PHOTO GALLERY: Queer at Work

Laneia / 36 / Executive Editor of Autostraddle / Mukawango, WI

Photo by Robin Roemer

“My day job is all about sitting in a moderately comfortable Ikea chair and typing on a laptop, but once a year I get to stand up in front of other queers and do things! Here I am showing these lovely people how to make granola. I look really professional, right?”

Amy Flower / 32 / Koreatown, Los Angeles, CA

“I am the Corporate Relations Manager at Outfest, a 501(c)(3) arts non-profit and LA LGBT Film Festival. In the photo I’m currently working on locking sponsorships to support the festival like entertainment industry companies and major studios. I feel incredibly lucky, as a filmmaker myself, to support the work of up-and-coming queer storytellers. I hope that LGBTQ artists and film-lovers alike will continue to find comfort in their art and use moving-images a way to promote activism in our community.”

Emma (she·her) / 24 / Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia

This is the very first picture I ever took of my fiancée, Emma, taken on the very first day we met nearly three years ago. This is the first of 12 pictures I took of her that day, including a couple that showed off how nice her bum looks in Carhartts (not featured). On the second day, I took a photo of her napping in our field truck (I’m not a creepster at all…). We were working at a coal mine in northern British Columbia and she was in charge of training me. She basically ignored me as much as she could and I cried to my then-boyfriend on the phone after work because I thought she thought I was stupid. Turns out she had a major crush on me and was acting out of self-preservation. Coal: bringing queers together since 2014.

Lucy / 33 / Cambridge, UK

“I work in drug discovery, in the photo I’m using a robot to automate an experiment. I like working with automation because it makes life easier for my colleagues and because robots are awesome.”

Lee Christoffersen / 26 / Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia

“This is my fiancée three years ago, the first time we met. I was working at a coal mine in Northern BC installing and testing environmental monitoring wells. Before I get into the juicy bits I should follow the format and say that it’s really important that people who care about the environment work in mining because it needs to be done right! Designing and installing monitoring networks to monitor the mine’s impacts on the environment and then helping the client fulfill their reporting requirements to the government is super important, yo!

Anyways, I had been working for three weeks and she came up as my replacement/trainee. As soon as she made it to site, with a twinkle in her perfectly blue eyes, asking smart questions, and wearing perfectly-fitting Carhartt’s and a pink Carhartt’s jacket, I knew I was in trouble. I don’t think I did a particularly good job training her, because I was so concerned that she would find out I had a massive crush on her. She didn’t need it anyways and after I left absolutely crushed the work. In the picture, it was her first day on site and we were touring all of the water sources to identify flow and contaminant loading patterns. I took this picture of her from afar so she wouldn’t think I was creeping!

Nothing happened between us for a long time as we were both in relationships but we became close friends after that trip and confided in each other and supported each other in ways we didn’t recognize until after we started dating. We started dating just over a year after we first met, and finally all the things we felt about each other over the last year came into the open and we laughed and laughed about how we had misinterpreted so many signs the entire time.

I feel like the luckiest person in the world today, after getting engaged to her last month. We are so honest with each other after some hilariously confusing beginnings. If possible she is even more of the brilliant, fiery, beautiful woman she was when I met her. She has also been fiercely protective and unendingly supportive of me throughout the last year and a half during which I have made the transition from sporty femme-presenting to the MOC genderqueer person I’ve always been inside. I am so so loving the present and looking forward to our lives together, and it’s so fun to trick people into believing that all great queer love stories start at coal mines! (seriously… I actually had one straight person go: “REALLY?”)”

Deniese, Katie, Kate, Blake / ​23, 25, 25, 26 / Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY

“We’re a bunch of queerdos working in advertising/marketing, doing everything from production (Deniese), community strategy (Katie, Blake) and analytics (Kate). Here are our very staged photos of us “working” on our laptops!”

Jackie / 28 / Columbus, OH

“I took this in the bathroom after teaching an undergraduate creative writing class. Since coming out to myself about a year ago (“not straight” is the most concrete conclusion I’ve drawn so far, but I’m learning to be comfortable with uncertainty), I’ve found myself documenting moments when I felt particularly unapologetic.”

Megan / 33 / Mukwanago, WI

Photo by Molly Adams

“Here I am at my second job: Program Support Director at A-Camp. In this photo, Robin is “living her dream” of driving a golf cart through woods full of queer people. A-Camp is exhausting and the only time all year that I willingly wake up before 7am for an entire week, but it’s always totally worth it. We make our own world up there.”

Amy / 39 / Trauma surgeon / Chicago, IL

“Me hanging out before a surgery. And my team randomly walking through the pediatrics floor, where we ran into a storm trooper.”

Ash Wolff / 32 / Waltham Public Library

“Reference Librarian at a public library posing for a Banned Books Week “mug shot” for our social media. Annie On My Mind is one of my favorite “banned” books.”

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54 Comments

  4. My heart squeezes every time I look through these galleries. So many beautiful queer people doing beautiful things. Sigh.

  5. look at all of you working hard! jealous of arielle’s homemade barbacoa and jay’s where the wild things are sweater, and kind of wishing i was surrounded by succulents rn.

  8. This is like meeting the Kara Danvers and Clark Kent selves of the Superheroes you hang out with on the regular at the gaylien bar, only to realize they’re even cooler in RL.

  10. Hi queer babes! I fell in love like, 20 times!

    Also hi Rachel from Chicago! I met you last August at the Autostraddle brunch meet up and you gave me your cognac ! Thank you that was so niiiice ❤️

    • Oh hai, Chloe! It was so lovely to meet you! That was the day of the Air and Water show wasn’t it? Super loud jet planes kept going by :)

  13. I love this series so much although I am too shy to submit one myself…this one is my favorite so far! I love seeing what cool jobs everyone has and what everyone likes and doesn’t like about their jobs. If I ever feel like I need a career change I’m totally gonna come back to this gallery for some inspiration!

  16. Soo many cool people and cool jobs here, this is amazing. Also, I noticed this round of images had more people in SoCal than the last two rounds, but I could be wrong?

  20. GAAAH!! I love ALL the photos!! *heart eyes emoji* You all have cool jobs! Special shout out to Hannah and Kim – reminds me of Grey’s Anatomy?? LOL And Priscilla’s window shot with the CN Tower – super awesome!! And Erin!! That Orphan Black – Cosima’s DNA laptop cover you made as screensaver??!!! Sestra!!! :) The final trip is in just less than 2 weeks!!

      • We’ve never gotten to deliver a lesbian couple together before! That’s my dream :) If you’re in indianapolis and need labor and delivery services, let me know!0

    • Hahaha it is a little like Grey’s! We met at work and tried to keep our falling in love a secret, especially since I wasn’t out yet. But we’ve come a long way! Everyone at work is super supportive, and the only thing we get harassed about it when we’ll have a baby.

  21. Damn, I knew I was forgetting to do something. Oh well.

    Very much appreciating the cluttered-desk representation here.

  23. Don’t mind me, just crying over every pic and description ???ya’ll are so sweet and wondrous and lovely.

  24. Everyone looks so beautiful and happy! Thank you for sharing a glimpse into your queer lives. Wish I submitted but alas, it was too late

  25. OH NO!!!!!!! I was so looking forward to this post and totally missed it! Ugh! Oh well, y’all will just have to imagine me lugging around heavy lumber and using power tools all day.

    But also, wow! y’all are so amazing and inspiring with your big beautiful brains and killer work ethic.

  26. Eva in Los Angeles, that “fingering chart” had me in stitches. Great photo prep!

    Y’all look so awesome and I’m jealous of all the amazing jobs you have! I hope if we do another version of this in a year’s time that I too will be able to post about a cool job, instead of cheating and showing some activist stuff!

  28. I can’t post photos of my workspace so I’m living vicariously through the rest of these beautiful humans!

    And Liz, I see you representing <3 #indystraddlers

  29. Wow!! Just Wow!!

    All you clever, talented, beautiful, thoughtful and brilliant people. The world’s definitely better for having you all in it.

  30. After looking at all the photos (and it’s so great to see so many people in their own world!) I wonder do Autostraddle readers tend not to have white collar jobs or do those of us with one feel embarrassed about taking part in this?

    • idk about embarrassed, but desk jobs make for less interesting photographs, and I don’t know how old you are, but my jobs got more office-y as I got older, and it was much more interesting to photograph me making waffle cones or wrangling dogs or making art projects with kiddos, and AS tends to skew definitely toward folks in their 20s, maybe that’s it? (I know there are others! I’m 33! but like, I’m not wrong that there’s a strong cohort of folks in their 20s)

      and I think some folks worry their white collar jobs are boring to talk about if you’re not in the field? and I know folks who are like “I have a fancy job and have a lot of money” are very sheepish about talking about it in public.

      in conclusion, idk.

      • You make very good points fellow 33 year old!

        “Here is me on draft 17 of the strategy” is probably not a good photo.

  31. YOU’RE ALL SO BEEYOUTIFUL I HAVE A CRUSH ON EVERY QUEER.

    Legit though yall are adorable and it’s nice to see all the kinds of jobs folks have.

  32. PRISCILA!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Y’all are rad AF. And Cute AF.
    Why is everyone so cute.
    Seriously.

  35. I’m always in the worng part of the world… I work for a sand factory but it seems to me that I’ll have to change the mining type and get into coal. That way I’d get to go to Canada and meet fellow queers.

  36. I’m always in the wrong part of the world… I work for a sand factory but it seems to me that I’ll have to change the mining type and get into coal. That way I’d get to go to Canada and meet fellow queers.

  37. I can’t believe there is someone posting from South Los Angeles! I am an Americorp (volunteer) member at another school, but my program serves Normandie Ave. Elementary! Cool to know there are people everywhere in places that are familiar to me. Keep doing good work Eva!!!

  40. This actually made me cry. I’m so proud to belong to this beautiful queer community. <3

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