Letter From Your Editors

We’re all mask now.

1: Heather // Stef // Meg // Drew // Sarah
2: Malic // KaeLyn // Vanessa // Laneia // Kamala
3: Casey // Kayla // Valerie // Riese // Rachel

Isn’t it sort of nice that you can more easily see how beautiful our eyes and eyewear is? That now you’re not distracted by all the loud noise of chins and lips and noses? We love you and hope the new personality you’ve inevitably developed to go along with your mask is really popular and enunciates well.

Because this is a double month, and because time in the pandemic is a wild card, and because this is my first letter as the Editor-In-Chief, it feels like there should be a lot to say. But these days I’ve been inclined to listen and to make note of the small things that make a difference, and before I jump out and declare anything to you, I want to get to know everyone’s dream for Autostraddle a little better — including yours. I’m thrilled about this new role, and in tandem with Carmen, I’m so excited for us to keep growing in new directions! I’m also really impressed with and proud of the No Justice, No Pride work we put out over the past month, so if you haven’t seen that, catch up, fools. You’ll hear more from me soon, thanks for being on this journey with us!

Love,

Riese / Laneia / Rachel / Heather / Carmen / Sarah / Kamala / Nicole

Top 10 Most Popular Posts From April

These posts were hella popular this month.

1. What’s Gay and New On Netflix, Amazon and Hulu in April 2020? by Riese
2. 15 Online Personality Tests To Really Dig Down Deep Into The Marrow Of Who You Are, by Riese
3. 15 Spring 2020 TV Shows With LGBTQ+ Women Characters To Anticipate or Enjoy or Whatever You Need Right Now, by Riese
4. Queer Horoscopes for April 2020: What Are Your Keys to Control, Connection, and Staying Centered?, by Corina
5. The Half Of It” Trailer: Alice Wu is Back With the Lesbian Teen Romcom of Your Dreams, by Drew
6. What Self-Quarantine is Teaching Me About Gender Dysphoria, by Drew
7. Stay Home and Squirt: A Preparedness Guide, by Malic
8. Straight People Watch: Quarantine Edition, by Erin
9. I Have a Mild Case of COVID-19 and I’m Battling it Out at Home, by Heather
10. Reine #7: What Your Quarantine Cut Says About You, by Renn

Top 10 Most Popular Posts From May 2020

1. 74 Bail Funds You Can Absolutely Support Right Now, by Carmen Phillips
2. #Dykes4Roman, Explained, by Vanessa Friedman
3. 13 Legally Free Digital Queer Books for Your Quarantine Needs, by Casey
4. This Is on Us: 7 Things for White People to Commit to Right Now to Protect Black Lives from the Police, by Rachel
5. What’s Gay and New on Netflix, Amazon and Hulu in May 2020?, by Riese
6. Pop Culture Fix: Cate Blanchett Said the Words “I’m a Lesbian” So That’s Fun?, by Valerie
7. Former TERFs and SWERFs are Fleeing The “Cult” Movements Known For Being Terrible and Wrong, by Riese
8. Ruby Rose Is Done With Being Batman Now, by Carmen
9. BREAKING: Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson Reportedly Split in Quarantine, Love Remains a Lie, by Stef
10. Queer Horoscopes for May 2020: Venus Is Here to Teach Us About Love and Time Travel, by Corina Dross

Nine Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations

Malic: My dad got me these.

For grocery shopping. #extrathick #toughest. What is with the fist?
Stef: lol
VENOM
Ari: !!!!!
Heather: tough > tougher > TOUGHEST
KaeLyn: I’m…turned on?
“finger textured”:
Vanessa: malic your dad is…a hero???
Malic: He has no idea.

Riese: i can’t find my nail clippers
Kamala: guess you’re no longer gay
Nicole: oh nooooo
Riese: it’s ok i’m in quarantine so i may as well be straight
Kamala: hahahahaha
is that our next trafficky piece?
Nicole: “If I’m in Quarantine, How Do I Know If I’m Gay or Not?!?!”
Riese: yes
it’s like the tree falling in the forest
without anybody to hear it
Carmen: I’d click on it.
Sarah: lolol
what is the sound of one gay clapping alone in her apartment
if no one else hears the clapping is it even clapping
Riese: i clipped my nails earlier this very day>??? so????
Kamala: oh so you’ll be gay for like another week or so
Riese: yeah i better watch The Handmaiden again before it fades

Carmen: jane roe was a lesbian?
Riese: yeah
Carmen: WHAT
Riese: then she found jesus tho
Carmen: Also does that mean one of us should review the doc?
LOL OH OK NEVERMIND THEN
Riese: from wikipedia – “As Roe v. Wade made its way through the courts, McCorvey began a relationship with Connie Gonzalez.[6] They lived together in Dallas for 35 years.[2] After converting to Christianity, McCorvey continued to live with Gonzalez, though she described their relationship as platonic.[6] Later in life, McCorvey stated that she was no longer a lesbian.[35] McCorvey moved out of the house she shared with Gonzalez in 2006, shortly after Gonzalez suffered a stroke”
Carmen: How did you just have that at your fingertips???? You are magic.
Riese: i read a long piece about her a few years back
it’s pretty devastating, like for the ex
Carmen: Yeah it is.
Riese: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/28/garden/at-home-with-norma-mccorvey-of-roe-dreams-and-choices.html
Carmen: Omg I love you for putting together a whole reading packet for our dear readers this tuesday
Should I go ahead with this then? And you’re doing the ex-terf lady?
Riese: oh i think this is the piece that i read: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2013/02/norma-mccorvey-roe-v-wade-abortion
hahahaa
yeah
Carmen: No rush! I’m just getting underway with AAA and wanted some direction. Thank you.
Rachel: back from target
Carmen: welcome back! Jane Roe was paid to lie about abortion and also TERFs are a cult.
Big day.

Ari: brandi carlile threatened to come find me and kiss me

Omg if you say my name next to @yebbasmith ever again I will find you and kiss you. 😍✊ https://t.co/Xg95AGz4y6

— Brandi Carlile (@brandicarlile) May 21, 2020

Abeni: CALL HER BLUFF
Ari: abeni i’m like how do i make her know I WANT THAT KISS without her blocking me bc i’m coming off too hard?!?!??!
because I WANT THAT KISS
Abeni: lol
same
Stef: wow mazel
Ari: thank you i’m currently in an imaginary throuple with her and yebba

Carmen: should someone be covering the ashley benson/ cara (I will never learn how to spell her last name) develigne-whatever break up? Is that a thing we should be covering?
It’s in the vapid fluff channel for more info
Riese: yes
Carmen: OK GREAT! NOT IT!
Sorry I really never learned how to spell that girls name, and learning it now would murder me, lol
Sarah: awwwww what about the sex bench
Rachel: can we get an interview with the sex bench
Nicole: please interview the sex bench
what does the sex bench know?
Rachel: ‘why are my moms fighting’
‘do they not love each other anymore’
Riese: the sex bench is like all the flatware in beauty and the beast
collecting dust waiting for somebody to come along and use it
to feel purpose / meaning again
Kamala: ^^next erotica by riese

Drew: Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson ‘SPLIT after two years of dating’

Who will get the sex bench
Stef: WHAT
that is a weird quarantine move guys
i can write a thing
Riese: yes!
plz do
also wha
Stef: who gets the puppies
Riese: during quarantine!!!
how!!
who gets the sex bench
Stef: famous vocalist cara delevingne
author cara delevingne
Carmen: STEF I’M SO EXCITED TO HAVE YOU WRITE THIS
I only know of the sex bench because of you.
Stef: wow an honor
ok i’m diving in. to be honest i don’t follow either of these people because i find them very boring until cara does shit like this and then i’m like what am i thinking

Carmen: I thought her name was CLARA until… literally just this moment…. so
Stef: it’s pronounced cah-ra, it’s the worst
Carolyn: honestly all the quarantine breakups make a ton of sense to me! you have to sit with all your own feelings and all your partner’s feelings are also right there with no distractions, and if you’re not used to that or haven’t had sufficient therapy or are married to amanda palmer, i imagine the vibe is very “fuck this”
Laneia: lololol
Stef: at least none of us are married to amanda palmer, dayenu
Carolyn: truly
Stef: just think if amanda palmer was still in the states she’d be doing heavily styled photo shoots in times square… oh wait
it says they’re like hanging out with their model friends?
GIRL NO
“Cara and Ashley always had their ups and down before but it’s over now,” the source tells PEOPLE. “Their relationship just ran its course.”
what does that mean. wrong answers only
Carolyn: do we know that “spending time” means in person and not say over zoom
“after we crossed everything off our sexual bucket list we discovered we don’t have enough to keep this thing going”
Laneia: that’s so relatable i want to die
Stef: i said wrong answers only carolyn GOSH
you can’t even really rebound in quarantine
“It just feels incredible when you’re not alone, when you’re facing the world with someone else.” – cara to elle uk in oct 2019
(cardi b cackle) NOT ANYMORE
i’m fine
Rachel: now she’s not even facing the move from the living room to the kitchen with someone else
Stef: join the club. only you can’t. because there’s no club and you’re alone

Drew: I don’t know if anyone has any interest, but since I can’t post it publicly I figured I’d share the Portrait of a Lady on Fire fanfic I wrote for the fundraiser. Happy Monday!
[link]
Ari: D R E W
Drew: I hope this Autostraddle reader understands having Marianne and Héloïse meet again would’ve been a betrayal to the source material !
Abeni: drew i read your essay, and i’ve seen the animal crossing memes, and now i guess i need to see this movie lol is it streaming?
Ari: HULU
abeni it’s very good and its also in french
which maybe seems obvious but i did not know that and was too high to start a movie in french so it took me 1.5 times longer to watch it
Stef: i got to sapphic failure and that’s all i needed
tag yourself
Drew: lol stef
Stef: abeni it turns out it’s literally about a portrait of a woman on fire
i didn’t know that
but yes it’s v good
Abeni: lol i lowkey prefer movies to not be in english lol
but i did guess with names like heloise it would be french???
damn ok i know from reading drew’s essay that one woman paints a portrait of another woman, that portrait is of her on fire? damn that’s intense
makes me think of this meme lol

Stef: you know how interview with the vampire is literally a guy interviewing a vampire (i didn’t know that til i watched it for the first time like last year)
love an extremely literal movie
Drew: You should check out The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love
If you’re interested in a movie about the incredible things that occur when two girls are in love
Stef: is it incredibly true
like how true
would you say
Drew: A documentary starring Laurel Holloman and Nicole Ari Parker

Riese:

Sarah: UH?
Riese: i hope this idea began as a joke on a staticy zoom call
where nobody could tell who was joking and who was not and were like “great idea, donna”

Rachel: 3:00 PM
hi y’all! cruising thru here once again with the latest call for dating and relationship roundtable contributions to round out our summer of quarantine/unrequited love/requited love, for some of you!
many of you have seen this format before; this is a form that asks some personal q’s that you can respond to in a paragraph or two, and you can invoice for each q you answer (rates are attached to each question). these will be compiled into roundtable-style articles and published intermittently throughout the rest of the summer. you do not need to answer all of them and can skip what you want. two of these are A+ q’s, meaning they are a bit more personal and also will only be published behind the paywall, so only our ~5000 A+ members will be able to read them. please let me know here or in DMs if you have any questions!
deadline for answering these is the end of the month, so by wednesday!
Kamala: these questions are so juicy and good!
Drew: The last one really got me
Also this attachment style quiz at the top is bullying me
Kamala:i know, i both can’t and CAN wait to answer these
Heather: i cannot wait to read everyone’s letters to their exes!
Drew: I genuinely don’t know what to do with the fact that this attachment quiz has me fairly evenly split between all of them with a bit less towards Disorganized but Disorganized is the description that sounds most like my mother. Anyway I will be getting into this with my therapist/in this roundtable!
Heather: a roundtable on which one of rachel’s roundtables you discussed most in therapy
Drew: Ha!
Rachel: a roundtable of all our therapists rubbing their temples
Drew: A reminder of this dream I had

Dreamt there was an Autostraddle staff roundtable where the prompt was just “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

— Drew Gregory (@draw_gregory) December 6, 2019

Rachel: isn’t that basically what our attachment styles are
congrats on your dream coming true, drew
Drew: Thank you! Big day for me
Valerie: wow i am also being attacked by this survey
“It is often difficult to receive love from my partner when they express it.” gotta go! bye!
Kamala: hahahahahaha
rachel, you’re an icon
Rachel: come for the invoiceable content, stay for the free therapy prompts

Meet A New Contributor!

Get to know some of our newest faces.

Shelli Nicole, Writer

Twitter: @HiShelli
Instagram: @AyoShelli

What is your favorite kind of sandwich?

Brioche Bread, Toasted w/ mayo, mustard, crispy honied bacon, white cheddar cheese, romaine lettuce, a little red onion, and a fried egg….mmmm cut in half of course.

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

Honestly, my writing and how I have been maintaining my finances through the lockdown. I am always a hustler but I am proud of myself for still being able to take care of my financial needs through this. My mom is proud of me too!

What would be your superpower and why?

I think about this more than I should, invisibility. I want to go to a lot of places for free and this is the best way to do it — see, always hustlin’

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

Sophia Coppola to talk about film with.
Lucky Luciano to ask how his mind works the way it does.
Angela Davis because sometimes I struggle with being a woman in black activism spaces whether they are queer or not.
Quinta Brunson to chat with about real stuff and silliness, her energy is perfect.

Who was your first woman celebrity crush?

Topanga from “Boy Meets World”

Tag Yourself I’m the Brick

Riese: Should I do social media reactions to this or just a simple tag yourself I. This picture
Hang on lemme get the link

is that the stonewall brick lmaoooo pic.twitter.com/DtsSldtfZ3

— Shannon Keating (@skeatings) May 13, 2020

Or it could be on social
Twitter or insta tag yourself
I’ll ask heather
Carmen: Lol sorry I wasn’t here
Also Ryan Murphy threw the first brick at stonewall and that was too much for me to handle
Riese: HAHAHAHAHA
who’s the guy next to ellen
Carmen: Wait for it…. I think it’s supposed to be… Rock Hudson
Riese: oh wow
huh
i feel like they could’ve tried a little harder for latinx representation
Carmen: I was also just sitting here thinking that!
I mean all the queer women are white, save Janelle.
Who are these gay men I don’t know???

Riese: john waters
and dan levy
it reminds me of this absolutely bananas enormous mural that’s on the side of a high school right off sunset
well it’s not bananas but it’s weird because it’s hard to suss out the selection criteria

Carmen: Lol Riese this doesn’t make sense
Riese: my favorite part is, obviously
Carmen: Why Laurence Fishbourne??
Riese: brandy
Carmen: WAIT OMG BRANDY
I DIDNT SEE HER
I thought there was a theme, and then there was Judy Garland
Riese: i would LOVE to know the theme
it’s a busy street so i’ve been stuck in traffic staring at it a lot
Carmen: I was going to say the theme was “no white men” but I think I found one lol
Riese: yeah elvis
and the guy in the laurence of arabia outfit
i think is white
what’s his name
peter o’toole
Carmen: Google says Peter O’Toole
Ha! Beat me to it
Riese: “In 2002, artist Eloy Torrez painted a mural of 13 famous entertainers, titled “Portrait of Hollywood”, across the entire east wall of the school’s auditorium.[7][8] From left to right, the entertainers displayed are Dorothy Dandridge, Dolores del Río, Brandy Norwood, Selena, Lana Turner, Laurence Fishburne, Cantinflas, Carol Burnett, Cher, Ricky Nelson, Bruce Lee, Rudolph Valentino, and Judy Garland. In 2007, Torrez added a 50-foot (15 m) tall mural of John Ritter, who died four years earlier, on the connecting portion of the building’s north wall.[9] All but five of the entertainers—Cantinflas, Lee, Selena, Del Rio, and Valentino—were students at Hollywood High School.[citation needed] The artist said the mural is a celebration of a diverse ethnic range of actors and entertainers.[10]”

Carmen: 2:03 PM
Oh WOW the more you know I guess
I love that he was like “high school alum, but also diversity”

What We’ve Been Reading

Abeni: Exile & Pride by Eli Clare, and A Storm of Swords (Book 3 in the Game of Thrones series) by George R. R. Martin.

Vanessa: I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom, Real Life by Brandon Taylor, and Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Malic: Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movementby Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ejeris Dixon

Natalie: Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix

Meg: Gideon the Ninthby Tamsyn Muir

Rachel Charlene Lewis: Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner and Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

Adrian: Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas

Kamala: Supermutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki and Algorithms of Oppression by Safia Umoja Noble

Drew: Mama’s Girl by Veronica Chambers

Ari: Stealing Home (A Sweet Magnolias Novel) by Sheryl Woods

Riese: Devils on the Deep Blue Sea: The Dreams, Schemes and Showdowns That Built America’s Cruise Ship Empires, by Kristoffer A. Garin

Stef: Jellyfish by Janice Galloway

Casey: Pet by Akwaeke Emezi, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, and The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

KaeLyn: All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

Sarah: Honor Girl (AGAIN LOL) by Maggie Thrash

Kayla Kumari: You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat and Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Jehan:A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes on Belonging by Dionne Brand

Heather Hogan: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Laneia: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk and Life of the Party: Poems by Olivia Gatwood and Know My Name by Chanel Miller. Having a real normal one over here!

Activism Retro-Reading

Photo by Molly Adams via PHOTOESSAY: NYC’s Dyke March, Queer Liberation March, All-Ages Party, and More (Not Corporate) World Pride

Five Lessons Today’s Queer Activists Can Learn From ACT UP, by Adrian (2017) – Because this is retro reading I can’t just throw in something we published last month, but I will say if you find this useful, you should also read “Reach Out to One Person a Day”: Feminist AIDS Activists Reflect on COVID-19.

Black August: A Feminist and Queer Syllabus for Black Liberation, by Carmen Phillips (2019) – “Black August is a month-long dedication to honoring black radical political history, the ongoing fight against the prison industrial complex, criminal (in)justice systems. So why are most of the voices upheld this month from cis men?”

Be the Change: 5 Tips for Queer Activists Charging Into 2017, by Kaelyn Rich (2016) – “For me, speaking out and taking action is part of what I need to do for our collective survival.”

Beyond Survival: Rethinking The Humanity Of Those Who Harm, by Abeni Jones (January 2020) – “Transformative justice”—the idea that communities can resolve and repair harm and abuse, as well as transform the conditions that led to them, on their own without the necessity of State intervention or by replicating the State’s carceral form of justice—looks good on paper, but there are still so many big questions.

“Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good” Asks Us to Practice for the World We Want, by Bani Amor (2019) – “Pleasure Activism offers up a multitude of tactics for which to embody pleasure, claim it as a central and essential liberatory practice, and a sustainable one for the long-term road trip of justice work.”

Talking with Reina Gossett and Grace Dunham About Everyday Activism and Why Empathy is Everything, by Hannah Hodson (2015) – “Stonewall was every single Friday when you were out there trying to be with your friends and trying to survive, and also trying to have fun, and also trying to get laid… and also trying to wear what you want to wear!”

Roundtable: The Undocumented Activists Organizing a Strike and Building a New World, by Christine Miranda (2020) – “Sometimes you have to build the plane and fly it; sometimes you have to build a new world and live in it every day.”

ONE GREAT MUG

Welcome to “One Great Mug” — in which a staff member 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.

I found this mug among other fabulous treasures in my grandparents’ perfectly intact 50s kitchen. It reminds me that I’m a 3rd generation Californian, and also of how my grandpa only drank green tea and never water, which seems so absurd to me. So I like to drink green tea in it too. — Kamala

The Amanda Palmer Breakup Diaries

Stef: amanda palmer announcing her divorce from neil gaiman on patreon before telling him is my favorite thing on the internet today
Laneia: w h a t
Stef: ok so
they were in NEW ZEALAND
and amanda palmer wrote this https://www.patreon.com/posts/36720010
and then neil gaiman wrote something like ‘oh apparently amanda told everyone we’re having problems’
i’m obsessed
imagine being in new zealand where they have this all under control and willingly moving to the uk right now
Heather: it’s also so bonkers that she framed this like “well i had to say something because so many people in this global pandemic who are worried every second about their lives and livelihood were also obsessing about ‘where’s neil gaiman, best known for the 80s comic book sandman?’ truly i had no choice than to make this patreon post.”
Stef: my favorite part is the part where she reminded people to check their billing information for patreon
to make sure they can still pay her
people are like ‘um some of us are struggling to eat and pay rent’ and she’s like ‘well we’re all helping each other’
you’re helping how exactly…
Rachel: an oral history of where we all were when we heard the amanda/neil news
Stef: https://www.patreon.com/posts/36764884
she’s still going!!!
i thought this post was over approximately 4 times before it was actually over
Laneia: “snakes go down, ladders go up.
but, no, we know better.
………….
we’re all a person.”
doing absolutely great over there
Rachel: i just got to the embedded email
Stef: the validating fan email like ‘it was very triggering to read neil wishing you had not written 6,000 words about this before actually mentioning it to him’
Rachel: “made me feel that my very different, open, even public emotional processing was unseemly, or childish, or selfish, or immature”
Stef: i’m not a neil gaiman fan but oh man
Laneia: =(
Drew: I think a lot about when Amanda Palmer said that she didn’t like Neil Gaiman’s writing
I mean I’m not his biggest fan either. But he was never my partner.
Laneia: “i think i’ll sleep soundly having written this.”
ominous as fuck
Stef: look sometimes we date writers who aren’t good drew
IT HAPPENS
Rachel: i’m trying to think if i have ever seen as dire a case of Needing A Group Chat
Stef: i bet she has several and everyone is exhausted with her shit
i live in fear of being the amanda palmer of the group chat
Drew: When Ocean at the End of the Lane came out she was like this book is really great and you can trust me because usually I think Neil sucks
lol
Basically what I’m saying is this turn of events does not surprise me but it does entertain me
Stef: everyone else is like ‘i just started embroidery for the first time, i bought a kit online’ ‘do you guys want to watch a movie on zoom later’ ‘here’s this fascinating article i read’ and i’m out here like IT’S BEEN TWELVE MINUTES SINCE NEIL LEFT FOR THE UK
Drew: hahahaha
Rachel: it’s been 42 days of quarantine
i feel super clear on that point
Drew: That feels… like not a big enough number to be proudly repeating it so many times
Stef: yeah
in new zealand
neil gaiman, an older man in a country with basically no covid threat, weighing his options and deciding “FUCK IT i gotta get outta here”
Drew: Why didn’t he just go somewhere else in New Zealand!!
Stef: NOT FAR ENOUGH
have you ever broken up with amanda palmer
Drew: Great point

XOXO

Team Autostraddle

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