Being in your 30’s with no queer dating experience, packing a carry-on for a long-distance date, dealing with astrology if you don’t believe in it, and more!

I think it’s very Cancer of me to watch Mary Lambert’s “She Keeps Me Warm” music video on Valentine’s Day just so I could feel my heart clench and cry a little.

“It’s a real mark of our collective queer delusion that everyone tries to forget how weird it is when serial roof marauder Piper Perabo climbs on top of her car to screech about wankers over the standstill of London traffic.”

With Punkie Johnson, SNL just got 100% more lesbian, with a record breaking two (lol, yes TWO!) out lesbians in the cast at the same time.

Janelle Monáe and Tessa Thompson are baiting us for Democracy this Election Day… and I’m not mad at it? Also: Lots of good, thoughtful election reads that (mostly) won’t piss you off and concrete, actionable ways to distract yourself right now if you need it.

Heather Hogan noticed that I had taken up permanent residence in the comments of “Boobs on Your Tube” every Friday, basically writing recaps of my own (I felt lost, Autostraddle was my port in the storm). Heather asked if I had ever considered writing about television as a career. She said, “We can pay you. Not as much as we’d like to, but we’ll find the money. Is that something you’d be into?”

I wrote back, “That is something that I would VERY MUCH be into! In fact, I hope it’s not too unprofessional to say that I would love it with all of my heart.”

Thomas: I remember hearing that there was a trans character named Max, and that he gave birth and that possibly he was inspired by my actions.
Riese: A hundred percent, he was inspired by you.
Carly: A thousand percent.

We reflect on what the 2020 election says about America, what the ultraconservative majority in the Supreme Court has been up to, plus the pandemic and political situations unfolding around the globe.

Yes. Niecy Nash got gay married. Love wins!!

“People were always so impressed that you didn’t leave me, but your gift wasn’t staying — it was seeing. Most people don’t get to transition under the pansexual gaze of someone who loves them the way you loved me.”

“Stories about huge families full of love, whether nuclear or chosen or just-for-school, were the comfort food of my childhood, and I’m trying to find something similar for my queer adulthood. Is there such a thing?”

Drew: Then Kehlani does a little Titanic, which means “putting a hand on the fogged-up glass”—
Riese: It means “causing a ship to hit an iceberg and then sink.”
Drew: Which… metaphorically? You could argue…

Last night, ten contenders for the Democratic nomination gathered in the First in the Nation caucus state for the LGBTQ Presidential Forum. Organized by One Iowa, The Gazette, The Advocate and GLAAD, the forum offered the most robust discussion of LGBT issues of the 2020 campaign thus far.

Niecy Nash Says and Jessica Betts, Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman, and all your favorite grown-up gay love stories! Plus Canadian World Cup soccer star Quinn came out as transgender (congrats!!), and some ‘Pro-Sex, Anti-Fascist’ art to decorate your walls.

John: Could you imagine you and Dylan just got done cunnaling-ing together, you’re in bed, the California sun is basking on you. And then you turn to Dylan and you’re like, “We have to get up so we can go to Max’s Willy Wonka baby shower.” That’s the thing you interrupt with.

We have 26 whole questions on all things gender! From parenting to transition to clothing to inclusion and exclusion in queer spaces, and more!

“I want to read stories about dykes not acting right. I want to read about people being messy. So I want to write about that too.”

Also: Mulan is coming to Disney+, Lena Waithe is making an open marriage drama at Amazon, Lifetime orders an LGBTQ+ Christmas movie, and more!

Plus, an All-American episode that gives Bre-Z some of the best work of her career, biphobia rears its ugly head once again on grown-ish, and a hilarious and spooky episode of Nancy Drew!

In part two of their intimate interview, Autostraddle Managing Editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya asks her girlfriend Kristen Arnett to define being a top and what she remembers about their first night together at a hotel bar.