Welcome to Queer IRLQueer IRL, an Autostraddle community photo series that gathers little moments of lesbian, bisexual, queer and otherwise-identified women, trans and non-binary folks, just living our lives in 2020.
We promised you a Queer IRL revival gallery if you could get us to $25k in our fundraiser, and boy howdy did you EVER. This gallery series first began in 2017, when it felt like we all really needed to see each other, see that we weren’t alone, weren’t as singular. (It also served as inspiration for bookshelf organization, bedroom decor, kitchen looks, vacation ideas and new pet names.) Truly can’t think of a better time to bring it back around than during a worldwide quarantine!
You’re a vast and varied group, but one thing you have in common, besides reading Autostraddle, is that you’re fucking BEAUTIFUL. I love all of you and your supportive cats, your newly adopted dogs, your newly minted U-hauls, your kitchen thirst traps, your unborn babies (!!), your exhaustion, your drive, your Zooms, your WHOLE DAMN DEALS. It was an absolute joy to put this gallery together — so much so, in fact, that I’ll be doing another one this summer! Thank you to everyone who participated, donated, joined A+, and shared the good word. We’ve said it once and we’ll say ten thousand time: we could not be doing this work without your support! xoxox
And now please enjoy Queer Right Here in Quarantine!
Chloe, Dexter, Kaya / she ᛫ they / 25.75 / Parent’s House, Alabama
“Thankful to have more fresh air and green than usually in NYC. Grateful we are safe and healthy and that my med school is online for now.”
Emma and Puck / she ᛫ they, he / 30,5 / Office
“I will write a PhD thesis (!) and Puck will check it’s good.”
Jay / they / 25 / Portland, OR
“I took this on the Spring Equinox; a day I celebrated the flowers around my neighborhood and walked around feeling comforted by the presence of growth. I took a few more walks, but 5 days later, I began to feel COVID-19 symptoms. I’m recovering now but not enough to be able to go outside yet. I miss the flowers, the trees, the view of the Willamette River from where the geese gather, and the oregano plant I dug into an isolated patch of grass but haven’t been able to check on since. I cannot wait to go back outside. I am still in bed but a part of my heart is still right there by that tree.”
Virginia and Inès / she, she / 138, 23 / London, England and Voiron, France
“All it took for this to happen was a few days of isolation with my copy of The Complete Works of Virginia Woolf and my poor mental health. By the way, the previous sentence contains a zeugma, which is a pretty cool figure of speech if you ask me.”
Nell / they / 27 / New York
“This was taken on a hike with two very dear and queer friends, Charlotte and Caleb! They introduced me to a queer youth camp that I started volunteering at in August 2018, and that’s where I’ve found my best community. (Also RIP to the flip flops I’m wearing here, they were 10 years old and fell apart at the end of the trail.)”
K. Renatus (K. R.) / they / 24 / Chicago, IL
“My fur-son was down to cuddle for purr-cisely the time it took for the first two photos to be taken- by the third, he was over it.”
Ar / 22 / North BC, Canada
“Pictured in my natural habitat – a pile of garbage and poison. Luckily I cut steel in the middle of nowhere for a living so I’m still allowed to work, but I sure miss places that aren’t my house or this abandoned mill!””
Miriam / she / 18 / Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
“Pictured at my dining room table turned desk, minutes after submitting my final project for my first year of architecture school, featuring the remains of the orange that kept me going in the final hours. I’ll be leaving for home (Toronto) in two days, a very unexpected and abrupt ending. No beautiful lighting or photogenic outfit but a very very real reality.”
Amelia / 31 / she · they / 31 / Louisville, KY
“I made my kitchen into a mask factory-I put my phone on my oven to take this picture. I’m trying to catch up on penpal letters, too. I had a happy hour earlier with my queer virtual co-working space friends and then went for a walk to look at the full moon. Tomorrow I’ll try to call the unemployment office again. It’s been mind-bending to feel so connected and so lonely at the same time.”
Ellie / she / 35 / Paris, France
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6See entire article on one page
Everyone is the best 🥰
LOOK AT ALL OF YOUR SHINING FACES
So beautiful ! All of you, so, so beautiful ! I’m levitating.
Straddlers <3
This is SO JOYOUS!!! Look at all you beautiful beans with your embroidered jumpsuit wedding outfits and thirst traps and creavirativity and still being even with exhaustion and questioning and working and not-working and being isolated and being surrounded whether you like it or not, and through ALL OF IT being your selves, your lovely valuable unique selves. I’m so glad you’re all here 💜💜💜
Hey-o,
I’m sure you had a lot of submissions and I totally know things get mixed up. But I’m Nell, I have the hiking picture and my pronouns are actually They/Them/Theirs, not she. Idk if you can alter that, but if you can I’d appreciate it! 😊
fixed! sorry about that!
Thanks!!!
WOWOWOW! There is so much love and cuteness here!!! <3 <3 <3
And so many cute cats!!!
LOVE this and you all so much
page two, congrats on your future jude-bean!
also to literally everyone i love u so much and am proud of u for continuing to exist in quarantine
also also thank you to everyone who put your pet’s age too
This is so delightful. Thank you all for sharing some part of yourselves.
A lot of these relationship pics are making me feel real lonely, ngl, but I’m just so happy to see everyone’s faces and strength and creativity on display during this time.
saaaaaammmmmmmmmme
also same <3
I love all of you.
And hadn’t realised how much I missed cats before seeing SO many of them here.
Ann in the rocking chair that rocked you as a child – I don’t know why but it hit home hard ! Live in this cycle, and I hope opens up onto unexpected wonders !
Ay, this was meant for the main comment thread. Ah well :)
Solidarity from another fellow singleton. 💙💚💛
Everyone looks so amazing. Thank you!
Beautiful
This is so great, look at everyone’s wonderful faces! I love all your pets and cute outfits and quarantine hair.
Also, AS group chat? That sounds so awesome! I failed to join the D&D groups that sprang up in the comments one time and ever since I’ve had Regrets™️.
wow wow wow. this is everything. thanks everyone for sharing. stayed up too late to look at all of these and read the captions, but going to bed on a high note so I’m happy about it.
I love this so much, thank you.
What a stunning gallery of humans. Everyone’s hair looks amazing! The animals! The plants! The baby! The LDR’s & weddings!!
Thankyou Laneia for compiling it.
[Note: read this together via pre-arranged date, split screen with video chat directing each other when to scroll]
This made me feel a lot less alone!
Thanks for the pictures, guys!
Also, Abbie, I‘d be in the market for some low fi hip hop beats to cry to. Any place to listen to them?
Everyone looks fantastic but ten million bonus points to the orange cat named Jean-Ralphio
Thank you! This really makes up for when I had to spell out his name to the vet over the phone, including the hyphen. Turns out far fewer people than I thought are familiar with Parks and Rec!
So grateful to have learned the word “zeugma” from this gallery 😁
so cute!!
My heart!! Seeing all of you feels like sitting in a sunbeam on a bright spring morning 🥰
So refreshing to see so many books in the photos ^_^. Thanks to everyone who participated, it is fun to see so many faces and different spaces!
I love this so much. Possibly even more than the previous iterations, it feels especially poignant. So many beautiful queeros. Thank you for putting it together!!
Yayyy, everyone is cute and magical, and I saw two people I know, each of us residing in different countries! Hooray for that.
Thank you for putting this up Laneia! Loved seeing everyone’s spaces and super helpful work from home cat coworkers!