Letter From Your Editors

this is us:

hi,

we are thinking of you

all of you

who went away for school and found themselves there, who tentatively very tentatively with all the requisite trepidation attended two (2) Queer Student Alliance meetings and experienced one (1) requited crush and considered switching your major to what her hair smells like and then you woke up ready for more (infinity) tiny steps towards a real stroll of a life and instead were told it was time to go home, home, home, to the family you haven’t figured out how to tell yet

who are begging your parents / roommates / friends to take this seriously

who think of nothing but your grandmother, who you cannot see

who experience fever, tiredness, and dry cough

who have tried to file for unemployment on a website that keeps crashing

who are parenting three children who you are suddenly expected to home-school, three children three different online learning interfaces, one computer, three meals times three children times thirty thousand days three children times three bedrooms times three months rent minus three months pay and also what about you are you still there under there

who are living with chronic illness and are terrified not just of the virus but of something else, anything else, it wouldn’t be your first surprise visit to the ER, but will they even have room for you now, does your doctor even have time for you now

who aren’t sure if your chest pains are anxiety or something worse that you probably can’t get seen for right now and just thinking about that gives you chest pains

who can’t sleep

who are sick

who knows someone who is sick (is this all of us, now)

who took a sick friend, family member, partner to the hospital and then went back home to sit alone and worry

who are in a 14-day post-travel quarantine

who are broke

who are unemployed

who are furloughed

who live in terrible apartments

who live with terrible people

who live in terrible apartments with terrible people

who don’t have any place to live at all

who are on strike because your billionaire employers do not care if you get sick or live or die

who found it easier to watch The L Word under a blanket tent when your Mom wasn’t home 24/7 and obsessed with your whereabouts

who live with Trump voters, who can hear Tucker Carlson screaming from the living room, who scramble eggs while liars with strained faces and polished hair give this pandemic a nationality and declare it a conspiracy to bring down the economy

who are in relationships where you have lost your voice, where you speak out loud to the wall because it can’t hear you (but at least it can’t deny you a reality you’re losing hold on) and now you’re stuck, she’s there, and you’d referred to yourself as “socially isolated” before when talking to your therapist about how hard it was to get out but now what, now what, now what

who can hear everything from every room which means maybe they can hear you talking to your girlfriend and for a few reasons that’s not quite ideal

who had to cancel your show, your tour, your book release, your presentation, your panel

who have run out of toilet paper

who don’t know what to tell your children

who were going to be the first in your family to graduate college and there was gonna be a big party and now i guess not so much

who cannot seem to make it through an entire zoom call without the whole system freezing

who cannot go outside without being harassed, without fearing for your life, without hiding who you are

who have recently asked us for advice about how to leave your husband because you’re a lesbian

who love your husband and do not want to leave him but also really miss the queer community you dove into every week at roller derby, the bar you went to afterwards

who had finally gotten out ahead of your depression / anxiety / debt / grief / unemployment and now what

who hadn’t gotten out ahead of any of that at all

who were planning weddings, funerals, birthdays, baby showers, births, adoptions, reunions

who live one paycheck away from being homeless and now there’s not even one paycheck so now what

we are thinking of you /  we are with you

and to all the medical professionals, scientists, farmers, sanitation workers, fire fighters, grocery store clerks and stockers, postal service workers, delivery people, pharmacists, truck drivers, journalists, government employees, factory workers, who are still going out there every day so the rest of us can stay inside we are in awe of you, and we thank you.

Love,

Riese
co-signed: Laneia / Rachel / Carmen / Kamala / Sarah

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Top 10 Most Popular Posts From February

These posts were hella popular this month.

1. Also.Also.Also: Jameela Jamil Came Out Yesterday, and Yeah it’s Really Complicated, by Carmen
2. “I Am Not Okay With This” Stars a Angsty Lesbian Teenager Who Telekinetically Gives Her Crush’s Boyfriend a Nosebleed, by Riese
3. Queer Horoscopes for February 2020: Find What’s Real and Start Anew, by Corina
4. Sex Scenes I Used to Click My Mouse to in My Dorm Room, by Shelli
5. Zoe Kravitz Is a Hot Bisexual Mess in “High Fidelity” — and That’s Revolutionary, by Carmen
6. Valentine’s Day Date Ideas I’ve Had Since My Wife Left Me Six Months Ago, by Laneia
7. Pop Culture Fix: Harley Quinn is Confirmed Gay in “Birds of Prey”, by Heather
8. No Filter: Valentine’s Day Inspires Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson To Attempt Kissing Selfie, by Christina
9. “Stumptown” Is Here to Fill The Root and Shaw-Shaped Hole in Your Heart, by Heather
10. Coyote Mommi Maria Bello Is Engayged to Superstar Chef Girlfriend Dominique Crenn, by Heather

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Nine Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations

Riese: According to The LA Times, podcasts are considered an Essential Service.
Carly: Like people can go record them at studios?
Riese: I think so?!?!
Carly: Yikes
Riese: If they are six feet apart
Carly: Are they classifying them as “news’ maybe?
Riese: Yeah, “newspapers, magazines, television, radio, podcasts and other media services.”
I think they might mean reporters
Carly: Our L Word podcast is important
Riese: It’s essential!
Lauren: I’m pretty sure [our friend who works at the actual radio station KCRW] has been working through all of this.
So I guess Alice too
Carly: true yeah
The Chart…. essential

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Al(aina): i’ve never felt more alive and gay

Drew: Who else was on this the past three hours??
Al(aina): billy porter, titus burgess, lin manuel, audra mcdonald, sutton foster, gavin creel…. quite literally everyone alive who has ever been on broadway
MIRANDA SINGS??????
Drew:  I just ate an edible and I certainly know how I’m spending my evening

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Vanessa: My friend just said it’s a Big Rona moon, Little Roni Sun out there today .I said “it seems unreal that it’s still pisces season let us go for Christ sake.”
And she said: “Astrology doesn’t matter anymore. It’s corona’s world now.”

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Natalie: Team EMaya forever.

Happy 41st Birthday to ageless Queen Bianca Lawson 💕 pic.twitter.com/ONqADEGcfi

— MEFeater Magazine (@mefeater) March 20, 2020

Valerie: hello did someone say emaya
i felt summoned
she is truly not aging. it is borderline alarming.
Carmen: It’s the vampire blood from Buffy. Nothing to see here. Just some vampires doing their thing.

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Laneia: excuse me. this search term. “what does a lesbian woman mean by saying l’m going to push your clit back in its cave”

i will never

recover

as long as i live

Sarah: ummm no? just no. nope.
but also lmao yes
Riese: i’m going to push your clit back in its cave!?!?
Laneia: i will never recover
Sarah: top 10 things you shouldn’t say to your girlfriend
Kamala: i can’t wait to say this to somebody
like the guy who does my taxes, if he doesn’t get me a refund

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Stef: i feel like our calls for ideas right now sound like the solicitations for guests on Maury: “are YOU quarantined with someone you just broke up with?? call us today!!!”
Nicole: just curious — anyone else quarantined in a space that’s haunted? (not by straights but by like, ghosts)

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[On the idea that Autostraddle might get a TikTok]

Carmen: Please ask Kaylah to do the Savage challenge all the kids are doing lol
Sarah: omg what is that
Carmen: Oprah Magazine: Megan Thee Stallion’s TikTok “Savage Challenge,” Explained
Bless Oprah for coming to me in my time of need.

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[re: our birthday AMA]

Al(aina): do you think someone asked about what our office would look like so they can write AS writer fanfiction
Vanessa: @al(aina) !!!
Christina: I HOPE SO
Kayla: asdkjasdjaslkdjaskldk;
Al(aina): “Riese walked into the Autostraddle headquarters, her long legs moving quickly as she passed the ergonomically designed relaxation lounge–lots of the staff have chronic pain–before heading into her office.” next week on AO3
Christina: yteheoiwhuwehuwoihU
Rachel: what are the tags
Al(aina): mental health issues
fluff
gender related
Valerie: hurt/comfort
Rachel: omg

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Al(aina): does anyone in the little woman hive know what chapter beth dies in because i just realized i’ve never finished it bc i saw the movie first and didn’t want to experience her death twice but i DO want to finish it while in cornteen
Drew: Chapter 40, The Valley of the Shadow
Al(aina): bless

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KSTEW OF THE WOLVES

Stef: Kristen Stewart & Girlfriend Dylan Meyer Head to Lunch in Los Feliz

still kickin
Carolyn: to me this looks like they’re walking by cheetah’s near homestate/GGET/etc
Stef: 99% sure that’s kristen’s sweatshirt dylan is wearing
i love how no matter who she’s with they still jump right in and walk the same stretch of los feliz all day every day with her
Rachel: maybe they’ve all actually been hired by her mother to attend her as companions on her daily walk and paint her in secret each night
just floating the possibility
Stef: aw i like that.
doesn’t her mom like raise wolves
why not just get a wolf to do it
Rachel: I ask myself that all the time
Stef: why not a wolf is my 2020 mantra
Vanessa: stef alex simon’s mom has a pet wolf
Christina: I WANT A WOLF SO BAD
Stef: like a real pet wolf?
like in my heart i know they shouldn’t be pets but i also read julie of the wolves and don’t understand why i can’t just be raised by some??
Vanessa: well alex’s mom is called julie
she was living in alaska i’m truly not clear on the details
Christina: I KNOW they should be free and I won’t get one but
I want
Stef: i feel that way about like serval cats and foxes too, i mean i GET why i can’t have one but what if it was really into it
what if the fox consented
Vanessa: i think alex’s mom’s wolf was like, a wolf friend who came to her house sometimes but didn’t live inside with her? so was consenting by showing up and being available for friendship? it’s also possible i made that up
Christina: two questions
IS she a Witch
and is she single
Vanessa: yes she is absolutely a witch
and yes, very single
do you have your new mommi crush
Christina: Sounds LIKE it
Vanessa: the girl i’m currently dating who is essentially my girlfriend but we haven’t quite had that conversation yet loves wolves and has been mailing me wolf t-shirts from her collection
i didn’t realize until right now how deeply lesbian culture wolves are
Natalie: in lieu of a wolf, might i suggest a tamaskan…which my alma mater uses as our wolf representative. this guy’s name is tuffy.

Christina: the wolves howling at the moon shirts alone!
Drew: Vanessa, that was one of your gayest sentences ever
Vanessa: wow that is a rly high bar
thank you drew
omg @natalie that ANGEL
to be clear the girl sending me the wolf shirts has a HUGE dog that is not a real wolf but may as well be, rachel knows the name of the breed i don’t remember
Heather: TUFFY
Vanessa: malamute!!!
that’s the breed
Stef: all wolves are lesbians
i didn’t make this rule
coyotes are bisexual
Rachel: hank is a malamute!
glad I could help there!
lmao
Stef: i was just reading about elizabeth holmes who had a husky puppy and someone told her they were descended from wolves so she just told everyone he was a wolf
like he would piss on the floor in the conference room and she’d be like ‘i mean he’s a wolf what are ya gonna do’
new messages
Vanessa: omg
what are ya gonna do

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What We’ve Been Reading

Malic: Coming To Power by Samois

Laneia: Severance by Ling Ma

Kamala: How To Write An Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

Rachel: Love’s Work by Gillian Rose

Casey: High School by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin and We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning

Riese: The Wilder Girls

Carmen: Red at the Bone by Jaqueline Woodson

Kayla: Good Morning, Destroyer of Men’s Souls by Nina Renata Aron

Meg: Astrology for Real Life by Theresa Reed

Sarah: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Vanessa: Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz

Dani Janae: Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz

Drew: The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya

Natalie: We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib

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Meet A New Staff Member!

Get to know some of our newest faces.

Nicole, A+ and Fundraising Director

What is your favorite kind of sandwich?

Give me mayonnaise (Duke’s, thanks). I am obsessed. I make a sandwich frequently with a veggie burger, a fried egg, zhoug, goat cheese, mayo, and ideally, some crunchy veggie element, like tomato or lettuce or both. So: vegetarian and full of mayo.

What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?

I don’t think this is the WORST date, but a woman once told me that the “grandma noises” I make while going about my daily life are unattractive. NICE. BYE.

What’s something you’ve been really proud of lately?

For years, I have been working on (and writing and re-writing) a fantasy novel. It needs to be edited down, but then it will be ready…for rejection, probably!

If you could only use one emoji for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Sparkles

If you could invite four famous people (dead or alive) to dinner, who would you choose and why?

Isabella Rossellini (alive), because she seems like a hoot; Kate Bush (alive), which should be obvious, and also Spotify says I am one of her top listeners, so; John Dee (dead, but also was a necromancer, so you never know), because I feel like he has the dirt on Queen Elizabeth I; and Octavia Butler, because have you ever just really found a writer’s work to be so close to perfect and then they mostly intersected with your lifetime but passed away just before you would have reasonably had a chance to meet them? Me too. Anyone else read Parable of the Sower for the book club? See you there. I also feel like I put together really thoughtful dinner parties, so for sure the cohesion of the group is important. If I had to add a fifth, it would be Julie D’Aubigny for fun and some good post-dinner games.

Who was your first woman celebrity crush?

Difficult to answer, because as a youth, I was a VERY crush-ridden individual. Maybe if we went back to something very young, Lesley Ann Warren from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella? Also, Lydia from Beetlejuice (Wynona Rider). And now I’m realizing they…are similar in type? So that’s fun!

What’s your favorite sex toy?

Unfair question, because variety is important. Probably any vibrator that is soft or small enough to have between two bodies, though, if I had to pick a standalone tried-and-true fav.

What’s your #1 turn-on?

Dense conversation always coupled with esoteric and dark humor. Also…I have a spreadsheet of places to fuck in public. Don’t @.

What’s your #1 turn-off?

Telling me what to do before asking me what I think or how I feel.

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Scenes From “Shelter In Our Place“

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Just Some Light and Funny Retro-Reading

What do we need now at this moment in human history? Perhaps emptiness.

10 Tap Games for iPhone, Rated By Their Inevitably Fleeting Relief of My Low-Grade Depression, by Rachel (2017) – “If your mental health is, say, middling at best, and life outside of your iPhone also feels like an experience of frenzied activity that nonetheless never seems to be moving forward toward a clearly defined goal and which you’re worried would be revealed as obviously pointless if you thought about it too hard, clicker games have clear appeal.”

Is Love a Lie? Our Team Weighs In, by Erin + Team (2016) – “So, as you do around the holidays, I asked everyone on staff point blank: “Is love a lie?” After some initial, “HEY IS EVERYTHING OKAY” feedback, I got their answers. For the record, everything is okay and this is a simple question, and are YOU okay???”

10 Floors I’ve Lied On, Ranked, by Vanessa (2018) – “There’s nothing horrifying about lying on your bedroom floor when it is clean – I do this once a week, minimum. Sometimes you just need to lie on the floor, even when your bed is right there, and that’s completely okay.”

43 Horrifying Life Lessons I’ve Learned from Watching Every Episode of “Forensic Files”, by Erin (2016) – “At the very end of the day we are all just a set of teeth.”

16 Meals and Snacks To Maintain The Level Of Sad You Already Feel, by Riese (2017) – “An ordinary girl would see she was out of milk and go get some milk for her cereal. But you’re not an ordinary girl. You already put the cereal on your bowl, and now you find out there’s no milk. Life is unfair, just like the U.S. Government. Hot tip: what is milk if not cream with a lot of water in it???? These are the kinds of things we’re going to have to start figuring out for ourselves.”

For Your Consideration: Devastating Art When You’re Devastated, by Kayla (2018) – “The over-the-top fantasy clashing with rigid tradition in the Heavenly Bodies collection is, to put it in highly academic terms, a paradox that goes all the way off!!!!”

Dark Under Eye Circles Are Gay, or: Hi, I’m Depressed, by Rachel Lewis (2019) – “When I am at my most broken, heartbroken or otherwise, the just sort of general brokenness we carry with us (but especially that specific aching gay brokenness), I want everyone to be able to see it on my face.”

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WHAT HAPPENS IN QUARANTINE STAYS IN QUARANTINE, ALISON

Shelli: That cooking lady y’all always be talking about responded to a tweet convo with me @Kamala and @Kayla Kumari
Kayla: LMAO
Vanessa: HAHAHA SHELLI
Shelli:

Vanessa: wow this rly made my day
Kamala: we’re really important
Vanessa: also @Shelli Nicole my fave salmon i’ve ever made is an alison roman recipe
it’s her buttered salmon with onion & lemon & dill, i can send it to you
Shelli: Lol I genuinely know nothing about her except queer girls love her ass lol
Kamala: lolol this was the google analytics break i needed
Vanessa: i just want her to be a dyke so badly
Kamala: she WILL be, we just have to be patient
Vanessa: why not be a dyke alison
kamala you’re right
dykes 4 roman, i can wait
Christina: Alison just TRY
Kamala: maybe we need to write her a recipe
Laneia: EX
CUSE
ME

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Al(aina): GAYS AND GIRLS

Damn, invite me over (when this is over- shallots keep forever!)

— alison roman (@alisoneroman) March 21, 2020

IT’S TIME TO TURN HER
Sarah: omg
Shelli: lol@this
Kamala: invite her over to shelter in our place?
Shelli: lol
ok so —- shes hot
Kamala: I don’t even know, I just like that we’re making people consider being gay with us every day

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

A Better World: Transformative Justice and the Apocalypse, by Kai Cheng

It’s more clear than ever before, for many of us, that the systems and institutions we live under can’t be reliably entrusted to keep us safe; Kai Cheng has some vital thoughts on what it would look like to take on justice and healing for each other rather than putting it in the hands of the state.

Respect Your Elders: Tea with Trans Lesbian Poet Barbara Marie Minney, by Lou Barrett

This is such an intimate and beautiful profile, and maybe it’s the quarantine but this graf made me tear up: “Barbara and her wife, Marilyn, made me some peppermint tea. Marilyn handed Barbara a mug. She placed it under the Keurig, and then Marilyn added the tea bag. They moved together effortlessly, and had perfected their system.”

Read A F*cking Book Club: Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower”, curated by Al(aina)

Depending on what kind of media you’re feeling drawn to right now, reading Parable of the Sower with your AS pals will either make you feel much worse or much better. If you’re in the latter group, you should join us for this stay-at-home book club!

Dollar, Dollar Bills Y’all: Resources for Paying Bills During COVID-19, by Shelli

April 1 approaches – if you’re wondering about how your bills are going to get covered this month, Shelli has put together a super applicable and realistic guide with tips for you.

How to Write a Really Hot Sext in 5 Easy Steps, by Vanessa

Based on how Lex is looking these days, seems like this could come in handy for some of you.

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ONE GREAT MUG

Welcome to “One Great Mug” — in which an editor will share a photo of a mug they love. A story about the arbiter of caffeine and/or warmth that gets them through the day.

Do you know what it’s like to be fully seen? To have who you are at your core not only recognized, but celebrated?? Friends, that is what it felt like to receive this mug from Vanessa. It reads “lady in the streets / freak in the spreadsheets” and THAT REALLY DESCRIBES ME, OK?? I love a spreadsheet!! 🥺 I love an airtable!! This mug’s handmade by Alex Simon from Make Good Choices and you can buy your very own! I also love that it’s a heart-shaped situation and can, when viewed from a certain angle, look exactly like a butt, and I’ll be honest I love a butt.
—Laneia

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Drew is Watching Glee For the First Time

Drew: CARMEN
Carmen: DID YOU FINISH THE EPISODE
Drew: YES
I’m overwhelmed
Carmen: Omg that’s one of my favorite episodes in ALL of Gay Television, like if we made a 100 Episodes of Lesbian+ Television List (we should)
Drew: The second half of Glee must be truly terrible because otherwise people would talk about this show more and wouldn’t have let me wait this long 😭
IT IS SO GOOD
IT IS PERFECT
Even the rejection
BLAH
I think this is one of my top 10 favorite shows of all time?????
Am I going insane in quarantine???

[a half hour and 20 messages later]

Carmen: I can still hear the way she says “he’s just a stupid boy.” And it’s been almost 10 years.
Drew: 😭

[another 64 messages later]

Carmen: (Sorry I have maaaaany Brittany and Santana feelings)
(Like how Landslide’s lyrics are “I’ve been afraid of changing, cuz I built my life around you” and Santana has been best friends with Brittany her whole life, and is afraid that changing their relationship will ruin it all)
(But then she MAKES THE LEAP ANYWAY!! AND BRITTANY SAYS NO!!)
Drew: I can’t believe in 2020 I saw Landslide used in a show in a new way! They always say that they’re going to communicate things in song because it’s a musical show and it’s a good device but it really was true here! They really were communicating through song! And not just any song! A very popular song we all know very well and have our own attachments to and it carried all that while acting as lines of dialogue for our characters to open up to each other.
Carmen: A fun thing is that the glee cover of Landslide played at a coffee shop a few years after the episode aired, when I was deep into my messy baby gay years, and I turned around and walked out instead of placing my drink order. Because I didn’t want to be caught crying in public.
Drew: If someone told me that I might choose the Glee cover of Landslide over the Dixie Chicks cover of Landslide I would’ve laughed in their face.

[another 20-ish messages later]

Carmen: Let me go cry about gay teens from 2011 and go to sleep.
Drew: That seems like a great way to lull yourself to sleep!!

[the next morning, Valerie enters the chat]

Valerie: I can HEAR the lines! The cadence of “i just want you!” And I STILL say “slash them with your vicious vicious words” sometimes. Early Glee was so so so good. Santana is a gift.
Drew: Thinking this morning about how Santana starts by saying she’s afraid of “the talks” and it seems like she’s saying she doesn’t want to have to have feelings talks with Brittany but then she says “and the looks” and you realize she means other people talking about her and looking at her and really she would want to talk to Brittany about feelings she’s just worried about how others will react 😭
Valerie: 😭 😭
Carmen: That’s REALLY the thing! Because she kept framing it, up to that point, that it was because she didn’t want to talk about feelings and Brittany kept insisting on feelings. But it’s… those feelings will open up a door that’s going to crash the whole fucking house of cards down around her. I mean, Santana IS her reputation. She’s the hot bitch. She’s a Cheerio. We know she’s from “Lima Heights Adjacent” — she’s not middle class or well off like Quinn, or Rachel, or even Mercedes. She’s to the best of our knowledge the only Latina in that school (Mercedes said there’s only like a handful of black kids). That Cheerio uniform and her “vicious words” protect her from a lot. She’s been in the front row for what’s happened to Kurt. She can’t leave for Dalton. Imagine what that risk is to come out for her. And of course it starts with feelings!! Which is why she shuts that shit down hard.

Ok! I’ll stop!! I’ve started all over again! Let me just say: 😭 😭 😭

Drew: Never stop.

(Drew has never seen Glee before, and is finished with Season Two, so please no spoilers in the comments. Thank you!)

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XOXO

Team Autostraddle