Hundreds Protest NYU Langone’s Early Compliance With Trump’s Dangerous Anti-Trans Executive Order

Three weeks from now, I’ll be getting a gender-affirming surgery from NYU Langone. For trans people in New York City, NYU Langone has a reputation as one of the best — if not the best — places to receive trans-related healthcare in the city.

I’m also an NYU alumni and, during my time at the university, I learned the unfortunate truth that the entire organization is a microcosm for the country at large. There might be great faculty, great surgeons, great opportunities, but they are overshadowed by an infrastructure that exists to reward the most powerful and uphold conservative values. The latest example of these practices occurred this week when NYU Langone CEO Robert I. Grossman made the cowardly choice to comply with Trump’s illegal anti-trans executive order even though it has not been enforced by any legislation yet, halting healthcare at NYU Langone to trans people under 19 years old, effective immediately.

Hundreds of people gathered last night at St. Vartan Park a block away from NYU Langone hospital to protest this decision. Organized by NYC-DSA, speakers included teachers, doctors, and several young trans people speaking on behalf of themselves and their peers.

Many people pointed out that Grossman’s decision is in violation of New York state anti-discrimination law. But Clark Wolff Hamel, acting executive director of PFLAG NYC, made sure that this talking point didn’t distract from the larger issue. “Institutions in New York have a legal obligation to comply with state law and ignore this heinous executive order,” he said. “But trans young people are not just in New York and regardless of their protections they deserve the right to live, they deserve the right to this healthcare. These executive orders are not just illegal and unconstitutional, they are inhumane.”

Dr. Michael Zingman, a second year child psychiatry fellow at NYU Langone, echoed this sentiment. “This decision is not only a moral and medical failure — it’s a betrayal of our patients and our profession,” he said. “By gutting this care, NYU is sending a message. They do not care about patient autonomy, they do not care about evidence-based medicine, and they do not care about the doctors they train.”

Pigeon, one of the young trans people who spoke and a member of NYU Students for a Democratic Society, made the astute point of connecting this decision with broader NYU practices. “NYU has long held with its participation in war profiteering and genocide that the lives of children are less a priority than the lining of its own pockets,” Pigeon said. “This latest decision is yet another extension of this sentiment.”

Beth Boyle Machlan, a faculty member at NYU and mother of a trans man, also connected this decision to a broader culture at NYU. “Over the last 18 months, I’ve watched my workplace devolve into a militarized zone of walls and checkpoints, a place where students and faculty are punished for free speech and frozen out of decision-making,” she said before stating that she still hadn’t imagined this sort of direct attack on trans people. “NYU Langone, a facility that reported over one billion in profits in 2023, announced to the world that dollars and donors are more important than healthcare.”
She went on to discuss the gap between NYU’s reputation and the reality: “So many people come from all over the world to NYU because they believe at the heart of Greenwich Village, so close to Stonewall, they can finally and safely be themselves.”

Molly, a trans freshman at NYU, spoke of this directly, saying, “One of the reasons I actually chose to go to NYU was specifically because they were known for how accessible their gender-affirming care program was to their students.” She went on to say that her disillusionment with NYU has included an education on their history: “There’s precedent for NYU’s behavior too with NYU refusing to allow students to fundraise for gay rights leading to the occupation of Weinstein Hall in 1970 which ended with the Sylvia Rivera being dragged out by the NYPD on NYU’s watch.”

“I may be young myself,” Molly also said, “But I still didn’t have access to those resources at that young of an age and because of that it led me down a path of testosterone-fueled puberty. Irreversible damage, as some may call it. No trans child should have to go through that.” In addition to having my favorite zinger of the night referencing Abigail Shrier’s transphobic book, Molly also made an excellent point. People are quick to discuss the imagined harm of cis kids having a trans puberty, but not the very real harm of trans kids having a cis puberty.

Another young trans person, Lorelai, spoke about the impact of a different anti-trans Trump executive order. In reference to receiving a passport with an X gender marker, they said, “When I received it in the mail, it was one of the happiest days of my life.” As someone who has thought about gender markers primarily as a safety issue — more concerned with a trans person’s documents not matching their appearance — I was moved and changed by Lorelai’s words. “To most people it’s just a letter on a document,” they continued, “but to me it’s a legal recognition of my existence. Having that X meant I was recognized as a human, not just a political issue and talking point.”

Lorelai then spoke about the direct impact of NYU Langone’s decision: “My friend hadn’t heard the news yet and she started freaking out telling me she had an appointment there scheduled for a month from now and asked if that would still happen. I told them I don’t know. But we’re here today demanding that it will.”

So what can we do? Well, we can continue to email and call Robert I. Grossman’s office [email: [email protected]; phone: (212) 263-3269.] We can send a message via NYC-DSA’s action portal. And we can continue to protest.

Actor and activist Cynthia Nixon spoke as a lifelong New Yorker and the mother of a trans man who had his top surgery at NYU Langone. “This is where I’m planting my flag,” she said. “I want to tell the people of NYU as I told you I just live a few blocks away. You’re going to be seeing a lot of me. And you’re going to be seeing a lot of this amazing crowd of people and there are a lot of people here today and we are mad as hell.”

Grossman and anyone else involved in this decision have underestimated how eager people are to fight back against the Trump administration and this slew of bigoted executive orders. It can feel like there’s little to do to stop Trump and Elon Musk and everyone else in Washington, but with their early compliance NYU Langone has become a practical action item for many angry people. To quote queer council member Tiffany Cabán, “The first rule against tyranny is you do not obey in advance.”

But this is just the beginning. Even if NYU Langone reverses their decision, even if these executive orders are ruled unconstitutional, the federal government and the Republican Party have chosen trans people as one of their scapegoats, and most of the Democratic Party has no interest in fighting back.

Young trans people shouldn’t have to be the ones fighting on their own behalf, but they’re doing it anyway. Mina, another young trans person who is part of NYC Youth 4 Trans Rights, announced a trans visibility day march on March 31. If he has to be out there fighting, the least we can do is be out there alongside him.

The rally ended with impassioned words from Freya, another young trans person. “I have been on estrogen since I was 14,” she said. “And I know that I’m very privileged to be able to say that. But in the same breath, I can say that I’m scared for myself, for my own healthcare, and for all the other people like me… don’t let them win.”

NYU Langone must reverse this decision immediately. They must stand with their patients and doctors instead of politicians and donors. Don’t let them win. Don’t let them win.

Read more of Autostraddle’s recent political coverage:

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Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

1 Comment

  1. Alternate number I recieved to reach Robert Grossman when calling tonight is 212-263-6906. Worth a shot if you don’t get through!

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‘How Can I Be a Good Girlfriend When My Partner Is Extremely Anxious About Sex’

Q:

I have a boyfriend that recently moved in with me. We’ve been dating awhile now but he has been too far to visit very often until he eventually moved in. We have always been very loving and supportive emotionally and felt close with him in ways I haven’t with past partners. I feel like we intuitively understand each other and our needs in a lot of matters and are willing to figure it out when intuition isn’t enough. One area that we have not been able to find understanding around is physical intimacy.

My boyfriend is not very experienced with romantic physical contact. He gets nervous talking about sex or participating in it to the point where he says the anxiety causes him physical discomfort. He doesn’t seem to enjoy things like kissing beyond an affectionate smooch and looks at me like a deer in the headlights any time we discuss physical intimacy. He also says that he is considering whether or not he could be asexual. When we do anything more than cuddling I ask if he is enjoying himself and wants to continue and he usually responds he is “okay” but does not really have anything he wants to do. I would be okay with no sexual contact if that is what he wanted but he still seems unsure and I don’t want to take away that chance from him just because he’s nervous. He also specifically asked for me to take the lead sexually because he is inexperienced and trying to figure out what to do makes him uncomfortable.

I especially feel confused because I live with another partner that is part of the triad and we can be extremely sexually engaged throughout the day. Like, BDSM with established rules and titles type of engaged throughout the day. We don’t engage in anything that makes him uncomfortable (he has talked to us about what parts of our play are a bit much so we have opened a dialogue about it), but he can be really hard on himself about comparing himself to other people in the relationship. He has already shared that how sweet and close our dynamic is has made him feel a little left out in the past, we offered to include him in our play if he wanted but with sex in general being a sensitive topic he was unsurprisingly not interested. I am fine with how things are in general and he got over those feelings of being left out to where our dynamic can coexist with him being in the relationship. We are at a point where things are fine as is, but I am still a bit lost on how to proceed.

Part of me feels like it’s a thorny topic and the best move would be to wait to engage with him sexually at all, like if he is still nervous then it would be better to not engage at all until he feels comfortable enough to start slow and attempt stuff like make outs. But then another part of me doesn’t want him to feel like I’m not sexually attracted to him. The fact he is sexually inexperienced is something that has made him feel ashamed when he looks at my other partner’s confidence. If I settle on waiting for him to get comfortable and stop trying to initiate then will he start to feel I’m less attracted to him then my other partner? Not to mention that if he is nervous about sexual contact but still wants it then getting some experience so it doesn’t seem like this scary and intimidating thing to him would be helpful.

I also know the first and most obvious solution is to talk to my boyfriend, but he only ever says that sexual stuff is okay and freezes up when we start touching. I have even talked to him about worrying whether or not he enjoys what we are doing and he say he’ll make sure to let me know if he needs to stop. So if I take him at his word, then to listen to him would mean continuing to initiate while I feel like he’s uncomfortable, which makes me feel like I am being a bad partner for not helping him feel more at ease or pumping the brakes. On the other hand, if I stop initiating with him sexually when he says he wants me to take the lead then I am kind of saying I don’t trust him and I risk him feeling unattractive or like I am not interested in figuring out our chemistry and sex might remain this scary unknown instead of becoming more familiar and comfortable (as long as he wants to continue engaging so it can get there, of course). I know I also need to feel comfortable proceeding regardless of if he’s okay with continuing, which is part of why I wanted to double check if these sorts of nerves are normal or if that should be an immediate red light. Really the main reason I’m iffy is that he has hidden how uncomfortable things make him in the past. It was not during intimate contact with me specifically, but if you are willing to force yourself to go out when you are miserable and having a terrible time because you don’t want to be a party pooper and you are self conscious about your level of sexual experience then it kind of follows that I should make extra sure they aren’t pressing themselves in this arena either. It is further complicated by the fact that he just moved across state lines with several in between and he has never lived outside his home state away from his family so there are a lot of other nerves and changes happening besides our sex life. On top of that, I have repeatedly heard things like, “Much of the time, being asexual in a relationship with an allosexual partner can feel like the allosexual’s needs are… insisting upon themselves,” and I think that is my other biggest concern now that everything is laid out.

How can I make sure my needs are not insisting upon themselves and that my boyfriend is not pushing himself too much while he figures out if he’s asexual while also making sure he feels seen and desired? How do I be a good girlfriend to him and make sure he knows he will be loved and respected no matter what happens while still respecting that he told me doesn’t want to stop trying to have sex and wants me to take the lead? Besides talking it out, as we have done that plenty on this specific part of the question and he is honestly at a loss although we will continue talking, how do I experiment and find what makes my partner feel good if even a light make out session makes him overwhelmed with anxiety about his inexperience? Should I tell him he is welcome to initiate and make my attraction clear but let him come to me when he’s ready so he doesn’t feel the pressure or would that lead to him feeling unwanted? Should I try a bunch of different things to see if he likes them or would that create more unnecessary pressure? Should I mostly make sure to keep a sharp eye out for how he is feeling while continuing conversations about safety and comfort so I can let my intuition guide me on the specifics of what to try when?

Thanks for hearing me out, I am familiar with how to handle several parts of the situation in isolation but when added together it is a bit overwhelming to navigate how they interact and if I am doing the most I can to respect my partner and make them feel valued.

Sincerely,
Polyam Sex Maze

A:

Hi there, Polyam Sex Maze.

It’s good to see someone else who elaborates in such detail. This reads like my internal monologue when I’m feeling unsure about something complex. That’s my approach to writing these columns, too. When I read the submission, I let the voice in my head click onto key points. If those points repeat, I’ll elaborate on them in writing.

The two things I kept hearing in my head during this piece are, “some forms of anxiety are out of your paygrade and realm of responsibility,” and “there comes a point where you’ve taken reasonable steps but others should meet you.”

At some point, sexual anxiety catches everyone who has sex and even most people who don’t have sex. It’s a perfect storm of vulnerabilities for those of us who have gaps in our confidence. Social interaction. Physical performance. Societal expectations. Taboo topics. Anxiety magnifies our fears but we can often cope with that on a daily basis. But when several of those fears gather under one roof, even a resilient person falls back to default behaviors.

I suspect that’s part of what’s happening to your boyfriend.

From what I can tell, he’s got some interest in sex, but it’s paired with a lot of uncertainty. This includes uncertainty about his sexuality. He’s got an interest in your BDSM dynamic but isn’t ready to participate. You’ve given him an open door policy on sexual contact, but he feels unsure about taking part. This leads to uncertainty on your part because you’re getting very mixed communications about his interests versus his actions — plus all the secondary uncertainty this can stir in your mind about whether he feels included in the relationship.

You have a complex person set before you, and I have to applaud the patience in handling his complexity. Yet the more I read into your story, the more I think there’s stuff happening underneath that is beyond us. Both beyond our paygrade and beyond what we can reasonably take on as partners while looking out for ourselves. I saw shades of this when you mentioned that he’s known to conceal discomfort and press himself in situations he doesn’t always enjoy. That could be applied to sex (and also lend credence to his asexual hypothesis). This happens to a lot of people who aren’t fully confident in recognizing or advocating for their care needs (guilty!).

Everything you wrote emphasizes sexual anxiety, but that left me wondering if your boyfriend is particularly anxious in other parts of life? If he is, it could be a sign of a more generalized problem that also affects his sex life. If he’s not a generally anxious person, that’s really notable because that could speak to experiences or events that keep him from taking part in sex despite wanting to. Either way, his anxiety sounds significant enough that it keeps him from trying things he wants, and it also affects his relationships. That’s almost textbook anxiety. Which takes it into a therapist’s purview. If you’re in the position to consider some kind of relationship counselling or a solo therapy process for him, I think it’s well-worth considering. But should you approach the topic, it’s critical to approach it with your usual compassion and gentleness so that it doesn’t trip a major fear of failure or inadequacy. This is only a path you should take if you feel it’s feasible and safe to approach, but I just wanted to highlight the fact that we don’t have to bear every one of our partners’ anxieties and difficulties on our own. Sometimes, things do get further than what we can provide.

And you’ve provided a lot already. You give me the impression of someone who listens with a compassionate ear and offers fair guidance to someone in a difficult spot. A lot of the time, that is the best we can do as partners for a loved one in need. It’s utterly normal to want to resolve the situation (or less palatably: ‘fix’ a person). The frustration that accompanies being unable to resolve things is likewise normal. I nonetheless believe that you’ve given your boyfriend exactly what he needs: a comforting ear, a road forward, and openness to his needs.

Of course, you came here seeking answers and “chill, you’ve done enough!” won’t feel adequate. So I do intend to give some practical pointers too. Strap in.

How can you try to have your sexuality ‘insist upon itself’ even less? You could turn the needle further away from sex and just focus on being his girlfriend and friend. He clearly benefits from the friendship and company of your relationship. Lean on that. The dates, the little smooches, and the good time you spend together. Give him the non-sexual side that he does enjoy while he figures out the rest.

How do you balance out his interest in continued sexual experimentation despite being at a loss for where to start? See above. Just keep being the good partner to him you already are and play it by ear. You’ll have learned much about his needs and responses during those conversations with him. That’s the groundwork for the day he does turn out to be ready and aroused.

How can you ensure his comfort and assuage his fears while also not imposing the topic of sex onto him? Take space when it’s offered, but let it lie otherwise. By that, I mean reassure him of his full validity and goodness as a person when he expresses uncertainty. But otherwise let the topic hibernate. You’re still ensuring that every discussion he has with you about his fears is met with compassion, but not adding anything that might frighten him.

Given his noted pattern for anxiety and uncertainty, I don’t think the answer is to try lots of sexual things with him or to keep telling him that he’s welcome to initiate. I know the latter from personal experience: there’s a point where welcoming someone to sex can turn into pressure if they don’t otherwise feel ready. Rather, it sounds like he’s in an introspective space where he needs to work through anxieties and identity. This is a good time to give him a safe base for that exploration, rather than putting more stuff on his plate.

I can see exactly why you sometimes feel overwhelmed. Your situation is full of uncertainty and contradictions. This is the time to explore outside support, like therapy, or take a step back and be a good friend to your partner. Trying new things with your boyfriend is well-intentioned, but I don’t think either of you would benefit from the strain that could bring. Let’s focus on the good you’ve already cultivated and take new steps when everyone feels ready.

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Summer Tao

Summer Tao is a South Africa based writer. She has a fondness for queer relationships, sexuality and news. Her love for plush cats, and video games is only exceeded by the joy of being her bright, transgender self

Summer has written 62 articles for us.

5 Comments

  1. I’ve really come forward to reading your responses, Summer 😊 my initial thoughts were so different — watch porn together! Try making out blind folded! Start a sexy list so you can communicate in a different way!! — but after reading your very thoughtful response I have more thoughts on what being a good partner could look like in this moment. I love how these classic advice columns can offer such good wisdom!

    • Thanks Kam! We all have different approaches to relationship problems. I tend to pick ‘safe’, low-risk advice because most people writing in have already exhausted other their ideas and are still nervous. Advice columns are an art that I’m still learning :)

    • …just because someone is in a heterosexual relationship does not mean they’re heterosexual.

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Emilia Pérez Star Karla Sofía Gascón’s Unhinged Racist Tweets Have Killed Her Oscar Campaign

Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón’s Oscars Controversy, Explained

Emilia Pérez trans review: a close up of Karla Sofia Gascón

Emilia Pérez‘s monumental 13 Oscar nominations were remarkable for a lot of reasons, including Karla Sofía Gascón’s Best Actress nod, which made her the first out trans performer nominated for an Oscar. (Elliot Page was nominated in 2007, but was not yet out.) It was a major milestone in Oscars history, even as the film itself has divided critics and offended the communities it aims to represent. When asked about the backlash from queer and trans critics, including our own, Gascón didn’t mince words: “You must be super well-adjusted to criticize the work of 700 people from your couch, sitting there next to your PlayStation. Second, they claim to speak for everyone. Let me tell you: Being LGBT doesn’t make you less of an idiot.”

Still, there was plenty of excitement around her nomination.

But now, Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón is on an apology tour for recently uncovered racist and otherwise offensive tweets. According to these apologies, she feels she’s being unfairly attacked, which is a common response from people facing the consequences of their own actions. I’m often wary of “cancel culture” because people can grow and change and often their more recent actions don’t align with long-forgotten posts from many years ago, but Karla Sofía Gascón was saying these really disturbing things again and again, as recently as 2022, when she was in her 50s.

“When someone in a historic position representing a film built on so-called progressive values has a history of racist and bigoted tweets, it exposes the hypocrisy of it all,” Journalist Sarah Hagi told Variety. This isn’t about meaningful representation — it’s just marketing. And that marketing falls apart when the person at the center of it is a racist bigot.”

And we’re not talking about one small misstep, or some implied or thinly veiled racism, or one moment where she accidentally misspoke. Hagi uncovered a LOT of posts from the actress that are just blatant Islamophobia, targeting Muslim people on multiple occasions, plus more racism including anti-Black racism in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and an anti-vaccine tirade that was full of harmful Chinese stereotypes. Posts that were not deleted until after Hagi posted a thread of screenshots that started to get traction.

A few days prior to the resurfacing of the tweet, Gascón upset fans of I’m Still Here, after complaining in an interview that “people working with” fellow Best Actress nominee Fernanda Torres, the star of I’m Still Here, were “tearing me and Emilia Pérez down,” which, she said, “speaks more about their movie than mine.” She later apologized and praised Torres and her performance, emphasizing that she wasn’t taking aim at her specifically, but people supporting her. Some argued that this rhetoric was at odds with the Academy’s social media regulations surrounding making disparaging remarks about other nominees, but it was not.

Gascón says she is not backing out of the Oscars though, despite one of the uncovered tweets from 2021 being a complaint about the increasing diversity of the awards show, saying watching the awards take place was like “watching an Afro-Korean festival” or “a Black Lives Matter demonstration.”  She has issued multiple statements, including a tearful video interview with CNN.

She said in one statement that she “used social media as a diary, reflections or notes, to later create stories or characters,” adding, “I have defended each and every one of the minorities in this world and supported freedom of religion and any action against racism and homophobia in the same way that I have criticized the hypocrisy that underlies them, because the first thing I am critical of is myself.”

In another written interview, she said she wouldn’t step down from her Oscar nomination, because she “has not committed any crime” and furthermore, “nor have I harmed anyone.” (Which I would argue is not true.) She said in a response that people have set out “to stain my existence with lies or things taken out of context,” but this isn’t hearsay; we can see the tweets. And there is no context that would make them any less offensive. (She also did the classic “I can’t be racist, I have a Muslim friend” bit in one of her so-called apologies…) 

She shut down her X account on Friday morning. At a Q&A that same day, which she was scheduled to attend but did not, Zoe Saldaña said she was still processing, but felt “really sad because I don’t support it, and I don’t have any tolerance for negative rhetoric towards people of any group.” She reiterated having had a positive experience making the film.

“Based on my conversations in recent days with Academy members, many are going to have a hard time voting for Emilia Pérez in any category, given that Emilia Pérez herself has become toxic,” wrote Scott Feinberg in The Hollywood Reporter, lamenting also the dim prospects “of her colleagues who were also nominated for the film, including Saldaña, who has been the best supporting actress frontrunner for months.”

Netflix has allegedly released a new FYC poster for Emilia Pérez, not just de-emphasizing Karla Sofía Gascón, but erasing her completely. It’s also been reported that Gascón will not be coming to the U.S. for any of this week’s awards activities including the AFI Awards luncheon, the Critics Choice Awards, the Producers Guild Awards, and the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

More Queer Pop Culture Stories For You:

+ We might be getting a good and proper Joss-free official BUFFY REBOOT??? From the director of Eternals and the writers of Poker Face and starring THE titular vampire slayer Buffy Anne Summers, Sarah Michelle Gellar!! I’m kind of freaking out.

+ The Grammys were gay and we are going to tell you all about it

+ The M3GAN 2 trailer featured the titular AI doll dancing to Chappell Roan’s Feminominon because she IS that bitch

+ Queer Spice Girl Mel B will return as a judge on the new season of America’s Got Talent

+ Unsurprisingly after all that has been unveiled about the author of its source material, The Sandman’s upcoming second season will definitively be its last

+ The Duffer Brothers, creators of Stranger Things, will be making a show called The Boroughs, which will feature pansexual actress Jena Malone

+ On the theme of LGBTQ+ celebrities who let us down, Ellen might have fled to the UK but she’s still ruffling feathers

+ Christopher Nolan is adapting Homer’s The Odyssey and Elliot Page has been tapped for a role, adding him to the long list of legends already attached to the project

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
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Valerie Anne

Valerie Anne (she/they) a TV-loving, video-game-playing nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories in all forms. While having a penchant for sci-fi, Valerie will watch anything that promises a good story, and especially if that good story is queer.

Valerie has written 619 articles for us.

Very Special Gay Episode: 15 Years Ago ‘Drop Dead Diva’ Cast Candis Cayne as a Trans Lesbian

Welcome to Very Special Gay Episode, a series where we recap standalone lesbian episodes from classic TV shows that are not otherwise gay. In this installment, we discuss Drop Dead Gorgeous season two, episode eight: “Queen of Mean.”

“A model who dies in a car accident and comes back to life as a fat lawyer” sounds like a deeply offensive 30 Rock sketch, but it’s not. It’s the premise of Drop Dead Diva, a heartwarming girly legal procedural that ran from 2009 to 2014.

Growing up in more of a Lost/Prison Break/24 family, I didn’t watch Drop Dead Diva when it was on air, but my partner did! And recently, fueled by a burst of nostalgia, we started rewatching it together for the low, low price of $11.99 a season. The first thing that struck me was how quickly the main character Jane stopped trying to lose the weight. This wasn’t your typical “woe is me for being fat and therefore unlovable” early 2000’s drivel. It was deeper. Jane was hot, desirable, and desired. Men wanted her, she had canonically good sex, was a great friend, and one hell of a lawyer.

The cast was populated with its fair share of queer icons: Margaret Cho plays Jane’s trusty, sassy assistant Teri, and Rosie O’Donnell is featured as the recurring character Judge Madeline Summers. Unfortunately both of those characters were straight. Rosie O’Donnell’s character even had a whole episode dedicated to suing a dating service for not finding her a suitable man. But then we arrived at season two episode eight, and I got more than I had ever dared to imagine from a pre-Obergefell comedy… not only were there dykes, one of them was trans.

Despite Time boldly announcing 2014 as “The Transgender Tipping Point,” it took several more years for trans actors playing trans roles to become industry standard. (Even last year’s Squid Game season two cast a cis man as a trans woman.) And yet 15 years ago, Drop Dead Diva got it right. Trans actress Candis Cayne plays Allison Webb, a trans woman in a legal battle with her in-laws over her wife’s possessions after her wife dies suddenly in a car accident. Her in-laws who, by the way, couldn’t even be bothered to attend their own daughter’s funeral.

This plotline rings true to the countless stories of queer people who lost their loved ones to AIDS, only to have their absent in-laws take away all of their late partner’s possessions and even their homes. Ultimately, that was the main goal of gay marriage. Yes, having the government recognize your love is great, but it’s more important to have a legal right to your partners’ possessions, to visit them in the hospital, and to make decisions about their care over an absent, homophobic biological family. This narrative is complicated in Drop Dead Diva by the fact that Allison had been legally married to her wife even though gay marriage was not yet legal in California. Allison and her wife had gotten married pretransition, so technically their marriage was straight, and therefore legally binding… maybe.

Here’s where I was expecting the episode to get problematic. The narrative in my head played out like this: Allison’s lawyers Greyson and Kim argue that because Allison is biologically male (whatever that means) their marriage is still a law-abiding straight marriage, plain and simple, transphobia saves the day! And initially, that is what Greyson and Kim suggest. But Allison immediately shoots it down, “When I transitioned, Melanie stood by me every step of the way. By saying I’m a man denies everything that we went through. Please, find another way.” And find another way they do!

After a suggestion from Jane, Greyson uses the logic of Littleton v Prange, a real case that invalidated marriages between men and transgender women in the state of Texas based on the fact that same sex marriage was illegal in the state and Christine Littleton, a transgender woman, was assigned male at birth. He argues that according to this logic, Allison’s marriage was still legal, as she was also assigned male at birth, a distinct difference from being male. Shockingly enough, this TV argument has a real legal basis: After Littleton v Prange, lesbian couples were legally allowed to marry in Texas if one of them was a trans woman.

The episode ends with Allison winning her case; she is named as her wife’s next of kin and retains legal ownership of their possessions. Not only that, Greyson, who had originally been uncomfortable with the case, even misgendering Allison once (but only once! And not to her face! Shockingly sensitive for the time!), gives an impassioned speech about how Allison’s case was arguing for the existence of true love. “What these two went through… and they stayed together. It makes you believe that love can conquer all, and nobody should be able to take that away from them.” Even the transphobic father-in-law comes around, telling Allison, “I can never forgive myself for turning my back on my daughter. Now I’ll never see her again. Thank you for making her happy,” before giving her his mother’s necklace. It’s a heartwarming tale of trans acceptance and queer love conquering all, and something I was not at all expecting from an episode of a sitcom that came out in 2010.

My partner and I cried as we watched holding each other in our bed. As a trans lesbian couple, I don’t think either of us expects to see our relationship used as an example of true love in current media, let alone in a show from before gay marriage was legal. So often trans characters are relegated to corpses, punchlines, boogeymen, and cautionary tales. I can name so many examples in media of The Trans Struggle™, and yet so few of trans people falling in love, and even less so about that love being legitimate in the eyes of your average cis lawyer.

It’s no secret: Things are scary for trans people right now. The Democrats are shying away from defending us, Joe Biden signed a transphobic bill into law, Kamala Harris tried to use Trump’s record of providing gender affirming care to prisoners as a gotcha, and Trump has used his first few days in office to aggressively attack trans rights. This is reflected in our media. One of the most beloved children’s book series was written by a virulent transphobe who continues to benefit off the IP as it’s spun off into prequels, theme parks, musicals, and TV adaptations. Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire produced What is a Woman? and Ladyballers, and even the Olympics is full of transmisogynistic vitriol directed at cis women of color.

Our enemies are doing everything they can to delegitimize our existence. But maybe if we can continue to showcase our beautiful love stories, the kind I see at every bar and house party and friends wedding, the kind I see in my own home, there’s hope. Because, to paraphrase Drop Dead Diva, queer love makes you believe that love can conquer all, and nobody can take that away from us.

Drop Dead Diva is available to buy.

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Sunny Laprade

Based in NYC, Sunny Laprade is a standup comedian, storyteller, writer, and producer. Sunny performed her first hour of comedy at Alfred University in 2017 at just 17 years old. She is the current host and producer of T4T Comedy, a monthly all-transgender comedy show. Her first 75 minute comedy special, Queer Enough, which she filmed, wrote, and produced, ran for two nights to sold out audiences and was released to the public on YouTube in 2022. She is a staff writer for Late Stage Live, and her variety hour Dolls on Tour is currently touring the country!

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Fascist 404s: The Government Is Deleting Vital LGBTQ Health Resources and Data

As federal agencies scramble to abide by the Trump administration’s reign of terror and complete disregard for the welfare of anyone in this nation who isn’t white and rich, more than 8,000 web pages with vital information across a dozen government websites have been removed from the internet. These deletions are far-reaching, targeting diversity initiatives and pretty much anything pertaining to gender equality.

Resources and scientific research using the term “pregnant people” have been eliminated as part of Trump’s attempts to delegitimize and erase trans identity. As a result, deleted web pages include — but are not limited to — more than 3,000 pages from the CDC’s website, including vital information and research on chronic diseases, STDs, drug overdoses, and vaccines; more than 180 pages from the Department of Justice, particularly pages regarding all state-level hate crime data and anti-LGBTQ hate crime data; more than 100 pages from the FDA that include guidelines for increasing diversity in clinical trials, which is extremely important to public health; and hundreds more pages that contained information for everything from LGBTQ veteran care, to the monkeypox virus, to women with opioid addictions, to workplace harassment policies, and beyond.

The New York Times has the most comprehensive breakdown of what has been taken down, which sites have resurfaced with significant changes, and which remain dark. But The New York Times has also been part of the problem when it comes to platforming transphobes, the problem at the core of these removals. Because the “reasoning” for a lot of the removal of necessary healthcare information is because of Trump’s executive order on what his camp calls “gender ideology” and what I like to call “letting trans people have rights.”

As such, multiple health agencies have taken down pages or even entire databases with information and data about contraceptives, HIV care, and abortion. The removal of HIV resources and information from government websites prompted Drag Race star Lexi Love to disclose her HIV status. “I am personally affected by this stance and will work to use this new platform to not only find resources for myself but those who I am connected to socially and here!” she said on Instagram. Abortion advocates like Jessica Valenti are working to rebuild, preserve, and archive much of the reproductive justice data being scrubbed from the CDC’s website. Documents are being hosted at CDCGuidelines.com, where you can learn more about and support the efforts.

In a joint statement, HIV Medicine Association President Colleen Kelley and Infectious Diseases Society of America President Tina Tan wrote: “The removal of HIV- and LGBTQ-related resources from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies is deeply concerning and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks.”

Any pages that make reference to transgender individuals are being targeted by these removals, as are any pages that reference “inclusion.” This will have a devastating impact on trans people, HIV-positive people, women, cis gay people, disabled people, SO MANY FUCKING PEOPLE.

I know pointing out the hypocrisy of hateful groups often doesn’t change their positions, and I know TERFs are rarely moved by our impassioned pleas to shut the fuck up, but all of this reiterates to me that the transphobic members of the LGBTQ community and the supposedly liberal people who have succumbed to and perpetuated anti-trans rhetoric have contributed to the fact that women and all queer people are not safe under this administration.

By throwing trans people under the bus, they’ve ensured we’re all getting run over. Abandoning and demonizing trans people has made it so the worst enemies to women and queer people feel emboldened in their abilities to strip everyone who isn’t a cis man of their rights and bodily autonomy. The religious right has been successful in its cross-party anti-trans contamination, using trans people as a starting point to push an agenda built on white supremacist, anti-woman, anti-gay, patriarchal Christian values. All the hand-wringing about kids who just want to play sports and who gets to use which bathrooms leads to this, this massive erasure of resources, data, and information vital for public health.

If research agencies are no longer LGBTQ-inclusive and do not prioritize other forms of diversity like race and gender in important scientific processes like clinical trials, public health will collapse. Achieving basic gender equality and including more women in clinical trials is a very recent win, let alone making sure research is more inclusive of trans people, and now we’re watching it all swiftly and significantly rolled back by the party that prides itself on individual freedom (you know, as long as you’re a very particular kind of individual).

History has shown us over and over again that assimilation and self(ish)-preservation will not save us; community care and coalition building will. There is no safety for anyone under the LGBTQ+ umbrella if a single letter is threatened. Obviously, there will be major pushback on these erasures and changes to government resources and information, but it will likely be a long and hard fight. Trump’s team has been preparing to push through enforcement of Executive Orders despite dubious legality for four years now.

Our communities are sad and scared but also resilient. Archival efforts will continue. We’ll share resources, we’ll do what we can for each other — which is a lot! But widespread, systemic change and productive public health policy will require coalition-building and solidarity, and soon. They’re working fast to take things away, so we have to work fast, too.

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 966 articles for us.

1 Comment

  1. The website for the Office for Research on Women’s Health has been gutted as well, which is not getting any coverage that I can see. This is particularly depressing given the Biden admin’s report on disparities faced by women (which is defined fairly broadly in the report, but many of us were disappointed to not see sexual identity or gender addressed directly) which gave me hope that there would be a increase in funding for women’s health research.

    Also, I post this with major trigger warnings, but this seems to be creating a roadmap for their destruction of LGBTQ+ research (with an almost 100% focus on research among trans people) at the NIH: https://manhattan.institute/article/reform-proposals-for-the-national-institutes-of-health-nih

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The Top Gay Moments of the 2025 Grammys

feature image photo by Maya Dehlin Spach / Staff via Getty Images

Chappell Roan, Doechii, Lady Gaga, and more queer celebs made sure the 2025 Grammys were queer as all get out last night. It was the first major celebrity event and awards show since Trump became the president (again), and some of the night’s biggest names seized the opportunity to use their platform to express support for trans youth, who have been increasingly attacked by this administration.

Between artists doubling down on support for trans people, celebrating DEI, and advocating for better healthcare and working conditions, the 2025 Grammy Awards had several moments of musicians critiquing the current administration. Chappell Roan and Doechii in particular held it down for queer artists and marginalized voices, with Chappell championing trans girls on the red carpet and Doechii championing Black girls in her acceptance speech. The Swamp Princess and the Midwest Princess! Regional icons! A dream duo! Queer Floridians and Missourians are so up! Can we get a collab going?!

The Grammys, like any awards show, are part of the industry machine and therefore inherently cannot be a radical event, but having even just a handful of musicians pushing back against racism, transphobia, and queerphobia matters in its own small ways, especially since these ceremonies are broadcast so widely. More and more artists should use their platforms to advocate for vulnerable populations regardless of personal career risks.

In no particular order, here are some of the top gay moments from the 2025 Grammys, including standout moments of trans allyship. Enjoy a queer recap of the 2025 Grammys!

Doechii Tells Chrishell Stause She Wants To See More Gay Artists in the Music Industry

Celesbian Chrishell Stause interviewed artists on the red carpet of this year’s Grammys, and she asked Doechii what she wants to see more of in the industry. “I want to see more gay artists,” Doechii said, prompting a big smile of agreement from Chrishell. “I want to see more gay artists and more alligators,” Doechii added. That’s called the Florida Gay Agenda 🫡

Chrishell also correctly points out how iconic Doechii’s Thom Browne fit was.

Doechii Wins Best Rap Album of the Year

Speaking of Doechii! The queer swamp princess herself Doechii was awarded the Grammy for Best Rap Album for her excellent Alligator Bites Never Heal. She became only the third woman to do so since the category was introduced in 1989, joining Lauryn Hill as well as bisexual icon Cardi B, who presented the award this year.

Doechii also celebrated Black girls with her acceptance speech, saying “I know there is some Black girl out there, so many Black women out there that are watching me right now, and I want to tell you, you can do it,” she said. “Anything is possible. Anything is possible. Don’t allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you that tells you that you can’t be here, that you’re too dark, or that you’re not smart enough, that you’re too dramatic, or you’re too loud. You are exactly who you need to be.”

Doechii also performed “Catfish” and “Denial is a River” as part of a medley with other artists, and she was easily the standout.

Lady Gaga Says “Trans People Are Not Invisible”

When accepting her Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with Bruno Mars for their song “Die With a Smile,” Lady Gaga used her platform to shout out trans people and the queer community, saying “trans people are not invisible. Trans people deserve love; the queer community deserves to be lifted up. Music is love.”

Alicia Keys, though unfortunately not queer, also used her acceptance speech as a platform to take digs at Trump without saying his name. “DEI is not a threat; it’s a gift,” she said in her speech about the importance of diversity in the music industry.

Billie Eilish Performs “Birds of a Feather”

Despite seven nominations, Eilish didn’t take home any awards this year, but she did perform her song “Birds of a Feather” off of her excellent album Hit Me Hard and Soft, her first album to come out since she did. She also gave a heartfelt shoutout to Los Angeles during her performance, as she has been a vocal advocate for the city in the wake of its devastating wildfires.

@.badboymusic

Billie Eilish performing “Birds Of A Feather” at 2025 Grammy Awards. #billie #billieeilish #grammys #grammy #grammyawards #grammys2025 #live #performance #viral #foryou #fyp #fy

♬ original sound – BAD BOY

St. Vincent Takes Home Three Grammys

With a trio of wins from her work on her fantastic 2024 album All Born Screaming — a fitting album for the end of the world — Annie Clark AKA St. Vincent took home Grammys for Best Rock Song, Best Alternative Music Album, and Best Alternative Music Performance. The only reason she didn’t take home a fourth is because she lost Best Rock Performance to…The Beatles…

St. Vincent also surprised her fans by thanking her wife and daughter.

She also was rocking a 90s-inspired Armani look that was to die for.

Cynthia Erivo and Janelle Monáe Perform as Part of Quincy Jones Tribute

Queer artists Cynthia Erivo and Janelle Monáe were among the many artists tapped to celebrate the legacy of Quincy Jones, starting with a duet of “Fly Me to the Moon” by Erivo and Herbie Hancock and concluding with Monáe performing “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”

Chappell Roan Says She Wouldn’t Be Here Without Trans Girls

While on the red carpet, the Midwest Princess of course delivered a memorable look, but she also gave a memorable monologue about her support for trans people. “It’s brutal right now, but trans people have always existed, and they will forever exist,” she said. “And they will never, no matter what happens, take trans joy away, and that has to be protected more than anything, because I would not be here without trans girls. So just know that pop music is thinking about you and cares about you, and I’m trying my best to really stand up for you in every way that I can.”

Chappell Roan Performs “Pink Pony Club” With Clowns

I will simply never tire of Chappell Roan performing this song live, especially because she brings completely fresh artistry to it every time. For her 2025 Grammys version, she rode a giant pink pony. It’s the titular role!

She featured a bunch of clowns in the performance, and as the wife of the author of the upcoming lesbian clown novel, I LOVED IT.

Chappell Roan Wins Best New Artist, Advocates for Better Healthcare for Artists

In full clown regalia — a signature style Chappell Roan has cultivated that is meant to be a reclamation of the fact that she grew up with people who called gay people “clowns — Chappell Roan accepted her much deserved win for Best New Artist and used her speech to advocate for better labor and healthcare conditions for budding artists.

In what has become another signature move of hers, Chappell read directly from her journal for the speech, saying: “I told myself if I ever won a Grammy and I got to stand up here in front of the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists.”

She continued: “I got signed as a minor, and when I got dropped, I had zero job experience under my belt, and like most people, I had a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and could not afford health insurance. It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanized to not have healthcare. And if my label would have prioritized artists’ health I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to. So record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection. Labels, we got you but do you got us?”

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 966 articles for us.

5 Comments

    • yeah i loved that she had decided she would say that if she ever won an award like that and came prepared to do it! i love her everything she does is magic.

  3. Meshell Ndegeocello also won Best Alternative Jazz for her James Baldwin album in the non-televised awards!

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Sundance 2025: A Gay and Trans Festival Recap

Throughout the 2025 Sundance Film Festival I watched 21 features, 4 shorts, and a TV series. Read about everything I watched with links to my full reviews below!

I didn’t cover the festival in person so there are some high profile queer films you won’t see here including Andrew Ahn’s remake of The Wedding Banquet (the original is #11 on our list of gay male cinema) or Bill Condon’s much-anticipated remake of Kiss of the Spider Woman. But festivals aren’t just about seeing work we’re already excited about — they’re also about new discoveries! So come on and discover with me!

Hal & Harper (dir. Cooper Raiff) (TV series)

Full review.

Didn’t Die (dir. Meera Manon)

Every time the Democrats lose an election, I think about the scene toward the end of Meera Manon’s wonderful debut Farah Goes Bang when her characters who have spent the entire movie canvasing for John Kerry finally admit he sucks. They want so badly to make a difference in our shitty world and yet even their compromise cause has failed. It’s a moment of innocence lost, growing beyond the paradigm of our established systems.

Manon is back at Sundance with her first feature since her sticky 2016 film Equity — she’s been working on TV shows including Westworld and Ms. Marvel — and she’s reteamed with Farah co-star Kiran Deol. Deol plays a podcaster navigating a zombie apocalypse alongside her brothers, her sister-in-law, her ex, and a baby. The film is heavy with feelings of Covid, this zombie uprising an easy stand-in for the virus and our forced isolation. But the film is at its best when it leaves behind these easy connections for a deeper heaviness about living in our world amid so much death and cruelty.

Low-budget and rough around the edges, Didn’t Die isn’t the sleekest film at the festival. But with tender performances and effective horror moments, it’s a worthy zombie movie for our time.

Sundance 2025: a black and white close up of Kiran Deol in Didn't Die

Kiran Deol in Didn’t Die

Sweet Talkin’ Guy (dir. Miss Dylan, Spencer Wardwell) (short)

Co-written by, co-directed by, and starring Miss Dylan, this short comically portrays the predictable script recited by three different guys in their attempt to hook up with a trans woman. While a lot of trans media — made by us and certainly made by cis men — has concerned itself with this dynamic, there’s something refreshing about a film that focuses in on the mundanity. Miss Dylan’s silent protagonist isn’t distraught, nor is she hopeful, she’s just going through the unfortunate motions to get laid. While cis people can think they’re embarking on some grand adventure by dating us, it’s great to see a film that mocks their tedium.

Hold Me Close (dir. Aurora Brachman, LaTajh Weaver) (short)

A portrait of Black lesbian domesticity, this documentary short focuses as much on the living space of its central couple as it does on the people. Wide shots and close ups are static as the soundtrack is filled with Corinne and Tiana discussing everything from when they met, to their familial relationships, to gender identity, to their plans to have a baby. The audio (recorded privately according to the press notes) is intimate while the beautiful visuals create a certain distance. Corinne and Tiana are in their own world together.

Coexistence, My Ass! (dir. Amber Fares)

The first half of this documentary about anti-Zionist Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi is a by-the-numbers inspiring story about how a woman went from working at the UN to spreading the message of peace through performance. Schuster-Eliassi was raised in an internationally celebrated community where Jewish Israelis and Palestinians live side-by-side, her best friend is Palestinian, and her life and perspective seem readymade for liberal praise. But halfway through the documentary, the timeline arrives at 2021 when the Israeli government once again escalated their violence against the Palestinian people. Schuster-Eliassi begins to question her role as an ally, an inner conflict that only increases after October 7, 2023.

The rest of the documentary is fascinating as Schuster-Eliassi starts to abandon her liberal optimism for something more radical. It becomes a challenging study in the limits of allyship and the necessity for moral courage and clarity. Part of me wishes the first half of the film matched the complexity and craft of the second, but I also think, as is, the film is something of a magic trick. People who still want to pretend the apartheid and genocide carried out by the Israeli government is too complicated to discuss could be seduced by the first half of the film only to be forced to face the harsher reality in the second. People are more open to a lecture after hearing a few jokes.

The Virgin of the Quarry Lake (dir. Laura Casabé)

A portrait of a depressed teenage girl and her cruel society, this adaptation of two Mariana Enriquez short stories is heavy with ghosts. It’s 2001 in Argentina and recent high school graduate Natalia (Dolores Oliverio) is in love with her friend Diego whose attention has been taken by a 30 year old woman he met online. Natalia spends her days masturbating, hanging with her friends, and seeking a sense of self in a violent world.

Each day brings power outages, water shortages, classism, racism, and death. With touches of horror and magical realism, the question is not just whether Natalia and her friends will lose their virginities like your average teen coming-of-age movie, but whether they will lose their souls. They’re not encouraged to care about other people, scarce resources leading to a selfish desperation among their families. The issue is not Diego — it’s any want or need. How can we learn to share, to compromise, to lose, when we haven’t been shown how to do so? This is a challenging, at times nasty, film, but it’s not cynical. When all humanity seems lost, Casabé returns to the faces of her talented performers to reveal the conflict beneath their harsh choices.

Dolores Oliverio looks into flames in The Virgin of Quarry Lake

Dolores Oliverio in The Virgin of Quarry Lake

Two Women (dir. Chloé Robichaud)

Queer filmmaker Chloé Robichaud’s feature debut Sarah Prefers to Run was ranked sixth on our list of the best queer sports movies of all time and her most recent film Days of Happiness was even better. Her latest, which she notably didn’t write, is a bit of a departure, a mostly heterosexual sex comedy instead of a queer drama. While it’s not as good as her other films, her formal prowess and ability to garner great performances is still in full force.

Following two neighbors in unhappy relationships who cope by having a bunch of random sex, Two Women is charming and humorous with some moments of real emotion. It’s fairly basic in its topics of monogamy and marriage, but there are worse things than watching beautiful people be horny. Karine Gonthier-Hyndman is exceptional — funny and heartfelt in a way that elevates the script. This will probably resonate more with a straight audience, but I did appreciate that Robichaud lets one of the characters throw a female window washer into her list of affairs. If a queer filmmaker takes on straight material, they can be trusted to make the sex scenes better and to add in something a little gay.

Are You Scared to Be Yourself Because You Think That You Might Fail? (dir. Bec Pecaut) (short)

For all the talk about how trans cinema is obsessed with surgery, there really haven’t been that many on-screen portrayals grounded in reality. The getting of surgery is framed as the ultimate gender achievement, but the post-op healing process is brushed past with sentimental tears or, ya know, death. Enter Bec Pecaut’s short film starring Lío Mehiel as someone navigating their relationships with their partner and their mom in the days after top surgery. I really appreciated the complexity the film achieves in its short runtime, leaving space for the ways people can be needy, scared, and even mean during this period. The types of love their partner and mom are able to give are both imperfect and both needed. The film doesn’t over-explain its characters — it just lets the moment be.

Sweetheart (dir. Luke Wintour) (short)

Focusing on the hidden history of 18th century Molly Houses, Luke Wintour’s short feels like a proof of concept for a prestige TV drama. That’s mostly a compliment — it has a polish and attention to detail impressive for a low budget — even if it did leave me wanting more. As our current conservative backslide aims to cover up our history and pretend queerness is new, a story like this feels even more important. I hope Wintour and his team do get the chance to expand this film, because there’s a lot more to explore within this setting — especially in regards to race and gender-nonconformity.

Sorry, Baby (dir. Eva Victor)

Full review.

Cactus Pears (dir. Rohan Kanawade)

Rohan Kanawade’s semi-autobiographical debut is a film aching with longing. Longing for familial acceptance, longing for romantic connection, longing for a sense of belonging, longing for the dead. The film follows Anand (Bhushan Bhingarkar) throughout the ten-day mourning ritual for his father. He’s traveled from Mumbai back to the village where he was raised where everyone wants to know why he’s still unmarried — except his mother who knows exactly why.

During these ten days, Anand connects with another unmarried man Balya (Suraj Shinde) and their friendship quickly develops into romance. This is not a film of grand gestures or heightened drama. It is sensual, embracing the quiet of its rural setting. Kanawade allows the characters to communicate in static frames, every gap in conversation, every touch, maintained.

There have been many films about queer people returning to their family homes, but few with this amount of tender specificity. There is awkwardness, there is grief — there’s also so much love.

Bhushaan Manoj and Suraaj Suman sit under a tree together in Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)

Bhushaan Manoj and Suraaj Suman in Cactus Pears

Jimpa (dir. Sophie Hyde)

Full review.

Where the Wind Comes From (dir. Amel Guellaty)

Full review.

Omaha (dir. Cole Webley)

Set in 2008, this film about a father on the road with his two kids after being evicted from their house will illicit deep emotions in just about everyone who watches it. John Magaro who plays the father is an incredible actor and the two kids (Molly Belle Wright and Wyatt Solis) are adorable and well-cast. The love between them feels palpable and real and it makes their financial hardship all the more painful to witness.

But throughout the film, I kept thinking of Kelly Reichardt, a filmmaker who has worked with Magaro multiple times and whose 2008 film Wendy and Lucy also follows a character with a dog struggling to survive America. I kept thinking about how it’s possible to tell a story like this in a way that earns the audience’s emotions rather than manipulating them.

Every narrative and formal choice made in Omaha feels manufactured to make the audience cry rather than to deepen its characters and serve the story. It’s as if Webley and screenwriter Robert Machoian don’t trust that these circumstances are painful enough without obvious moments of sentiment.

This isn’t an uncommon approach to material like this and it’s one that is often celebrated. If you’re a fan of the Dardenne Brothers or Ken Loach at his worst, you’ll probably respond to this film. But I’ve always found filmmakers like Reichardt or Andrea Arnold to be far more compelling.

In an interview Webley said, “Empathy is universal, apolitical, and needed more than ever.” The film itself is so determined to be apolitical that its manipulations don’t even feel like they’re serving a worthwhile story. Any messaging around the way the U.S. fails parents is ruined by a hollow ending. The film both romanticizes the father’s solitary pursuits and seems to suggest the answer to all of his problems is to ask for help. Help from where? From a country that abandons its people who are most in need? A country that would rather pay money to a broken foster care system than to loving parents who just need support? You can’t make a movie about surviving in capitalism and then reduce its message to empathy is apolitical.

Bunnylovr (dir. Katarina Zhu)

Katarina Zhu’s feature debut (as writer, director, and star) is at its best when it leans into the boundaries of its character’s self-destruction. Rebecca’s life is split between a thankless job as an assistant to an older white man and an inconsistent job as an online sex worker. She’s hung up on her shitty ex-boyfriend — who she still sometimes fucks — and she’s suddenly reconnected with her sick and formerly absent father.

I love a messy girl in New York story and it’s true that subgenre has historically focused less on women like Rebecca and more on women like her wealthy, white painter friend (producer Rachel Sennott). Rebecca’s Chinese American identity impacts — in ways obvious and subtle — her romantic relationships, her friendships, her relationship with her father, her assistant job, and her sex work. But the film also goes places a lot of similar work does not. At one point, Rebecca says she thinks she might be evil and it’s this thread I found most fascinating. Nothing she does is even that bad — except maybe to herself — but it’s interesting to watch her navigate her power and her powerlessness, to figure out what kind of person she wants to be and what aspects of that person she’ll sacrifice to feel less alone.

I wish the film pushed a little further, shying away from neat conclusions to achieve something a bit messier. The tight visual approach is perfectly claustrophobic and I wanted that discomfort to be mirrored in the narrative. But this is still a promising, personal debut and will hopefully be the first of many films from Zhu.

By Design (dir. Amanda Kramer)

If you’ve seen Amanda Kramer’s previous film Please Baby Please, you know to expect a unique vision from this artist. But she may have outdone herself in this film about a woman who body swaps with a chair.

Juliette Lewis plays Camille, a woman who finds herself smitten with a designer chair when out with her two wealthy friends. By the time she’s gathered her finances together, the chair has been sold and, in a distraught moment, she wishes to be the chair. The rest of the film follows the chair in Camille’s body and Camille as the chair with her new owner Olivier (Mamoudou Athie). While even the short runtime of 90 minutes sometimes feels like it’s pushing the potential of this premise, when By Design is good, it’s really good. It’s funny and thought-provoking and entirely itself. I wish the film filled me with the all-consuming love the chair inspires in Camille and Olivier, but it did give me a more muted fondness and that’s important too.

Juliette Lewis stands between two other women in By Design

Samantha Mathis, Juliette Lewis and Robin Tunney in By Design

Sauna (dir. Mathias Broe)

Full review.

GEN_ (dir. Gianluca Matarrese)

Full review.

Atropia (dir. Hailey Gates)

The winner of this year’s U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, Hailey Gates’ debut is a satire about a 2006-era military simulation facility. Based on real training bases around the U.S., the film follows Fayruz (Alia Shawkat), an Iraqi American who sees her time playing an “Atropian” as the first step of a mainstream acting career. These ambitions are derailed when she falls for “Abu Dice” (Callum Turner) a white soldier recently returned from Iraq who has taken on the role of an insurgent to help train the new recruits.

The film is most successful as a satire of actors, Fayruz’s seriousness around her craft in this absurd setting lends the film its funniest moments. The satire of the U.S. military is a bit more toothless. It’s explicit that the Iraq War was bad, the U.S. wastes a lot of money on wars, and the soldiers sent to kill innocent people are mostly manipulated and clueless teenagers. But it’s 2025. Iraq War was bad is not a radical statement and I wish the film felt fuller in its exploration of the guilt both Abu Dice and Fayruz share in their involvement in this system.

The fact is most American cinema is so explicit in its pro-war messaging that Atropia actually does feel radical in comparison. It’s a good movie with good performances and a clear message. But when judged on its own merits and not by this low bar, it could be a lot sharper in its critique.

Speak. (dir. Jennifer Tiexiera, Guy Mossman)

As a younger millennial, it’s been interesting to watch my generation mirror the same objectification and fear-mongering around Gen Z as we received. Everyone always wants the youth to be a beacon of hope or the cause of all our problems. But the fact is every generation is made up of a wide variety of people with a wide variety of behaviors and perspectives. It’s easy to watch Speak., a documentary about kids around the U.S. competing in the original oratory section of national speech and debate competitions, and think wow there’s hope for the future. But I was most taken with how different all the kids were — in their personalities and their aspirations.

This is a straight-forward documentary, but it’s worthwhile as a portrait of these individuals. They all care so much about what they’re talking about and it’s powerful to watch them express that care.

Come See Me in the Good Light (dir. Ryan White)

Full review.

LUZ (dir. Flora Lau)

There are two intersecting stories in Flora Lau’s formally enchanting LUZ. A man (Guo Xiaodong) in Chongqing is trying to reconnect with his daughter (Deng Enxi) who he hasn’t seen since being incarcerated many years earlier. A young woman (Sandrine Pinna) in Hong Kong is called to Paris to reconnect with her sick ex-stepmother (Isabelle Huppert). These stories are connected by the virtual reality game the man’s daughter and the young woman both play, an alternate world where people are still seeking connection.

Lau doesn’t just find overlap between her narratives — she also finds overlap between the real world and the video game world. In both settings the cinematography and the score create a feeling of heightened rapture. The characters have so much sadness and longing but hope is found in the beauty of our worlds. At times the dialogue is blunt, the script not quite as remarkable as the style, but I still found myself fully connected to these people and their searching.

Sundance 2025: Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Pinna walk in the ocean in LUZ

Sandrine Pinna and Isabelle Huppert in LUZ

Rains Over Babel (dir. Gala del Sol)

Full review.

Sally (dir. Cristina Costantini)

Full review.

Plainclothes (dir. Carmen Emmi)

As an expert on gay cops on-screen, I’m always interested in new portrayals of LGBTQ law enforcement that go beyond the usual propaganda. But Plainclothes — like My Policeman and last year’s Sundance short Bust — isn’t all that interested in the system of policing beyond how it acts as a cover for its main character’s shame.

While this disinterest in policing isn’t inherently a problem, it does leave the film’s most interesting thematic threads unexplored. All that remains is a fairly standard story about a gay person grappling with their place in the closet, torn between societal expectations and romantic yearning. Tom Blyth as the lead and Russell Tovey as his love interest both give good performances and the film is well-made. It also doesn’t mirror the shame of its character, leaning into instead of away from the story’s sexuality. But the characters aren’t particularly complex and the formal tricks only have an occasional visceral power without a strong enough motivation. It’s not that this film is bad — I just don’t think “police but gay” without going deeper is as interesting to me as it seems to be for other people.

Heightened Scrutiny (dir. Sam Feder)

Full review.

The Ugly Stepsister (dir. Emilie Blichfeldt)

I ended this year’s festival on a very high note. Emilie Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister is one of the best horror films of the decade so far. While most recent horror fails in story even if it succeeds in craft, Blichfeldt’s script is just as strong as the film’s scares. This is everything I wanted from The Substance, feminist body horror that’s as effective as it is unsubtle.

Blichfeldt succeeds by leaning into the pain and violence already present in pre-Disney fairy tales. People are cruel and happily ever after is never guaranteed. This film takes the Cinderella story and turns it into a fable of women upholding patriarchy, hurting each other and themselves for an unworthy prize. It may not say much new, but it says it with a visceral power and a sharp attention to character. I have a pretty strong stomach for violence on-screen and I watched several moments through my fingers. It’s not just the gore — it’s that Blichfeldt and lead actress Lea Myren have given us a protagonist we care about. It’s worse to watch someone suffer when you wish it would stop.

A lot of filmmakers have attempted new takes on fairy tales over the decades. Few have succeeded to capture what makes those original stories so powerful while pushing beyond to something new. The way Wicked forever changed how you look at the Wicked Witch of the West, this film will forever change how you look at Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters. I don’t see this being turned into a Broadway musical any time soon though. Too many tapeworms.

Lea Myren looks scared with a metal brace on her nose in The Ugly Stepsister

Lea Myren in The Ugly Stepsister

And that’s a wrap on the 2025 Sundance Film Festival! Did you watch anything on the online platform? What are you most looking forward to?

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

4 Comments

  1. I’m surprised we haven’t seen anything about the Andrea Gibson’ documentary – “Come See Me in the Good Light.” Genuinely asking: is there a reason?

  2. Drew, thank you so much for your coverage!! Can’t wait to see as many of these as possible in the next few months.

Comments are closed.

Sundance 2025: ‘Heightened Scrutiny’ Is a Tribute to Trans Solidarity

Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance bringing daily updates on the best of LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond. Follow along for more coverage or read her review of Heightened Scrutiny below. 

When I was a teenager, I didn’t know about transness. But I did know I cared deeply about gay rights. I watched the results of California’s prop 8 banning gay marriage like a personal loss. I made a PSA for my high school about anti-gay bullying. I launched a failed campaign to get a gay assembly speaker during our opposite-of-radical Acceptance Week.

That failure sunk me into a deep depression. I’d spent weeks meeting with my school principal, going door-to-door to classrooms to pitch every teacher on signing my petition. I even used my knowledge from stats class to put together a survey that would prove anti-gay bullying was an issue at our school. None of this was enough. It was still deemed too controversial. Exhausted and sleep-deprived and totally without hope, I got the flu and missed several weeks of school.

Sam Feder’s documentary Heightened Scrutiny is about Chase Strangio in the months leading up to his historic argument in front of the Supreme Court this past December. It’s also about a 12-year-old trans girl named Mila who speaks up on behalf of herself and other trans kids during a school board meeting and then gives a speech to a supportive crowd outside the Supreme Court on that historic day.

This has been a very hard week to be trans as Trump has announced daily executive orders targeting our lives. I’m not a cryer — maybe blame my Capricorn sun, maybe blame hiding emotions as a survival tactic during my “male” adolescence — but I spent most of Heightened Scrutiny crying into the arms of my partner. I especially cried when Mila was on-screen.

It just felt so unfair. Every time a child speaks up at a school board meeting or to a state legislature, the internet applauds their bravery, using this child as a beacon of hope for the next generation. But they shouldn’t have to be brave! They shouldn’t be our beacon of hope! They should be allowed to just be kids.

I know I’m projecting. I know I’m doing another version of the very thing I’m criticizing. But I can’t help but remember how damaging it was to fight for my rights as a kid even when I didn’t know they were mine. I was praised as precocious, praised for my tenacity, but inside I just felt so lonely and scared.

Even though he’s a famous adult lawyer, I also felt angry on behalf of Chase. I’m so grateful for the work he does, so grateful for his willingness to go into court and respond to stupid, bad faith arguments. But alongside that gratitude is an anger, an albeit immature anger at the not-fairness of how prepared he has to be while his opponents get to be clueless. I have never quite moved on from my adolescent view of right and wrong, my frustration with a world that operates on greed and hate rather than empathy and logic.

Alongside these dual portraits of Chase and Mila, the film also does an excellent job breaking down how we got to this moment in anti-trans discourse and debunking several anti-trans talking points. Interviews with journalists and cultural figures reveal the journalistic malpractice of publications like The New York Times and The Atlantic and how their faulty reporting has led to the right-wing attack on trans lives.

I hope this documentary is viewed by people with the potential for sympathy who have been brainwashed by these very same publications. And, as a trans person, there’s a comfort in hearing the facts laid out so clearly and with such feeling.

As I cried to my partner after the film, talking about Mila and Chase and my own adolescence, they reminded me of Mila’s supportive mom, of her supportive little brother, of her supportive friends, of the moment outside the Supreme Court when she’s smiling and dancing to Charli XCX. They reminded me that they have Chase as a friend, as a mentor, as a trans adult to look up to and see how happy and powerful and steadfast we can be. It’s not fair that Chase has to take on this visibility and fight in a broken system. It’s not fair that Mila has to argue on behalf of her rights as a child. But the loneliness I recall from my own childhood and adolescent fights is nowhere on display in this film. Mila has a strong community. And even trans kids who aren’t as lucky can still watch Chase on TV.

It’s not enough. This is still a scary time. As lawyers, as journalists, as people, we are fighting losing battles. But Heightened Scrutiny is a reminder that we have each other. We don’t have to fight alone.

Heightened Scrutiny will be released later this year. While you wait, read this article to better argue on behalf of trans rights.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

2 Comments

  2. Funeral Italy is a leading provider of funeral services in Italy, offering a comprehensive range of products and support to help families honor and remember their loved ones with compassion and dignity.

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Quiz: What Lesbian Form of Transportation Are You?

It’s Sunday, and you know what that means! The Autostraddle editors have prepped a brand new way for you to procrastinate from the little Sunday tasks you promised yourself you’d do in the form of a vaguely lesbian personality quiz!!!!! This time, I ask the question I’m sure has been on your heart and mind: What lesbian form of transportation are you? What constitutes lesbian transportation? You’ll have to take the quiz to find out, but I’m sure you can imagine at least some. Haven’t we all looked at a particular car and thought: lesbian.

Quiz: What Lesbian Form of Transportation Are You?

It’s gay movie night! Pick a movie to watch!(Required)
What snacks are you having at gay movie night?(Required)
What sweet treat are you having at gay movie night?(Required)
Pick a form of mass transit:(Required)
What’s your favorite kind of juice?(Required)
Pick a sport:(Required)
What sounds good for dinner?(Required)
Thirsty? Pick a way to rehydrate:(Required)
What homemade treat sounds best?(Required)
How do you like to spend relaxing alone time?(Required)
What’s your favorite thing to look at in nature?(Required)
Pick a green:(Required)

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Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 966 articles for us.

8 Comments

  1. I got A Megabus in 2011! I never took it but I do like being described as a connecter.

    I might have already mentioned this, but the lesbian sweater quiz a couple weeks ago changed my life for the better. I got “floaty cardigan” – a style that I didn’t know existed and I’m a cardigan fanatic. So of course I had to buy one and now I get to stride down the hallway at work with my black wool cardigan duster billowing behind me like Neo in the Matrix.

    • omgggg thrilling to know that my quiz inspired something!! and omg yes I like long black dusters specifically for the Neo vibes!!!

  3. Oh geesh! The Amtrak train fits me albeit makes me feel old (but who at 50 doesn’t?!) no road tripping or roller skates for me. I’ll take my Amtrak neat with a glass of still water, a big book, and a long time to read it.

Comments are closed.

Sundance 2025: ‘Sally’ Is a Documentary Portrait of Sally Ride and Her Secret Lesbian Partner of 27 Years

Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance bringing daily updates on the best of LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond. Follow along for more coverage or read her review of Sally below. 

Every year at Sundance there are a handful of bio-docs about prominent figures in recent history. These films are rarely groundbreaking as films, but the best ones play a valuable role in creating a more complex portrait of someone whose name has grown ubiquitous. As the first American woman to go to space, Sally Ride is a fitting subject for one of these films. But Ride’s partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy, is the true star.

Ride wasn’t out — even to her sister who is also a lesbian — until her death. She told Tam that she could write whatever she wanted in the obituary and Tam wanted to finally be honest. Every time Tam is on-screen that’s true again. She’s delightfully blunt, funny and charming, and matter-of-fact. That she was willing to be kept secret all those years is a testament to her deep love for Sally.

The film does a good job revealing the culture at NASA and in the U.S. at large during the 70’s and 80’s. Ride was closeted as a lesbian, but she couldn’t be closeted as a woman. The overt sexism she faced was immense and it makes an understandable case for why she couldn’t handle any more persecution.

But her sexuality wasn’t the only thing Ride hid. She also underplayed her ambitions. I enjoyed the sections of the film focusing on her queerness, but I also loved the brief look into how eager this person was to fight for what she wanted. Our culture celebrates people who we perceive to be reluctant heroes, but the truth is it takes a certain gumption to take on that amount of visibility. While an anecdote about Ride subtly sabotaging a fellow female astronaut may not be the film’s most wholesome moment, I appreciated this suggestion that not only did Ride care more than she could say in the media, she was also imperfect in that pursuit.

The film is at its weakest in its final chapter when it tries to summarize Ride’s legacy with platitudes. That’s how these kinds of documentaries work. They might dabble with complexity in the middle, but the final moments are there to further codify their subject’s status as an icon.

Was Sally Ride a hero? A trailblazer? An important figure in American and scientific and feminist history? Sure! But after watching this documentary I’ll also think of her as the scientist who flipped some switches to sabotage her coworker’s first test, who drew a map so her crush could visit her in pre-flight quarantine, whose tendency from childhood onward to stand on her tippy-toes won the heart of a woman named Tam O’Shaughnessy.

No one is just an icon. In life, Ride wasn’t allowed to show her full humanity. In death, let’s make sure we don’t make the same mistake.

Sally will be released later this year.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

The Most Anticipated Queer Books for February 2025

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We’re switching up the way we do our most anticipated LGBTQ books lists here at Autostraddle. Instead of doing them roughly quarterly or seasonally like we’ve done in the past, we’re going to do them monthly! That’s right: Every month on the first, you can expect a brand new preview of all the queer books set to come out in the coming weeks. The multi-month guides were becoming too big to handle, and that’s a great “problem” to have! It simply means there are so many queer books coming outevery single month. In addition to a change of schedule, we’re also introducing a new section of these lists where we pick a handful of our TOP most anticipated titles for that month, followed then by the rest of the month’s schedule. So, without further ado, here are our top picks for most anticipated queer books for February 2025!

Autostraddle’s Top Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books for February 2025

A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States
Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavitch
Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez
All the Parts We Exile by Roza Nozari

A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States, by multiple authors (February 1, Nonfiction)

Edited by Carolyn Wolf-Gould, Dallas Denny, Jamison Green, and Kyan Lynch and featuring over 40 authors, this is the most comprehensive history of trans healthcare ever written. It comes out today, and we feel like it’s an especially important text to highlight during this time of widespread and coordinated efforts to not just prevent access to life-saving healthcare but to also paint these procedures and medicine as harmful and violent. As this book proves, trans medicine and gender-affirming care are not new. “The book argues that in many cultures, transgender people were celebrated and revered, until those cultures came into contact with Western influence,” writes the 19th. Indeed, gender nonconformity has always existed.

Reading the Waves, by Lidia Yuknavitch (February 3, Memoir)

The author of Kristen Stewart’s favorite book The Chronology of Water is back with a memoir that examines the power of literature to reframe traumatic and difficult memories. It’s about art and storytelling’s abilities to transform, and listen, I would read pretty much anything Lidia Yuknavitch writes —and you should, too.

Mutual Interest, by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (February 4, Historical Fiction)

Set at the turn of the 20th century, this novel promises a different kind of queer love story and a sprawling tale of capitalism. Clandestine lesbian Vivian works her way into NYC’s upper crust and sets her sights on Oscar, an up-and-coming businessman with a successful soap business. She clocks Oscar as gay and proposes a marriage of convenience, and the two also get in bed with a man named Squire to build out Oscar’s business into a massive personal toiletries empire, Oscar and Squire becoming not only business partners but also lovers. Three scheming power gays! This definitely sounds like a fun one.

Alligator Tears, by Edgar Gomez (February 11, Memoir)

Edgar Gomez’s High-Risk Homosexual is one of my favorite queer memoirs from recent years, and I’m thrilled they’re back with another memoir promising more gay Florida shit. The memoir-in-essays reflects on the false promises of the American dream, queer love, working-class struggles, and fake teeth. I’ve been obsessed ever since I heard the title tbh.

All the Parts We Exile, by Roza Nozari (February 25, Memoir)

Roza Nozari pens this memoir about her life as a queer Muslim and Iranian woman and youngest of three daughters. The memoir braids Nozari’s mother’s story with her own and is complex in its explorations of queer identity, exploring queer Iranian histories and the transformative experience of queer spaces.

And now enjoy the rest of our most anticipated LGBTQ book picks for February 2025. As always, if we missed something, give it a shoutout in the comments!

February 4

Drag Queen Story Hour by Tessa Quinones & Luke Shaefer
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray
Fearless and Free by Josephine Baker

Drag Queen Story Hour, by Tessa Quinones & Luke Shaefer, illustrated by Heather Sawyer (Children’s)

This illustrated children’s novel harnesses the magic and playfulness of drag queen story hours, beautiful displays of community and connection that have come under attack in recent years and have led to unconstitutional attempts to ban them.

The Lamb, by Lucy Rose (Horror)

I mean, this cover alone! This literary horror novel is about Margot and Mama, who live in a cottage and take in “strays,” people who have strayed too far from the road. Mama treats them to warmth and wine and then eats them. That’s right! A queer cannibalism novel! Coming out the same month Yellowjackets returns! Kismet!

Under the Same Stars, by Libba Bray (Historical Fiction)

A sprawling historical mystery, Under the Same Stars has three interconnected settings: 1940s Germany, 1980s West Germany, and 2020 New York City. In the 1980s timeline, American teen transplant Jenny falls for punk-rock Lena. The book blends romance, mystery, and historical fiction.

Fearless and Free, by Josephine Baker (Memoir)

You read that correctly! Josephine Baker’s life in her own words. Thrillingly, Baker’s memoir —originally published in France in 1949 —is being published in English for the first time ever. Learn all about one of history’s most famous bisexuals in her intimate telling of her own life.

Why on Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology 
The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture From the Margins to the Mainstream by Jon Savage
The Trial Period by Auburn Morrow
Queer Lasting: Ecologies of Care for a Dying World by Sarah Ensor

Why on Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology, edited by Rosiee Thor and Vania Stoyanova (Sci-Fi)

Queer characters —including humans and aliens! —populate some of the stories featured in this multi-author collection of literally out of this world fiction.

The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture From the Margins to the Mainstream, by Jon Savage (Nonfiction)

Perhaps someone should purchase this history of pop music from 1955 through 1979 that specifically looks at the queer influences and roots of the genre for Jojo Siwa.

The Trial Period, by Auburn Morrow (YA Romance)

A contemporary YA sapphic romance, The Trial Period promises some of the most beloved tropes of the genre, including fake-dating, slow-burn, and enemies-to-lovers romance. So if those are your jam, this probably will be, too!

Queer Lasting: Ecologies of Care for a Dying World, by Sarah Ensor (Non-Fiction)

I’ve never smashed the preorder button faster than I did for this book. As climate increasingly becomes the only thing I can think about, I’ve been obsessed with studying queer ecology, so this book couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for me personally!!! Author Sarah Ensor “turns to two periods of queer extinction for models of care, continuance, and collective action predicated on futurelessness: the 1890s, in which existing forms of erotic affiliation were extinguished through the binary of homo/heterosexuality, and the 1980s, in which the spread of the AIDS epidemic threatened the total loss of gay lives and of specific erotic ways of life.”

Cleavage: Men, Women and the Space Between Us by Jennifer Finney Boylan
This Ends in Embers by Kamilah Cole
A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff
Shoot the Moon by Ava Barry

Cleavage: Men, Women and the Space Between Us, by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Nonfiction)

The author of the first bestselling book by a trans author pens this book that combines memoir, history, criticism, and cultural analysis. She looks at the difference between coming out as trans in 2000 and present day and has a smart and humorous approach to her examinations of gender.

This Ends in Embers, by Kamilah Cole (YA Fantasy)

Queer romantasy readers, this one is for you! But it’s also a sequel (and conclusion to a duology), so first make sure to check out So Let Them Burn.

A World Worth Saving, by Kyle Lukoff (YA Fantasy)

Jewish mythology is woven into this trans YA fantasy book set during Covid lockdown. Main character A and his friend Yarrow are dragged by their parents to weekly meetings with a transphobic group called Save Our Sons and Daughters that turns out to be run by literal demons.

Shoot the Moon, by Ava Barry (Mystery)

Protagonist Rainey spends her high school days breaking into houses Bling Ring-style with her friends, using LA’s wildfires as cover for their little acts of rebellious larceny. One day, one of those friends goes missing. Flash-forward nine years to Rainey working as a private investigator in her adult life, recently tasked with a missing persons case that ends up, naturally, connecting back to her friend Alice’s cold case.

Feb 6

Fragments of Wasted Devotion, by Mia Arias Tsang (Memoir)

Mia Arias Tsang’s debut is a genre-fluid collection of flash essays and vignettes. Mia has written for Autostraddle before, and we’re always thrilled to hype books from past contributors!

Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line, by Elizabeth Lovatt (Nonfiction)

Elizabeth Lovatt uncovers and presents the history hidden in the pages of the Lesbian Line logbook, a log of calls from 1993 to 1998 to a telephone line for lesbians seeking connection and someone to talk with (or rant to). She reimagines the voices of the volunteers at the line and unspools the stories of these callers.

Feb 11

Loca, by Alejandro Heredia (February 11, Literary Fiction)

I’ve already heard some great things about this one from friends with galleys. Set in 1999 New York, the novel follows best friends Sal, a science nerd and book worm who hates his job, and Charo, a young mother working at a supermarket. Sal finds queer love at a gay club, and suddenly the two find themselves immersed in a whole new world and questioning the lives they’ve been prescribed to live.

But Not Too Bold, by Hache Pueyo (Horror)

We love horror novelas around here, and this one is a sapphic monster romance novella with gothic fantasy touches. Sign me the hell up!

Where Shadows Bloom, by Catherine Bakewell (YA Fantasy)

We’ve got another sapphic romantasy here, this one about a girl named Ofelia and her lady knight Lope.

It’s All Or Nothing, Vale, by Andrea Beatrix Arango (YA)

A novel in verse for young readers, It’s All Or Nothing, Vale is about young fencing prodigy Valentina Camacho struggling to recover from an accident. Vico Ortiz is narrating the audiobook!

Mountain Upside Down, by Sara Ryan (YA)

This middle grade book is about a 13-year-old girl named Alex who lives with her retired librarian grandmother and who has recently asked her best friend PJ if they could be more than friends. But it’s baby’s first long distance relationship, as PJ is set to move out of town. Meanwhile, Alex’s town is being threatened by a referendum on library funding. A book that teaches young people about young queer love and the importance of funding libraries? Y’all better buy this for all the kids in your life.

The Princess Protection Program #2: After Ever After, by Alex London (YA Fantasy)

Another LGBTQ offering for young readers, this book is about a princess who escapes her fairy tale to enter the real world.

Feb 18

Queering the Asian Diaspora: East and Southeast Asian Sexuality, Identity and Cultural Politics, by Hongwei Bao (Nonfiction)

Bringing a necessary queer lens to its work on anti-Asian racism, Asian diaspora, and Asian art, Hongwei Bao takes an anti-nationalist, feminist, decolonial approach to challenging the dominant narratives about Asian identity and culture.

Hungerstone, by Kat Dunn (Horror)

Here’s another one that grabbed my attention with its stunning cover. It’s an explicitly queer and feminist retelling of Carmilla. Between this and the recent release of a new edition of Carmilla that features edits and notes by Carmen Maria Machado, vampire literature dykes are so up.

The Girl You Know, by Ellie Gonzalez Rose (YA Thriller)

This dark academia thriller is about a young girl trying to solve her own twin sister’s murder. At the same time as she unravels disturbing secrets at the elite boarding school her sister attended, she starts falling for her roommate Claudia.

The Antlered King (The Raven’s Trade #2), by Marianne Gordon (Fantasy)

This is a follow-up to The Gilded Crown, concluding the dark fantasy duology about Hellevir, a girl who can raise the dead.

Cursebound (Faebound #2), by Saara El-Arifi (Romantasy)

Queer fantasy readers gobbled up Saara El-Arifi’s novel Faebound, about elven sisters and set in a queer-normative fantasy world. This is the second novel in the planned trilogy.

Limitless: Poetry of an Aromantic & Asexual Journey, by Patrick Bex (Poetry)

These poems track the speaker’s journey of coming into asexual and aromantic identity and community.

Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen and Girlbosses Against Liberation, by Sophie Lewis (Nonfiction)

In this text, Sophie Lewis “offers an unflinching tour of enemy feminisms, from 19th century imperial feminists and police officers to 20th century KKK feminists and pornophobes to today’s anti-abortion and TERF feminists.”

WASH, by Ebony Stewart (Poetry)

Poems of queer Black girlhood and womanhood pepper the pages of this collection, which is Ebony Stewart’s third.

February 25

Beyond Bananas and Condoms: The LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Sex Education You Never Got In School, by Dee Whitnell (Nonfiction)

LGBTQIA-inclusive sex education should not be a radical thing, and YET! As this country guts the already very bad and exclusionary sex education in schools that barely exists as is, a book like this is of the utmost importance.

On Her Terms, by Amy Spalding (Romance)

We exclusively revealed the cover and an excerpt for this book this past summer, and now it’s here! Get a taste.

The Other March Sisters, by Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko & Liz Parker (Historical Fiction)

Meg, Beth, and Amy get their time to shine in this Little Women-inspired historical novel. It’s categorized as LGBTQ fiction, and based on the descriptions of each of the sisters in the official summary, it sounds like Beth is the fruity one.

Bea Mullins Takes a Shot, by Emily Deibert (Middle Grade)

This middle grade novel is about a seventh grade girl who joins her school’s all-girls hockey team, which ends up threatened by budget cuts. It looks cute!

Wicked Pursuit, by Katee Robert (Dark Adult Romance)

This queer, sexy, strange, fucked up (complimentary) take on Little Red Riding Hood is a novella packaged with another novella in one special release!

Cover Story, by Celia Laskey (Romance)

The author of queer novel-in-stories Under the Rainbow is back, this time with an adult romance about an anxious publicist tasked with keeping a gay starlet in the closet who she falls in love with. Drama!

Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection, by Jaime Hernandez (Graphic Novel)

A book born of Jaime Hernandez’s popular Love and Rockets comics, Life Drawing pulls together two generations of his beloved characters in one sprawling story of infidelity, sisterhood, love, interpersonal drama, humor, and more.

Big Name Fan, by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare (Romance)

Actresses Bexley Simon and Sam Farmer played detectives on TV five years ago, and despite hunger from their fans who shipped not only the characters but the real women behind them, their chemistry on screen and off went unfulfilled. Now it’s time for a reunion special that brings Bex and Sam back together as hosts of a rewatch podcast. Big Name Fan is a sapphic romance all about fan culture.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, fiction, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the former managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, The Rumpus, Cake Zine, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. When she is not writing, editing, or reading, she is probably playing tennis. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.

Kayla has written 966 articles for us.

Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3297 articles for us.

7 Comments

  1. I had noticed that so many popular books last year were gay! And a lot of the time it wasn’t the main thing, but still important. They were reviewed as good books, not just as gay books. I’m so glad we get a list every month now 😊!

  3. Thank you for including The Other March Sisters! Queer characters include: Beth (as you guessed), Laurie, and Meg (though Meg’s is a little more subtext than the other two, but if you’re a bisexual woman, it’s pretty obvious)

  4. I just finished Reading the Waves! It was fantastic. So beautifully written and thought-provoking. (It is extremely heavy, so do look up content warnings first.) Now I have to read Chronology of Water.

  5. Very excited this is going monthly! Always snag the fantasy (and most of the horror) listed. Thank you for putting these together.

  7. Alligator Tears and The Lamb already sound incredible – I’m coming down here to comment before i keep going! I’m delighted this is monthly, now; the quarterly ones got a bit intimidating, and I was finding myself picking up fewer books because of that. This is much easier to engage with and get excited about!

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‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Episode 1705 Recap: Saved By the Pull

This recap of RuPaul’s Drag Race 1705 contains spoilers.

Disaster avoided. But it should never have come to this! I know I’m biased because she’s my fave but Arriety did not deserve that placement.

But first! In the aftermath of Joella’s elimination, Kori is upset about being in the bottom. And a lot of people don’t think Onya should’ve won? I do not agree with either sentiment.

It’s a new week and Arriety’s hair is styled like devil horns because she’s ready to get a little crazy. All the queens seem to be having a good time as Jewels asks who is going to be piggy of the week and eat and eat and eat.

Unfortunately, this week is more comedy with RDR Live. Lydia says she’s not the most skilled at taking words and making them funny which is, in fact, the funniest she’ll be all episode. Hormona brings up having done comedy for the talent show which seems like something I’d choose to let people forget.

The roles are given out with minimal drama. Onya takes on hosting which no one else wants. Crystal and Lana fight over a dumb blonde character but Crystal gives in quickly. Hormona and Lydia fight over an old lady and Hormona gives in quickly too.

Crystal and Lexi are weekend update hosts with Suzie playing RuPaul’s former babysitter as their guest. Lexi says she wants to have Michael Che/Colin Jost vibes which is funny given how transphobic they are. Even funnier is how frustrated Lexi gets as Suzie takes on the additional role of sketch comedy expert giving very firm directions to her scene partners.

Hormona, Sam, and Jewels are playing lesbians in a beaver twist on the Schweddy Balls sketch. Sam says she has a hidden lesbian inside her and decides to honor that lesbian by doing the oldest joke in the book and donning a deep voice for her character. Meanwhile, Hormona decides to be southern for some reason, and Jewels decides to be Australian because it sounds funnier when she says beaver. (Correct.)

Acacia and Lydia are doing an emergency room-set Golden Girls riff. Lydia confesses to never having seen The Golden Girls which makes her fight for this role feel even more misguided.

Onya, Arriety, Kori, and Lana are doing a neanderthal town hall sketch and Arriety has decided to GO BIG.

That ends up being the opening sketch and Arriety’s big does not pay off. Onya in her minor role is so casually better than anyone else in the sketch. That said, Arriety isn’t bad. Her approach doesn’t have a lot of texture, but many, many queens in seasons past have been praised for going big in comedy challenges in ways that are humorous while not totally working. The biggest surprise is the writing of the sketch is kind of good compared to what we usually get — in Drag Race comedy challenges and on real SNL.

Onya continues to kill with her monologue. The jokes aren’t very good — unclear if she wrote them? I assume not? — but she’s charming and her delivery is great.

The beaver sketch is horrible. All three performers are glued to the cue cards and barely interacting with one another. Jewels’ accent is fun, but Sam is terrible and Hormona is a dud. Also the writing is bad.

Next, RuPaul performs as musical guest. No comment.

Weekend update is… a struggle. Lexi is so in her head after Suzie’s direction that none of the jokes land and the jokes aren’t good to begin with. (Why is Patti LuPone getting dragged??) Suzie is a standout as her character, but Lexi and Crystal are painful to watch. The thing Suzie failed to realize as sketch comedy expert is someone feeling comfortable goes a long way. Even if Lexi’s ideas weren’t good, she would’ve done better getting to do them with ease.

The last sketch is the Golden Girls one and Acacia does as well as Lydia does poorly. I thought Acacia really shined! Especially when guest judge Paul W. Downs showed up and she had at least one scene partner to work with.

Overall, I’d say this RDR Live! was still less painful than the one SNL episode I’ve watched in recent years — musical guest aside.

The runway theme is Tickled Pink. Onya’s outfit is entirely made of sneakers and looks so cool except the headpiece which weakened it for me. Arriety bravely keeps her same makeup look and looks incredible in latex spikes. Jewels looks hot in an elevated My Fair Lady bell bottom jumpsuit. Lydia is a penis with hot pink shoes that pull focus from the balls thus ruining the look IMO. Crystal is in silicone popped bubble gum look. And Suzie is a clown.

The top is Onya, Suzie, and Hormona?? Absolutely baffled by Hormona’s inclusion here. Her very prom runway gown is fine, but her sketch performance was so bland! Acacia’s 80s punk rock runway wasn’t my favorite, but it was good enough to get her a top spot along with her sketch performance. I would’ve even given a top spot to Lana in her Little Bo Beep look over Hormona.

The bottom is Sam, Lydia, and Arriety?? Again, Arriety did not do great, but she took a swing! And she didn’t miss so badly to be in the bottom. Sorry to Lexi and Crystal both of whom I like, but they belonged in that spot. Even Hormona should’ve been bottom over Arriety. On top of that, Hormona says she wanted Lydia’s role initially which feels like kicking someone when they’re down.

I can see an argument for putting Arriety in the bottom in order to give critique — yes, we said go bigger, but not like this. But I see ZERO argument for Arriety lip syncing instead of Sam. ZERO.

Alas Suzie wins — totally solid pick since Onya did win last week — and then Arriety and Lydia have to lip sync to “Boogie Wonderland” by Earth, Wind & Fire. From the beginning, Arriety looks so upset and defeated. She can’t find the energy and Lydia easily wins the lip sync.

Thank God for the badonkadonk tank! Arriety pulls the #1 lever and Michelle comes crashing into the water. So, yes, the right levers ended up being 17, the season number.

The judges have been so harsh on Arriety I’m not feeling optimistic about her longevity. But I’m glad she’ll at least have another week to show more of what she can do.

Teleport Us to Mars!! Here Are Some Random Thoughts:

+ In the confessional, Sam says she thought Kori was going to be a comedy queen so what does she do? It was funnier when Bianca said this in season six.

+ Hormona didn’t know beaver was slang for vagina until her sketch. What are they teaching the kids these days?? (She’s one year younger than me.)

+ Obsessed with Onya saying she was modeling herself after Jennifer Lawrence, a loud crazy Black lady, only to realize she meant Jennifer Lewis. A real Barbara from Abbott Elementary moment.

+ Untucked is finally back to being interesting. The fashion girlies came for Suzie’s clown look, but Suzie and Onya both very gently lessened the drama. Arriety still managed to go one-by-one and explain why all the other girls should’ve been in the bottom instead of her — including Hormona.

+ Queen I’m rooting for: Arriety, Onya

+ Queen I’m horniest for: Arriety

+ Queen I want to sashay: Hormona, Sam

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

7 Comments

  1. Did it trouble anyone else that they showed Lexi’s LinkedIn page during the discussion of her day job where she’s not out as trans? Obvi she was openly talking about it with cameras on in the workroom, but to put the photo and government name there felt like asking someone to doxx her. I love Lexi & she must be protected!

  2. My gf and I aren’t Hormona fans but we agreed that she was in the top 3 this challenge.
    What did you think of the kumbaya girls? It’s funny that the anti-kumbaya queens were the ones upset during Untucked lol.

  3. Oh and Lydia’s lip sync deserves some praise. It was very andro-David Bowie, Willow Pill-esque and very unexpected.

  4. Hi, I love these recaps so very much, but please—can you avoid doing spoilers in the title/cover photo?! I purposefully don’t read them until after I’ve watched the episode, but just a glimpse from the Autostraddle home page told me what was going to happen. Same thing when you post a picture of the lipsync and I see immediately who the bottom two will be!

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February 2025: What’s New, Gay and Streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Max, Paramount+, Prime Video and Peacock

After a relatively robust January, we are now barreling into February, perhaps often in search of effective methods of disassociation that also feature the motherlode of lesbian, bisexual, queer, gay women and/or trans characters. Unfortunately there is not a lot happening for us this month but there are some Yellowjackets! And isn’t that nice? Here are 100 movies you could watch.

Netflix’s LGBTQ+ February 2025

VALERIA. Teresa Riott as Nerea, Mima Rivera as Georgina in episode 05 of VALERIA. Cr. Felipe Hernández/Netflix © 202

Teresa Riott as Nerea, Mima Rivera as Georgina in episode 05 of VALERIA. Cr. Felipe Hernández/Netflix © 2025

Celebrity Bear Hunt // Season One // Feb 5
So, like twelve celebrities are sent to a beach house in Costa Rica, given survival-related tasks (e.g, jump off a moving boat, build a shelter) and if they fail they are released into a jungle known as the “Bear Pit” where British adventurer / writer Bear Grylls hunts them down? Amongst the celebrities in question are bisexual Spice Girl Mel B, gay journalist / TV presenter Steph McGovern and pansexual fashion model Lottie Moss.

Apple Cider Vinegar: Limited Series // Feb 6
Belle Gibson was a single Mom in Australia who lied about having cancer, lied about “curing” herself through a specific diet, and created a widely acclaimed and super-popular app, The Whole Pantry, aimed at promoting her “cure” to others. This series tells her story and in doing so invents (I assume) the character of Chanelle (queer actress Aisha Dee), who does seem to be framed as a queer character (you’ll see what I mean) — but her queerness isn’t really adressed, let alone central to the narrative. Chanelle is the best friend and eventual manager of Belle’s idol, Milla (Alycia Debnam-Carey), an influencer who actually did have cancer and attempted to cure herself through juicing and coffee enemas, as well as Belle’s eventual manager. This series is a ride. I’m still trying to parse through how I feel about it, honestly!

Spencer (2021) // Feb 8
Our very own Kristen Stewart plays our very own Princess Diana in this critically acclaimed (by me) film that also features her royal dresser, Maggie (Sally Hawkins), who is gay!

Valeria: Season 4 // Feb 14
In the final season of Valeria, the four close friends at the story’s epicenter are venturing into their thirties and facing new challenges. Our resident queer character, Nerea (Teresa Riott), will be seeking “balance between her professional life as a freelancer and stability with Georgina (Mima Riera).”

Hulu’s New February 2025 Queer Movie

two girls in the summer

In the Summers (2024) – Feb 5
Queer director Alesandra Lacorazza Samudio’s directorial debut is a semi-autobiographical film about two sisters, girly Eva and tomboy Victoria, who live in California and spend fraught summers with their father in New Mexico. ”The greatest strength of In the Summers are these well-written, realistic, complicated characters and watching how the change — or don’t — and how their relationships change — or don’t — over time,” wrote Drew.

Prime Video’s Trans February 2025

laverne cox standing with a small white girl in a blazer in "clean slate"

Milk (2009) // February 1
The Harvey Milk biopic follows the influential leader and the group of activists that came up around him, including Allison Pill as LGBT rights activist Anne Kronenberg.

Clean Slate: Season One // Feb 6
Laverne Cox stars as Desiree Slate, a gallerist who returns home to Alabama for the first time since fleeing for New York as a teenager, in this smart little comedy that’s been in development for seven years. Now an out trans woman reeling from a series of dysfunctional relationships with men, she’s going back to the root of it all and trying to reconnect with her father, carwash owner Harry Slate (George Wallace), after 23 years of estrangement.

Paramount+ Showtime February 2025

L-R: Sophie Nélisse as Teen Shauna, Vanessa Prasad as Teen Gen, Jasmin Savoy Brown as Teen Taissa, Silvana Estifanos as Teen Britt and Liv Hewson as Teen Van in Yellowjackets, episode 8, season 3, streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, 2025. Photo Credit: Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.

Kailey Schwerman/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.

Yellowjackets: Season Three Premiere // Feb 14
At last we have arrived at the long-awaited third season of Yellowjackets, and yes of course Kayla will be recapping every minute of this event as we do a little time jump in both timelines, grappling with cannibalism, an unexpected murder from the cliffhanger finale and Natalie’s reign as queen. Hilary Swank and Joel McHale are joining the cast. We cannot wait!

Tracker: Season 2B Premiere // Feb 16
Season Two of this wildly popular program about a guy who tracks people down, sometimes with the help of his handler, butch lesbian Velma Bruin (Abby Mc, returns to CBS.

Peacock LGBTQ+ Movies for February 2025

two women in bed lookin like they are gonna make out

I’ll Be Right There (2024) // Feb 28
Sepideh Moafi and Edie Falco play lesbian lovers in this “sweet indie dramedy” centered on Wanda, a bookkeeper at a bar stretched thin as a mom, daughter and ex-wife — while also hooking up with Sophie (Sepideh Moafi) and hooking up with her boss, Marshall (unfortunately played by Michael Rapaport).

HBO Max February 2025

throuple of 90 day fiancee

Life Partners (2014) // February 1
Leighton Meester is Sasha, a lesbian who’s entrenched in a deeply co-dependent best friendship with Paige, who is straight — a friendship that’s tested when Paige meets a man (Adam Brody) she actually likes and Sasha hates sharing. B Nichols called it “a film in which everything that could go usually wrong in a lesbian film inexplicably doesn’t!” Beth Dover and Gabourey Sidibe are delightful as Sasha’s queer friends.

90 Day Fiancé : Season 11 Premiere // February 16 (TLC)
Big news for 90 Day Fiancéfans (Nic) — the series will be introducing its very first throuple — Matt, Amani and Any. Any, an exotic dancer from Tijuana, is invited to Matt and Amani’s married family life in San Diego, as the couple must decide if they’re ready to divorce so one of them can marry Any, thus enabling her to immigrate to the U.S. Returning couple Alliya and Shawn face new challenges as Shawn finds that Alliya, a trans woman, “is evolving into a very different person than the one he first fell in love with as she continues to transition and explore surgical options.”

The White Lotus: Season Three Premiere // February 16
We have spent a lot of time scrutinizing a lesbian kiss in the initial teaser for White Lotus, attempting to determine whomst is involved and if it is perhaps a storyline or just a thing that is happening for some other reason. It appears that the characters played by Charlotte Le Bon and Aimee Lou Wood are kissing in a scene that I think is some kind of wild hotel room party. But Aimee’s character, Chelsea, is there with her husband, so who knows! Anyhow I think we will all watch it regardless.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3297 articles for us.

3 Comments

    • nope. no queer content at all, just a queer character whose queerness is not necessarily directly stated, it’s just kinda there. During her sort of “intro” montage where she describes who she is, there is a picture of her kissing a girl, and there are other scenes where it just seems clear that she’s queer? but it’s not even directly mentioned, so :-/

      • That’s a bummer, was really hoping Aisha & Alycia were going to be a thing based on the photos. Is there anything being released soon that you’ve also seen where we can expect some good lady lovin’?

Comments are closed.

Sundance 2025: ‘Rains Over Babel’ Is Queer Cinema That’s Wholesome and Transgressive

Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance bringing daily updates on the best of LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond. Follow along for more coverage or read her review of Rains Over Babel below. 

Not only does Hollywood love the gender binary, they also love the binary between queer cinema that’s wholesome and queer cinema that’s edgy. The mainstream work that will fill your heart and give you hope is rarely the same as what will turn you on or have you ready to burn shit down. Thankfully, there are films made outside of the U.S. that do all of this at once. Thankfully, there are films like Rains Over Babel.

Gala del Sol’s feature debut is a reimagining of Dante’s Inferno where people — either explicitly queer or hot enough to seem queer — gather in a dive bar of purgatory to barter over their souls. The costuming and production design creates a world unto its own, a combination of sci-fi, fantasy, and hip realism.

Several characters and several stories intersect on this one day at the bar called Babel led by narrators/guardian devils El Boticario (Santiago Pineda) and Erato (Sofia Buenaventura). Timbí (Jose Mogica) and Uma (Celina Biurrun) are trying to find a missing musician to save Timbí’s dad (John Alex Castillo) from financial (and physical) ruin and to save Uma’s daughter from death. Dante (Felipe Aguilar Rodríguez), long dead, is trying to finish his last day of collecting souls for La Flaca (Saray Rebolledo). Monet (Johan Zapata), recently dead, is trying to strike a deal to return to his body. And Jacob (William Hurtado), the son of a pastor, is torn between his biological family and his new drag family. Oh and did I mention Uma has a talking lizard?

Throughout all of these tales, there are fight sequences and dance numbers and moments of delicious melodrama. This is a very sincere film about life and death and self-acceptance, but it’s also endless fun. The craft on display is intoxicating and it’s all serving a big, beating heart.

This is the kind of queer media I wish kids could watch. Of course, there’s plenty here to be enjoyed by adults, but the clear messaging wrapped in a sexy package feels so needed for young people. Sure, someone ODs and there are various forms of debauchery on display. I just don’t think life needs to be sanitized on-screen for young queer people when it’s so rarely sanitized in real life.

Because Rains Over Babel is Colombian and artful in its form and setting, I can imagine it living primarily in an arthouse market. But this is a live-action cartoon! It’s basically Nimona but with an extended sequence at a sex dungeon! I hope it finds the wide audience it deserves.

This has been a terrible week to be trans in the U.S. and I’m so grateful I could take a break and spend a couple hours in Gala del Sol’s fantastical world. It’s proof that a film doesn’t have to be palatable to provide warmth and hope. And can I remind you this film has a talking lizard??

Rains Over Babel is streaming on the Sundance online platform today and tomorrow.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

Sundance 2025: ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’ Is More Than Andrea Gibson’s Cancer Story — It’s Their Love Story

Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance bringing daily updates on the best of LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond. Follow along for more coverage or read her review of the new Andrea Gibson documentary Come See Me in the Good Light below. 

Here at Autostraddle we’ve been writing about Andrea Gibson since at least 2010, doing a full interview with them in 2013. A spoken word poet and activist, Gibson has been a queer icon for many years. As the new documentary Come See Me in the Good Light illustrates, Gibson is a rockstar of the poetry world, literally touring and performing in music venues.

But this film isn’t a straight-forward artist portrait. It’s a portrait of Gibson and their partner, fellow poet Megan Falley, as they navigate Gibson’s incurable cancer diagnosis. It’s a tender look at two queer people in love and a celebration of the desire to live.

Gibson and Falley are two very different people and very different artists. Gibson is known for their simple vocabulary while Falley is more verbose. Gibson wears their feelings while Falley intellectualizes. Gibson finds anxiety in anticipation while Falley is calm until something occurs. The best moments of the documentary are watching them navigate these differences and practice the ways they’ve learned to communicate with one another.

If you haven’t already figured it out, this is a very gay film. If it wasn’t so heavily about death and illness, it would feel like a parody of lesbian emotional processing. I loved every second of that. It’s rare to see a couple on-screen — in fiction or nonfiction — that always feels like they’re working together, imperfect but always trying.

And if that wasn’t gay enough, Gibson is also still very close friends with all of their exes.

There’s so much humor shared between Gibson and Falley, as well as both of them with their intimate circle of friends. Produced by Tig Notaro, this often feels like her best work — a laugh one moment, a sob the next.

The emotions of the film — and Gibson’s work — are so palpable I wish director Ryan White had dared to pull back in his use of an obvious sentimental score. The film is really well-directed in where his camera is looking, which footage he chose to use, and the narrative throughlines he creates, and this felt like the one aspect that belonged in a less mature film. There is plenty to feel without the sonic guidance.

But this is a minor complaint for a film that’s deeply affecting. It’s a worthy portrait of Gibson, of their relationship with Falley, and of very real ideas that have been turned into platitudes like chosen family and queer perseverance.

I’m positive for the BRCA mutation and had my first scare last year. Cancer has always been a big part of my family and will likely be a big part of my future. Watching Gibson, I felt inspired to appreciate each year, each day, each moment I’m on this planet to give and receive love. If there’s one thing you can learn from a poet, it’s that just because something is corny doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Come See Me in the Good Light will be released later this year.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

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Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

How Rachel Rampleman Built the Largest Drag Archive in the U.S.

Since March 2019, artist and archivist Rachel Rampleman has been creating the largest archive of digital drag performances in the United States and quite possibly the world. Called Life is Drag, the project currently features over 350 video portraits by 200+ drag artists. In vibrant color, the artists enter Rampleman’s spotlight, where she then records two performances and an interview with each subject. These all live on the Life is Drag website with the performers’ names, Venmos, Instagrams, locations, and bios.

Rampleman’s work has since taken her not just across New York City where she lives, but to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and New England to record performers for the project. With Rampleman’s art background — she counts among her influences Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, and Diane Arbus, as well as David Lynch and Tim Burton — the work became both an art project and an archive. A drag historian myself, we learned quickly just how much we have in common, most notably our shared passion for preserving the legacy of drag artists, especially in a time when the queer community faces new challenges from the incoming presidential administration. “I feel like everything I’d been doing before was preparation for this [project],” she says. “It was like a rehearsal for working with these drag artists who I consider it a privilege to know and to work with. I can’t imagine doing any other project that would feel more important or meaningful.”

At the “femme and queer led, independent multidisciplinary art space” SoMad in Manhattan, Rampleman will soon begin her latest residency, and her work will also take her to Nebraska with arts organization BFF Omaha later this year. I spoke to Rampleman about Life is Drag, building a drag archive, the totality of the drag art experience, and more.

Elyssa: In your work, you traverse, as you write, “gender, artifice and spectacle.” What drew you to these subjects?

Rachel: I trace it back to grad school at New York University. I moved here from Cincinnati, and I was trying to make art with a capital A and I didn’t really know what that was. I felt a lot of pressure and stress doing it at a place like NYU. I was lost in making all kinds of work, mostly print work and recontextualized appropriated work.

For my thesis, I eventually landed on doing a linear narrative, documentary-style video about my younger sister, Sarah, and her obsession and then brief relationship with Bret Michaels from [the band] Poison. I was a nerd, a late bloomer; she developed more quickly than I did, even though she was four years younger. I thought more about my adolescence–I dated a lot of musicians and hair metal guys. I remember being confused that these men were so misogynistic, but they dressed up the way women did, but then they treated women like shit. After that, I worked with the world’s first and only all-female Mötley Crüe tribute band. I saw that hair metal was drag, but I wasn’t really thinking about it in those terms yet. I was confused about that performance of gender and the complete spectacle of a Poison show. The most interesting thing for me to explore was people not playing by the rules. Then I ended up working with professional female bodybuilders.

Miss Malice — @missmalice.bk

Elyssa: How did you arrive at drag?

Rachel: I eventually found my way into drag through the DJ Ickarus, who helps produce Bushwig. They brought me in to shoot one of their projects. That’s where I met Untitled Queen. She inspired me to do Life is Drag, and she was the first drag artist I worked with. I’d never seen drag before I went to Bushwig for the first time in 2017. It was a life-altering, profoundly joyous moment. I remember being in that space, feeling that joy and collective energy, seeing the creativity and the beauty and all on a dime, no fucking budgets. I was really inspired. Coming from a visual art background, I was like, damn, I go see shit at Lincoln Center, at the Wooster Group, at the Met, at MoMA, and nothing moved me even close to the way Bushwig moved me. Especially seeing Untitled Queen perform. I started going to The Rosemont and Ickarus introduced me to her. I had preconceived notions of drag, like a lot of people do, that it’s usually a cisgender man dressing up like a woman and doing pageant queen kind of stuff. Before Bushwig, I didn’t know that kind of drag existed, that there was a range of drag.

Untitled Queen — @untitledqueen

Elyssa: What made you want to start doing Life is Drag?

Rachel: It’s so funny you should ask that, Elyssa, because I was reading your book [Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City] and in the prologue you say you didn’t want these stories to get lost. I didn’t want these performances to get lost, or the stories. That’s why I interview the artists as well. I think drag is the most important art being made right now because it encompasses everything and it’s so inspiring. The project also shows me how quickly people could come and go and/or how quickly their drag personas could change. I think it’s very important that there be some documentation to preserve this work. I love the most experimental, arty, weird shit personally, but looking at that next to a pageant queen, or back to back, I think it’s inspiring to see the full range. Generally the goal has been to have as many people representing as many different kinds of drag from as many different backgrounds as possible.

I remember seeing the drag troupe Unforgivable Emotional Carnivore, which featured God Complex, Esther the Bipedal Entity, Pinwheel Pinwheel, and Menthol Menthol with guest artists. They would get together and basically do absurdist theater. They were coming at drag from theater, dance, writing, film and video backgrounds, all very well-informed about creativity and culture. You never knew what they were gonna bring. They would come up with a theme, and they’d workshop it, give it a title, and then they’d get on stage, and a lot of it was improvised. Seeing Unforgivable Emotional Carnivore made me feel what I wanted to feel when I’d go see the Wooster Group. They’re making incredible improvisatory theatre and they’re doing these amazing looks–the makeup, the costumes, the hair. The totality of it, like the Gesamtkunstwerk of it all, it’s like the total work of art drag. In your book you say, “It is my hope that the book provides a survey and serves as an introduction to these dynamic individuals and compels people to learn even more.” So if you just take out “book” and put in “archive,” in my artist statement, boom, we’re done. That’s why I do this work, too.

Arabella LaDessé — @arabella_thegoddess

Elyssa: What is your relationship to Life is Drag as both an artist and an archivist?

Rachel: I didn’t know I was an archivist at all, and I didn’t even after I’d worked with, I don’t know, 100 drag artists. It wasn’t until [drag historian] Joe Jeffreys said, you know you’re an archivist, right? At first I was like, no, I’m an artist. And then I was like, oh yeah, you can be both. It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive.

For 13 years, I worked with an artist who inspired me to be an artist, Paul Pfeiffer. He was known for the video loop–in the 90s, he would go through frame by frame, and manipulate each image and then put that back together in ways that made them feel very uncanny. During my residency at The Cell I brought him over for a studio visit. He was saying, do you think it’s art to document other people’s art? I wasn’t just going to a show and recording secretly from the sidelines. I’m putting a lot of thought into how best to capture this performance for posterity. One of the hardest parts of the project is trying to keep it cohesive as a series. The framing is always this. The performers are hardly moving at all. It’s very challenging for a lot of people. I also try to keep it as simple as possible because I usually do at least, ideally, two takes of each one, just in case there’s something glitchy or you don’t see it happening in real life in the first take. Then I just fade from black, fade to black, and tweak the audio and the color. Otherwise, I don’t do any editing and leave it as much of a pure, raw document of the performance as possible.

Mike Hawk — @lovemikehawk

Elyssa: What has working on Life is Drag taught you about the artform?

Rachel: In my personal life, I realized, I’m getting up and doing drag every day, and then it made me think, wait, everybody is, whether you put on a religious robe or you do corporate drag. That’s what inspired Life is Drag, the “you’re born naked, and the rest is drag” kind of idea. The more self-actualized you are, the happier you are. The joy in the drag community, it’s like they’re self-actualized, and they inspire other people to potentially be more themselves or their better selves or their truer selves.

I think probably the part that’s affected my thinking about drag the most has been the interviews with the drag artists, because I have my set of questions I ask everybody, and one that elicits interesting responses, is, how do you define drag? There’s a range of answers: drag is political, drag is not political; drag is about gender, drag is not about gender. In a video I did with drag artist Klondyke, Klondyke says if you’re wearing a different shade of red lipstick and you call it drag, who am I to tell you it’s not? That kind of sums it up: pretty much everything could fall under the drag umbrella.

Jayden Jamison — @thegoldendragking

Elyssa: I read that you consider this project your life’s purpose. Why is that?

Rachel: I feel like everything I’d been doing before was preparation for this project. It was like a rehearsal for working with these drag artists who I consider it a privilege to know and to work with. I can’t imagine doing any other project that would feel more important or meaningful. In a perfect world, maybe a less capitalistic world where art was more appreciated, I would just do this full time, and I would go all around America, all around the world. That would check all my favorite boxes–I’m being creative, I’m being collaborative, I get to travel, and I really enjoy doing this project. Everybody I meet along the way is so fucking inspiring and strong and cool and funny and so generous and non judgmental. It’s just as good as it gets for me. Aside from just trying to document these incredible performances and get them on the internet for people around the world to see, I also do want it to be a way of helping to support these artists. All of these performances are for sale. I split everything 50/50 with the artist.

Queensiñera — @alltheloveyourqueenv

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Elyssa Maxx Goodman

Elyssa Maxx Goodman is a New York-based writer and photographer. Her book, Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City, was named a 2024 Stonewall Honor Book for the Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Book Award, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ+ Nonfiction, one of Vogue’s Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2023, and one of Booklist’s Best History Books of 2023. Her writing and photography have been published in Vogue, Vanity Fair, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, them., Elle, and New York, among others.

Elyssa has written 5 articles for us.

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Why Won’t My Gay Coworker Hang Out With Me and My Gay Friends?

I gotta admit, this is starting to feel homophobic!? JK but...
Q
I’m part of a small but tightknit group of queers at my office and thanks to a company mixer late last year, we recently learned that there’s ANOTHER GAY working in our company because she brought her girlfriend to it! That she lives with! It’s a big company but I’d seen her around and she just didn’t ping for any of us but we were so excited to see her there with her girlfriend.
We’ve invited her to eat lunch with us and to come to our happy hour (where 2 of us are sober, which we mentioned, in case she was sober or her gf). We invited her and her gf to a birthday party (again, sober-friendly and chill), and to a queer hangout (not a gay bar per se but it’s aesthetically quee...

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Sundance 2025: New Documentary ‘GEN_’ Normalizes Fertility Care and Trans Healthcare

Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance bringing daily updates on the best of LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond. Follow along for more coverage or read her review of GEN_ below. 
The best compliment I can give GEN_ is that it’s kind of boring. That might not be the response most filmmakers hope to receive, but what a relief to watch a documentary about the hot button issues of fertility care and transgender healthcare that normalizes instead of sensationalizing. The film follows Dr. Bini, a physician who believes in the radical idea that healthcare should be about helping people. His dual practice of fertility treatment and trans medicine was born out of their shared use of hormone therapy. But now, after decades of work, both topics are subject to legal challenges in Milan where he works. Most of the film consists of a cinema verité approach, allowing us to observe the conversations Dr. Bini and his staff have with their patients. As a trans woman with many cis lesbian friends, there was not a lot left for me to learn about either medical practice. But considering the endless curiosity people seem to have about this area of medicine, I’m glad this film exists to show the varied experiences of trans people and hopeful parents (and trans hopeful parents) in a way that approaches people without judgement. Dr. Bini says, “Doctors have to make a choice between what is right and what is legal,” and I appreciate how he both communicates the law to his patients while assuring them that even if certain changes go into place, he will do what he can to still help them. This sense of right and wrong is his driving force, whether in advising his patients or complaining about the Italian government requesting he house embryos from Ukraine but not from Palestine. The documentary doesn’t shy away from some of the stickier aspects of Dr. Bini’s practice including conversations about the desired appearance and backgrounds of sperm and egg donors. There were moments that even made me uncomfortable, but I think it’s worth questioning the difference between something being uncomfortable and something being morally wrong. As Dr. Bini says, people who probably shouldn’t be parents become parents without assistance all the time. How different is it for someone to say she’ll only marry a guy over six feet and she’ll only take sperm from a guy over six feet? At what point are we simply opening up the government to control the choices of the most vulnerable? We all have our lines in what we think should be common medical practice, and I appreciate that the film shows that’s the case for Dr. Bini as well. He’s just doing what he thinks is right based on his conversations with his patients. He’s not infallible but I certainly trust him and other doctors more than I do politicians and the government. Dr. Bini is balancing the desires of his patients with the judgments of their families with the judgments of society with the law. His language is at times old-fashioned and as someone who has had to go to about a million doctor appointments over the years as a trans woman, watching this film felt as tedious as some of those appointments. I’m not sure if trans people need to seek out this film, but I’m glad cis people will be able to watch it. When the film is not in the medical office, it’s following Dr. Bini as he forages for mushrooms. There’s jaunty music and a feeling of peace and exploration. He’s a curious mind with a tender hand, seeking a better understanding of our world. If society won’t trust people to make decisions about their own bodies, I wish it would at least trust people like Dr. Bini. Maybe this film can help make that happen.
GEN_ is now streaming on the Sundance online platform.
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Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

1 Comment

  1. This sounds quiet and contemplative – I’d be interested at least about the part where we’d learn more about the italian healthcare system

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Sundance 2025: ‘Sauna’ Tells a New Trans Story the Same Old Way

Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance bringing daily updates on the best of LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond. Follow along for more coverage or read her review of Sauna below. 

It’s technically true that I cannot think of another feature film about a cis gay man grappling with his feelings about dating a trans man for the first time. So why does Mathias Broe’s Sauna feel so dated and predictable? Is it because it follows similar beats to work about cis men dating trans women? Is it because there have been TV shows and movies that have portrayed this dynamic from the perspective of the trans guy? Or is it just because I’m trans with a lot of trans friends and I’m tired enough watching this play out in real life without seeing it on-screen?

When we meet Johan (Magnus Juhl Andersen), he’s living a traditional gay life. He works at a sauna, he drinks and does drugs and has Grindr hookups, and he’s out to his mom but not to his dad. But something is missing for Johan — he’s craving intimacy. Enter William (Nina Rask), a hookup who Johan is immediately smitten with even though he didn’t read his bio closely enough to realize William is trans.

Putting aside the comical suggestion that a cis gay guy would have to accidentally fall for a trans guy instead of, you know, seeking it out, their burgeoning relationship allows for the expected education for Johan and the audience. William hasn’t had top surgery yet, William isn’t allowed at Johan’s sauna, William can’t secure regular access to hormones. It’s unclear why Johan likes William except that they’re both traditionally hot guys. We’re supposed to see William as a deeper connection than Johan’s other hook ups, but the only intimacy they share beyond fucking is discussing The Trans Experience.

I don’t know what it’s like to be trans in Denmark. But considering its reputation as one of the most trans-inclusive countries in the world, I have to imagine the experience of someone like William would not be fraught enough that medical transition had to be the topic of every conversation. Would an adult man who has been living full-time for at least a year if not longer and already had top surgery really not be able to get testosterone? Again, no clue, never been to Denmark. But either the movie is contrived to focus on the challenges of medical transition or it just feels contrived and that’s not much better. At one point, during a fight Johan says, “All you care about are your fucking hormones.” A wild thing for a cis person to say to their trans partner, but it also feels like inventing a guy to be mad at. All this movie cares about are William’s fucking hormones.

Eventually, Johan leaves behind his cis gay male community to join William’s gender-diverse queer world. (Is William a baby trans or a seasoned queer with a big group of trans friends? Whatever serves Johan’s story at any given moment!) Johan feels like an outsider and like he’s not accepted by this new group. This again feels like a cis fantasy. Traditionally attractive cis people are not ostracized in trans spaces — they’re desired by trans people like they’re desired by the rest of the world. Sure, there are some alt spaces where Johan would be less welcome, but there’s no specificity to William’s world to suggest that’s the case. All we get are a few unique haircuts.

What begins as a fine — albeit basic — trans story from a cis perspective grows more and more puzzling as its plot progresses. The script doesn’t just fail in its portrayal of the trans experience, it also fails to give these characters any sort of interesting or grounded motivation for their behaviors. I’m not criticizing a good movie because of how it tells a trans story. I’m criticizing a mediocre movie because a trans story that may seem fresh to some is all it has to offer.

Toward the end of the film, Johan is at a club asking William’s friend for details about the process of securing trans healthcare. “I just want to party,” the friend replies. That’s how I felt the entire movie. Johan is going on a journey, but that journey doesn’t really have anything to do with me, William, or the actual lived experience of trans people. I’m tired of watching movies like this. I just want to party.

Sauna is now streaming on the Sundance online platform.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Drew Burnett Gregory

Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker. She is a Senior Editor at Autostraddle with a focus in film and television, sex and dating, and politics. Her writing can also be found at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cosmopolitan UK, Refinery29, Into, them, and Knock LA. She was a 2022 Outfest Screenwriting Lab Notable Writer and a 2023 Lambda Literary Screenwriting Fellow. She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Drew Burnett has written 659 articles for us.

A Queer Coming of Age in Five Makeouts

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January is Makeout Month at Autostraddle.com

Some of the best nights of my life have started with a make out, the culmination of hours (or days) of wondering if the recipient of my affection would want to kiss me back, a rush of sheer joy at the confirmation of our shared desire. Formative teen movies like Grease and Mean Girls framed making out as the pinnacle of public displays of affection. Makeouts showed you were confident in who you were and who you wanted, and that someone wanted you, too. As I approach my 25th birthday and the alleged solidification of my prefrontal cortex, I’ve been reflecting on my experience making out: how I fit into the dynamics of desire and performance and what I’ve learned through all my experiences. After all, making out has more definitions: to “make something out” is to discern it, and asking how someone “made out” inquires how they fared. These definitions feel intertwined in my life: I have learned a lot about myself from the people I’ve kissed, and I haven’t come out of every kiss as well as I went into it. Through five core makeouts, I’ve gone from the teen I was to the adult I am still becoming.

1.

On New Year’s Day of our freshman year of high school, my middle school best friend asked me if I wanted to kiss him.

I was sitting on his knee in his bedroom closet after a game of truth or dare, and another friend of his was a few feet away. I nodded anyway, half-hoping the friend would know and tell other people, since desirability in high school was collectively decided, and according to the boys in my school, I was undesirable.

My first three relationships (two girlfriends and one long distance boyfriend) had been age appropriately chaste, but I wanted more. People in our grade were starting to date upperclassmen, which meant they were making out in Central Park, in school stairwells, in Instagram photos. Beyond actual touch, I craved the normalcy, the optimism that those images provided. Making out was normal, so if I was making out, I was normal. I was okay. I made out with my best friend.

We were alone later, his family and their friends a few rooms away. Like almost anywhere in New York, the potential for interruption was ever present. We retreated into his closet. (Perhaps a little on the nose for a then-bisexual-now-lesbian, but the universe can be funny that way.) I told him to use less tongue and clicked the light off, and we both thought about girls who didn’t want us.

I walked to the bus stop later in a limbo: the kind where it becomes obvious that everything is going to change, but the change hasn’t happened yet. I had made out with my best friend, and I didn’t want it to mean anything. I wanted to go to school Monday and have everything be normal, the exact reason I’d wanted to kiss him. I was his first kiss, which had felt almost sexy in the moment and would feel destructive after, as the days we didn’t speak added up to more than the times we had. The meaning of us had shifted imperceptibly, in a way we couldn’t make out, all because we had.

2.

My first ex-girlfriend and I stayed late at school to make out on the floor of classrooms our sophomore year. We both had younger brothers and no privacy at home, so we loitered after school to figure out when classrooms emptied for good. Maybe it was normal, then, to be having my most sexual experience so far in the building where I spent most of my time. A friend of mine used a free period and a gym supply closet to stake her claim to the hottest boy in our grade. Still, having my ex run her hands over my new breasts and whisper how long she’d wanted this in the same room where my classmates learned Spanish conjugations and trigonometry felt as risky as it did sexy.

She wanted me, despite my nagging insecurities. I wanted makeouts that meant nothing, that was just the two of us passing time in whatever private space we could find. It was a far cry from the teenage romance I saw on TV, littered with personal cars and entire wings of houses and secluded suburban streets, but it was ours.

3.

The summer before my senior year of high school, I enrolled in a pre-college theatre intensive. Despite knowing I wanted to study playwriting or lighting design in college, I was there as an actor mostly because I didn’t see the design/tech application until it was too late and partially because the design/tech program was far more competitive. Each design/tech participant was assigned one of the shows to stage manage. Not being a stage manager myself meant spending a lot of time with the cute stage manager of my show.

From the first day of the program, we were drawn to each other. With other people in the show, we formed a friend group of queer kids from around the country. We stayed up late talking about classes and rehearsal and debating which institute rule was the stupidest. Much was made of the fact that we couldn’t jaywalk across one intersection, but the program admitted they couldn’t stop us from having sex. I tried not to look at the stage manager when we talked about this.

I had a boyfriend back home. We were directing a show together in the fall, connected by our time in high school theatre. He did not want to make out very often or ever have sex, which was hard to square with the value I placed on my desirability, so he, unprompted, gave me permission to hook up with other people while I was away. My voice was scratchy from overuse, my clothes were butch, and I’d just started introducing myself with they/them pronouns. I was ready to be something new, even if I didn’t quite know what that was yet.

About halfway through the institute, the stage manager and I found ourselves alone for the first time. We were immediately on my crappy bunk bed, hands in each other’s hair, lips pressed together. I had never kissed someone else non-binary, and it felt ecstatic. We held and touched and kissed each other with a mutual understanding. They wanted me as I was, not as some ideal image of girlhood that I would never be. They made me feel desirable in a way no boy ever had, a way that was true to myself. We didn’t get a lot more alone time together, and we haven’t seen each other in seven years, but that summer showed me my longing to be seen completely as I was. I went back to she/her pronouns, not rocking the boat in my last year of high school. But not all my yearning stayed hidden. I broke up with my boyfriend that October.

4.

Partying as a teenager is hard in New York City, where very few people have houses and almost everyone has nosy neighbors. I went to venue parties, which meant buying a ticket to an event that would inevitably be shut down by police sirens, and maybe two or three apartment parties, but nothing like the ragers I’d seen on TV or in movies. I’d never kissed anyone at a party, confirming my suspicion that being into me was something embarrassing or secretive. I thought the kissing at parties period of my life would never exist, something mythological for suburban kids or the extremely wealthy. Then, I went off to college, changing my name and pronouns for good this time.

Just before Halloween, my university’s Rainbow Alliance had a meeting to watch Twitches and eat snacks. I dressed as queer as I could, still-long hair split into two french braids, plaid shirt unbuttoned over a gray tank top, and barn coat braced against the Illinois chill. I enjoyed the movie but was worried I hadn’t made any fast friends that night. I opened Facebook the next day to friend requests from some of the older students. A few days later, an invite to a queer house party arrived.

My roommate and I gussied ourselves up the day of the party and made the trek from our dorm to the off campus address we’d been sent. We knocked hesitantly, showed that we’d Venmo’d five dollars each, and got our hands stamped — we were in.

I got one drink and took to the dance floor, trying to shake off a hookup that had ended a friendship. Before long, there was a beautiful blonde woman dancing in front of me, with me, on me. She turned around slowly and started kissing me. In an apartment full of queer people, she had wanted me. I was becoming a new person, one who could make out in public, who knew what they were and what they wanted, and who was wanted by others. Later, I had a serious boyfriend, and then a lot of fun hookups, and then a serious girlfriend. I was settling into young adulthood with a confidence in myself that had been crystallized on that dance floor.

5.

Six weeks out of a yearlong relationship, I went out for dinner and dancing with a new friend of mine, completely oblivious of her interest in me. We laughed through dinner, sparks flying, and made our way to the sapphic event we’d bought tickets to. We met up with a friend of hers and had our tarot read at the event.

The reader told me: “You don’t have to be fully healed to move on.”

A cute redhead flirted with me, and I kissed her. We exchanged Instagrams, and my friend suggested we go to Henrietta Hudson’s. The redhead and her roommate were going home, but she promised to message me soon.

After an awkward E ride and chilly walk to Henrietta’s, my friend stashed our coats and dragged me to the dance floor. We were dancing near each other, then we were dancing together, then we were kissing, then we were making out, pressed up against the wall. My breakup had led me to spiraling about the idea that I would never make out with someone again, and here I was, making out with a gorgeous friend, in a queer club. Joy and kissing had a habit of returning.

I had never been infatuated with a man the way I was with this friend. We were texting constantly, and I always wanted her lips on mine, her arms around me, her voice in my ears. For 12 years, I had thought I was bisexual because I could find boys and men cute and had liked kissing or sleeping with them enough. But as I remembered that first kiss in Henrietta’s, the dance floor makeout in college, the way my stomach had clenched uncomfortably when I kissed my middle school best friend, a realization that I was not as bisexual as I had thought started to crest.

A few weeks later, my friend and I were officially dating. A few weeks after that, we were girlfriends. Six days into the new year, I was pretty sure that I was a lesbian. All because of one amazing makeout at a queer bar.

Overall, I would say I’ve made out okay after all this making out. I’ve learned that the voices telling me that I’m undesirable are not my own, nor are they worth my attention. I’ve learned I feel better in the arms of someone who shares identities with me. I learned that I liked girls and, very recently, that I only like girls. The path to my young adulthood has been paved in makeouts, from classrooms at my high school to famous queer bars in New York. I hope to keep making out: to keep kissing someone passionately, and to keep discerning myself.

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Pallas Gutierrez

Pallas M. Gutierrez is a New York-based writer, teaching artist, and stagehand. They are currently studying creative writing at the University of California, Riverside's Low Residency MFA. Pallas received their Bachelors in Theatre at Northwestern University. Outside of writing and work, Pallas enjoys crafting and volunteering in their community.

Pallas has written 1 article for us.