Letter From Your Former Editor-in-Chief

Dearests,

We are gathered here today on this final day of Rachel Kincaid’s tenure at Autostraddle dot com to say goodbye to this person we have known and loved for some time.

As legend has it, Rachel Kincaid commented on the recap of our 2009 Pride Situation — in which 15 interns from around the world converged into one hotel room for one wild weekend of marching, drinking, escaping homophobic parents, light fighting and deep gay bonding — to note “i am a little embarrassed by how bad I want to be an autostradle intern. autoembarrsassing.”

By October, Rachel’s dream would come true as she joined the Intern Team and was almost immediately cc’ed on an email in which I was attempting to assign a duty to Rachel and our then-COO asked “who the hell is Rachel?”

This is who the hell Rachel is: she’s whip-smart, cynical, funny, weird, patient, helpful, perceptive, wise. I fell in love with Rachel as a writer when the Prop 8 trial began and she volunteered to recap it, and I’d stay up nearly ’til sunrise to edit and add pictures to what she composed from myriad sources late into the night. It was clear that week that Rachel was a uniquely talented and skilled human, that she was made for this type of work. She came into the game with a knack for yanking humor out of political catastrophe, for making jokes in the darkness, for building a world where frustration and impatience could be tempered by hope for what comfort we might offer each other.

She was still in undergrad at Brandeis when she started here. A mere babe in the woods! Taylor and Kip met her in Boston — the first of any of us to meet Rachel IRL — and informed us that Rachel’s nerdy exterior obscured a badass interior. She might actually be cooler than all of us, we were warned. She live-blogged our objectively catastrophic trip to Dinah Shore in April 2010 and we all met her in person for the first time in the summer of 2010, when she came to the aforementioned Intern Pride Party in New York she’d once admired from afar. I remember catching a glimpse of her from my bed where Laneia and I were hungover and eating bagels, she was wearing a black t-shirt and already palming a beer. Everybody seemed like they were having a good time. It felt weird even then that she was ostensibly an intern, she already felt like so much more.

By 2011, she was holding hands like sea otters with Sarah Palmer on a bed in the Hotel Zoso and passing out Xanax and oranges for our second and arguably more catastrophic trip to Dinah Shore. By the end of that year, she’d ascended to the #2 spot on the “Who wrote the most posts” list, where she remained until we brought on our big first batch of new writers in 2012.

We wrote so much back then. Every day, almost! When Rachel had an office job that denied her access to basically the entire internet, Sarah Palmer and I would copy-paste 5-6 newspaper articles into an email and send it to her in the morning for her to type up a story on her lunch break. She kept it all in there — every detail on DADT, NOM, same-sex marriage, the GOP, hate crimes, bullying, teen suicides. Lindsay Lohan, Katy Perry. She could do it so quickly and she was smart and sardonic and unforgiving and just so effortlessly good.

It blurs together a little here: this weird hard time when the website was blowing up but our bank accounts remained empty, when our most reliable reprieve from the stress of it all was endless witty g-chats that we eventually compiled into a ‘zine and sold at the first A-Camp in 2012. This was when we started seeing each other as a team more regularly: at camp, at Shakedown. Or when I was invited to speak at the University of Chicago but I was nervous and got Rachel to come do it with me and I felt anxious and terrible until she walked into my hotel room with her calm (and also we drank a lot of wine) and we killed it ’cause she’s very good at pulling brilliant things out of thin air in front of an audience.

Rachel always has the most weirdly specific metaphors, a knack for knowing exactly what your essay is missing, an enduring ability to understand the point of it all and the mechanisms behind whatever social or political force is creeping underneath or exploding all over our lives. She writes advice with compassion, evidence and tough love; personal essays that weave together history and pop culture and narrative so masterfully it’s like a fucking orchestra. She knows how to explain the things you can’t figure out how to explain, she sees what you can’t or don’t want to.

It’s difficult to imagine this place without Rachel, this team without Rachel, this community is Rachel. She’s been here since nearly Day One, you know? We saw her and like in Casper we wanted to keep her. Laneia and I had a whole meeting with our business advisor on the topic of ‘How Not To Lose Rachel.”

Rachel is part of the architecture, her voice is part of our voice, a whole generation of queer people grew up on her political and literary takes. This whole place wouldn’t be here without her, we wouldn’t be here without her. Her tireless and often thankless hours of writing, editing, analyzing, organizing, scheming, dreaming. Her thoughts on horror movies, online media, aliens, ghosts, skincare, sad white girl music, electoral politics, books, food, sex toys, dating, female action heroes and The X-Files. The undoubtably thousands of pieces by other writers she has midwifed into existence.

We will miss her with our whole hearts.

Love,

Riese

2010

Top 10 Most Popular Posts By Rachel

These are the most popular posts by Rachel published since 2013, because Google Analytics refuses to show me per-post data prior to 2013. 

1. 13 Easy Houseplants for Seasonally Depressed Gays and Their Cats (2019)
2. Here’s The Real Story of How Oscar Nominee Jared Leto Got Called Out for Transmisogyny At The Virtuosos Awards (2014)
3. You Need Help: Was Breaking Up a Mistake (2015)
4. Let’s All Write Open Letters To Miley Cyrus And Also Your Mom Forever And Ever (2013)
5. You Need Help: Your Girlfriend Wants to Date Other People and It’s Breaking Your Heart (2015)
6. 26 Things to Dip Your Chips In, You Wild Animal You (2014)
7. 55 Fictional Witches, Ranked by Lesbianism (2018)
8. Here’s What the Gillian Anderson Character You’re Most Attracted to Says About You (2019)
9. Police and Prison Abolition 101: A Syllabus and FAQ (2020)
10. 37 Books By, For, or About Bisexual or Otherwise Non-Monosexual People (2013)

Rachel’s contribution to the internal team newsletter that Chelsey used to put together, and Laneia’s favorite Rachel quote.

Nine Hundred (give or take) Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations, 2011 – 2021

Rachel: i feel like in another version of this life you would have written an autowin entry about being hungover the day that DOMA was ruled unconstitutional
and also pulled pork
Riese: instead i am writing a glee recap
the episode was called “blame it on the alcohol”
Rachel: blame it on the pork
Riese: so it’s mostly about me

Rachel: Today a man tried to tell me about how OINTB is problematic, and i discovered my hard limit for OINTB criticism, which is “men.”

Grace: can the tegan and sara song on the canada playlist be “superstar”
Riese: this is like when i asked rachel if there was any condition in which it was okay to put a dave matthews band song on a playlist
and she said “honestly, no.”
that’s how i feel about superstar
Rachel: that’s what makes this a good workplace
the transparency

Laneia: rachel, what if you wrote a piece on how to be calm and not listen to self-doubt but you just gave it to me and riese and yvonne
Rachel: oh hm tbh i don’t think i have that information
i could write a piece on being driven by constant anxiety and tying your self worth entirely to your productivity so you work all the time and thereby get a lot of things done
i think that would ultimately be counterproductive though

Riese: Wait, what is it about this situation that they didn’t understand?
Laneia: i thought it was pretty clear
Rachel: that will be on the senior editorial headstone when we all die together of incredulity and exhaustion
“I Thought It Was Pretty Clear, 2009-2017”
Grace: 2017?
that’s optimistic

Heather: rachel do you use CeraVe® Skincare and also did you receive this press release from them? i think you could leverage it for free stuff or i could on your behalf.
Rachel: i do not have the presser and would love to see it
and also to firmly take whoever decided to not send it to me initially by the ear, and slap them

Laneia: I AM SO TIRED
why does coffee do nothing
Rachel: i don’t know!
Laneia: i need it to do something
Riese: you should try cocaine
Laneia: do they make cocaine machines
Rachel: i bought a new kind of coffee b/c they don’t have the kind i like and the beans look SO dark and like sort of shiny and it really felt like this coffee would be intense, like i would be up until 3 am rearranging furniture and writing manifestos
but nope
next to nothing
Laneia: GOD
this world is cruel
Rachel: this cocaine machine idea has a lot of merit, though, i think
let’s keep that on the table

Laneia: Are we cool with the next photo collage theme being “you doing something you love”
I’m just imagining Alex on a rock wall and Rachel snuggling a cat or something
Oh wait we kind of already did that because Rachel snuggled a box of wine
Rachel: There are a lot of things left in my apartment to snuggle
The possibilities are endless really
Laneia: Ok perfect. Or you could also be doing something besides snuggling like you could be actively drinking the boxed wine
Rachel: Mumbling to the boxed wine about my childhood

Heather: I really enjoyed answering the Harry Potter Cocktails question
Rachel: I wish you would make me a Harry Potter Cocktail
Heather: I know just the one!
Rachel: Or a regular cocktail would also be fine
honestly
at this point
Heather: Just a beer.
Half a beer.
Rachel: I would drink a bottle of grocery store vanilla

Rachel: does anyone have any idea why i would have written “cup” on my to do list
as a complete item
does that mean anything to anyone
Laneia: is it about menstrual cups
Rachel: it is!
oh my god
thank you
Laneia: !!

Rachel: i just tried to delete a comment on someone else’s website
Yvonne: lol how did that work out?
Rachel: it turns out you can’t do that
lesson learned

Rachel: i’m going to take a shower and see if it [amy lee voice] wakes me up inside

Rachel: how are your locks today Heather
Heather: haha! intact and easy twistin’!
are you still in canada, the land of the free and poutine?
Rachel: nope! i am back in the land of subprime loans and freedom fries
Laneia: lord save us
“intact and easy twistin'” had better be a chapter title in your memoirs
Rachel: those are actually going to be the names of my first and second born children
so
Laneia: easy twistin’ is going to have a blast doing their name acrostic in 2nd grade
Rachel: can’t wait to see the saint names they pick for their confirmation
Intact Mary Francis

Rachel: you know what I want to read, but not write
is a list of the totally bananas news stories we all didn’t even notice this year because everything has been so terrible all the time
Laneia: yes
Rachel: like you know at one point somebody drove an escalade into the front of an arby’s and then ended up marrying the manager there six months later
and we have no idea

Carmen: We can’t call our series “The Babe-B-Q” can we, Rachel, we can’t, I know, I’m dealing with it right now emotionally
Rachel: Wait why can’t we
Carmen: Will someone find it offensive
Rachel: Because it sounds like we are barbecuing and cannibalizing babes?
Carmen: HAHAHAHA
Rachel: I feel like ‘babe’ has entered the ranks of gender neutral noun
Carmen: I REALLY HOPE THIS IS TRUE
I like the term ‘babe’ a lot
I’m so glad I drank enough coffee to ask you about this, Rachel
Rachel: I just feel like grilling is one of those things that queer women really deserve to take over from straight dudes
we’re better cooks, we’re more responsible with fire, we look better in cutoffs, etc
Carmen: Yes it totally is
Rachel: Maybe I can try to do a post on good veggie burgers
Carmen: Rice patties
Rachel: Because if I have one more well-meaning meat-eating friend serve me some falling-apart haystack of shredded beet bullshit I will probably die

Laneia: I love muting people on Tweetdeck!!!!!
If someone asked me one of my favorite pastimes I’d say “oh that’s easy: muting people on Tweetdeck” and then I’d smile and smile and smile
Heather: hahaha!
I love that too!
and it’s extra thrilling when it escalates to blocking
Rachel: Sometimes I think about the people I’ve muted even when I’m not on the computer and feel at peace
Laneia: Sometimes I think about the first person I ever blocked and wonder what she’s up to
Rachel: I like to imagine my ex asking what I thought of something he tweeted and then saying “Oh I never saw that, you’re muted”

Rachel: man i am only 10 articles away from 1000 articles on autostraddle dot com and i already know that the 1000th is going to be something like “donald trump calls angela merkel a doodoohead, calls for the assassination of her family”
this is not how i pictured this period of time
Yvonne: what if you have something in preparation for your 1000th article? something very RACHEL that you publish on that day
Rachel: like i put one in the holster now about What Your Pet Cat Needs to Know About UFO Sightings
Yvonne: YES

2014

August 5, 2010

Laneia: i’ll reply to that message since i didn’t yesterday

Riese: also we need to figure out what it is rachel is so busy doing
where is she
what “job” is it that she is at

Laneia: yeah wtf

Riese: then try to get her fired
so that she can hang out with us

Laneia: all the time

Riese: yes

Laneia: and complain about money

Riese: yes
i think rachel is one of my favorite people
in general
that i’ve known in my life

Laneia: agree
i wish we had gone to high school together
i feel generally upset
that it’s like
all of the best humans
were spread out all across the country/world

Riese: i know, it’s v.depressing

Laneia: and none of us had the opportunity
to work together in our formative years

Riese: i think i want autostraddle to be like boarding school

Laneia: ugh i have to stop living in the past

2015

Rachel Kincaid, This Is Your Yearbook

Rachel, you’ve essentially been my primary editor at Autostraddle. And, to be honest, in life? I’ve never actually had an editor whose opinion and point of view I really respect. Whose feedback I welcome wholeheartedly (well, I mean, I’ll always be resistant to feedback in some way, because everything I write is perfect as soon as it appears on the digital page, but you know what I mean). At nearly every other outlet I’ve written for, I am frustrated by editors because I feel like they impose their understanding of my vision on my work — but I feel like you’ve always tried to better unearth and elucidate my vision so that it speaks more clearly through my work. Thank you for all you’ve done for Autostraddle; you’ll be missed, so much, by so many.
— Abeni

okay FIRST OF ALL rachel, my friend, my dream editor, my leo genius — i am so proud of you, i am going to miss you so much, and i am going to finally subscribe to study hall because they are so fucking LUCKY to have you. i know everyone here knows this but i really want to emphasize how much rachel has shaped autostraddle into what it is today. so many of the posts that helped me first find autostraddle and then feel welcome here were written in that classic rachel kincaid better-than-daria deadpan, and i know millions of other readers are here (and stayed here) because of your hard work and talent over more! than! a! decade!!!!!!!! i’ll do the rest of my sappy shit privately. i’m just so thrilled for you.
— Vanessa

Rachel, I cannot even put into words how much you have done for me and my writing since I started at AS. You’re easily one of the best editors I’ve ever had. You’ve edited some of my most vulnerable work (including so many of my FYCs!!!!) and made it so much stronger!!!! Truly just an all around talented! Smart! Funny! Dagger of an editor. With the best hair!!! And just on a personal note, you also were there for me at a very bad time in my life, and I’ll never forget that 💗  I can’t wait to see all that you do next!!!!!!
— Kayla

Rachel, your editing changed the way I write – you edited my first real personal essay (For All The Girls…), and what you saw in that essay helped me find my voice and believe that I had something to say worth sharing. Your writing changed the way I read – whether you are giving advice or explaining politics or telling short stories, or or or or, your analysis and prose have made me sharper and more curious as a reader. You made me realize it was actually extremely cool to be a bisexual abolitionist book nerd! The folks at Study Hall — and truly everyone who encounters your work anywhere in the world — are so lucky. We are all so fucking lucky. Thank you for everything you have given and will give! I hope that the world pours itself back into you with love, creativity, and possibility.
— Adrian

You first entered my online life with your first Autostraddle post on November 8, 2009. You first came into my digital life with our first email on May 19, 2011 at precisely 4:00PM. You first came into my three-dimensional life the next year at A-Camp. Knowing how all these firsts have enriched my own life, I am extremely happy for your new work family. They have no idea how much better their lives are about to get.
— Bren

Sweet dope beautiful Rachel, this is gonna be short and sweet but I hope you know it’s Packed with triple the love. I haven’t been at AS too long but in the 2 years I’ve been here you’ve been nothing but fly. In my past few months of being an editor we’ve had to work closer and I love our side conversations about home decor, quality sex toys and our simple emoji exchanges. I’m so happy for you moving forward to another stage in your career and let it be known that they better know the gem they are getting because you’re so precious. I adore working with you, you’re the Jane Lane of my heart and I wish you nothing but the best – sneak into slack occasionally and keep me updated on your home renovation cos no one else will understand when I Drop 4 pictures of my kitchen to them in between talking about deadlines. I adore you and thank you for always encouraging a hot gay little writer like me!
— Shelli

Rachel! I’m sad that I only got to work with you for a short time. In my almost two years working at Autostraddle, I’ve appreciated your feedback, your politics, your sense of humor and your passion for The X-Files. Long before I joined the team, I was (and remain) a diehard fan of your writing, and I look forward to watching your creativity thrive on new platforms. Thank you for making me feel welcome at Autostraddle and thank you for normalizing robe-wearing for divorcees and the rest of us.
— Ro

I want to start off by thanking you for helping me make and move through some tough decisions — you might not know it but you were there for me during a really difficult transition back in 2017. I was returning from a camping trip and I parked in a Trader Joe’s parking lot half a mile from my house and called you. You picked up. You talked me through everything, calmly. You empowered me to do what needed to be done, what I was too afraid to do. It was December when I read your response in the “When Was The Last Time You Cried” roundtable — which then became a piece of writing that I continued to return to when I wanted to feel seen. I still love it so much:
“I didn’t want to be in my apartment either, which felt claustrophobic and sad and too hot. The only place it felt like I could be, at least for the duration of Alessia Cara’s “Stay,” was inside this Toyota Echo that doesn’t even have my name on the title. But tragically for me, you cannot live your entire life and die inside a Toyota Echo.”
You are an amazing leader, a thoughtful coworker, and are such an important voice in any room you’re in. Your voice, which has defined the Autostraddle brand since its inception, will be missed. YOU will be missed in this community and workplace. Thank you for being my spon con buddy too! I hope we get to work on more projects together, can’t wait to pay you a freelancer rate. 😜
— Sarah

rachel, it’s wild to go from admiring someone’s writing and humor and wit and brilliance to eventually getting to work with them, but i can honestly say that writing for and alongside you has been one of the best parts of joining autostraddle for me. you constantly amaze me with everything you accomplish, with your clever and delightful perspectives, with your suggestions that always elevate whatever you’re working on. you are such a gift of a human being, and i know that you will bring that caring, generous, sparkling energy to everything you do in the future. please come visit and slack me about divorces and fancy loungewear and tarot readings! this place is better for you having been here, and won’t be the same without you. xx
— Meg

Rachel! I have really enjoyed working with you! Your writing is a constant inspiration to me and I hope to be half the writer you are someday. I’m also glad we got to meet at A-Camps over the years so I could experience your hilarity in person. I hope our professional paths cross again someday! Have an awesome summer, stay cool, k.i.t., etc.
— Valerie Anne

Rachel, Thank you for welcoming me to the bisexual feelings atrium at my first A-Camp in 2015. I will never forget the space you created for the huge number of dehydrated bisexual campers, the variety of hummus, or seeing your hair in person for the first time. I always felt welcome at Autostraddle as a bisexual committed to a boi and who is also deeply thirsty for…a lot of other hot people. That’s in large part because you were on the editorial team repping for us unapologetically. Thank you also for your excellent X-files commentary, the column-that-should-be-a-bestselling-Oprah-book, “Helping You Help Yourself,” and your brave investigation into dating someone with the same name as you.
— KaeLyn

Rachel!! When I started writing for Autostraddle I barely knew who I was or what I wanted. (In fact, that was a frequent theme of my writing.) I was a baby — eager and unprepared. I keep wanting to say that through those first chaotic years you were my protective big sister — someone I could trust and lean on and confide in without judgement. But I actually think it’s more accurate to say you were my editor. You are such a good editor. Yes, I mean that literally since I owe so many of my best pieces to your collaboration. But also as a person, as a friend, and sure as a metaphorical big sister you bring the same qualities that make you such a good editor. The lack of judgement, the intuition, the ability to approach every individual as an individual. I’m going to miss working with you — my writing is going to miss working with you — but none of those things will be lost as long as you’re my friend. I love you, Rachel. Thank you for being my editor when I needed one most.
— Drew

Rachel, just, thank you. Thank you for being so welcoming when I started here, for always being willing to jump in and help me, and for launching the very A+ member program that fills my days and has led to everything that’s been possible for so many years! Yes, I am going to miss your wit and writing on AS and incredible work ethic and ability to speak with an obscene level of eloquence at the drop of a hat, but I’m also going to really miss having fellow spooky representation on the senior team. I’m looking forward to reading more of your writing, following your projects and seeing you thrive in all of the ways.
— Nicole

I keep trying to come up with some perfect anecdote, a version of a story of us that I can tell, that will somehow do the magic of summing up what your friendship and mentorship has meant to me over the last three years and I’ve come up completely empty! I know that I keep saying this, but there is simply no Autostraddle without you. Your intelligence and activism and tenacity and humor is baked into the very walls of the website. But also your steadfast determination is baked into this team. It is, in every way, unfathomable to imagine what Monday is going to feel like without you here.
But I do have one story I want to tell. It was February 2020 during our first winter senior team shakedown, which was also the last time I basically went aside for 18 months because not long after we got thrown into the pandemic. Anyway, on our last day we had just enough time to squeeze in seeing some of Las Vegas before our planes took off after a weekend of work, but as usual I was holding the team up (I move slow). I couldn’t get my suitcase to close and everyone was waiting in the car and I was so embarrassed, just berating myself fully. You ended up coming upstairs to help me, closing the suitcase on your first try. While you did it, I remember mumbling something like “why am I so bad at basic adult things” and you smiled and said so steadily, “there are lots of different kinds of adult things. Some of them you are very good at.”
This is the smallest story, I realize. You probably don’t even remember it. It’s not even a full picture of everything you’ve meant to me, but its a sentence I have repeated to myself so many times. There are some things that I am good at, even when I don’t see it for myself.
Anyway, thank you for that gift. Thank you for being that kind of friend who closes the suitcase and doesn’t let you talk bad about yourself. (Also thank you for making fun of my teacher pet tendencies and telling me to stop being a narc when you snuck a beer into our team photos. Excellent advice from unequivocally the coolest member of the Senior Team.) Love you forever and then infinity days more.
— Carmen

I feel like I’ve said a version of this in every possible text box offered to humans between 2009 and 2021 but please know that I am so goddamn proud to know you, and so eternally grateful for the way you’ve shaped AS into what it is, the foundation you’ve laid for what it will be, and everything you’ve taught me about editing, writing, leadership, and wording emails that bend the recipient to my will while making them think it was their idea. To know you is to love you, and to be in awe of your hair. You’ve ruined me for everyone else. 💛
— Laneia

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been at a loss for words in my whole entire life, and this is one of those times. How do I give voice to the experience of all the floors, and couches, and bunk beds, and buses, and backseats, and airplanes we’ve slept on together? How can I explain the late night impossible decisions and early morning panicked scrambles and typing through transcendent giddiness and typing through crushing grief? How is it possible to even begin to describe what it’s like to hardly be able to hold our own selves up, so we leaned on each other, so we could carry a community? The inside jokes, the knowing glances, the shared stifled laughter and the out-loud gut-busting laughter too? The empathy and shared rage and mutual successes, and the knowing that someone will hear you and see you and that your wins are their wins and your enemies are their enemies? Bourbon and grilled cheese sandwiches and passing a bottle of migraine medication back and forth between us. Advice and just listening and commiseration and “we’re all doing great.” There is no way to measure, to count, to quantify, to even begin to articulate the breadth and depth of your impact on this community, this workplace, this publication, and my own personal life. You are, without hyperbole, a legend, an icon — and the goodness and strength you have sewn into the world in your time at Autostraddle will live on and on and on for generations. I love you, always.
— Heather

From Happy Birthday Rachel!, August 17, 2012

HEAD BISEXUAL VAMPIRE IN CHARGE

Rachel: When we someday make a Venn diagram about fantasy creatures and bisexuals it’s going to be so beautiful
Riese: “all vampires are bisexual” in True Bloodland
Stef: i can confirm that that’s actually just true about all vampires
Riese: but in that Twilight movie y’all made me go see it didn’t seem like anybody was bisexual
Laneia: riese those were mormon vampires
Stef: i definitely think dakota fanning was bisexual
also alice
also let’s get real, carlisle
i am so ashamed
Rachel: 100% of vampires and succubi are bisexual, 30% of werewolves, and about 60% of elves
leprechauns are also all bisexual but also don’t exist, information which is commonly misinterpreted and explains widespread disbelief in bisexuals
Stef: if all vampires are bisexual
are all bisexuals vampires?
something to think about
Rachel: roughly half of ghosts are bisexual; a significant portion become bisexual after death even if they were straight or gay in life
Stef: would love to see data re: werewolves, demon possessions, frankenstein monsters, swamp things, maybe even godzillas
Rachel: Don’t Forget the B in LGBT, where in this instance B stands for “Swamp Things”
Adrian: Wait, now I’m confused. Is it that all bisexuals are unicorns or that all unicorns are bisexuals?
Laura: It is both, Adrian. “Bi” means two.
Rachel: neither, unicorns actually ID as ‘omnisexual’
Adrian: Thanks for clarifying Laura and Rachel! Maybe now I can finally explain my identity to my stepdad.
Stef: “you need help: you’re a swamp thing, and lesbians don’t want to date you cos they’re afraid you’ll leave them for heterosexual privilege”
Rachel: “it happened to me: i’m a composite of multiple grave-robbed corpses and also bisexual”
Mey: This is like the fifth conversation I’ve had about the Bisexuality of All Vampires. We even talked about it in a gothic literature class I took in college while we were reading Dracula. Also Godzilla is a masculine of center lesbian. That’s why she’s called “King of all Monsters”
Rachel: is mothra a hard femme
Robin: I’d like to submit my thesis that mermaids are the original lesbian separatists
Rachel: have we landed anywhere re: selkies
Robin: i know a mermaid who knows a selkie, i’ll reach out to them and take the temperature of the community
Riese: damn we do some important work around here

2017

Rachel Retro-Reading

Some posts by Rachel from the past 12 YEARS that you might enjoy as much as we did and do and will forever???!

Everything is terrible but also ultimately OK. – Rachel Kincaid

Dan Choi is People (October 2010) – In which Rachel’s analysis of a Village Voice cover story on Dan Choi manages to say what it couldn’t — about what we expect of our activists, about the tireless work of activism, about the “increasing sense that asking nicely just isn’t working.”

Autostraddle Book Club #4: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2011) – “I am literally incapable of talking about a memoir about a queer woman grappling with a fraught, distant, infuriating relationship with her father without talking about myself.”

Bustle.com Conjures Every Terrible Feeling Women in Media Have About Women’s Media (2013) – I am realizing as I write this that Rachel was really like my co-person in the realm of “writing about the online media landscape from a social and business perspective” and I will really miss that because she is so good at it SIGH

Cross My Heart (2014) – An honest essay about lying.

Who Is It That Afflicts You? (2015) – On a lifelong obsession with the Salem Witch Trials and the concept of witch hunts and IDK the whole world!!!

Sharon Stone Crossing and Uncrossing Her Legs (2017) – “Sometimes the parts of ourselves we ignore don’t just grow fallow and untamed in our absence; they turn inward, crack concave, become a void. And you just have to sit there in it, waiting for something to materialize, waiting to be able to see yourself in that anemic early morning light for as long as it takes to make out the faint outlines of your self against the dimly lit past.”

A Brief Investigation into Dating Someone With the Same Name as You, A Real Thing People Actually Do (2019) and  A Rose by Any Other Name: The Arguments for Dating Someone with the Same Name as You (2019) –  Both so very Rachel, that thing where she talks about something silly in a serious voice and it’s really funny and you feel like you are best friends???

Welcome to Chez Carol (2019) – Obviously I am biased because this is about my dog Carol, but on the other hand, am I biased.

Toward an Applicable Theory of Just Not (2020) – This is not just one of the best things by Rachel on this website, this is one of the best things on this website full stop.

2019

From Rachel’s Intern Application, 2009

…. I want to intern for you because I am constantly amazed by everything about Autostraddle. I’ve been queer my whole life, and this is the first thing I’ve seen that genuinely reflects the community that I know. Autostraddle includes every facet of the kind of queer culture I live in: the political issues and the activism and the music and the pictures of half-naked ladies and the ridiculousness of The L Word and then the things that make your heart clench, like the beautiful “When I Knew” stories. I love that Autostraddle refuses to choose between those things, refuses to revert to a simpler or easier definition of what queer or girl-on-girl culture is. I also love how happy your interns seem; I’ve interned everywhere from upscale literary agencies to sci-fi erotica publishers that operate out of the upstairs floor of someone’s house, and while they’ve all been interesting none are really what I want to be doing. Creating media for my own community is something I care about, and everyone on the Autostraddle team really seems like they care about each other. That’s the kind of place where I want my unpaid labor to be going. As of right now I can offer 5-10 hours a week; after my fall semester is over (around December 5th) I can probably do more like 10-15 hours a week, right up through spring semester and summer. If you need any extra hands at any point from now til then, I would be delighted to help out.

XOXO

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