Letter From Your Editors

Hello world!

I’m writing you right this minute from a couch in a room in a building in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, where our new Midwest A-Camp started Thursday night. Regardless, I’m here with you — with all of you! — and we are gonna do this thing. Because we are winners, just like the athletic winners you can see in this collage:

1st row: Laura, Crystal, Carmen, Kayla, Carrie, Rachel
2nd row: Laneia, Brittani, Maddie, Mey, Heather, Alaina
3rd row: Yvonne, Audrey, Stef, Alyssa, Riese & Alex, Erin

First things first: HELLO NEW FRIENDS! We now I have 1,986 A+ members, the most we’ve ever had. At least 200 of those joined within the last two weeks. Why? Well, last week so many lesbian, bisexual and queer women on the internets lost a space that has felt so very formative, necessary and valuable to them. It was called AfterEllen and it had existed for 14 years. AfterEllen’s shuttering, coming so soon after The Toast also called it quits, has really woken everybody up to the fact advertisers can’t be relied upon to support indie queer/feminist media. All corners of the internet took note and said a thing about how tragic the loss of AfterEllen is… and often “saying a thing” ALSO involved pointing out that we here right here in this very space are now THE MOST POWERFUL QUEER WOMEN IN ALL OF LESBIAN MEDIA. Just kidding. I mean that somehow we have survived, the only big-scale, web-first publication to do so, and that has been mentioned, it has been a thing to note.

I wrote about the situation for Nylon Magazine last week and you need to read it — also we’ve been given shout outs on Slate and Salon. Even GLAAD told its readers, “If you’re looking for new LGBTQ women-focused news sites, check out GLAAD Media Award recipient Autostraddle (where several AfterEllen writers will continue their work) and Curve Magazine.” New York Magazine‘s Claire Landsbaum paid tribute to AfterEllen by recalling how much it changed her life to find Autostraddle.

It’s so weird. Listen, I still remember that girl hiding in her bed wanting the whole world to go away ’cause the site had crashed again and nobody wanted to advertise on our site or give us an interview and everything was so hard, and I was telling Laneia that it was time to give up and we should just close the website. I used to say that a lot, “is this the part where we give up?” She told me I had to get out of bed so we could go eat overpriced corn mush, I told her to gently suffocate me with a pillow, and somehow we both survived and made it to this moment, as did this website.

We used to be so jealous of these other sites — and back then, there were so many — who didn’t have to fight so hard for every dollar, who had real paychecks and support staff and didn’t rely on the same two people to write a post every damn day. Who got negative feedback and had the funding to do something about it, instead of just offering up well-intentioned flailing. We’ve been doing a lot of eulogizing of AfterEllen lately, because we wanted to and because AfterEllen deserves it. But I guess I also wanna take a moment right here, in this space, to say how grateful we are to you and how proud I am of my team and honestly also of myself for growing so much. The fact that the choices I made and the things our team accomplished ended up leaving us the last womyn (& non-binary folks) standing blows my mind.

We feel an incredible responsibility right now to do more. We’ll never be everything to everybody, and that’s perhaps the situation’s greatest tragedy: that straight women have so many choices w/r/t finding a magazine or site that meets their specific needs — their age group, politics, life stage, attitude, interests — whereas we are so often demanding that a single space encompass all who might enter it. It’s impossible, and this site will never please all queer women, or even most of them. Still, we’ve got a lot to think about and a lot to do, and we’ll be tossing up a reader survey pretty soon to see what y’all want from us (and to find out from non-A+ members how we can seduce them into joining!).

So, yes: we love you, thank you, you have renewed us.

Secondly, it’s Hispanic Heritage Month and Yvonne has put together an incredible essay series featuring LGBTQ Latinx authors and artists and if you’re not excited about it and ready to tell all your friends about it then well you might as well just tie your shoes together and call it a night. The first essay in the series, The Birth of the Nintendo Generation, by Mónica Teresa Ortiz, debuted last week, and this week we published Luna’s Queer Lantinx Love is Resistance: A Collection of Vignettes and Somos Familia: Showing Up For Our Queer Family in the Rio Grande Valley by Erika. Please go check those out and fall in love.

We hope you enjoyed this month’s A+ content: our first “Fireside Chat” podcast (it was about AfterEllen!), the outstanding Julia Nunes’ “Annotated” about her song “All the Same” and the longest A+ Inbox Live of all time.

This Insider is a little shorter and later than usual because CAMP but we hope it’s still TONS OF FUN.

Love,

Riese / Laneia / Rachel / Yvonne / Heather

Top 10 Most Popular Posts From August

These posts were hella popular last month.

1. We Messed Up, by Heather Hogan and Yvonne Marquez
2. Pretty Little Liars Has Now Killed More Queer and Trans TV Characters Than Any Other TV Show, by Heather Hogan
3. Oh My God This Lesbian Rugby Proposal at the Rio Olympics, by Yvonne Marquez
4. Kristen Stewart Tells The New York Times About “Harnessing A Fluid,” If Ya Know What I Mean, by Stef Schwartz
5. Anne of Green Gables Is Obviously Bisexual, by Heather Hogan
6. Satellite of Love: Queer Horoscopes for August 2016, by Corrina
7. 20 Most Profound Lesbian and Bisexual Stock Photograph Descriptions, by Riese Bernard
8. The 7 Best Sex Toys To Bring Camping, by Carolyn Yates
9. A Modern Catalogue of Queer Slang, by Erin Sullivan
10. Fall 2016 Queer Feminist Books Preview, by Carolyn Yates

Nine Important Excerpts From Editorial Conversations

Heather: some folks were telling me they’re going to take the heather hogan approach to camp in wisconsin and i’m like, “what’s the heather hogan approach?” and they’re like, “drink with nerds and feel good about people calling you mom.”
Riese: awww
Heather: which is so accurate!

Stef: this is the content i’m here for

via the comments: “Her relationship with butchy Jenny explains why she’s raising her daughter as a boy, maybe to impress her. “
cute.
Mey: wait, is raising daughters as boys how to impress butches? is that what i need to try?
Stef: yeah remember when you had that baby
get to work
Mey: yes, when i, a cissexual, was pregnant
Stef: yup
i recall

Laneia: LOLOLOLOL THIS PITCH “Sausage Party’s Depiction of Bisexuality is Actually Brilliant ”
Riese: oh my goodness!
Laneia: from a bi man, no less
NO LESS
!
Heather: :knife:
Laneia: oh satan lol

Laneia: i’m gonna murderize her!!!!
Heather: #murderize
Laneia: it’s when you tenderize someone in anticipation of the murder. do a nice salt brine maybe
Heather: i have a bunch of trader joes bags, which are similar to the texture of burlap, and perhaps i could fashion a human-sized sack out of them for you.
Laneia: thank you i think that would be lovely and perfect
Heather: my pleasure :knife:

Laneia: is everyone on earth dead
are they all at jury duty
why are there no comments on anything
Heather: maybe the rapture happened
Laneia: UGH the rapture is so BORING
i didn’t even get a fiery red sky or anything
Heather: so weak
such a weak rapture this time around

Stef: Next camp, the theme will be “the problematic ball”
i’m going as miley cyrus
bye
Audrey: Your Problematic Fave would be an amazing dance theme tbh.
Mey: Omggggggg
I could be Michelle Rodriguez in her new movie
Ali: I wonder what the people who like no problematic things ever would choose?
Audrey: Mayonnaise.

Heather: Listen to this press release I just got:

Jelly Belly jelly bean artist Kristen Cumings is going to make Wonder Woman come to life out of jelly beans. Kristen is one of the only people in the world that uses jelly beans as her art form.
In addition, to seeing Kristen create Wonder Woman out of Jelly Belly jelly beans, I dare you to spin the BeanBoozled wheel, and rinse your BeanBoozled pallet off with some delicious tasting jelly beans.

It is expected to take her 3-4 days (the entire show) to finish Wonder Woman.
and half of those sentences are UNDERLINED!
Riese: oh wow
they dare yoU!!!
Heather: RIESE YOUR BEANBOOZLED PALLET
Riese: THE BEANBOOZLED WHEEL
man it is not every day you get a chance to spin a beanboozled wheel
Heather: i will accept that dare
what if the only thing i bring back from comic con is a post that says “i watched someone build wonder woman out of jelly beans and you’ll never believe what happened next.”
and the post is a gif of me spinning the beanboozled wheel on a loop
Laneia: i would print out each frame of the gif and turn it into a flipbook and sell it at my local independent bookstore
for starters

Meet A New Contributor!

Get to know some of our newest faces.

Valerie Anne, Writer

Tumblr: @punkystarshine
Twitter: @punkystarshine
Instagram: @punkystarshine

Who was your first woman celebrity crush?

I usually like to pretend I’m cool and say Eliza Dushku as Faith in Buffy but if I dig deep I can admit it was actually Amy Jo Johnson as the Pink Ranger.

What are your all-time favorite things you’ve written for the internet?

Orphan Black recaps! Oh how I love writing about that beautiful show and getting to take screenshots of Tatiana Maslany’s many faces. Also one time, on my now-defunct blog, I wrote a poem about popcorn.

Describe the worst date you’ve ever been on.

I’m not going to pull from the handful of dates I had before I came out (even though there are some gems) and go right to the worst date I had post-college. It’s a really long story so I’ll just give you the highlights, Reynold’s Pamphlet style. I went on one date with this girl, and it was awkward but more or less fine, so I said yes to a second date to see if maybe the reason we didn’t click was just first date jitters. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.) First we went to the MoMA, where I started to realize how very different we were, but hey art isn’t for everyone, so on we went to dinner. There, almost immediately, she broke my #1 rule of being a human I can even be friends with by being rude to the waiter. She DEMANDED he keep her water glass full AT ALL TIMES. (He gave me a “good luck with this one” look and then ABANDONED ME.) She proceeded to ask me rapid-fire questions, interview-style. Which might have been fine on its own, but every time I said something that she agreed with or she considered interesting, she would mime writing it down. The first time I just shrugged it off as a unique way to be like, “Noted!” but after about a dozen times in a row I must have made some kind of face, because she held up her hands as if trying to prove her innocence and assured me, earnestly, “Oh, don’t worry, there’s not actually a notebook.” By then I knew we were doomed as a duo, but I don’t know how to just ~end~ dates so that’s why this not-so-short snippet is only the beginning of my worst date (and, unsurprisingly, a dating hiatus).

If you were at a karaoke bar and you had to pick one song to sing, what would it be?

I don’t think there’s any amount of alcohol that could make me brave enough to sing karaoke solo, but if I had a better voice, I’d probably always sing a song from a musical. One that hits those nice belt-y notes I can actually only hit in the shower. (Against my better judgement, this one cute girl always manages to convinces me to sing Take Me or Leave Me with her at karaoke. It’s like she can sense my weakness.)

What is your favorite kind of sandwich?

There’s a sandwich that the deli near me sells called the Chelsea that is turkey, pepperjack cheese, mayo, avocado, tomato, and salt & vinegar chips on a baguette.

What’s something you’ve been really proud of lately?

My friends! I know so many queer badasses and social justice champions who are doing awesome things and scary things and important things, and I’m so very proud to know them.

What’s your favorite thing on the internet today?

This video of Gina Rodriguez rapping and being generally adorable with her precious undercut and her perfect face.

https://youtu.be/N2um-kHp5tg

WELCOME TO THE PROBLEMATIC WEDDING OF M-ROD AND M-RUDE

Gabby: why is michelle rodriguez this person?? ugh sorry that’s me responding to something from like 1am
Mey: jajaja, no worries, g, i told [redacted] that the only AS ppl who are m-rod fans are the latinxs bc she’s one of our problematic favs
like, i can’t forget girlfight and machete and fast and the furious
Stef: never forget machete
Riese: i wrote a sympathetic thing about her when she came out that i stand by with my whole heart
but that was like three years ago
Gabby: never forget mitchie loves the sausage
Stef: riese has been the apologist this whole time
Gabby: like i dream about that line
Riese: every time i hear her name the first thing i think is “mitchie loves sausage”
i can never forget
Stef: :sob:
Riese: never
Gabby: ugh like we need to collect her mey
Stef: well i hope you’re happy because [redacted] is so upset
Gabby: we need to have a sit down in the cocina of life
Riese: nothing makes me happier than [redacted] being upset
Stef: same
Riese: i look forward to m-rod’s call-in with mey and gabby i have high hopes
Riese: do we think there is anything m-rod could conceivably do to save her image after this movie
like anything
because she is just a walking facepalm at this point
Mey: what if she dated me?
Riese: i was about to say
she could ask mey to marry her
Mey: oh man, i would say yes
Stef: well you know how that would go over on facebook
Riese: her vows would be 50% apologies
Stef: omg
Mey: jaja
Riese: To the world at large
Stef: If I ever get married my vows will also be 50% apologies to the world at large
gabby will officiate the marriage of m-rod and mey
m-rod and m-rude
Gabby: here for it
but she would be drunk mey
Stef: “and do you, michelle, apologize for all your complete bullshit?”
“i do”
Gabby: and you deserve better
Stef: and gabby will be like “but like really though”
Gabby: she would be courtside at the nba game with cara delvigne drunk
Mey: oh man, y’all know i love messes and rollercoasters tho
Gabby: but then so were a few of my uncles when they got married
so maybe it’d be fine?
maybe it’d be your dream come true
?
Stef: can you put me at Danny Trejo’s table at the reception?
Mey: stef of course

What We’ve Been Reading

Laneia: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Beth: Jailbreaking the Goddess by Lasara Firefox Allen

Alyssa: The Girls: A Novel by Emma Cline

Carmen: Powered By Girl by Lyn Mikel Brown

Heather: Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Sinclair: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by Byron Katie, and The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

Laura M: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

Carolyn: Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, The Metamorphosis of Lisette Joyaux by anon, The Selected Jenny Zhang by Jenny Zhang

Samantha: My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf, and Who is Hillary Clinton? by Heather Alexander

Stef: Playing Dead: A Journey Through The World Of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood

Erin: Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

Alaina: Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance by Anthea Kraut

Yvonne: The 7 Secrets of the Prolific: The Definitive Guide to Overcoming Procrastination, Perfectionism, and Writer’s Block by Hillary Rettig

Rachel: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Carrie: Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema by Anne Helen Petersen

FLASHBACK

We’re hoping this is a safe space to confess a thing to you. Is it. Is this a safe space? Okay. Once upon a time when we were one of the only magazines with a tumblr presence, and some unfortunate shit was happening, we made the grown-up decision to register afterellen.tumblr.com, and fill it with pictures of shirtless men, Sex and the City, and Anne Heche. It was quite the tumblr, to be honest. AND THEN.

:-(

SLACKERS

Back by popular demand (for the second month in a row), it’s your favorite Slack emoji, :laneia-jumping: It’s shocking that this emoji has only been a part of our lives for such a short time. It’s so versatile. It’s indispensable.

September Retro-Reading

Some posts from previous Septembers Riese thinks you might enjoy.

Rachel is Miss September 2014

Get Baked: Apple Damn Sandwich, by Laneia Jones (2013) – This is a really important post, even if you don’t like apples. Even if you don’t like sandwiches, honestly.

Collage Lesbianage #1: I’m Looking for Girlfriends, Not Bridesmaids, by Lily Icangelo (2009) – AW MAN I miss the days when I sat in my room with writers and talked about their pieces and made them sing, like I got to do with Lily in the beginning a lot. I COULD WALK TO HER DORM! Were we ever so young?

25 Things I Do To Make My Body Dysphoria Feel Smaller and Quieter, by Kate Severance (2012) – This hit y’all RIGHT IN THE FEELS.

VIDEO: The Real L Word: Looking Back, edited by Riese, starring Carly, Robin, Julia, Riese, Alex, Sarah Croce, Julie Goldman, Brandy Howard, Jennifer Nieves, Stef, Haviland Stillwell, Stamie Karakasidis and Mikey Koffman (2010) – If you’re new here and haven’t seen this yet, you should drop everything and go watch this.

What I Want From My Queer Community: Inspired by an Autostraddle London Meetup, by Hattie (2012) – STILL MAKES ME CRY AND SMILE.

Five Posts Rachel Can’t Believe You Motherf*ckers Didn’t Read Last Month

Sara June Woods Wants to Write About Being Fucking Weird, by Madison Mahdia Lynn

I love learning about how writers’ brains work and this is such a cute and smart interview with a writer who is into all the stuff you guys are — being weird! Folk music! Women living inside of witch-gods! You should take a look.

September 7, 2016, by Jen Deerinwater

This is a really beautiful piece about the complicated overlaps and blind spots of our various communities and identities, and how painful a lot of things are and how beautiful and necessary struggle is. I just really really think if you read it you’ll be glad you did.

Sexts From My Sickbed: How I Learned to Love My Queer Sick Body by Getting Naked, by Liz von Klemperer

About laying in bed and watching The L Word when you feel like shit, about complicated ownership of your body and sharing that body, about sexting your cute girlfriend. Nothing not to love here, folks.

Day in the Life: Stuzo, NYFW Edition, by Molly Adams

This is the coolest New York Fashion Week coverage I’ve read, and I feel very confident that you’ll be into it even if you aren’t usually into NYFW. The photography is beautiful, Stuzo is incredible, and this is so cool!

Bisexual Teens Speak Out with #ILoveBiSelf, by Audrey

Audrey talked to these absolutely amazing #teens about the Celebrate Bisexuality Day event they organized with GLSEN, and you know, I can’t remember when I felt better about the future! They’re brilliant and brave and they know their worth and they’re supporting each other, and I dare you to read this and not feel better about the world.

Laneia’s Pick of the Month

Hey remember on of our very first Insider Picks of the Month, wayyyyy back a long time ago, when Riese and I told you about our favorite nail polish? Well! Hold on to your tits because I’m BACK with another fave nail polish that’s perfect in all the ways, especially for autumn. Essie’s Playing Koi! It’s a rusty orange that brings to mind damp fallen leaves and rotten pumpkins; a nerdy orange nail polish sweater for your fingers; an ode to Velma Dinkley’s fiery locks. Top it off with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta Dry Top Coat because for some bonkers reason it’s the best instantly drying top coat ever and it’s only $6. I dare you to think of something more autumnal than glossy rotten pumpkin fingernails.

Social Media Spotlight

A lot of surprising things happened this month, but one thing that didn’t surprise us at all is how y’all rallied around us when we were, once again, forced to confront the current landscape for queer media in the wake of AfterEllen’s demise. These tweets (and the hundreds more like them) really really really reaffirmed our belief in what we’re doing here, and just generally warmed our hearts.

I hope you will continue to read my recaps and, if you are able, will join A+ and support @autostraddle any way you can.

— Lucy Hallowell (on hiatus) (@lucyhallowell) September 26, 2016

This also reminds me to ask everyone to support LGBTQ sites and resources that do great work. Like @autostraddle.

— Gail Simone (@GailSimone) September 21, 2016

Lez get so rich that paradigms shift & dudes clamber for us to deem them "profitable." & in the meantime 👉🏽support @autostraddle👈🏽

— Laura Zak (@la_wa) September 22, 2016

Wanna keep what's left of queer lady media? Support @autostraddle – I signed up 4 an A+ acct. Pls do so too if u can https://t.co/MpM0OauNYM

— ☀️Hot Prof Summer☀️Quarantine Edition (@EGBridges) September 22, 2016

It is. Thanks for reading & please support other queer women's media sites like Autostraddle.

— Dorothy Snarker (@dorothysnarker) September 22, 2016

.@worldoftilt @autostraddle I can't re-up to A+ just now because I have a wedding to pay for, but I did make a donation yesterday! #support

— Jess (@Pisceanyc) September 22, 2016

https://twitter.com/dadclyffehall/status/778657664620388354

https://twitter.com/tayhatmaker/status/778406455435112448

It's incredibly important that we do what we can to support @autostraddle. Give them clicks, leave comments, donate if you can.

— ᑭEᗩᑕᕼY (@lesbipeachy) September 21, 2016

Got an A+ membership the other day. If you are financially able to, please go support @autostraddle https://t.co/l6JlmpO25C

— Mehek Naresh🌻 (@MehekNaresh) September 25, 2016

As soon as I heard about AfterEllen shutting down, got an @autostraddle membership..queer media needs our support #supportqueermedia

— Claire McCann (@claireloumccann) September 25, 2016

but for reals, support queer lady media like @autostraddle because venture capitalists won't! Because capitalism! https://t.co/A9oEHApt0k

— Landlords are not people (@CarmenTriola) September 23, 2016

XOXO

Team Autostraddle

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!