Welcome to Queer IRL, an Autostraddle community photo series that gathers little clips of lesbian, bisexual, queer and otherwise-identified women, trans and non-binary folks, just living our lives in 2017.
So far this year, we’ve showcased queers doing a number of cool and beautiful things, like standing in their kitchens, being outdoors, holding a goat, reading books, and taking vacations. This gallery you’re about to stroll through is dedicated to queers celebrating, and it is GLORIOUS. We’re thrilled to be sharing it on the first annual It’s Great to Be Gay Day, while we celebrate just how wonderful it is to be our own gay selves! I hope you take some time to cheer yourself on today, and throw some confetti for your fellow queers. You’re not straight, you’re not boring, and you’re definitely not without a reason to CELEBRATE.
Claire, Izzy, Ella, Julia / 15 and 16 / Chelsea, NYC / June 2015
“In retrospect, we all agree that this was a day out in New York celebrating the fact that we all owned backpacks, and that we’d become the future members of a gay group chat even though only one of us was out at the time.”
Louisa / 21 / Graduation / Surrey, UK / 11th July 2017
“I graduated with a degree in English Literature this year! That was the second time that day I’d held that scepter. This chancellor man at my university spotted my kente cloth and asked if I was Ghanaian (I am). We got to talking and he let me hold the scepter as my class was waiting to graduate. I realised I was bisexual at university, just one of the reasons I’ll treasure the memories of my time there.”
Stuart, Tracey, Ashley, Max, Caroline, James / Celebrating Chewbacchus Parade / New Orleans, LA / Mardi Gras February 2017
Megan and Brenda / 24, 26 / WE GOT MARRIED! / Plymouth State University, Plymouth NH / July 29, 2017
“These pictures were taken on our wedding day at Plymouth State University. Brenda and I are both alums of the college, and wanted to get hitched in the place we fell in love. We were blessed to be joined by our biological AND chosen families, and many many queer friends, relatives, mentors, and community members. I love these pictures because it shows off our beautiful campus, and are thankful beyond words for our (large) bridal parties. Photo cred to another PSU alum, Nina Weinstein Photography.”
Tina, Julie, Phoebe / Tina and Julie’s Wedding / The Mount Washington, Lake Winnipesaukee / June 6, 2009
“Julie and I had wanted to get married since the day we met at nun school in 2000. Feel free to insert any irreverent joke…we have heard and laughed at them all! On June 6, 2009 we had a Civil Union ceremony on The Mount Washington (the boat not the hill) on Lake Winnipesaukee. It was an amazing day. Our daughter, Phoebe, celebrated with us – rocking on the dance floor with her aunties and uncles until the wee hours of the morning. We received our free upgrade to a marriage certificate a few months later.”
Little Mole (AKA Rous Rose), Fellow Animals, Narrator, Human Sound Effects Machine / 20, 22, 9, 27, 8 / Limburg, Belgium / 2017
“For my mother’s birthday, a few (chosen) family members and I decided to create a stage adaptation of one of her favourite children’s books: ‘The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit’. The resulting theatrical masterpiece lasted four entire minutes and involved people playing many different parts (TatMas-ing, if you will), tripping over props, lots and lots of fake poop, George Clooney (played by yours truly), and one very delighted mother.
Weirdly enough, we never heard back from the Tonys.”
Mary and Ellie / We Eloped! / Charlottesville, Virginia / May 2017
“We went into the woods and cast a queer wedding spell with poetry, rings, and our sweet pups Wulfe and Nigel.”
Abbie, Cassidy, Garrett, Megan, Brenda, Eli, Katie / Megan and Brenda’s Wedding / Plymouth, NH / July 29th, 2017
“Megan and Brenda’s wedding was perfect, fun, and full of so much love. There were many highlights of the whole wedding weekend (Golf carts! My mom doing choreography from RuPaul’s Drag Race on the dance floor! Dabbing!) but the best part for me was getting to be in Megan’s super queer bridal party. The five of us (two queer boys, two queer girls, and one token straight woman) have been best friends with Megan for so long we’re basically family. I’m so happy she had us by her side when we welcomed her wife Brenda into our little family. Also peep us singing Ingrid Michaelson’s “You And I” at the reception featuring me with my guitar looking like I’m gonna play the next Lilith Fair. Photo Credit: Nina Weinstein Photography.”
Clara and Rebecca / 27, 28 / Getting Engaged / Stockholm Sweden / June 5, 2017
Misha, Emily, Ashlynn, Liz, and Emilie / Master’s Degree Capstone Presentation Celebration / Washington, DC / 2016
“This is our capstone group from graduate school, #TeamSpiceGirls. For the last hurdle to completing our master’s degrees in public policy and public administration, we had to present our capstone to professors and our cohort. This photo was taken after our presentation (which we rocked) so we went and got drinks to celebrate. The real party started when we decided to replicate a photo of the “real” Spice Girls. Our outfits are a little more modest, but the essence of the photo is spot on (I think).”
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::Dobby reaction face::
This is a truly delightful post.
SO GOOD! ! !
Oh my gosh, thank you all for sharing your joy and smiles! You are all so good-looking! So many of you are married and your weddings are gorgeous!
Also, couple who met in nun school, please write a book. Or at least an AS post.
I have written several fictional pieces that use our origin story. They never quite reach the magic of the real thing. I probably will try to capture our true story someday. :)
This day is too much, in the best way.
Thanks AS and all the cuties celebrating for all the pure joy!
On a second note, I had to stop reading this post at work cause I started tearing up after the 3rd picture. I am a weak gay ?
These photos are giving me such life today! Excellent, excellent job everybody! ? ☀️ ❤️
Also, *thank you* Autostraddle editors and contributors for posting such powerfully uplifting content today. I was expecting this day to feel heavy af, and in some ways it still is, but I’m filled with more energy, optimism, and love than I could’ve expected.
So many weddings! Congrats!!!!
Dear Lesbian Murder Mystery Totally 80s Prom people, please write a post about how to host this event
CO SIGN
gonna work so hard as your community editor to make this happen — Lesbian Murder Mystery Totally 80s Prom People, i am gonna be contacting you! we must give the queers what they want!!
Wedding at Crystal Bridges! I worked there from the beginning of construction until early 2014 and would have LOVED to be there for your wedding! I helped lots of cute couples get engaged and do elopement ceremonies on the trails and at the LOVE sculpture but I just know y’all would have been my faves.
If you ever come down to Shreveport, hit me up and I’ll buy you a beverage of your choice!
My favourite is the vertigo one. Well done for reclaiming your body!
JAY WITH NEWLY MARRIED COUPLE ! my fave
but everybody is so cute !!
my favorite part of this gallery is that there are so many weddings and engagements and group celebrations and i’m just like I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY LOOK AT MY COOL PINK SPARKLY DRESS PAY ATTENTION TO ME!! which, frankly, is very on brand and i have no regrets.
but for real, this whole gallery makes my heart explode, thank you everyone who contributed and thank you laneia for tirelessly putting these together and thank you queer people for making my whole goddamn world go round <3
I keep wanting to have a big blowout birthday with everyone I’ve met but I find it hard to even get ONE PERSON to show up -_-;;
I love everything about this. You are all incredibly pure and wonderful people. Bookmarked for days when I’m feeling blue.
It was such a joy to be a part of Jack and Darcy’s day. They are both loving and caring individuals, and I feel so lucky to have them as friends. If either of them are reading this, love you both!
Saying that, it was such a joy to look at all these celebratory pictures and read their words. On a day that feels very positive for queer people, this post gave me one more reason to be happy today.
This is adorable and all the weddings (and all y’all!) are beautiful!
ALSO: Vicky – Madrid??? Because I am also here and am lacking in English-speaking queer lady friends, so, like, send me a message or something so we can maybe be friends? Awesome.
@gasp-its-harto HIIIIII! Yes Madrid, I live here! And I am a very-queer, very-lady, and very-English speaking person and we should def be friends! I know a lot of other queer ladies (a few who speak English lol). Let’s meet up ?
@vickys1 Awesome! Wanna maybe grab coffee or something this weekend? Cool. I’ve followed you on insta, so we can carry on chatting on there ???
I love this. So many weddings and friends’ weddings! So many Pride celebrations! And engagements! And birthdays! And sparklers! And a unicorn boat! Life is good.
Not to mention the graduations and misc friend groups having fun in beautiful places. Love the backpack photo and the Spice Girls.
I read every caption on every single picture, y’all are so sweet and happy and this is wonderful and pure and good
OMG, I’m loving all these celebrations! I am so excited to see so many weddings, and engagements, and I really want in on that murder mystery, it looks like so much fun. Also, shout out to all the Andrea’s in here ❤️
This is so sweet and pure and I love it so much. Thank you for helping us get through this day today.
So much happiness, I love it!!
A massive photo of the Taylor Mac cast, which is probably like 90% queer:
This is amazing!!! I saw Taylor Mac do a lecture/radio broadcast interview at my university on art and activism this past January, around inauguration time (along with Bill T. Jones, a modern dance legend, and Niegel Smith, a playwright). The three interviewees were so incredibly insightful and inspiring, and…I’m just so grateful for queer artists. As a queer dancer/performance art person myself, I’m super excited to know that Autostraddle folks have connections like this! How cool that you are/were in this production!
Was Niegel the tall black guy? He was in our production as one of the directors! He’s very funny and very sweet. They all are really.
Yes yes!!! That is awesome.
oh autostraddle! i did not realize how much i needed to see page after page of smiling, in love, happy, celebrating queers on this day; but here i am with tears streaming down my face beaming back at it all. thank you for this. and for everything. literally so worth my A+ membership just for this feeling. thank you.
I LOVE ALL THE HAPPY QUEERS. Also, I gave up wedding photography because I’m so incredibly tired of straight people and they far outnumbered the queer folks I worked with, but damn this makes me want to go find way more queer weddings because they are genuinely the greatest experiences.
Queer weddings really are the best. My partner’s a wedding officiant and my favorite weddings to try to invite myself to are the queer ones – especially for older, long term couples who never expected to be able to marry.
This is just lovely, all of you beautiful people. Congratulations to you all on your engagements,weddings,graduations,fun with friends, theatre parties…..everything. You’re all doing you with love and style.
Love that there were a few A-Camp marriages in here! so many lives have been drastically changed because of this website ❤️
These are all such lovely photos <3 <3 also, hey Erin and Sarah who got married in Wandsworth! That's where I grew up, it's so nice to see some happy queer people getting married there :)
You all are lovely. Seeing all of this happy makes me so happy! (And not just because my darling girlfriend and I are featured in it)
Keep it up, friends. Remember – better days are coming. :)
Y’all are amazing and you make my soul sing, please keep being your fabulous queer selves!
Maggie, you’re going to have to write back and update on the Cinnamon situation. Now I’m invested in this story…