’ There now, Anne.

Anne panicked when she accidentally got Diana drunk on currant wine (shades of Paige McCullers)

“Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me. I did not mean to—to—intoxicate Diana. How could I? Just imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl that kind people had adopted and you had just one bosom friend in all the world. Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose? I thought it was only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry cordial. Oh, please don’t say that you won’t let Diana play with me any more. If you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe.”

And then Diana’s mom made them break up!

“No; and oh, Anne, she says I’m never to play with you again. I’ve cried and cried and I told her it wasn’t your fault, but it wasn’t any use. I had ever such a time coaxing her to let me come down and say good-bye to you. She said I was only to stay ten minutes and she’s timing me by the clock.”

“Ten minutes isn’t very long to say an eternal farewell in,” said Anne tearfully. “Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress thee?”

“Indeed I will,” sobbed Diana, “and I’ll never have another bosom friend—I don’t want to have. I couldn’t love anybody as I love you.”

“Oh, Diana,” cried Anne, clasping her hands, “do you love me?”

“Why, of course I do. Didn’t you know that?”

“No.” Anne drew a long breath. “I thought you liked me of course but I never hoped you loved me. Why, Diana, I didn’t think anybody could love me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember. Oh, this is wonderful! It’s a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness of a path severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again.”

“I love you devotedly, Anne,” said Diana stanchly, “and I always will, you may be sure of that.”

“And I will always love thee, Diana,” said Anne, solemnly extending her hand. “In the years to come thy memory will shine like a star over my lonely life, as that last story we read together says. Diana, wilt thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses in parting to treasure forevermore?”

But Mrs. Barry couldn’t keep them apart!

“Diana might just have smiled at me once, I think,” she mourned to Marilla that night. But the next morning a note most fearfully and wonderfully twisted and folded, and a small parcel were passed across to Anne.

Dear Anne (ran the former)

Mother says I’m not to play with you or talk to you even in school. It isn’t my fault and don’t be cross at me, because I love you as much as ever. I miss you awfully to tell all my secrets to and I don’t like Gertie Pye one bit. I made you one of the new bookmarkers out of red tissue paper. They are awfully fashionable now and only three girls in school know how to make them. When you look at it remember

Your true friend,
Diana Barry

Anne read the note, kissed the bookmark, and dispatched a prompt reply back to the other side of the school.

My own darling Diana:—

Of course I am not cross at you because you have to obey your mother. Our spirits can commune. I shall keep your lovely present forever. Minnie Andrews is a very nice little girl—although she has no imagination—but after having been Diana’s bosom friend I cannot be Minnie’s. Please excuse mistakes because my spelling isn’t very good yet, although much improved.

Yours until death us do part,
Anne or Cordelia Shirley

P.S. I shall sleep with your letter under my pillow tonight. A. or C.S.

And then Anne saved the day, and they got back together

“And Diana and I had a lovely afternoon. Diana showed me a new fancy crochet stitch her aunt over at Carmody taught her. Not a soul in Avonlea knows it but us, and we pledged a solemn vow never to reveal it to anyone else. Diana gave me a beautiful card with a wreath of roses on it and a verse of poetry:”

“If you love me as I love you
Nothing but death can part us two.”

“And that is true, Marilla. We’re going to ask Mr. Phillips to let us sit together in school again, and Gertie Pye can go with Minnie Andrews. We had an elegant tea. Mrs. Barry had the very best china set out, Marilla, just as if I was real company. I can’t tell you what a thrill it gave me … Then when I came home Mrs. Barry asked me to come over as often as I could and Diana stood at the window and threw kisses to me all the way down to Lover’s Lane. I assure you, Marilla, that I feel like praying tonight and I’m going to think out a special brand-new prayer in honor of the occasion.”

Case closed. Also, obviously Marilla Cuthbert and Rachel Lynde were lovers, and so. Do us right, Netflix!

22 Lesbian/Bisexual Movie Covers Featuring Women’s Faces Just Inches From Each Other

Say what you will about the human race – that it’s in need of an Atlantis- style restart, as one example – but what an array of emotions we’re capable of experiencing! Dogs have like panic and joy, cats have disdain and getting spooked, and bugs just seem constantly stressed. But humans, we get them all. And every one of us engage with these emotions in our own unique way!

Oh, besides women experiencing love towards other women. Yeah, those women pretty much only have one way to express that emotion, and it’s like this: with their faces just inches from each other, mouths slightly open like they’re about to kiss but not actually kissing, no, no, no, it’s too taboo, perhaps they will never kiss and just exist in this void until the end of time. Women who love women experience love in the upside down world, where occasionally their heads follow suit. Remarkable.

How do they do it? What is it like? These and other questions. Let’s turn to a medium with an unparalleled look into this phenomenon. Dim your lights, won’t you? It’s time for a special presentation of Lesbian/Bi Movie Covers: My Face is Close to Your Face.

Girl Play

A New York Love Story

passion in the city goes just barely there

Loving Annabelle

Ties of Love

And Then Came Lola

A Perfect Ending

Alto

Blue is the Warmest Color

Butterfly

Freeheld

Bye Bye Blondie

Kamikaze Hearts

Kiss Me

Summertime

Lightswitch

Liz in September

Lost and Delirious

Anatomy of Love Seen

My Normal

Carol

While You Weren’t Looking

Romeo and Juliet

Rebecca Sugar is Bisexual: “Steven Universe” Creator Comes Out at Comic-Con

feature image by Franz Xavier Manuel for Animac

Forget the first looks at Daredevil and Luke Cage. The big news out of San Diego Comic Con today is that Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar came out as bisexual!

In this video, at about 46:20, a person takes the microphone at a Steven Universe panel and enthusiastically asks Rebecca what inspired the idea to focus so much on women’s empowerment and LGBTQ themes in her show. Rebecca, being tender as ever, looks a little nervous before saying, “Well, in large part it’s based on my experience as a bisexual woman,” which receives applause and cheers from the audience and her fellow panel members.

https://twitter.com/Yamino/status/756575207599538177

Sugar continued to talk about why it’s important not just for her, but for other LGBTQ people, especially kids, who might be watching.

These things have so much to do with who you are, and there’s this idea that these are themes that should not be shared with kids, but everyone shares stories about love and attraction with kids. So many stories for kids are about love, and it really makes a difference to hear stories about how someone like you can be loved and if you don’t hear those stories it will change who you are. It’s very important to me that we speak to kids about consent and we speak to kids about identity and that we speak to kids about so much. I want to feel like I exist and I want everyone else who wants to feel that way to feel that way too.

The crowd erupted into a well-deserved standing ovation after this amazing answer.

I remember sitting on my couch bawling when Cartoon Network aired the Steven Universe episode “Alone, Together.” The show had been pretty queer before, with the gems Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst each giving vague hints that they weren’t completely straight, but in this episode, all hetero- and cisnormativity were thrown out the window. Steven, and his friend Connie, a girl, fuse and become one androgynous person who is flirted with by both boys and girls. In another groundbreaking episode, “Jailbreak,” we learn that Garnet is actually a fusion of two gems, Ruby and Sapphire, who are so in love that they have decided to always be together. Episodes have gotten even queerer and the subtext has turned into straight up text.

I’ve written before about how important this show is. LGBTQ kids will grow up with this show and will realize from an early age that they are good and normal and that they deserve happiness and respect and love. Kids just want to see themselves in stories, and Steven Universe does that for gay kids and bi kids and trans kids and kids of color, and queer kids of color, and femme kids and gender noncomforming kids. This show is changing and saving people’s lives, and it’s made by an openly bisexual woman. That’s amazing. That’s trailblazing. That’s historic.

Rebecca Sugar, via twitter.

Thank you to Yamino for tweeting about this and Felipe Flores for filming the panel on Periscope. But most of all, thank you to Rebecca Sugar for being who you are and for creating such a magical and wonderful show that means so much to so many of us.

If Women’s Magazine Covers Were Aimed at Queer Women

It’s no surprise that a quick scan of a magazine stand yields few results in the queer department. Maybe we get a picture of Ellen and Portia in the top corner of a cover standing side by side with the posture of two people whose names have just been called one after the other at graduation and then one of their moms is like, “Okay, let’s get a picture with you two!” but like most things in modern media, especially “women’s magazines,” we are cameos, not stars.

Until now! Introducing the Magazine for Women Who Aren’t Straight: JKLAFGHD. The name was inspired by what happens when I want to express frustration or extreme joy online, which I think is a good baseline of emotions for our approach. Every so often we’ll check in here to catch up on the latest not-straight trends, get updates on the not-straight classics, and check in with our favorite not-straight celebrities via JKLAFGHD front covers, all while staying true to that timeless, attention-grabbing style. Up first in our July through September editions are Lilly Tomlin, Aubrey Plaza, and friend of Autostraddle, Brittani Nichols.

July – Lilly Tomlin

August – BISEXUAL, Aubrey Plaza

September – Brittani Nichols

Mara Wilson is Queer: Actress Felt Moved To Say She’s One Of Us

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, most things are horrible but not every single thing. Mara Wilson, child actor, writer of a new memoir and Twitter genius, has opened up about her sexuality with some vague, and then less vague Tweets. The kicker:

.@__SonjaLouise__ I said I *used* to identify as mostly straight. I’ve embraced the Bi/Queer label lately

— Mara Wilson (@MaraWritesStuff) June 14, 2016

Us too, Mara. Us too.

Mara tweeted her support of the LGBT community and mentioned how welcome she felt at a gay club when she was an 18-year-old straight girl — even then, she said, it felt like home.

She calls herself a 2 on the Kinsey Scale, adding:

I know a lot of people don’t like the Kinsey scale, and that is fine by me. But I’m pragmatic at heart and find comfort in numbers.

— Mara Wilson (@MaraWritesStuff) June 13, 2016

So there we have it. Mara Wilson, who brought my favorite witch Matilda to the big screen and who has always seemed really queer on Twitter, is family. She stepped into a moment of community panic, grief and outrage and told the world that she is one of us.

She also said that she’ll keep being private about her relationships, which matters not at all to me — BI PEOPLE ARE BI NO MATTER WHO WE’RE DATING. Sorry, was I yelling? Bisexual people are bisexual regardless of the gender(s) of our partner(s), and if Mara’s coming out helps even one more Kinsey 2 realize they have the right to support and love among other queers, then that is the rich fruit borne of a celebrity making herself visible.

In the aftermath of the Pulse shooting, a hate crime that targeted Latinx and Black queer and trans people, it is more important than ever that we see each other and claim each other and protect each other. Mara’s coming out as Bi/Queer in this moment feels like a sliver of light in an impossibly dark week, and I’m left with only one question: was Miss Honey her root, like she was mine?

UPDATE: Mara Wilson DM’d me to say that although Embeth Davidtz, who played Miss Honey, is beautiful, it was actually another actress she worked with briefly who was her formative crush. Life is a highway, y’all.

Evan Rachel Wood Has Some Bisexual Feelings For Pride Month

Happy pride month! I hope you are planning on celebrating responsibly! If you’re like me, you’re celebrating by hiding from every single crowded parade and event happening in your fair city, but maybe you’re taking full advantage of this very special holiday. My girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual has some words she’d like to say to you concerning her own bisexual experience, as well as issues facing bisexuals in the world at large. She’d like to tell you about them while wearing this super-cute button-down that she also wore when she took me to the movies last week. We saw The Conjuring 2. She bought me a cherry Coke and held my hand the whole time.*

*- a girl can dream.

First of all, Evan Rachel Wood’s YouTube name is KaraokeNinja33, and before we touch on any of the very serious topics touched upon in this video, let’s take a moment to appreciate her and everything she does.

“There are so many grey areas in this world, especially when it comes to gender roles, especially when it comes to sexuality,” declares Evan Rachel Wood. She opens by discussing some alarming statistics regarding bisexuals, particularly the large percentage of people who have contemplated suicide, experienced abusive relationships and/or struggle with depression and addiction.

Wood goes on to describe the negative reaction she faced the first time she kissed a girl as a kid, and the internalized biphobia that she faced throughout her adolescence. Like a frighteningly large number of bisexual women, she considered suicide while struggling to understand her sexuality. She describes her struggle with her sexuality frankly and openly, with a candor that’s unfortunately rare among public figures. Although she seems much more at ease with herself as an adult, Wood posits herself as a “flare” for the bisexual community — a visible representation, something that bisexuals need. By seeing examples of ourselves in the world, maybe we can begin to address the issues that so often plague bisexual women in particular. Wood goes on to debunk some common misconceptions about bisexuality, all while maintaining that bisexuals are actual and legitimate human beings (imagine that!).

I could continue describing this adorable and important video, or you could watch it yourself. I’m not sure what we as a community did to deserve the thoughtful, earnest and precious Evan Rachel Wood, but whatever it is, as a bisexual woman I am very, very grateful.

If you’re looking for more of Evan Rachel Wood, her band Rebel & a Basketcase just put out their first single “Oh Yeah” and it’s pretty great actually.

Also, if you are my girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood, call me.

You Need Help: You’re Bisexual and Your Girlfriend Wishes You Weren’t

feature image via shutterstock

Welcome to You Need Help! Where you’ve got a problem and yo, we solve it. Or we at least try.

Q: I have been exclusive with my sweet gf for 2 years and lived with her for one. I moved to be in the same city as her because I felt so strongly about our future, came out publicly, and haven’t regretted it for a minute. I was honest with her from the get go about dating and sleeping with men. She is my first same-sex partner, I identify as bi when pressed (hate labels), and never hid that. She has had multiple heartbreaks when lovers left her for men, and she gets upset about my previous experiences. I guess I trust myself more than she does because I know our bond is stronger, our sex life better than anything I’ve encountered before, and she’s the kindest person I know. When I try to talk to her about my sexuality, she reacts badly and hasn’t come around to the idea that someone can be truly and permanently bisexual no matter their current partner. She will only be 100% comfortable with me if I identify as “lesbian” but I don’t want to lie about who I am! (Even if I imagine myself with women from here on out.) Instead, I now just avoid talking about my past so that I don’t hurt her feelings. I don’t want to think that our otherwise stellar relationship is doomed because of this difference in opinion, but don’t know how to move forward as candid conversation isn’t working. I long for her acceptance. I basically hope that her opinion changes with time. Am I in denial? Should I view this as a total dealbreaker? What is a girl to do?

This is a doozy, darlin’ — it’s both something that’s both highly specific to you, your girlfriend and your histories, and a tale as old as time. There’s a short answer to this — it’s not healthy to pressure a partner into an identity that isn’t theirs, and it’s unfair and biphobic to distrust your bisexual partner just because they’re bisexual, no matter what past partners have done. I think you probably already know those things on a base level, though, and you’re still here and still feeling conflicted. So let’s take the long way around to talk about it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that we all carry irrational beliefs around with us, even and especially into relationships. This is just how humans work! We’re all just trying to keep ourselves safe in a variety of ways, and our brains and bodies are doing their best to work towards that goal. Sometimes the things we do to try to keep ourselves safe are a bit mismatched with what the situation actually calls for. Sometimes the way we respond to something to try to keep ourselves safe is actually counterintuitive and makes something worse instead of better, often because we’re reacting to an extreme situation from our past rather than to a more moderate or even totally nonexistent one in our present. The challenge, both in life and in relationships, is to try to be constantly correcting for this, finding a balance between instinct and reality.

This was a long-winded way of saying: everyone has baggage and irrational fears in relationships — everyone! — and figuring out how to deal with them is part of the work. Sometimes, you compromise and agree to treat someone’s warped belief about how the world works as reality, because it turns out to be the easiest way to keep everyone safe and happy. My partner is terrified of flying, just totally 100% cannot do it. Instead, we take long road trips or Amtrak trips to visit family, sometimes up to 24 hours long, even though I am constantly aware that statistically we are actually in more danger in a car or even a train than we would be in the air. It’s stupid, objectively; but I don’t mind.The happiness and peace of mind I get from his peace of mind about the situation outweighs the inconvenience. This is a choice I’ve made, and right now also it’s the choice you’re making. Your girlfriend is wrong, and you know she’s wrong, but you’re agreeing to act as if she isn’t out of a desire to compromise.

Except in your case, it isn’t a compromise! In a compromise, both people are giving something up and both people are getting something. I get the pleasure and relief of knowing that when we spend time with our loved ones, it’s a purely positive experience for us both, not one that’s grounded in terror and resentment for my spouse. What are you getting out of your compromise? From here, it seems like what you’re getting is implicit rather than explicit reminders that your girlfriend doesn’t trust you and rejects part of who you are. And if that were enough for you out of the compromise, if this arrangement was working for you, I don’t think you’d be writing us.

Here’s another story about my relationship (which isn’t, you know, perfect! But it’s the only one I’ve got to reference, really, so here we are). I spent a lot of time growing up living with the constant threat of my father’s scary, violent, arbitrary anger. It could come out of nowhere, a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky — everything seeming fine, then all of the sudden my father refusing to speak to us, his young children, leaving the house for hours and leaving us on our own before finally coming back at night to scream at us for the some minor, randomly chosen thing. As often happens with children who grow up in environments like that, I’m hypervigilant about people being angry at me; so vigilant, in fact, that I can see things that aren’t there. If my partner is in the next room over and hasn’t spoken to me in 15 minutes, I can easily convince myself that it’s not just because he’s reading but because the last thing I said to him was wrong somehow, and he’s stewing and ready to scream at me any second now about how awful I am. This belief, though, is wrong. He doesn’t get upset about infinitesimal things, and when he is upset, that isn’t how he handles it. He’s not my father.

It absolutely makes sense for me to process information this way — in many situations I’ve been in, that instinct would have been correct, and helped me stay safe. But it isn’t correct anymore, and it would be unhealthy — and unfair — to act as if it were. I’m not wrong for feeling the way I do, but if I forced my partner to treat my feelings as reality — if I called him five times a day while he was at work to have him reassure me he wasn’t mad at me, if I forbade him from ever taking time to himself without reminding me it wasn’t about me, or ever being outwardly upset about things like having a bad day at work because it makes me anxious — that would be a terrible relationship for him to be in. I’m not wrong for feeling how I do, but it’s on me to make a plan for how to cope with it: to remind myself to look at the evidence and ask whether there’s any suggestion that I’m actually about to be harmed, to develop my own coping strategies, to be self-aware of my own history and the way I map it onto my present. I can certainly ask my partner for support in this, or to make some concessions to my history that he agrees are both fair and healthy for him, but I can’t ask him to bend over backwards for me because I’m not willing to do the work at all. We can’t justify harmful things we do to others by pointing to the ways they’re related to how we ourselves were harmed — a reason isn’t a justification. Even when bad things have happened to us, and even when those bad things influence how we see the world, we’re still capable of respecting other people’s autonomy, their needs and wants and identity, and treating them as they deserve. To think otherwise is, I think, to insult ourselves a bit.

The difference between these two scenarios, the plane and the imaginary fight I’m afraid of, is what’s being asked of each person; the cost. In the first, I am asked to pay the price of an extra day, day and a half of travel for my partner’s sense of safety and happiness. It’s a price I’m perfectly willing to pay a few times a year. In the second, what would be asked is a constant and profound level of performance during interactions that should normally be totally free and vulnerable — what’s asked is to obscure real and honest parts of one person so that the other never has to experience discomfort or do any inner labor of any difficulty. That’s something that should never be asked of anyone in a healthy relationship, I don’t think. It’s not something that should be asked of you.

Which is another long-winded way of saying: It sucks that your girlfriend has had these negative experiences with other women! It really does! But her ex-girlfriends aren’t every bisexual woman. And more importantly, you aren’t her ex-girlfriends. You’re you. And your girlfriend has a responsibility to deal with the baggage she’s brought into this relationship; while you can certainly support her in doing that, it’s not your job to contort yourself to fit how she’s feeling.

You’re hoping that her “opinion” will change; that’s certainly possible, but not if she never tries to change it. The bottom line is, you’ve never given her any reason to think that you’ll cheat on her or leave her, and it’s HER task, not yours, to remind herself of that every single time this comes up for her. It’s normal to feel anxiety and insecurity when you’ve had a traumatic ending to relationships like that, but she has to clock in every day and do the work of seeing it as anxiety and insecurity, not a fact, and to lessen it over time by checking it against how you really are as a partner and seeing how false it is.

You asked if this was a dealbreaker. I don’t know! That’s up to you. And maybe more importantly, up to your girlfriend. I’m not going to tell you to leave her, but I am going to suggest that you at least ask her to step up to the plate about this. If you can’t expect your partner to believe in your basic trustworthiness as a person, what CAN you expect of them? Ask her in a kind, firm way what reasons you, personally, specifically, have ever given her to doubt your faithfulness; what kind of person and girlfriend you’ve shown yourself to be. Tell her that you need her to treat you like that person: the real one, not the one she fears you could be. You’ve spent two years now patiently bearing her displaced distrust of you; it’s time for her to start taking on some of the work herself. You said she “won’t be 100% comfortable with you” until you identify differently and disavow the parts of your life that she wasn’t in. If you had a friend whose partner was still asking them to do penance (for something they hadn’t actually done!) before they would be “100% comfortable” with them — and who, when asked, wasn’t willing to work on changing the part of themselves that needed that from their girlfriend — would you advise them to stay? Why?

Labels: For Jelly Jars, For Lesbian and Bisexual People, Or For Both?

Hey! Guess what there’s an article in ELLE Magazine today that asks if a “post-LGBT era” has arrived. I would definitely say “oh lord no” to that question, but the article contains more than just that question, it has other thoughts and ideas inside it. It starts out just talking about celebrities, which is confusing, because, well — non-heterosexual celebrities refusing to label themselves has been pretty popular for quite some time. Furthermore, celebrities, who have tightly managed public images, and orchestrated ways of speaking about themselves and evading personal questions, are dealing with a whole different set of pressures than Kids These Days when it comes to sexuality labels. So I don’t really know that Miley Cyrus and Kristen Stewart are setting a trend.

But, despite what its accompanying graphics would suggest, luckily this article talks about more than just celebrities! It goes on to surmise and then ask:

The thought of discarding it like an outdated dress feels more untethering than it does liberating, which is why I stumble on the thought that we’ve truly reached a new point in sexual liberation, where asserting an L, G, B, or T has grown obsolete. Are we really in the primordial stages of a post-coming out era? Or is this a fashionable way to stay in the closet? It is a step forward or a step backward?

Firstly — the article is pretty focused on sexual orientation, not gender, and “T” is not the same kind of “label” as L,G, or B, and shouldn’t be discussed as one. That aside, there are some interesting quotes from some interesting people in this article. Today in Slack we learned that the piece is a big conversation starter. Maybe it’s a conversation a lot of you would like to have, even!

So, we thought we’d get started by talking about how we identify, and why. I’ve got no clue if not identifying as literally nothing is becoming popular outside of Kristen Stewart refusing to grant us the honor of a headline with “Kristen Stewart” and “Lesbian” in it, but it definitely seems to be true that young people are more likely to identify as the perceived-as-more-expansive “queer” now than they used to, as data from our own Reader Surveys suggest:

So, this is how the Autostraddle team members who were in Slack at 5PM EST today identify! I put it in order by age.

Alaina, 24, Staff Writer: I used to call myself a lesbian (sometimes), but I now almost exclusively call myself queer. I use it because of the revolutionary political implications I associate it with, but also I use it because it makes straight people so uncomfortable. They have no clue what queer means — neither for themselves nor for me. It forces straight people to look at me and sit in the uncomfortableness of not knowing who or how I fuck and demands that they respect me regardless of that. I also use it because I’m a little confused about my sexuality — it’s not stagnant, it’s always evolving and changing. And as a non-binary person, queer fits me in a way other things don’t. Because of the constraints of language, grammatically it feels weird to call myself a lesbian sometimes, and gay feels too…normative? I associate ‘gay’ with the HRC, marriage, and an obsession with proving to straight people that I’m just like they are, so pretty please don’t deny me my rights! So I like using queer because it’s non-specific enough to confuse straight people and allow me to figure myself out in the midst of all that confusion. It has it’s downfalls that I’m trying to negotiate — primarily the class/education privilege I’ve found to be associated with it — but for now, it fits.

Maddie, 24, Staff Writer: I identify as queer because it makes me feel good and it also is accurate because I’m attracted to people of various genders. I don’t really care if people call me gay or lesbian, but I like it better if they say that while at least knowing that my sexual orientation is a little more complex than those words’ direct meanings.

Carmen, 25, Straddleverse Editor: I identify with lots of words / ideas: lesbian, gay, queer being the most prominent. I struggled for hella long when I realized I wasn’t straight to pick a label that fit, and the finality freaked me out — but lesbian felt right nonetheless. after all, that’s what I am! A gay chick who likes gay chicks. (And look! There’s the “gay” thing. You can call me gay, that’s cool. It’s not just for dudes anymore. Maybe.) I also revel in IDing as “queer” because i think it aligns a lot with my self-perception as a fringe-y weirdo outsider who also has some leftist policies, and also because it reminds me that I’m one of many brilliant shining stars who experience their sexualities similarly and differently from me but are still my companions in this strange world.

Audrey, 25, Staff Writer: I identify as bisexual because it best describes my sexual and relationship behavior and because it feels crucial to speak out from a bi position given that bisexual people face the most violence and get the fewest resources in the LGB community. I identify as queer because queerness  is at the root of my community, my politics and my gender. I sometimes say that I was born bisexual and choose queerness.

Yvonne, 25, Senior Editor: I’m a woman who loves women. I most identify as a lesbian because it deliberately rejects men from my association —which I like very much — and most importantly it centers women in my identity. I also like to reaffirm the lesbian identity because it’s usually associated with older generations who aren’t inclusive so I like to show people that lesbians are radical in their politics and worldview and want progress for the entire queer community.

Raquel, 27, Intern: I identify as queer and sometimes as bisexual if I feel like being political about it but apparently the kids these days prefer pansexual and I have a lot of feelings about that but also I feel a lot of shrugs. Specifically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Rachel, 27, Senior Editor: I identify as both as bisexual and queer — I tend to use “queer” more often in straight or mixed straight/LGBT spaces when I mostly want to indicate that I’m not straight, and bisexual more in majority-LGBT spaces when it’s more useful to indicate “what kind” of queer I am. I also fit the definition of pansexual in that I’m attracted to people of multiple different genders, but that also overlaps with the definition of bisexual that I use — “attracted to the same and other genders” — and I identify more with the history and activism around the label “bisexual.”

Erin, 29, Staff Writer: I identify as gay and qualify that as having no interest in cis men.

Laura M, 29, Staff Writer: I identify as “queer,” “bisexual misandrist” and also “lesbian.”

Mey, 29, Trans Editor: I identify as a lesbian but I also identify as queer. I like lesbian because it makes it clear I’m in no way interested in men and queer because it sounds political and radical and it makes old people feel weird.

Stef, 32, Music Editor: I guess I identify as queer or “equal opportunity” but usually when people ask me how I identify I say I don’t.

Laneia, 34, Executive Editor: I mostly call myself queer. I like that the word itself is off-putting to most straight people, and I like that the dictionary definition of queer is “weird,” because that’s something I’ve been called since Kindergarten. I embraced my weirdness early on, so after embracing my big ol’ gayness, I decided I felt most connected to queer. I love that this one little word encompasses so much of who I actually am: a happy, unapologetic lesbian who enjoys making normcore heterosexuals feel uncomfortable and out of the loop.

Riese, 34, Editor-in-Chief: I sometimes say that I am bisexual by birth, lesbian by choice. Or something. On the day-to-day I don’t really care — queer, lesbian, gay, whatever. If I had to pick one, I’d pick “queer,” because it honors who I was (bisexual) and who I am (lesbian) and it’s a weirdo word and I’m a weirdo. But the more I get into studying lesbian history, the more I find myself drawn to “lesbian.” So many women fought so hard to live openly as lesbians and to find pride in that identity and I don’t want to reject/disregard that history, I want to embrace it and understand it and build on it, not against it. (I also like that it’s a word men can’t use.) I feel weird about people saying they “reject” labels — like, you can say that labels aren’t for you, personally, without acting like labels are suffocating or retro. In straight spaces, I usually just say “gay” / hope that nobody talks to me.

Aja, 35, Beauty Editor: I identify as a lesbian, married w/ child.

Heather, 37, Senior Editor: I identify as a lesbian because I’m a woman who is primarily attracted to and only interested in having romantic relationships with other woman. And while I also label myself as gay and queer, I prefer lesbian because it’s a word that struck terror into my heart for so long because of my religious upbringing and I distanced myself from it as far as possible for two decades of my life —  but after I came out and embraced it, I found that “lesbian” didn’t seek to alienate me, but rather to connect me to a sacred and powerful history of women (women, women, women, and only women) just like me.

How Rape Jokes Sound Inside Queer Bodies

feature image via shutterstock

My new gal pal took me on a date to a dueling piano bar, which was a great idea. I love tacky shit and cover songs and cheap whiskey, and my GP knows this.

We were immediately enchanted by the place, Louie Louie’s in Deep Ellum. The two guys on the pianos were playing a country song I didn’t know, and then after some banter they launched into that one Eve 6 song. I was riding high with a whiskey Coke, my favorite denim vest, a gorgeous woman and all the audience participation I could handle.

Soon, in a trickle and then a gushing stream, the jokes started – a comment about roofies here, an innuendo about duct tape there. No one laughed, and the performers seemed miffed. “Tough crowd, I guess they don’t like rape jokes,” said Joey to Jeremy. I guess we didn’t.

We kept thinking they’d stop, you know? But then they launched into this very elaborate version of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” where they wrote their own lyrics to make fun of different people in the crowd. They avoided our table for a while. My GP is a lesbian and I look like one, whatever that means, and I guess it’s hard for straight guys to make sex jokes about lesbians. But it was early, and there were only about a dozen guests, so Joey gestured to me and remarked about having screwed me, and I rolled my eyes good naturedly.

“And now it hurts when I pee.”

And I cracked a smile.

“But don’t worry, it was good for me. I guess probably not for you…”

And I winked and shook my head.

“That’s why they make roofies.”

Oh.

Jokes about raping dykes — to straighten us out, to control our bodies, or just for sport — have been around for as long as straight cis men have been raping us. Our heternormative culture hypersexualizes queer and trans women and gender-nonconforming people while stripping us of sexual agency and denying the legitimacy of our sexuality. This makes sexual violence against us seem semantically impossible, even though it’s rampant. Emily Waters, the research and education coordinator at the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, said there really aren’t numbers or resources that relate to sexual violence and harassment against queer and trans people, but anecdotally, we know it happens constantly. NCAVP does gather data and release reports about Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ and HIV+ populations and about hate violence against us.

“The conversation that’s being had on a national level about sexual violence is very heteronormative,” Waters said. “Society is not talking about how sexual violence impacts LGBTQ people and the nuances in that, and that creates more invisibility for LGBTQ people.”

There at Louie Louie’s, I wanted to shrink into nothing. I just sat there and didn’t clap or laugh or react at all. GP wanted to say something to him, and my brain was screaming at me to leave, but instead we stayed for another hour, even through the next duo’s jokes about how women can’t drive. I nailed every word of “Want You To Want Me” by Cheap Trick from our table at the front, and the performers were very impressed. Our side of the room definitely won the loudness contest during “Living On A Prayer.”

I should have bolted. My feminist brain is mad at me for giving audience and energy to violent people. I stayed because I was having a good time, and I knew I could never go back there after that night. I wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to insist on my right to be somewhere that had already denied my safe welcome.

But that joke, that one-liner at my expense, kept pinging around my head. Inside queer bodies — my queer body — rape jokes sound like “Your choices are impotent,” sound like “You are an object,” sound like “You can be fixed,” sound like “You are a spectacle,” sound like “Shut the fuck up.”

I wonder what it would be like to live in a brain that thinks roofie jokes are funny, that can literally turn rape into a jingle. I wonder what it would be like to live in a body that isn’t afraid of the whole world.

This is not a specifically queer problem. The discussion about rape jokes came to a head in 2012, when Daniel Tosh said it would be funny if an audience member got gang raped. He weakly apologized while many industry leaders raced to his defense. Women comedians, like Lindy West, have been consistent and vocal about fighting back against a culture of misogyny in humor.

And although it’s not often spoken of, it is uniquely insidious when rape jokes are made at the expense of LGBTQ people: It’s one of many ways that our straight cisnormative culture asserts its dominance over our bodies, our stories and our sexualities. Bi women in particular face heightened risk of sexualized violence and harassment. Repeated reports, like this one from LGBT MAP, have shown bi women experience higher rates of sexual assault and intimate partner violence than cis lesbians and straight women. Based on anecdotal data from bi victims, cis men see bi women’s sexuality as threatening and use violence to assert control. Waters said,

“Sexual violence humor minimizes the experience of sexual violence, and that, in combination with this hypersexualization of LGBTQ women and of bi women, especially, can often make survivors feel like ‘maybe what happened to me was my fault’ and also ‘maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it was’ because it’s being minimized by the greater culture.”

I sat in that bar as a bisexual woman holding hands with my butch girlfriend, who herself has survived incidents of sexual violence, while a guy with a microphone told a playful lie to a room full of strangers about fucking me without my consent. He didn’t know our stories, and from his piano bench he wouldn’t have cared to. If he had known that I read and write about the horrific violence against my community by day and process the trauma of that work in my journal by night, maybe he wouldn’t have said it. But I bet you he would have resented the implication that he shouldn’t.

So much of my personal universe is queer, and I’m pretty good at navigating the rest of the world with my bisexual genderqueer heart in ways that make me feel safe. I think most people are easily confused but basically good. Joey the piano player meant harm. He read the room, he read me, and instead of changing the subject, he dug in and made it personal. I guess that’s his schtick, and it’s a gruesome one. I could have told him that. I could have heckled or sent up a note disguised as a request or found him at the bar between sets.

But instead I’m writing about it on the internet. Maybe that makes me a coward.

In that moment, though, I couldn’t internalize what happened. I couldn’t respond with anything but mild disgust, because I couldn’t allow the threat to be realer than that. The crushing anxiety and fear came later that night, and the next day, and every day since. Where is the line between a joke and a threat? What if next time there’s not a piano in between me and the asshole who thinks it would be hilarious to rape the dyke when their girl isn’t around?

We don’t need data to know how constant and ugly this problem is. All we have to do is talk to each other and we’ll find that we and the people we love are having these experiences. I hope we find ways to talk louder, to talk so loud we drown out all the rape jokes until the people who make them take a hike, or maybe even come up with something funny to say.

To Unicorns, From an Ex-Unicorn

Hello, this article is for other bisexual women who are interested in dating a couple! You may be brand new to the idea of a relationship with multiple people, or you may have been polyamorous for years now. Maybe one particular couple has approached you, or you might have your eye on a couple yourself. Or maybe you just like the idea of a triad in the first place. Congratulations, in any case! Triads can be happy, healthy, caring relationships. However, there are a lot of pitfalls to watch out for on your way to making a happy, healthy triad.

First off, let’s start with the terms “Unicorn” and “Unicorn Hunting.” This is an interesting set of terms, because Unicorn Hunting is often a phrase used in a negative way, while many bi women happily self-identify as Unicorns. The problem with the latter, I personally believe, is that it is often used by women who are new to the polyamory community, and it makes them more visible to Unicorn Hunters who may prey on a lack of knowledge. This is basically like in the BDSM community, where anyone that says they think that 50 Shades of Grey portrays a healthy BDSM relationship, you know they are brand new to BDSM, or may be a dangerous predatory Dom that abuses people. Talking about 50 Shades is an entirely different post, so moving on…

Not all couples that want to date a bi woman are Unicorn Hunters. There is nothing wrong with just being a couple that doesn’t want to date separately, and wants to date only a bi woman. This severely limits their options, and it may be very hard to find that relationship, but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad. The term “Unicorn Hunters” is reserved for people that display the negative characteristics, habits, or rules that should be immediately seen as red flags. It’s also rare for these people to be malicious. Often, it’s simply a couple that is new to polyamory, and choose some very common – and unfortunate – rules and assumptions to start with.

Here are some things to look out for when you are starting a relationship with an established couple. Again, many times these are not malicious, and if you start a discussion with a couple that displays one or two of these, it can be fixed before it becomes a problem. However, if these are not addressed, they are extremely likely to cause a problem, sooner rather than later.

1) “We want to add a woman to our relationship”

That seems like a simple phrase, and one that I see countless times in a day. It also seems very innocuous, but it could very well indicate an unhealthy point of view.

The problem with this phrase is that it assumes that a woman would be grafted on to the existing relationship. What actually happens when a healthy triad is formed is that a brand new relationship is created between three people. The third person is not just added as an afterthought, but rather each person in the relationship evaluates where they are and where they want to be in the relationship. Everyone has to have an equal say in how the relationship is formed, even if it is agreed that each relationship is “equal.” This could mean that the bi woman wants to remain in a “secondary” role and doesn’t want a level of commitment that the original (or “primary”) couple has. Alternately, the relationship could be completely renegotiated; for example, the two women may become “primaries” and the man the “secondary,” or all three decide to be each others’ “primaries.”

What to watch out for: Make sure that the couple is aware that you are not an addition or accessory to their relationship. You have thoughts, feelings, preferences, and boundaries of your own, and these must all be respected. You are not simply stumbling into a relationship where you must fit in a box they already created as an “addition” to their relationship.

Instead, look for an attitude that displays “We would like to have a relationship with another woman,” instead of “We want to add a woman.” The difference may simply be that they are unaware how they are phrasing it, but it’s something that should be clear before you start the relationship.

2) “Primary” and “Secondary,” and “Protecting the Relationship”

I deliberately used quotes around the terms “primary” and “secondary” in the previous section, because I feel as though that terminology is restrictive and confusing. While relationships where commitment, time, and emotions are not equally spent between any of the three people can work and be very rewarding, it should not be enforced without any say. There is nothing wrong with wanting that sort of relationship, and also nothing wrong with wanting a relationship with three “primaries,” but again, these are not things to be imposed on one person.

Related to this is the idea that if a couple opens their relationship, they can protect that relationship and keep everything the way it was. The fact of the matter is, opening a relationship will permanently change it. In many ways, this change is good, and can help strengthen the relationship. However, putting any rules in place to protect it in its original form will end up crippling both the original relationship, and any new ones that are made.

What to watch out for: When the existing couple makes it clear that they are the primaries, and the new partner can only ever hope to be a secondary, the power balance is off from the very beginning. This means the new partner doesn’t have an equal say in how her relationship evolves, and the other two partners make decisions for her. It is not healthy for one person’s relationships unilaterally decided by another person. Even if you want a casual relationship that doesn’t reach the same emotional level as that of the other two partners, you should be able to say that, instead of having it decided for you.

3) “If she doesn’t like the rules, she can leave!”

This is unfortunately a very common attitude, and one that should be avoided at all costs. This attitude means that the couple is very set on both of them having a say in how the relationship evolves, and you are only along for the ride. There is the very slight chance that you may agree with and want to follow all the rules they bring up, but even if that unlikely event is the case, you should still have a say in what you are agreeing to, and have the option to speak up if you decide that it isn’t working for you.

If a couple is adamant that their rules be followed or else, then you should go for the “or else.” Don’t waste your time getting attached in a situation where the rules could change on you at any moment, and you would have to agree or risk losing someone (or two someones) you have invested time and affection with.

What to watch out for: When you start dating a couple, make sure that there are no rules imposed on you without you having any say in the matter. All rules should be open to discussion, even if you agree with them. The point is not that you shouldn’t make any agreements, but rather that none should be imposed on you without your input. Negotiation and communication are absolutely essential in polyamory, and you should have a voice in your relationship.

4) You’re supposed to love them both equally

Love isn’t something that can be forced. You can’t make yourself love someone, and you can’t force yourself not to love someone. It is simply impossible to will emotions in and out of existence. Not only that, but no two people are identical, and it is impossible to have identical relationships with two different people. Because of this, any rule that demands that you love (or refrain from loving) two people equally is absolutely absurd.

Many Unicorn Hunters start out with this rule in the hopes that it will curb jealousy, but in the long run it only helps the jealousy grow. If you’re keeping a tally of who gets what, it will build resentment. Not only that, but as the third person in the relationship, it can be utterly exhausting. If you love one person more than the other, it means that you would have to either hide that growing affection, or fake feeling that affection for both people.

What to watch out for: Any indication that affection must be displayed or felt equally is a warning sign. Sometimes this is simply jealousy or insecurity, and if the person is willing to work through it, it doesn’t signal the end of the world. However, if rules are in place to keep things “equal” or if either partner demands an action, feeling, or statement in response to feeling like they are more or less loved than the other person, that is a red flag.

Instead, make sure that each relationship with each individual person is free to grow at its own pace.

5) You can’t have sex with only one of them (but they can have sex without you)

This is a red flag that I will be adding a lot of maybe and might to. This is because there are some situations and relationships where this arrangement is explicitly negotiated and agreed to by everyone. That would fall under point #3 – if you want the relationship to go this way, that is fine. But generally, this rule can show up as a red flag, and that’s what I am referring to here. If you agree to and enjoy this situation, this point may not apply to you. That part out of the way, here is why it can be a red flag.

This is an extremely common rule to impose, in the hopes that it will hide jealousy in the original couple. Hiding and working around jealousy rarely works, and it brings us right back to point #4. However, there are some specifics in this rule that are worth pointing out besides that.

I’m going to be honest here: Threesomes can be a lot of fun. But they can also get boring after a while! Talk to anyone who has had regular threesomes, and almost all of them will say that the novelty eventually wears off, and you just want time to be intimate with one person. It’s also extremely exhausting to have to take care of two people’s sexual needs all the time, every time. It’s like chocolate: Great to have on occasion, but a horrible idea for every meal.

With that in mind, this rule is extremely problematic in the context of a polyfidelitous triad (meaning a relationship with three people that cannot date anyone outside of the group). It means two people in the relationship get the best of both worlds, threesomes as well as twosomes, while the third person is restricted to only having threesomes. Even if they are not polyfidelitous and the third person does date other people one-on-one, they are still missing out on the connection that can be made having one-on-one contact with each person in the triad. This counts for sex as well as alone time – some couples demand not only having sex as a threesome, but also all dates and time spent must be with the original couple there together for all of it.

What to watch out for: Basically what’s in the title. Unless that is explicitly the type of relationship you want, don’t agree to only having sex (or dates) with both of them at once.

Are there ANY benefits to being in a triad?!

This may all sound like a lot to watch out for, but there are truly happy, successful, and loving triads out there. These can and do range from casual relationships where the third will visit the couple on occasion, to live-in polyfidelitous relationships where the three raise children, to anywhere in between. Triads can be exceptionally rewarding if you find three people that click well physically, emotionally, and overall. As long as you watch out for the very common pitfalls, you are much more likely to become part of one of those happy triad success stories.

Originally published on polyfor.us. Republished WITH PERMISSION MOTHERF*CKERS.

How Breaking Bread with Queer Christians Helped Me Rediscover Radical Love

On Sunday I took communion for the first time in more than a year. I hadn’t been avoiding it deliberately, but I realized just how long it had been as I approached the line to receive bread and wine (juice). I’ve heard the phrases “The body of Christ broken for you;” “The blood of Christ shed for you” hundreds of times in my life. But this time it felt different.

I was bleary eyed, having stayed up way too late talking and singing pop songs with a group of rad queer women. I was wearing a Mary Lambert crop top that read “EVERYONE IS A BABE” and my Topman boxers poked out over my jeans. But being sleepy and underdressed didn’t make this communion particularly special — I spent six years in a youth group, after all.

The miracle, the revelation, came in dunking my bread in the wine and whispering “thanks be to God” in a room full of queer people.

In Houston, 1,450 of us gathered for the annual Gay Christian Network Conference this weekend. As I chewed my bread and walked back down the aisle for my seat, I made eye contact with 50-year-old bears and 18-year-old dykes and middle-aged moms and elderly pastors. We saw each other and lifted each other up in prayer.

The event has grown a lot since 2005, when 40 people gathered in Dallas. This was the GCN’s best attended and most diverse conference ever in terms of age, race, and country and state of origin. Folks came from Catholic and Mainline Protestant, from progressive and contemporary non-denominational, and from very conservative and evangelical faith traditions.

The keynote speakers were Broderick Greer, an Episcopal Curate and prominent advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement, Misty Irons, a blogger and theologian from a more conservative tradition and Side B position (more on that later), and Allyson Robertson, likely the first trans woman ever ordained by a Baptist church. The workshops and panel discussions reflected the diversity of participants in their theology and perspectives.

Samantha Field, Eliel Cruz-Lopez and Sarah Moon shared strategies for how churches and Christians can and must be more inclusive of bisexuals.

Awe-inspiring things — I’ll  call them sacred things — happen when marginalized people get together and speak frankly about their oppression and liberation. In the first breakout workshop I went to, Emmy Kegler invited the audience to reflect on where we saw ourselves in scripture. We named people who act on their faith despite facing discrimination, like the woman with the issue of the blood in Mark and the good Samaritan, a member of a marginalized tribe who stops to help a stranger of a different tribe. I realized that the stories that resonate with me most and that most actively demonstrate the radical root of my Christian faith are those in which oppressed individuals form partnerships and communities from which to leverage their collective voices for their liberation.

Ruth and Naomi cling to each other for survival and find a way to thrive (that story is often also interpreted as queer, but that’s a theological query for another time). Mary seeks Elizabeth’s counsel when both women are pregnant against impossible odds and the Holy Spirit comes to them. The 12 disciples are a ragtag band of poor, uneducated folks with no authority, and Jesus chooses them each for their gifts to help lead his cultural and spiritual revolution.

After I had this moment of understanding about the Bible as the story of oppressed people working together to free themselves and their communities, I saw that gospel in action all weekend. There were many parents of LGBT kids who made it a point to hug as many queer folks as possible, and I saw people who haven’t spoken to their own parents in years bond with adults who had traveled down the road of learning to embrace their children. GCN welcomes both Side A (people who believe LGBT Christians can enter into same-sex marriages and relationships) and Side B (LGBT people and allies who believe scripture requires them to not engage in same-sex relationships) Christians, and they met together at tables and on couches and in worship with the goal of understanding and loving each other.

After a workshop on bisexuality and the church that got me thinking seriously about seminary, I crossed the street to the park with two new friends. We talked about the struggles of being bisexual in predominately lesbian communities and about how to engage with our faith while in secular queer spaces in ways that don’t harm people who have left the church because it was violent to them. We’re already working on a workshop pitch for next year’s conference. And in the midst of this conversation, we played on magnificent spinning machines at the park and laughed like wild things. There is liberation in being joyful while protestors with “Homo Sex Is Sin” posters congregate just around the corner in a city that two months ago voted to repeal its non-discrimination ordinance.

The conference was intentional about honoring everyone’s stories and lifting up voices that don’t usually get heard in faith spaces or queer spaces. Almost all of the keynote speakers addressed racism in the LGBT community, our responsibility to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement, and the ways that cis queers can work in solidarity with trans folks. The conference designated all-gender restrooms for the first time. People were willing and determined to learn and grow not just for their personal benefit but to be better members of the community. I put “they/she” on a pronoun button for the first time and countless people — moms, older gay and lesbian folks, and my peers — asked me to share what that meant and what genderqueer identity is because they genuinely wanted to understand ideas that were foreign and difficult for them so they could love me better.

I met another genderqueer person from North Texas who wore a dress for the first time at the conference and we shared our stories. I also formed a bright friendship with someone who comes from a charismatic worship style and extremely conservative faith background, and we hugged every time we saw each other. For the first time, I saw how big the table of Christ can really be. I could be my whole self — my complicated, queer, heretical, Presbyterian self — and people told me that self was a blessing to them. As Emmy said in that first workshop, “This is why we do church: Because we need each other and each other’s stories.” And then the next day in the bisexuality workshop, seminary student Sarah Moon took it a step further in noting, “In Genesis 1 when God creates the world, they do it by speaking words,” so when we tell our stories we become co-creators with God.

Throughout the conference, speakers and my peers called on us to work together across the divides we felt so we could leverage our faith as a tool for radical and transformative justice. It seemed miraculous that we were able to reach and teach each other in so many ways, despite major differences in theologies and backgrounds. Queer people and Christians both speak a lot about radical love as the key to lifting folks out of the darkness. This weekend surrounded by people who hold both those identities, we lived that out in a way that felt totally new to me.

via #FaithfullyLGBT

I’m thankful for the tables at the mall food court where I had conversations about faith with strangers. I’m thankful for the cocktail table that five new friends and I carried through a three-hour line to meet Mary Lambert after her concert while occasionally chanting DYKES DYKES DYKES at full volume. Fact: Mary Lambert, who has always spoken candidly about her faith and sexuality, genuinely wants to know about your life and it’s too beautiful for words.

Mary Lambert saw my scissoring sweatshirt and yelled AUTOSTRADDLE!! YES!! #squadgoals

But most of all, I’m thankful for the table we shared during communion. In his final keynote, GCN founder Justin Lee explained that even the progressive church has failed so many people because it is sympathetic, not empathetic. It feels sorry for those people over there but does nothing to stand with them in their struggles. It wants all to feel welcome but does nothing to heal the wounds of those who have been excluded. For the first time in a long time, I shared communion at a table that emphatically and empathetically made room for me, crop top and all. For some people, it was the first time they ever took communion in a worship space where anyone knew they were queer. A server said “This is the body of Christ broken for you” knowing the heart of who they were speaking to.

The theme of this conference was “What’s next,” and I’m still processing my own answer to that question. I have a broken and complicated faith, but I won’t go another year without communion. And every time I break the bread, I’ll remember the 1,450 people with whom I shared that bread and all the love, hope and struggle bound up in it.

Amandla Stenberg Is Bisexual: 17-Year-Old Actress Comes Out Exquisitely On Teen Vogue Snapchat

On Teen Vogue‘s snapchat last night, Amandla Stenberg — who you likely know for playing “Rue” in The Hunger Games and also for calling out Kylie Jenner when Kylie appropriated cornrows with the hashtag “#whitegirlsdoitbetter” — came out as bisexual and also as a perfect human:

“I wanna thank Teen Vogue for giving me this opportunity, I cannot stress enough how important representation is, so the concept that I can provide for other black girls is mind-blowing. It’s a really really hard thing to be silenced, and it’s deeply bruising to fight against your identity and just mold yourself into shapes that you just shouldn’t be in. As someone who identifies as a black bisexual woman, I’ve been through it, and it hurts and it’s awkward and it’s uncomfortable. But then I realized: because of Solange and Ava Duvernay and Willow and all the black girls watching this right now, there’s absolutely nothing but change. We cannot be suppressed. We are meant to express our joy and our love and our tears, to be big and bold and definitely not easy to swallow. I definitely believe in the concept of rebellion through selfhood, and rebellion through embracing your true identity, no matter what you’re being told. Here I am, being myself; and it’s hard and vulnerable, and it’s definitely a process, but I’m learning and growing. Thank you for supporting me and doing this, and thank you to Teen Vogue. This is just the beginning, though; we have a lot of work to do for all women of color. We need more representation in film and television. We need our voices to be louder in the media. And not just women of color — bisexual women, gay women, transgender women, mentally ill women. I’m sick of all the misogyny and homophobia and transphobia that I see around me, and I know you are too. Thank you for listening and goodnight.”

Please note that the post is tagged “I’m very bisexual.”

Stenberg appears on the cover of this month’s issue of Teen Vogue, for which she is interviewed by Solange. You’ll probably want to read that now. You’ll probably buy Teen Vogue this month! I don’t know, I just have a feeling you’re gonna want a copy of this moment in our lives. I have a feeling you’re gonna start following her on instagram if you weren’t already! I have so many feelings about your feelings!

Stenberg got started in show business as a four-year-old, modeling for Disney and appearing in TV commercials. Her first film role, in Colombiana, saw her playing the younger version of Zoe Saldana’s character. Next came Hunger Games, voicing Bia in Rio 2, and spots in Sleepy Hollow and Mr.Robinson. She’s also an accomplished musician, recording with singer/songwriter Zander Hawley as “Honeywater.”

Stenberg is also involved with an anti-hunger non-profit No Kid Hungry. Also, she co-authored a comic book published in 2015 called “Niobe: She is Life.” Also, she posted her “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows” school project video on her tumblr and it went viral and everybody was talking about it and it was incredible.

AND SHE IS BISEXUAL.

AND ONLY SEVENTEEN.

Bless us, everyone, it appears the odds are ever in our collective favor.

FDA Continues To Bar Many Gay, Trans and Bi People From Blood Donation

Feature image via Shutterstock

For the first time since 1985 and the height of the AIDS epidemic, the FDA has made a major adjustment to its policy banning blood donations from men who have sex with men, but the real impact is limited.

Instead of a lifetime ban (called a permanent deferral), the FDA now recommends that blood donation centers and other entities require men to wait 12 months after their last sexual encounter with another man before donating. This rules out gay and bi men in sexually active, monogomous relationships with other men, those who only have protected sex, and those who for other reasons are at low risk of transmission of HIV.

The guidelines also include women who have sex with men that have had sex with men in the last 12 months. BiLaw, an organization of bisexual law professionals, noted in a July letter that this line of policy is particularly stigmatizing to bisexual people and urged for its removal to no avail.

Meghan Maury of the LGBTQ Task Force put it bluntly: the updated recommendations remain “phenomenally far away from what any of the science tells us about transmission risk, about testing, and about the available pharmaceutical and condom options.”

The Task Force released comments in June urging the FDA to lift the blanket ban on MSM and other groups entirely.

In the new FDA documents, there is no change to recommendations for lifetime bans on individuals who have ever engaged in sex work or non-prescription injection drug use. This policy increases stigma for current and former sex workers and those who use injected drugs, who are more likely to be LGBT, with trans folks at particularly high risk.

For example, trans individuals who have used hormone treatments without their own prescription fall under the ban, Maury explained.

“Those provisions say things to me as a person who was an injection drug user 20 years ago, it feels as if the FDA is saying ‘once a junkie always a junkie,'” they said. “It says that people who have engaged in sex work are marked for life. It’s stigma. It’s not related to science in any way. The MSM provision is the same, it’s just the stigma that we don’t trust men who have sex with men to not have sex with multiple partners without condoms.”

The FDA’s guidelines regarding blood donation by trans individuals have never been clear, and the new version doesn’t help much. Trans people are likely to still experience discrimination at blood centers, regardless of their sexual history. Buzzfeed reported earlier this year that some places have a blanket policy of rejecting any transgender donor. And trans women who have had sex with cis men, for example, will fall into the same restrictions as cis men. There is a positive change in the new regulations: the guidelines state that “In the context of the donor history questionnaire, FDA recommends that male or female gender be taken to be self-identified and self-reported.” It will be important to watch to what extent that recommendation is honored in practice.

Given the one-year deferral requirement for MSM and women who have sex with MSM, it seems unlikely that the adjustment in policy will majorly impact the supply of available blood, though it may at least help reduce stigma against men who have sex with men.

There are many categories of people who can’t give blood, and some estimates say that less than half the population is actually eligible. I myself can’t give for at least three years because I lived in Nicaragua, which has the presence of malaria, even though I never contracted malaria. However, these other limits are irrelevant to the fact that the FDA continues to uphold discriminatory and hypocritical standards when it comes to which sexually active people can give blood. After all, straight people do not have to identify their number of partners before donating even though a high number of partners increases the risk of HIV transmission.

So groups like The Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality will keep fighting for FDA guidelines that better account for medical science and modern technology, Maura said. And, they added, good work is happening to help reduce stigma against and increase resources for the same intravenous drug users, sex workers, and LGBT people who are affected by this policy.

Keke Palmer Is Sexually Fluid, Plans To Follow Her Heart, Could Change It Up

KeKe Palmer, an actress and singer who recently starred as Zayday Williams, the only character in Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens you’d actually want to hang out with in real life, has confirmed to People Magazine that she has no interest in labeling her sexuality. This means “heterosexual” is definitely off the table, if you know what I mean:

The video was to represent the young woman today – it’s not the traditional woman anymore – and not the specifics of ‘Am I gay? Am I straight? Am I bi?'” the actress-singer, 22, says in the new issue of PEOPLE. “I’m making the rules for myself, and I don’t have to be stuck down to one label.

“I don’t feel the need to define nothin’ to nobody, because I’m always changing. Why say that I’m this or that when I might not be tomorrow?” she says. “I’m gonna follow my own feelings and my own heart.”

Rumors were swirling about Palmer’s sexuality following the release of a music video in which Palmer leaves a man for a woman, played by Cassie, who looks really good in her Calvins:

Furthermore, she appeared on Snapchat kissing Cassie, who apparently is dating P. Diddy and not KeKe Palmer but who are we to say, really?

“This news makes a lot of sense to me,” said Autostraddle Managing Editor Rachel Kincaid, “considering how Cassie’s “Me & U” made me gay, pretty much.”

Palmer became the fifth-highest-paid child star in television during her run as the star of the Nickelodeon sitcom, True Jackson, VP, which may or may not have been your root.

Other television work includes recurring roles on Masters of Sex, Winx Club and 90210. She’s also appeared in films including Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Madea’s Family Reunion, the critically acclaimed Akeelah and the Bee and your favorite VH1-biopic, CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story. She’s won and been nominated for a ton of Kids’ Choice Awards, NAACP Image Awards and Young Artist Awards.

As a singer, she’s recorded one studio album, put out three mixtapes, appeared on two soundtracks, and released seven singles. “I Don’t Belong to You” is her first music video since 2014’s “Animal.” She also sang the theme song for True Jackson VP, “Change it Up.”

We recommend celebrating this blessed piece of information by treating yourself to a viewing of Joyful Noise, a heartwarming film I incorrectly remembered as being a Christmas movie even though it turns out that it is not a Christmas movie, I just saw it for the first time on Christmas. It stars two other stars who have also been dealing with lesbian rumors for at least a decade, Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah. It’s not really a “good movie,” but it’s still a good movie, you know?

Now excuse me as I update this list…