Letter From Your Editors

Hello April Showers!

Laneia really challenged us for this month’s collage by demanding a photograph of us in the shower or bathtub. Clearly very few of us were up to this task. I hope you make note of the fact that Erin and I took pictures of ourselves in the same bathroom, but from opposite sides, so you really get a full-bathroom perspective from us. Also, props to Mey and Aisha and Stef for being the only ones who really did the assignment correctly. Y’all are brave women and I’m proud to know you.

1st row: Aisha, Laura, Mey, Valerie, Casey 2nd row: Sarah, Stef, Erin, Cee, Carrie 3rd row: Rachel, Heather, Yvonne, Riese, Laneia

We’ve started bringing in some new staff writers, have you noticed? Priya did Friday’s Friday Open Thread and wrote about searching for her queerness in Bollywood. Faith has written about ’90s TV characters who made her gay and did some imaginary dating app reviews for April Fool’s Day. They’re gonna keep writing stuff until we’re all best friends!

If you’ve been paying attention to my personality at all over the past [length of time], you know that I’m obsessed with history generally, and lesbian history specifically. This has been especially on my mind lately! In preparation for writing about When We Rise, I read Karla Jay’s Tales of the Lavender Menace and Cleve Jones’ When We Rise, and then, of course, I watched When We Rise twice through. Then I was doing a lot of reading (particularly from Days of Love and also this thesis) for the first edition of Lesbian Power Couples From History Who Got Shit Done Together, and now I’m reading this book about disappearing lesbian spaces for no particular reason AND AND AND ALSO in preparation for interviewing Sarah Schulman last month (this interview will go up soon, I promise!), I read six of her books in two weeks (Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Response and the Duty of Repair, Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, After Delores, People in Trouble & The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination), a lot of which chronicled AIDS-era queer history. The cumulation of these experiences, coupled with living during a political moment in which we must look to the past to gain strength for the future and multiplied by the very real situation of actual disappearing lesbian spaces, have led me to be thinking near-constantly about how we can help preserve this history and educate our readers about it. We’re told in school that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” but we need to learn of before we can begin to learn from. (Y’all, queers have been having similar versions of the same arguments FOR DECADES! It’s incredible.)

So that’s one of the things we’ll be talking about this summer at our annual Senior Editor’s retreat. We really need to preserve these stories, keep these voices alive, and help bridge some of the intergenerational gaps that have formed between elder lesbians and younger queers. So that’s on my mind as well as everything I told you about last month! Man we really need a pile of money to fall from the sky ASAP. Also like… an hour to plan aforementioned Senior Editor’s Retreat?

I hope you liked the A+ content we managed to pull together this month despite being in full-on A-Camp prep mode! The A+ Podcast #20: Nature’s Free Box, Ev’yan’s essay on how she found radical self-love by posting naked selfies on the internet and Getting In Bed With Kristin regarding Friendship, with heartthrob Brittani Nichols and with superstar Gaby Dunn (with special guest Jenny Owen Youngs!).

Next A+ Insider we’ll be coming at you from Wisconsin! Then after that Camp will be over and those of you who are sick of hearing us talk about Camp will get another 10 months of camp-free chats before it starts all over again! Unless we are bombed by a foreign country or experience the heat death of the universe, in which case none of this will matter.

Love,

Riese

co-signed by Laneia / Rachel / Yvonne / Heather

Top 10 Most Popular Posts From March 2017

These posts were hella popular last month.

1. Surprise! Samira Wiley And Lauren Morelli Got Married And Everything’s Perfect, by Stef Schwartz
2. Rachel Maddow Proves, Once Again, That America Prefers Asinine Bluster Over Brilliant Women, by Heather Hogan
3. We’ll Have Sex Again, I Promise, by Heather Hogan
4. Are Straight Women Okay? by Erin Sullivan
5. Homophobic Husband Murders Estranged Wife and Her Girlfriend, Both Middle School Educators, by Riese Bernard
6. 55 Gayest Ways You Met Your Significant Other(s), According to the Autostraddle Reader Survey, by Riese Bernard
7. Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for March 2017, by Corrina
8. Listen, by Laneia Murray
9. Tag Yourself in This SNL Lesbian Reality Show, by Erin Sullivan
10. This Is a Nightmare and a Genocide: Jaquarrius Holland is the Sixth Black Trans Woman Murdered This Year, by Mey Rude

Nine Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations

Rachel: does anyone have any idea why i would have written “cup” on my to do list
as a complete item
does that mean anything to anyone
Laneia: is it about menstrual cups
Rachel: it is!
oh my god
thank you
Laneia: !!
Rachel: your head is in the right place
the menstrual cup place
it’s like “the good place” but with more menstrual cups

Lucy: I have been calculating how much I have written about The Fosters. Conservative estimate based on ~80 episodes at 2k per episode is 160k words. It’s surely higher. The first season I regularly wrote 3-4k recaps, sometimes longer.
I can’t believe how much that is and still STILL the show is a mess.
Karly: ughhh
Lucy: Yeah, I am not sure I can do it anymore. They have 18 episodes next season and part of me can’t imagine bailing after this long but god i’m just hate watching at this point
Riese: my recaps of the real l word ran about 10k words each
8k-10k, ditto for the l word when i used to do that
Mey: Riese that’s way too many words
Valerie: damn i thought my 4-5k orphan black recaps were a lot
Riese: they got more traffic than any other recaps in autostraddle history
SO apparently people loved every word
and probs also every graphic
Heather: the shows i have written the most about are the shows that have BETRAYED ME INTO THE DEPTHS OF MY SOUL so that’ll teach me
Karly: I still haven’t watched Skins Fire
Heather: AND NEVER SHALL YOU!
Karly: Agreed!
Lucy: These assholes keep promising next season will be like the first. *sings* “joe lies…. joe lies”
Heather: i’m singing “joe lies” to the tune of dolly parton’s “jolene” because i don’t know joe lies but i do know dolly parton

Laneia: y’all sean spicer has just called concentration camps “holocaust centers”
Riese: interesting……
Laneia: HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY’RE CALLED
holocaust town squares
Heather: i saw he said “not to diminish what happened in the holocaust, however…” and i had to shut it down
Laneia: aaaaaaslfjas;ldflk;sadfjkldfskldsfkldjklsfkldfsdfsjkl
Yvonne: wtf
Rachel: if for some reason sean spicer had to live out the rest of his days in a sewer, like some sort of amphibious human mole creature
i would not find it in me to object
Riese: i mean if you can’t even get recorded history right
how can i trust you to handle the future!?
Heather: and not obscure history. we’re talking about the literal hinge of modern western history here.
Rachel: i’m sure someone has already done a deep dive on this but where did sean spicer… come from
what was he doing before this
Laneia: masturbating into a mason jar
Rachel: if i had to guess it would be “on the verge of being fired from foot locker”
Heather: he was apparently a well-respected longtime GOP communications guy
Laneia: all of these things are interchangeable

Laneia: every time i say “nail down” i hate myself a little more
Rachel: what if you imagine every time that you’re hitting an actual nail
that might be satisfying
Riese: like the indigo girls
Laneia: oh yes
Riese: “get out of bed get a hammer and a nail”
etc.
Heather: oh man Riese, that’s an idea. have you thought about dealing with your ghost by making it listen to that indigo girls song “ghost”? it’s too sad for anyone to stick around and listen to the whole thing. the ghost will be gone by the lover/viper part.
it’ll be like “wow, this is overwrought even for me, a lesbian ghost.”
Riese: oh man, that song
i printed out the lyrics to it and put it into my journal once
alongside a photo strip of me and ryan
my gay boyfriend / best friend
Heather: perfect
literally perfect
Rachel: that would be a good A+ roundtable
“who’s your person forever linked in your mind with the indigo girls’ “ghost””
Heather: oh lord i don’t even want to say it out loud!
that *would* be a good roundtable
(for the elderly)
Riese: (by that you mean “for us”)

Rachel: i feel like one of the best parts of getting older is learning new and surprising things about yourself, like how hot older slytherin women are
Heather: absolutely agree
i could never have appreciated carol as a youth
but as a late 30s person, carol is cold and sexy as hell
Rachel: ikr
college-age list of attractive features was like “cute haircut, thinks i’m funny, nice person”
Laneia: “cold and sexy as hell” should be a dance theme
Rachel: adult list of attractive features is “kind of imperious, owns driving gloves for some reason, mean to me in a sexy way”
Laneia: “monied”
Rachel: “thinks my tiny apartment is pitiful and shameful, buys me dinner”
Heather: “not here to validate the notions salesman”
like she buys therese that beautiful camera and then kicks it at her!
Rachel: Heather’s #1 most wanted characteristic in a partner will always be misandry
no matter the other variables
Heather: 100 percent true, Rachel.

Audrey: Hi everyone did you know that if you as the author of a post identify yourself within a subgroup of the queer community in that article, you are thereby excluding and perhaps attacking everyone not in that subgroup? Be careful out there. _dies_
Dufrau: doing/not doing/being/not being/mentioning/not mentioning/liking/not liking things are all very offensive to me personally
Alaina: Audrey haven’t you heard? we’re big on exclusion now
Cameron: By being included in this conversation I’m feeling excluded from being excluded. How are you going to fix this?
Valerie: you’re also not allowed to have opinions about tv shows/characters unless they are the correct opinions so good luck with that
Karly: apparently mey should have specified that only *american* trans women love pickles so know we’re too inclusive
Mey: I believe you mean *american trans women on spiro*
Karly: see? i can’t even get that right
Cameron: uhhh some cis people also like pickles, so it should read *many american trans women on spiro (and also some cis people) love pickles*
if you really wanna cover your bases
Dufrau: I truly expected more of us. when will I learn my lesson.
Mey: Well like half of the cis women I know hate pickles so I feel like it’s fair to exclude them
Cameron: i’m comfortable with that
Mey: That’s why you’re a good trans ally

Rachel: i’m going to take a shower and see if it [amy lee voice] wakes me up inside
Laneia: omg
Yvonne: 
Laneia:
Yvonne: rachel is a gem
rachel you’re a gem
Rachel: thank evanescence, the voice of our generation
Yvonne: my prom date was a huge evanescence fan
i made fun of him for it
Laneia: yvonne that’s the best sentence i’ve read all day
i mean besides what rachel just said

Raquel: The Kinsey Scale Is Dead — Here’s What’s Taking Its Place
Heather: i had to close that because the new kinsey looks like the periodic table and i have chemistry ptsd from high school
(because my best friend’s boyfriend sat right in front of me and she’d started blowing off plans with me to do blow jobs with him and she was MY BEST FRIEND. my completely and totally platonic BEST FRIEND. so mrs. peters was like “blah blah hydrogen” and i was like “i wonder if he will die if i stab him in the ear with this pencil.” in the middle of the semester mrs. peters called me into the lab and said if i didn’t shape up i was going to flunk her class and not be able to play basketball! and then i did flunk her class! but i was able to play basketball because the principal worked it out with my basketball coach that mrs. peters had to pass me anyway because i was really great at basketball. by then mrs. peters (rightly) hated me but i had taken up a new hobby of trying to run over my OTHER best friend’s boyfiend in the parking lot because he threw a tomato and hit her in the face. science is hard, you guys.)
Laneia: heather the best part of this story is that you were able to leverage your basketball talent to pass a class!
Heather: i was a monster as a youth
Laneia: HEATHER
Mey: Heather I’m completely in love w you
Stef: heather anne hogan you are out of control
that new kinsey scale bums me out because i want to be an f5 so all the tornado chasers in twister can call me the finger of god
Heather: STEF
Stef: i think i’m like an e/f4
less cute
BUT WHO KNOWS
i dance around that thing all the time

Meet A New Contributor!

Get to know some of our newest faces.

Siobhan, Contributing Writer

Tumblr: solarpunkarchivist 
Twitter: SiobhanFedelm

What got you interested in medieval history?
I don’t remember ever not being, though when I was very little it was more King Arthur and dragons than rebel nuns. My grandma used to read to me from this beautifully illustrated book about the knights of the round table and I was very into the lady knight from the Prince Valiant cartoon — she was also a blacksmith, I think? When I was in my teens it kicked up a notch because I got very interested in the ways that religion and culture shape each other and the medieval period is perfect for that because there’s so much change going on so fast. I also really love folk magic and superstition and the middle ages are an absolute goldmine for mystical weirdness.

Who was your first woman celebrity crush?
I was about three and there was this woman in an advert that came on before the lottery. She has bright blue eyes, black hair and blew out a candle and I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I have no idea what her name is but I used to really look forward to seeing her advert.

What’s one book you will never remove from your library?
I have a book of war poetry a girlfriend gave me a few years ago. It’s important.

What’s your favorite kind of sandwich?
Cheese toasty made from edam and cheddar on brown bread.

What’s your morning ritual like?
The cat nags me awake and demands a tribute of cuddles. Then he herds me into the kitchen where I feed him and make coffee for myself before resentfully scrolling Facebook until I’m awake enough to actually do anything else.

If you could only use one emoji for the rest of your life, what would it be?
The heart emoji because it’s basically the only one I use and I’m lazy.

What’s something you’ve been really proud of lately?
Well I got 7k shares on my last article and I’m pretty happy with that?

DO YOU THINK HEATHER WAS BEING REAL WHEN SHE SAID THIS ON APRIL 16TH, 2017? OR WAS SHE JUST MAKING A JOKE OR PLAYING WITH MY HEART?

i also have a post i made today called “whoops i made these ikea instructions gay” which is the lesbian graphic novel i made out of the hermes bookshelf assembly guide after i made the shelves. i just need to scan it.

What We’ve Been Reading

Lucy: We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

Valerie Anne: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Carrie: Enabling Acts: The Hidden Story of How the Americans with Disabilities Act Gave the Largest U.S. Minority its Rights by Lennard J. Davis

Jenna: Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

Sarah: Easy Way To Stop Smoking by Allen Carr

Laura M: Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu

Carolyn: Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine edited by Meghan Bell

Erin: Keepers of the Garden by Dolores Cannon

Riese: The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture by Bonnie J Morris

Siobhan: Four and Twenty Fairy Tales: Selected from those of Perrault, and Other Popular Writers by Perrault et all

Raquel:: The Story of the Lost Child: Neapolitan Novels, Book Four
by Elena Ferrante

Casey: The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North, and Abandon Me by Melissa Febos

Mey: Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman

Aisha: Whatever Happened to Interracial Love by Kahleen Collins

Heather: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Rachel: Microfictions by Ana María Shua, translated by Steven J. Stewart

Laneia: All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, and Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Christiane Northrup

Timehop Reminds Alex To Remember The Day Laneia Broke Her Ankle

THE EVOLUTION OF A JOKE WE NEVER TOLD

image by riese

Riese: does anybody have any “donald trump outlaws lesbianism” jokes to share for this april fools post about donald trump outlawing lesbians
does anybody wanna help me write funny things la la
Laneia: why is he outlawing us, like did we say something, is it economic, what’s the deal
Riese: that’s a good question
why would he outlaw us
or outlaw lesbian behavior
hm
we’d have to be a threat to national security or somehow get in the way of job creation, right?
or else he could be acting on misinformation
Laneia: right
first it’s bc we said something or he heard something
Riese: like believing we are responsible for some of society’s ills
Laneia: oh maybe the joke is just all the things he’s heard about us
Riese: ohhhh yeah
“people have been saying…”
Laneia: mmmhm
“lesbians don’t kill spiders, they make their adopted children eat them”
Riese: it would have to be real stuff though i think
like about things he actually cares about
Laneia: i might not be smart enough for this
Riese: LANEIA
Laneia: we are better at most jobs than men
so we are a threat there
we’re actually capable of lifting things, unlike the splintery whispy straight women
Riese: yet we still refused to help build the wall
Laneia: ingrates
maybe we’re also excelling academically, but he’s heard it’s because we were given the questions beforehand
Riese: because we’re criminals
Laneia: sanctuary sapphos
Riese: maybe he learned that no lesbians came to his women’s empowerment panel
Laneia: maybe he also fears we’re planning to get rosie on the ticket
Riese: also hillary
man i feel like maybe this is not the funniest trump joke
like maybe my basic concept isn’t that strong

[…]

Laneia: could it be a roundup of fake tweets that he sent out late last night (tonight) that are outrageous and anti-gay
maybe everyone will do that tomorrow
Riese: donald trump’s top 20 most anti-lesbian tweets
Laneia: i do think top 20 anti-lesbian tweets would get a lot of traction before they realized it was a joke
also could reallllly backfire wrt who else comes in bc of the headline
Riese: “tina belongs with henry, not bette. sad!”
right
Laneia: YES that’s funny and totally ours
that’s the best path
the jokes that no straight person could understand
Riese: right, yes, good point

[…]

Riese: could it be like a fake interview with donald trump?
Laneia: that will be obvious from the jump but a) they’d probably enjoy everything regardless and b) would be easier than photoshopping tweets
Riese: true
AND i could still use that tina/henry joke b/c i could photoshop one tweet and it would be that tweet and i ask him to comment on it
Laneia: perfect
yes
that’ll technically be two l word jokes in one day
just making sure you’re ok with that balance
Riese: i am
Laneia: ok, solid
i feel so so good about this

[….]

Riese: i think the thing about trump jokes is that so many have already been made!
so many parodies have already happened, so many satires
Laneia: sadly true
sad!
Riese: do you think that our april fools day will still be okay if all we have is xanax and the three other things
Laneia: is it too soon to skin the site to look like afterellen
well, both too soon and too late

SLACKERS

Slack gave us the ability to add status messages to our profiles this month. Here are our team’s status messages right this second.

April Retro-Reading

Some posts from previous Aprils Riese thinks you might enjoy.

via VIDEO! The Real L Word (Parody) PART TWO: The Lost Episode

Beat on the Street: Cartoon Recap: t.A.T.u the Terrible/AWESOME, by Stef (2009) – Listen take a break from Trump’s America and take a trip down memory lane to when t.A.T.u. was a thing. “t.A.T.u.’s America,” if you will.

Trans and Schizophrenic: When Diagnosis Impacts Transition, by Sam Ashkenas (2013) – An interesting look at a very complicated situation, from our Trans*scribe series.

The 100 Gayest Places You’ve Had Sex, by Riese (2014) – Still proud of u.

Top Five Alternatives To Bras, by Sunny (2013) – While putting together some info for our new fashion editor, I learned that this is one of our most popular posts of all time! Maybe it’s relevant to your interests.

I’m Sorry But You Still Can’t Have These Marshmallows, by Laneia (2014) – I’m sorry but this is still perfect.

The Best Break-Up Advice You’ll Ever Get, by Riese (2013) – If you didn’t already know about this, here you go.

PICKLEBACK

Background information for this conversation:

1. At Fall Camp 2016, Cameron Glavin, Be Steadwell and Marni Kellison performed a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep.”
2. Also, Mey invented a fake missing girl named Charlotte Jo and put up “Missing: Charlotte Jo” signs all over camp and said we were all haunted by the ghost of Charlotte Jo.
3. On our staff tour of the property, our liaison informed us of a camp legend regarding the ghost of “Wheelchair Mary,” who died in a fire because she couldn’t get out of her cabin because she was disabled. Henceforth we re-named the protagonist of this problematic story, “Problematic Mary,” for obvious reasons.
4. Mey thinks vodka water is a real drink (for information regarding vodka water, please peruse the Insider archives, beginning with our introduction to this alleged beverage in the December 2016 Edition of the A+ Insider.)
5. This conversation happened shortly after the pickle conversation highlighted in “9 editorial conversations” upthread.

Marni: just popping in here to let you know that there will be a pickling workshop at camp
called “in a pickle”
so that bodes well for your picklebacks
do you think there’s a nickelback cover band out there called pickleback
Mey: Is that what you two and Be called yourself at last camp?
Wait that joke makes no sense
I thought you said “Radiohead cover band”
Cameron: yeah also we we were called gaydiohead obviously
i didn’t ask Marni or Be about that. maybe this is why we didn’t last more than one song.
Mey: It was the best performance of a Radiohead song ever tho
Cameron: my friend offered me and her girlfriend picklebacks the other day, knowing full well her girlfriend had no idea what a pickleback was
turns out my friend also did not know what a pickleback was.
Mey: Did you drink them?
Valerie: i loooove pickleback shots
Jenna: same
Cameron: she was just mixing vodka and pickle juice. bc that’s what she and the linecooks would drink so that no one would know they were drinking at work
Valerie: what!! no!!!!
nooooooooo
Karly: noooo
Valerie: hard pass
Cameron: i know.
Mey: Yes
Jenna: wait
Valerie: actually
Jenna: that’s different
i mean
Karly: i love pickles and picklebacks except bread and butter pickles. i hate those.
Jenna: i would still drink it
Valerie: i’d try it
Mey: Vodka pickle juice is the new vodka water
slackbot Custom Response: Sounds like somebody could use a :cranberry-juice-with-vodka:.
Mey: Fuck off spackbot
Valerie: can we make it at camp and call it bug juice
Mey: It needs a scarier name
Cameron: just make sure the pickle juice is still good because there were a lot of things working against these fake-ass picklebacks
Dufrau: I’d drink that for sure it’s just like 25% of a bloody mary
Valerie: in college when we did picklebacks none of my friends would finish their pickle juice part so i would finish it for them. just sippin’ pickle juice at the bar.
Mey: Valerie if you come up w a scarier name I’ll forgive you for not mentioning me in your a-camp thing
Valerie: #nopressure
i almost said beetle juice
but that’s a thing
Mey: also irl I love you and you and karly both always deserve to be in high standing and plz don’t think or say you don’t deserve to be in as good standing as anyone in the world
Valerie: aww mey :purple_heart:
if we called it beetle juice would we end up summoning beetlejuice because people would keep asking us what we were drinking
that could shake up camp a bit
Mey: What if we call it “Charlotte Jo’s Tears”
Cameron: look, if we did that, then we’d have slenderman, problematic mary & her terrible girlfriend becky’s ghost, AND beetlejuice, ALL at camp!
Valerie: I WAS LITERALLY JUST ABOUT TO ASK what charlotte jo would name it
Mey: CHARLOTTE JO IS PROBLEMATIC MARY’S GIRLFRIEND
Valerie: uh oh
ghost drama
Cameron: becky tried to set us on fire so
Mey: I guess we should ask Stef bc she’s the undead maven
Cameron: sorry, becky is problematic mary’s terrible ex
Mey: there’s an upcoming dance theme centered around the idea that Mary and Charlotte Jo are together
Cameron: if you don’t play “viva forever” at that dance idk what you’re doing
also i’m glad. problematic mary deserves a girl who can treat a ghoul right
Mey: I don’t know what viva forever is
Is that a Radiohead song
Cameron: Viva Forever
Mey: also announcement: i no longer hate radiohead or the beatles
except john lennon
Cameron: is it because of gaydiohead?
Mey: look, just bc you made me cry…
but really it’s bc i’m trying to not dislike things for no good reason
in the age of trump

Hm I wonder what this is gonna be

Five Posts Rachel Can’t Believe You Motherf*ckers Didn’t Read Last Month

Climate Change Is a Problem Bigger Than the US; Here’s How We Can All Fight It, by Maree

Climate change is one of the things that feels so big and scary to me that I rarely try to understand it because it stresses me out too much. God bless Maree, though, because this is thorough but also concise and gives you ways to get involved and take action!

Hello Goodbye: From Faking My Taste for Crushes to Falling in Love with Music for Real, by Kayla

Well this is cute as hell and also very cathartic for anyone who has a) fallen in love with a summer camp counselor or b) lied about liking the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Is there anyone who doesn’t relate to at least one of those things? Show yourself! For the sake of science. In the meantime, read this essay.

Talking with Kai Cheng Thom About “Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars”, by Luna Merbruja

I am really concerned that you all don’t know how great this piece is. It haunts me! It keeps me up at night! Please help me by reading this beautiful and insightful talk about writing craft and bringing personal experience into art and then returning to confirm that it is good, so that I can move on with my life.

Searching for My Own Female Queerness in Bollywood, by Priya

Priya is one of our new staff writers and hot damn is she great! I really loved this piece and it gave me a lot to put on my watch list; I think you might have a similarly enjoyable experience!

Follow Your Arrow: Astrologer Chani Nicholas on Working With Your Gifts, by Beth

Okay, LISTEN UP, you weirdos are obsessed with astrology and I feel confident that at least half of you are subscribed to Chani’s horoscopes (as am I!). So you must have just missed somehow that we interviewed her??? I am here to remedy this! You’re welcome.

What’s Up With Lesbians and Michelle Branch

Stef: Crystal! Michelle Branch Celebrated Her New LP at Webster Hall
Crystal: :heart:
you bet i’m watching these videos right now
Stef: i knew you would
Crystal: seeing michelle branch in concert is an unfulfilled dream of mine
she is a dream
Stef: i want to make this dream happen for you
Valerie: hey cool tweet at the end of that post there
(it was my tweet)
(i was at that concert)
(i really did think i was going to die at webster hall)
Crystal: you were at this concert and you didn’t die?
Valerie: i died and was reborn
Crystal: nice
Valerie: she was so good. she was so HAPPY. she said so many people tried to keep her from coming back to music. her record label was like “this doesn’t sound like you” so she went rogue and her drummer and guitarist became her producers and funded her new album. her agent called her an “unknown entity” and said she’d never sell out a show again.
and here we were scream-singing decade-old songs at her
and she was so HAPPY
it was really inspiring
Crystal: that sounds amazing
Molly: um hello i am in love with michelle branch and her sister
like, congrats on your gene pool
Jenna: when i was in high school, i used to joke that michelle branch was my best friend
because i loved her so much
like, “best friend” ok jenna
Molly: you wanted
to be like her
you wanted e v e r y t h i n g
so you tried
to befriend her
and you got swept away
Jenna: hahahahah
Molly: i’ve been on an MB kick lately after one of my pals told me her gf taught branch’s kids how to play piano
and i was like hello does she need a new bff
so i very much understand this
Mey: Genuine question: what’s up w lesbians and Michelle Branch
Jenna: I don’t know
Molly: i can’t explain it
Jenna: it’s a thing, though
Molly: it’s like
birds have hollow bones and it allows them to fly
lesbians have crushes on michelle branch.
it’s nature.
Mey: This is bisexual erasure
Jenna: haha i was actually gonna say, i don’t think it’s restricted to lesbians
Valerie: my friend pointed out there seemed to be a lot of queer women at the concert. i was like “i dunno, we were all tortured youths?”
Molly: oh, but you asked about lesbians and michelle branch
Mey: I think I used it wrong bc i meant that I don’t get it
I was a lesbian until this year
Molly: right
all i know is it springs from a very pure place in my heart, mey
goddamn it should have said “branches from a very pure place in my heart”
Mey: I didn’t even realize it was a thing until I had twenty friends who went to her show in NYC
Jenna: valerie, i think you’re on to something
a lot of her songs are about pining
Molly: and the guitar
she has a guitar, it’s attractive
plus “you’re everywhere to me” is about every crush in the world
or god
but i’m assuming it’s crushes
Mey: I know who she is! I just never knew there was *a thing*
Molly: i honestly didn’t until right now
i just thought i loved her a lot
Kayla: I think her tv appearances contribute to this as well….she was on both Charmed and Buffy
I’m a bit of a Michelle Branch scholar
Valerie: i also didn’t know that a lot of queer women liked her until they announced her new album tbh
i just knew i did
Karly: it was everyone’s secret lol
Molly: i wonder if she knows
i bet she knows
Valerie: before one of her songs she said, “there’s a line in this song that says ‘you can’t help you who love’ and i think that’s important to remember, especially in these crazy scary times”
so i think she knows
Molly: may her guitar strings never break, then

Social Media Spotlight

Top ten tweets of the month!

https://twitter.com/runlolarun/status/853949194939355136

https://twitter.com/JackieBnotO/status/853359425565970437

https://twitter.com/linhtropy/status/852905872338505728

i hope the @autostraddle editors appreciate that i deleted the "ruin me, miley" tag on my upcoming piece.

— Stef Schwartz (@stefschwartz) April 14, 2017

would I buy this if @autostraddle was selling it? yes. would I buy it from some generic department store? aw hell nah.

— Meep Matsushima @ 🏠 (@transpacifique) April 8, 2017

https://twitter.com/braak/status/850076816576577538

i may have* gasped aloud when i scrolled down to the actual toolbox

*i did, i did; i really need to replace my too-small toolbox

— Emily L. Stephens, Maine’s most reclusive mushroom (@emilyorelse) April 6, 2017

https://twitter.com/AlienDad420/status/854473202910674944

https://twitter.com/Avelana1989/status/854395356121059328

I need to reread my @autostraddle queer horoscope for this month because spring has sprung and I am also sprung 😍

— Alice (@shinyalice) April 18, 2017

getting ready 4 u

HELLO I WAS WONDERING IF AFTER ALL THESE YEARS YOU’D LIKE TO MEET DOLLY PARTON

Heather: i did talk to dolly on the phone. i forgot to tell you guys.
Laneia: WHAT
Heather!
Heather: she called me and we talked for about five minutes
Laneia: WHAT DID SHE SAY
INTO YOUR EARS
WITH HER VOICE
Heather: well! we talked about grace and frankie and i told her my brother-in-law delivers coke to dollywood so i know about the red carpet they keep on hand for when she comes, and she just laughed and laughed.
Laneia: !!!!!!!!
Heather: she said she loved what i wrote about her and that she cried
Laneia: HEATHER
Heather: and she said jesus loves me
Laneia: :sob:
fuck did you just cry your face off???
i would’ve collapsed
Heather: oh for like an entire weekend
Laneia: from now on when you’re having to choose an order for any activity, you can say “uhhhh ok we’ll go in order of who’s spoken on the phone with dolly parton to who hasn’t”
Heather: it was right during the time when the doctor had been like “oh in addition to uterine cancer that you might have, also breast cancer.” like just a few hours later.
Laneia: omg
Heather: and i was like, “well this is fucking fate.”
Laneia: a fucking gift
yes
Heather: and i kept crying to stacy and being like “what if my guardian angel really is dolly parton?”
Laneia: !!!
it all adds up
Heather: makes more sense than anything else i ever read about religion
Laneia: absolutely

XOXO

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