Questions from the A+ Inbox were taking up such an enormous portion of the A+ Insider that we started dedicating an entire post to them instead! This A+ feature now exchanges bi-monthly with our column, Into the A+ Advice Box. We think this will be a lot of fun for the whole family. We’ve included as many questions as we can. We love you and your hair looks fantastic today!

MERCH, BUSINESS AND TECHNICAL CONCERNS

Q: Wait can we not like comments anymore?

Kamala: We’ve been doing spring cleaning on the website, and it turns out that our plug-in for  liking comments was creating a glitch in the website that got in the way of creating posts on this website, so it got swept away. You can always just tell someone you love their comment! Update: we will be looking into a non-glitch way for comment liking, based on the keen interest here!

Carmen: Liking comments is also randomly one of those little things that causes bugs and delays across the site (such as longer loading times on certain posts, and so on). I’m really sorry! I love liking comments, too! I agree with Kamala that you can always show love by commenting in a thread and saying literally “I like this” or “<3”

Riese: It was slowing down page load time and causing other glitches. I miss it too, though.

Sarah: One of my hopes and dreams for the comments is that it becomes easier to comment so there’s more vitality and people showing up there. Are there things about the comments that you would like other than liking/upvoting? Share… in the comments. ;)

Hey, y’all think about launching a Patreon for To L and Back? I’m willing to pay five bucks a month to get it ad free.

Nicole: This is a good note! I would love to know how many people feel similarly <3

RE: Whether to keep/restore the PM function — maybe you could do a quick survey to find out how many people use them? I know for me I made at least one significant connection via private messages, and I’ve had some other interesting conversations that way too, so I’d be sad to see it go.

Kamala: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those PMs are not on our docket to bring back, they’re just not used very much! I am totally into the fact that you got a significant other off of this platform, which leads me to believe that you would probably kill at other platforms too? Does your game work in the comments? I want to see how that might work…

Riese: There was a huge problem with spam in PMs so the tech team shut them off.

Hey! Sorry to bother you but I keep getting a “bad gateway” error when I try to click through to page 2 of the main page?? And when I refreshed it said I had “exceeded the max number of requests for a human”?? I’m a human! I promise! I just want to view older articles!!

Kamala: I have had our team of experts investigate this issue, and I can now say with great certainty that not only you are for sure human, you should be able to open that page 2 AS MANY TIMES AS YOU LIKE. def let us know if it happens again, it should not.

Hi everyone at autostraddle, just a reminder that you all are so brilliant and brave!! and I hope you can each find a moment of feeling good today <3 Rest is good. Rest is needed. Take care of yourselves as well as you take care of all of us <3

ALL-CONSUMING NEEDS TO SHARE

All consuming need to share: This week I learned the term genderblank, which def applies to me. And I committed to stop asking myself about my gender bc the only reason I ask myself is bc other ppl keep asking me. And I went to my favorite thrift store and got two sweaters and two long sleeve shirts that are super duper duper soft and I didn’t worry about how masc or femme they were or werent or made me look or didnt and it felt so good. I’m wearing them now and damn am I cozy!

Kamala: I love this! Sometimes when I get really deep into it, I don’t even know what masc and femme mean anymore, because it’s 2020, and all aesthetic representations have so many more significances that we can ever know without a complete context, and I like this idea that we could just stop trying to catalog and pin down perpetually fluid things like gender with a word: genderblank.

Lesbians on tv alert — Fran Drescher has a lesbian daughter in her new show, Indebted!

Heather: Yes! I wrote about her.

Hi! I wanted to recommend a truly wild lesbian movie on Netflix that I loved and I don’t think I have seen covered. It to me brought the same sort of joy as that Butter one w/Jennifer Garner you wrote about a while ago. It feels ~perfect~ for quarantine. I live in Spain (yes, I am confined to my house alone. I take the trash out VERY regularly so I can step out of my apartment) and I went to Madrid for the weekend earlier this year and saw a few musicals and one of them was La Llamada. I’m not completely fluent in Spanish yet, so I figured I’d watch the movie on Netflix first. It’s available on US Netflix as “Holy Camp.” It has everything: A lesbian love story (not the central story but central enough). Singing/rapping nuns. God coming down to earth and singing Whitney Houston songs. Anyway, love you guys! Stay strong during social distancing!

Heather: Oh wow, you had already sold me but then you said god coming down to earth so sing Whitney Houston songs and now I feel compelled to stop everything I’m doing and watch it immediately! Probably will follow it up with my favorite movie in the singing/rapping nuns genre — Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

Carmen: Excuse me! This movie sounds perfect!?!? Are you really sure none of the rapping nuns are Whoopi Goldberg?

Saw this, thought of Heather, love you all

Heather: Ahahahaha! Perfect!

Did you see/hear this piece on NPR with La Doña talking about feminist reggaeton and coming out as bi through an album release party for “Algo Nuevo”? It’s such a boss move! She sings “Vete papi, ya no te quiero, no quiero tu caricia ni tu dinero. Vente mami, yo quiero algo nuevo, a ver como va, a ver quién prefiero”!

Carmen: I love La Doña but missed this interview!! I’m trying to find it, but I think you must be talking about this one? I am so excited to already know what I’m listening to while I cook dinner tonight!

Riese needs this if she hasn’t already seen it

Riese: THANK YOU SO MUCH

I note the increase in sex toy purchases during lockdown. Am I the only one who has got rid of certain items in case I die of coronavirus and my family have to deal with my possessions?!

Riese: You… might be….

Watching The Real L Word for the first time & DEEPLY appreciative of the recaps (and everything else y’all do)… so donated $50 as extra thanks!

Riese: You’re so welcome! Each of those recaps took like three days to do so I am pleased to hear that they are continuing to find new life in these dark times.

Nicole: Thank you so much for supporting!!!

Rachel, I re-read your essay “Toward an Applicable Theory of Just Not” in preparation for the Passover Seder. I’ve been thinking about how the struggle of quarantine for so many people has been about reworking their understandings of work, of community, of what it means to be present for the community, of what it means to do so much less than usual and for that to be what is required for community health. And of course there are so many strikes, people required to work who have largely been ignored in broader culture — not deemed care providers in the same way nurses and teachers are, and also not held to the esteem doctors and scientists are, but they are the people that keep us fed and able to access resources.

Thank you again for writing it; so many lines have new significance in our current reality, and it brings me to tears again as it did the first time I read it.

Rachel: Thank you so much for sharing this! It already feels like 10,000 years ago that I published that, but knowing that it still has relevance is really affirming to me, thank you so much — I’ve been feeling stuck and frozen by the forced inaction of the moment just like everyone else is, and this is such a valuable reminder that, duh, inaction (or “inaction”) has a lot of power inherent in it too. Thank you, and belated chag sameach <3

Ummm the .gay internet domain is now open for registration. . .. . .. who gets everyoneis.gay????

HAVE YOU WRITTEN ABOUT THIS / I NEED INFORMATION/ ARTICLE IDEAS

I see stuff all the time about queer credit unions. Are those real? Would putting my money there be a scam or actually beneficial to my community? Please investigate!!

Carmen: This is not my expertise, I can’t speak to if anything is a scam, and this is not financial advice. HOWEVER! We have in fact written about queer credit unions before, and hopefully that helps you.

Whatever happened to Kate Severance? Could they be featured in the “Where are former AS staffers now?” section of the A+ Insider?

Laneia: Sometimes, when I’ve gotten all my work done and my house is cleaned and the grass has been mowed; when my car’s gas tank is full and the groceries have been put away; when the cat has been fed and the windows washed, I like to let my mind wander. And as it wanders, dipping in and out of whimsical spaces and cottony dreams and, sometimes, even the darkness, I often find myself thinking, “What if, by some magic, I received a small gift — perhaps a semiprecious stone, or a tiny cake, one single flower maybe — each time an Autostraddle reader asked for an update on the whereabouts of Kate Severance?”

Can we get a Make It Gay You Cowards 2020 Edition? I really loved it and would love an up to date version even more.

Carmen: Can you believe that most of the shows from our 2018 edition still have not made it gay!! Those cowards! I don’t know if we’ll be updating it right this moment (though shout out to This Is Us for officially making Tess gay and therefore earning their way off that list).

Can you write an article about queer quarantine haircuts? What good queer looks are easy to do at home? What should we try out now? How to do them ourselves? Thanks!

Rachel: I feel like this has been roundly discussed and perhaps even put in motion in some form? I agree, this is crucial community info! Maybe in a few more weeks the team will have enough haircut experience to put together a roundtable — I’ve been maintaining my roommate’s fade and will have to layer my own hair in like, another month.

Would love to read something about Janis Joplin!

Laneia: Well this is very vague! Please elaborate!

hi! I am reading the jumpsuit style thief and I am so, so in love! I have a quick question. I know it would be a bit more work, but I was wondering if you would consider using an asterisk or another code when an item is available in extended sizing? (if it’s not, there’s no point clicking.) Thanks for all you do!

Riese: Yes I will absolutely!!! Good idea.

Hii so I got a small tattoo this winter (it’s a black star on my ankle for David Bowie) and I am casually obsessed with it, so I’ve been thinking about all the cool queer tattoos out in the world. I know those community photo posts are a lot of work, and you guys already did an A+ segment, but could we do some sort of “please send us your queer tattoos and possibly who did them” post in the future?

Laneia: I tell you what, I will make this happen for you.

Did you know that Josh Thomas’s new Freeform show, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, features an adorable romance between one of the main characters (Matilda) and her best friend (Dreya)? Both characters have autism, and the show does an excellent job exploring the communication challenges and gifts that their autism brings. The actor who plays Matilda, Kayla Cromer, has disclosed that she’s on the spectrum, and I think it’s wonderful that the show’s producers specifically sought out an actor with that lived experience. As a whole, the show is just so sweet and funny and smart, and I think it deserves some coverage here!

Heather: I did know this! Natalie told me, but thank you for the reminder! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

Will there be a sex toy shortage? Should we be stocking up on that?

Riese: I honestly don’t think so, but I would hate to say no and leave you lying in bed with nothing but your own two hands to get you off. Looking at our Babeland affiliate sales, we did have a huge spike the first week of April. In late March and later on in April, sales are up, but not WILDLY up — around 20% higher than usual! But maybe stock up just for fun!

Rachel: A few places have had to shut down or limit shipping, but not everyone, and a lot of places are having great specials right now as a way to try to stay afloat; hopefully we can feature some too! I know anecdotally that the proprietor of Early to Bed in Chi has been running the store on their own while continuing to pay their employees for not coming in, so they’re a great place to spend some $ right now, as well as thru any of our affiliates in the link Riese shared above!

How come you don’t see separatist communities anymore? Why did the old lesbian separatists communities fail?

Carmen: OMG DID YOU READ THIS PIECE LAST FALL IN THE NEW YORK TIMES!!! I sure did and let me tell you — I still think about it all the time! I love these women, may we continue to protect the land.

Would it be possible to have an article on how to get back into video games during quarantine? I used to love video games back in the days when you would buy a CD-Rom to play or when I would go to my friend’s house to play N64, but so much has changed since then! What is Steam? Are there any fun games I can play on my aging Mac that has very little disk space and a simple wireless mouse? What are the best new indie games and where do I find them? Thanks for considering!

Heather: Oh my gosh, yes! I’ll write this for you next week!

Sarah: Can I just say that Life Is Strange is one of the best games I have ever played and it’s available on almost all platforms? Please play!! It’s also pretty queerrrrrrr ;).

Hey homos. Maybe this is a question for the lesbrarian? I work as a youth leader with queer teens aged 13-19 and I would really like to get some body-positive literature to stock our mini library with. many of the teens struggle with eating disorders and whilst i know i can’t singlehandedly cure them, i would love to be able to offer them zines and books that are focused on body-positive messages preferably with a queer angle. back when i was struggling with an ED, i found it v helpful to read classics like Fat Is A Feminist Issue, but i think my teens would think this hideously archaic. Any suggestions on more contemporary and queer titles that I could offer them would be great!!

Rachel: I asked our resident lesbrarian Casey if she had any recs for you, and boy she really came through! Here’s her list:

Fiction

I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee (Korean American bi fat girl who wants to be the first plus-size K-pop star)
The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding (fat lesbian teen with a fashion blog moving out of her “sidekick” role)
Dumplin’ and Puddin’ by Julie Murphy (queer characters are side characters, but very wonderful fat heroines defying stereotypes and the author is queer and fat)
Faith: Taking Flight by Julie Murphy (not out until July, but a fat queer girl superhero!)
As The Crow Flies by Melanie Gilllman (queer fat Black girl goes to feminist Christian camp and is the only Black girl)

Non-Fiction (all except one are not written specifically for teens, FYI)

Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance by Rosie Molinary (It has some good reviews about usefulness for teens; I’m not sure about the queer content, but it is published by Seal Press which is a queer positive feminist publisher)
Body Positive Power: How learning to love yourself will save your life by Megan Jayne Crabbe (Not specifically for teens, but appropriate for older ones especially; author is a body and fat positive activist with disordered eating history; also, who has talked about intersections of homophobia with fatphobia)
Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You by Sofie Hagen (Fat positive comedian—I haven’t read it but it has been noted there is some kind of LGBTQ content in here! Does have some content about sex)
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor (This book has received rave reviews from some queer people I know, so I feel good about recommending it even though I’m not sure if it has explicit queer content)
You Have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar (Same as above—recommended by real life queers, not sure if it has queer content!
The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color by Virgie Tovar (Written for teens, but not out until May—It appears to have a lot of diverse perspectives, so I assume there is some queer content!)
Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image Is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass by Jes Baker (Samantha Irby gave this book five out of five stars on Goodreads, I think that’s all the recommendation anyone needs?)

While social distancing could we have a weekly post on upcoming online live events that are queer? Zoom book launches (like Cameron Esposito’s last week), queer musicians doing home concerts, etc? Essentially stuff like Shelter In Our Place! They are a lifeline but there isn’t one place to find them!
Thanks!

Laneia: We’re working on expanding into this kind of content and will keep you updated! I agree it’s a lifeline for sure.

Nicole: Did you hear that if we meet our fundraising goal, we’re going to throw a virtual variety show?! We’re serious! Also, we do keep a (non-exhaustive) community calendar which is populated based on reader submissions! I also reached out to Vanessa our Community Editor who hand-approves every event submitted, just for you, and she recommends following @queerantinecommunity on Instagram, too. FINALLY, you should also follow @autostraddle on Instagram because as one of the milestone perks for our fundraiser (which you all helped us reach!) we are going to hold a SECOND Shelter in Our Place! <3

I also put this in Shelli Nicole’s wonderful resource list — it breaks down CARES Act and State orders protecting ppl from eviction, utility shutoffs, and some info on loan payments. It’s a lot to process,but all in one place.

Kamala This is a fabulous resource, thank you!

Listen now that we’re supposed to wear fabric masks or whatever now is CLEARLY the time for a tutorial for whatever that hair braid/face scarf thing from Portrait of a Lady on Fire is! I need a look that protects the face while also subtly shouting ‘I’m a lesbian!’

Laneia: I feel like either Drew or Sally sent this.

Carmen: Mhhhmhmm. Drew — you’ve been found out.

HI I JUST NEED TO TELL YOU I’M REALLY GLAD YOU’RE HERE AND YOU’RE LISTENING/GROWING/CHANGING LIKE/ALONG WITH THE REST OF US AND I JUST THINK THIS WEBSITE IS REALLY IMPORTANT SO THANK YOU OK BYE

MISC

Mapbox created a bunch of stock photos of queer people working in tech and is offering them to use for free!

Laneia: HOT DAMN THANK YOU

Sarah: WOW YES THANK YOU!

I’m going through my first break up ever right now and tbh floundering. But I came across the Break Up Better Together zine last night. (First wow, times sure do change huh yikes) But it was overall very reassuring to reread it now that I have experienced a breakup and find some words that I did need to hear right now that have just been waiting on my shelf for 5 years till I needed them. So thank you!

Riese: Ummmmm I fucking LOVE THIS thank you! I was going through old shit the other day and found two copies of the zines from that series and was like, damn, this was truly such an amazing thing that we did! What a moment in time that was.

Umm so Roberta Colindrez was gonna play a main character in Tenebris Vulnus, which has struggled to get funding, but it looks like they are keeping on keeping on!

Rachel: Oh thank God

By the way, I’m sure someone might have said this already but the new Amazon show Hunters has a black lesbian main character! With a Latinx girlfriend! I’ve only watched the first four episodes so I can’t promise how good her storyline is or whether she survives (it’s a very murder-y show). It’s also not a fantastic show and is SUPER triggering for like…. everything (anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, violence, gore) so watch with caution.

Riese: I watched it and honestly I actually liked it? (I’m Jewish FTR) But I cannot find another soul on this earth who has seen it and will talk to me about it! I actually like where her story ended up a LOT. I am not sure how or if to write about it or what kind of piece we’d be looking for. But I think about it not infrequently. If anybody has ideas on the type of post they’d like to see about it let me know!

Autostraddle has published thirst trap and sexting advice before, but during the Advice-A-Thon I would like to ask Chingy for her expert advice on taking HOLE PICS! Please, for me and the internet!

Laneia: I’m gonna be honest with you, I was not prepared for the journey of this question. I want you to have the things you need, especially any hole-related things. I feel like this could be A+ content.

Sarah: I have never considered taking photos of my holes and now I cannot unconsider it!

Does it confuse/bother anyone else that photos and links aren’t organized in the same order? for example, in the A+ Insider Link round up or the Dice suggestions. It’s just really hard to figure out what link is which when they’re not ordered in the same way. I know it’s been said before that the photos are organized in whatever way looks coolest graphically and I’m fully in support of that. But if it’s not a ranked list where the order matters, could the links please match up to the order of the photos? Am I just being super persnickety? I don’t wanna make more work for y’all, i just wanna know what to click on!

Riese: Huh, honestly I never thought of the A+ Insider link roundup in that way — I can’t speak to the dice thing but I know in shopping posts we do have things in order to match up, if that’s what was happening there? The graphic that I put on top of the Top Posts of the Month list is just intended to be like, a visual item that breaks up blocks of text and gives a visual overview of what the month looked like, whereas the links below them with their headlines I would think of as the more helpful pieces of information for finding a thing? Also though your question suggests maybe I’ve answered a question on this topic in the past and since forgotten all about it? I HOPE NOT! It’s possible. Sometimes I have the same ideas more than once, like I say “should I write about [x]?” and I already have. I arrange it for visual majesty, although the filter is getting a bit 2014. I think it’s weird b/c it’s like a random idea I had to do for the graphic for that part of the insider when we wrote our very first insider in july 2014. It’s weird when you do something once without thinking about it too hard and then before you know it — it’s your life.

Sarah: Riese we should talk about the Insider rebrand anyway. And people this is your thing, so please let us know if there’s anything else you’re curious about/want more of in the comments below!

Riese: Right that’s the other thing we want to redesign the Insider altogether to use the many functions of our Gutenberg editor, which’s what we used for the Yearbook and the L.A. City Guide.

TLW: Gen Q has forever sexualized the endearment “buddy” for me and I’m only half mad about it

Riese: Listen in these times we cling to whatever gets us through. Help yourself to a Sinley fanvid, you deserve it!

Carmen: Sinley forever.

Sarah: …. What are you doing buddy?

Riese:

Sinley Sinley Sinley Sinley

What’s the story behind the Dyke Kitchen logo? It’s so interesting, and it reminds me of something that I can’t put my finger on…. like a 1980s-90s hand illustrated spiral bound cookbook?? It feels so familiar!

Kamala: I am obsessed with these chef shorts and pants and I have a pair that’s half checker and half stripes, and my good friend, who is an illustrator/designer, was like “lemme draw you something like egg yolks over chef pants and checkered tablecloths.” She says it’s her take on a greasy spoon aesthetic mixed with the Moosewood cookbook, I really like it!

Sarah: Ugh now I need these pants in mustard. Thanks, Kamala!!!

Can we give Ariel Levy a queer shame award or something? I was never a big fan but her defense of the white savior who committed medical malpractice in Uganda was the worst piece of writing that I have read in years.

Kamala: Ahahhahaha! I began reading this piece and could not get through it, and did NOT, in fact, arrive at the part where she defended a white savior, but I’m honestly not terribly surprised. I’ve enjoyed pieces of hers, but she also peddles some yt swill that I simply cannot stomach.

Riese: Yeah I also too have enjoyed some of her stuff and very much not others. But to me she will always and forever be the person who’s lesbian wedding article apparently tipped the balance of New York Magazine’s 2007 Love & Sex Issue too far into the queer column, thus leading my bisexual dating article to get killed. In other words she cost me $3,000.

Hey! I noticed that Lunapads, a Canadian company that sells fabric menstrual products, has re-branded as Aisle. I have liked Lunapads for years. I was wondering if y’all knew anything about this change. It looks like they were/are working on making it clear that the products are for everyone who menstruates, which is not just women. So that seems good.

Laneia: Oh that’s a wonderful shift in marketing, good for them. We don’t personally know anything about their rebrand but we do wish them well!

Sarah: This is hot.

Good morning to everyone who woke up with the a cappella hand clap chant from Portrait of a Lady on Fire in their head 🔥

REALLY NICE THINGS YOU TOLD US

L.O.V.I.N.G. recent content EVEN MORE THAN USUAL which I didn’t even know was possible. Yall — and I mean ALL — are such amazing magicians!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Laneia: !!!! Wow! Thank you! I love being called a magician! Imagine if I practiced magic — I’d be even more jazzed right now! But the point is that I’m so glad you’ve loved the recent content!!

Yall, I canNOT keep up with all the amazing stuff on here I wanna read!!!

Kamala: We canNOT hear enough of that, so thank you for sharing!

When did you last stretch your back? Maybe get up and walk around a bit

Kamala: What an excellent reminder! Just did some shoulder rolls and reached my hand up “toward the sky”, as this yoga video I do commands me to do, and it was great, thanks.

Carmen: In fact my back has been killing me since I sat down to answer these questions, how did you know?

Sarah: Oh shit. I just rose up and rolled my shoulders thank you.

Just a reminder that the work you each do every day on Autostraddle is helping hundreds and hundreds of us take care of ourselves and take care of people around us. Your work is so so so powerful. You are so so so so powerful even, or perhaps most of all, on the hardest of days. <3 <3 <3 <3

Laneia: It’s fine and good that this made me cry on a Wednesday afternoon!!! Thank you!!

A+ people, if you have not read the A+ Impact Report (linked in Nicole’s latest email newsletter, quite nifty in itself), stop what you’re doing and read it now. It will remind you of what makes the AS community a rare and beautiful place, especially on the internet, especially in these times. If you can get through Heather’s story without shedding even one tear, I’m going to worry about you. We did this. We built this. Together. I wish every report I have to read was half as inspiring.

Kamala: Yes! Nicole is very good at what she does, and has brought a really beautiful cohesive narrative (and has brought in so many great team stories) to that report and, really, to all of the work that she’s doing here. I’m so happy you appreciated this report!

Carmen: Listen I just really love Nicole and I love how hard she works and how good she is at her job, and also how much more connected I feel to all you beautiful weirdos since she got here. I just love it all, okayyyy?????

Sarah: Nicole is such a gift!

Riese: NICOLE 4EVER

Nicole: Stahp! Too much!! But in all seriousness, you, anonymous A+ member, are the best, as are you all <3

I finally upgraded my AS membership plan like I said I would a couple years ago because I’m done with grad school and I have a decent paying job! Super glad to hear you are using resources to do internal anti-racism training. That is important and hard work and I’m glad you are prioritizing it. Please keep being an important and progressive queer media site and thanks for all that you do!

Kamala: This was all in place before I joined this team, but I was also pleased to know that there were resources set aside for this. The various kinds of racial-justice trainings are making small impacts that I feel confident are going to keep growing into larger and more meaningful impacts as we continue to reflect on our processes and have real conversations. Seriously, thank you for being invested in this for us!

Carmen: I just wanted to emphasize everything Kamala said, anti-racism trainings are so important for our teamwork and workplace culture, I am so glad that we are doing them. SO GLAD!! And also thank you so much for your continued support, I’m always humbled by how much you (and all the rest of our A+ members) give back to our community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Nicole Thank you for upgrading <3 <3 <3 !!!

Hi I just wanna say I how much I appreciate Riese’s and other’s superpower of headline writing! <3 Makes my day every day.

Kamala: It is truly a superpower that she and Laniea possess and use for the highest good!

Riese: I appreciate this!

Thank you for being so smart, skilled and persisted with money/business/finances that we don’t yet have to imagine a future without you. Thank you for keeping you going. Thank you for every kind thing you have done for yourselves today, from looking at pictures of puppies, to eating something (anything), to reaching out for support, to being patient and gentle with yourself when you couldn’t do some other thing because it’s hard right now and you are still worthy of kindness. Thank you for helping us to know that we are worthy, too.

Riese: You’re welcome and also thank you! I just had a yogurt with honey and granola, and then looked at my dog, who was once a puppy!

Laneia: I literally did some of these exact things for myself today and I really needed this message! Thank you. I’m so glad you’re here.

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE A+ MEMBER GOAL!!!! YOU ALL ROCK SO MUCHHHHHHHHHH. RAINBOW GLITTER SPARKLES FOR EVERYONE

Laneia: I LOVE RAINBOW GLITTER SPARKLES !! I DON’T EVEN MIND THE CLEANUP !!

Carmen ✨✨🌈✨✨🌈✨✨🌈✨✨🌈

Sarah: *DANCES IN THE SPARKLES AND TWIRLS LIKE A 70’S BABE*

Nicole: I DO LOVE GLITTER. <3 <3 <3 Thank you for your congratulations! <3 WELCOME NEW MEMBERS <3

This website keeps me afloat, now and always. I don’t use social media. When I open my computer, the places I consistently check are 1) my email and 2) Autostraddle. I’ve made your writing the background of my day-to-day because you make me feel validated and empowered, you challenge me, you make me laugh, and you help me hold what’s painful. I’m so grateful. Please take care of yourselves <3

Carmen: As someone whose daily routine also consisted of 1) checking my email and 2) Autostraddle for the better part of the last ten years (long before I worked here), I can’t tell you how much this means to me! Like, wow. OK! You please take care of yourself, too. <3

Riese: This is the best daily routine I have ever heard of.

Thank you so much for being a virtual shoulder for so many hurting people. You’re doing good, important work that I know must feel overwhelming at times, and I really and truly hope you are all going to be ok <3 Much much love, stay safe and well

Rachel: Thank you, this is so affirming and comforting, I hope you and your loved ones are doing well today friend <3

Just wanna send you all love & encouragement today!! Thank you for launching the fundraiser!!! It’s so great to get to see everyone’s contributions come together <3

Nicole: It means so much to have encouragement from you and everyone while fundraising! We’re only going to keep bugging everyone until end of day today so THANK YOU for bearing with us, for supporting in any way you can, and for being there for us! We’re so touched by the way that bit by bit, this community has come together to support and make sure we can keep doing this work. 79% of donations are $50 or less! What that means to me, is that this is one big collective decision to help sustain this space and it feels like such queer magic 💖🔮✨You are all so powerful — thank you for being here!!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to donate to the current campaign because I just lost hours at my job due to the pandemic and then I saw that ppl were harassing Heather for not writing about Batwoman when she literally has COVID-19 and I became livid and donated to try to counteract such ridiculous people! Thank you for staying alive Heather! Write about Batwoman whenever you damn well please!!

Heather: Friend, this means more to me than I could ever explain. Thank you.

Nicole: Thank you so much for this!!! 😭

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