Also.Also.Also: Nothing Makes Hunter Schafer Squeak With Happiness Like Seeing Other Queer Trans Lesbians

Feature Image via Net-a-Porter

Well, look at us! We’re making it through another day!


Queer as in F*ck You

“I don’t think I should be a spokesperson for any community! But, as far as the individual and emotional, nothing gets me more than having a moment with another T girl. I’m like… [she emits a long squeak]. There is a wavelength that is special and important. Whenever I see another T girl or a pair of lesbians, I’m like, ‘Yes!’ It’s a good feeling to know that you are not singular.”

Euphoria star Hunter Schafer on being a Supernova for Porter

Spelman College Today Announced That It Has Met the $2 Million Dollar Match It Needed for Their New Audre Lorde Chair Endowed Professorship of Queer Studies!!! LET’S GO BLACK QUEER STUDIES, I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS DEVELOPMENT!!

Speaking of which, Language Is Critical: How Alice Walker Broke Taboos in Writing Celie in The Color Purple

I have been waiting all week to tell you about this, but we have to talk about Aretha Franklin’s queer sister Carolyn that I never knew about until now! (This is an excellent biographical essay, with a lot of great analysis of Carolyn’s music, if that’s your kind of thing)

I actually don’t even know how to describe this one, but please just know that it is delightful and one of the best personal essays I have read about life in your 30s, probably ever, and certainly one of the best personal essays I read last week — The “Flop Era:” Acceptance, Liberation, and Renaissance by Harron Walker for W

Big news from the weekend: Nicki Minaj Has Agreed to Pay Tracy Chapman $450,000 to Settle a Lawsuit Over the Rapper’s Song “Sorry

Katie Sowers not returning to Niners (but we will always have that sexy ass Super Bowl ad from last year)

We technically already have a whole post about it on the site, but I’m too hyped to keep my mouth shut! Have y’all checked out the trailer drop for Lee Daniels’ new Billie Holiday biopic yet?

Speaking of which…


Saw This, Thought of You

Instead of a ‘New You,’ Reconnect With Your OG Self

“It’s very difficult for people to really have a very clear perspective on the future if you have not really taken the time to understand your history.” Meet the Southern Librarians Fighting for Racial Justice and Truth-Telling

As an Intense Winter Unfolds, Some Lessons From Herbalists from Jenna Wortham at The New York Times

The WNBA Can’t Keep Kelly Loeffler Around by Jemele Hill for The Atlantic. (“The defeated senator and Atlanta Dream co-owner is too far out of sync with the league’s values.” — ya damn right.)

Yesterday was Mary J Blige’s 50th Birthday, and while Black women online every celebrated with #ToMaryWithLove, I wanted to share my favorite performance of hers of all time. From her Lifetime Achievement Award from BET in 2019 when — at 48 years old! — she performed an entire 20 minute set, with full choreography and live mic, by herself:


Political Snacks

Whew political snacks are weird AF today because… well last week there was an insurrection and attempted coup on United States, and tomorrow Trump will become the first US President to be Impeached twice. And it’s at least reasonably likely that there might be another violent insurrection between now and the inauguration of a new President. So, yeah. There’s that.

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

6 Comments

  1. Tallulah Bankhead is such a legend! I only wish she had done more films, but she is absolutely delightful in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, Lifeboat. I also wish she had written a memoir because it probably would have been the greatest book of all time.

  2. As a 30something, that flop era article was spot on, right down to the Blink-182 that’s been in my head so often lately. Loved this in particular:
    “The old me might have needed a shitty boss and an unreliably caring [partner] to feel affirmed by the world, but the new me—the one I’m still in the process of becoming, but closer to being than ever before—just needs herself.”

  3. So many emotions from the Hunter Schafer article… Joy that things have changed and this gorgeous girl is out there beat jealousy that it didn’t happen 35 years ago for the win.

  4. 1st – Tracy Chapman is dreamy.

    2nd – Rosie O’Donnell was a WNBA supporter from jump. maybe she could join LeBron James’s ownership group for the Dream. they are such a deserving team :?

  5. I really love that “connect with your OG self” article, thanks for sharing it:

    “Look at the things you needed the most in 2020. How can you give them to yourself in 2021?”

Comments are closed.