LA Lesbian Bar Ruby Fruit Is Fighting For Its Survival. We Really Need It To Win.

Over the weekend, as wildfires raged across Los Angeles, Silver Lake’s sapphic wine bar The Ruby Fruit announced on Instagram that it would be closing its doors. “We have come to the heartbreaking decision that at this time, operating The Ruby Fruit is no longer possible due to financial impact from the current natural disaster,” the caption read. Every day counts in the restaurant industry, and just a short closure period had irreparably hurt their scrappy operation. “The math just isn’t mathing.”

The announcement was jarringly at odds with the experience of going there; mainly, that it was usually packed. The comment section reflected this vibe: their followers were shocked, and many begged for the chance to set up a GoFundMe to save the bar.

On Wednesday, January 14th, after a few days trying to schedule an interview with owners Emily Bielagus and Mara Herbkersman for this piece, they shared a statement indicating a shift of plans: “After much reflection and careful consideration, we are announcing the indefinite, but hopefully temporary, closure of The Ruby Fruit. This extremely difficult and heart wrenching decision comes as a result of the financial strain and operational challenges we’ve faced since our opening in 2023, which are now augmented by the recent fires in LA.”

They declared an intention to “regroup, reassess and come back stronger” in order to move forward. “Our focus is currently on supporting our FOH & BOH staff,” they wrote, “offering support to the community, tending to our physical and mental health, and ensuring that the future of The Ruby Fruit is as stable as possible.”

I hopped on a quick call with Emily and asked about the offers of help from patrons, but it was clear their regrouping plan doesn’t involve a crowdfunding campaign. “There are so many critical needs that people can address with their money right now and we really just don’t want to divert any of those funds,” Emily told me. One of those critical needs was the GoFundMe she pointed me towards, established to support their employees during this period of uncertainty.

To understand why The Ruby Fruit matters, and why this potential second chance means so much to their community, you first have to understand LA and you have to understand the scarcity of lesbian bars nationwide.

First, the latter: there are only 37 lesbian bars left in the country, down from over 200 in 1980. There are heaps of theories about why it’s so hard for lesbian bars to stay open — a decline in demand as mixed-orientation spaces are more queer-friendly, because queer women don’t party like gay men do. But the explanation that feels truest to me is the most simple one: systemic financial inequality that favors men.

About Los Angeles: even before the fires, the past couple of years have been challenging and humbling. The whole world struggled through the pandemic, of course. The entertainment industry strikes of 2023 were also hard on the city, compounded by tightened budgets already sending more and more production out of state. From afar, people tend to think of LA as a superficial, polished, entertainment-obsessed place, full of self-centered rich people who don’t have real problems, and there definitely is some of that. But since the wildfires broke out in LA last week, this city has shown the world what many residents already knew, especially through the tight spots of the last few years — it’s a diverse city full of people who crave community and of neighbors ready to literally save each other. Through our grief and our fear we are all turning to each other in love and concern.

But when I first moved to LA, I felt lost, close to falling through its beautiful cracks. My wife and I settled in Silver Lake; a lush, hilly neighborhood on the east side so teeming with queers it’s easy to forget how important it is that we actually have specific spaces within that neighborhood dedicated to us. It’s hard to make friends as an adult anywhere, but it’s especially hard in a city that sprawls, that doesn’t have a lot of public transportation or third spaces where people talk to you. And then once you do start talking to people, it’s hard to know which friendships will last. When I got here, other than my wife, I had one very close friend. Otherwise I had a foot in many different doors, so for a while I kept meeting people from separate worlds, and struggled to feel like there was any sort of centralized community or group of friends I could fold into. Someone told me that if you’re not intentional with your social life in LA, it can turn into a series of one-on-one coffee dates with people you never hear from again. That rang true.

Plus, I felt guilty about feeling lonely in LA, like the sunshine and the palm trees and the hot pink bougainvillea and the A-list celebrities at the overpriced coffee shop were rolling their eyes at me as I cried a single pathetic tear on my stupid little morning walk around the reservoir, as if to say—you’re feeling sad and alone here? This most stunning place on earth?

And then—in 2023, a lesbian wine bar opened in an unassuming strip mall walking distance from my house, and something shifted.

I didn’t know about the opening night party, but I saw the photos the next day, a launch that spilled out the door with people lit gorgeously in the parking lot’s flood light, drinking and laughing in little clusters. An L Word fever dream. It even made national news. “The Lesbian Bar Isn’t Dead,” declared the New York Times headline, “It’s Pouring Orange Wine in Los Angeles.” Condé Nast Traveler: “Each Night is a Sapphic Street Party at The Ruby Fruit in Los Angeles.” I couldn’t remember the last time a lesbian bar (or, a lesbian anything?) had gotten so much high-profile press.

So my wife and I and two friends went, ASAP. And it was packed. Queer people huddled close to each other around little wooden tables drinking murky-hued wine out of tiny glasses. There were poreless Gen Zs with mullets, graying butches making their dates laugh, and carabiners everywhere, just so many keys dangling from beltloops. Everyone was talking and the windows were starting to fog. The couple we went with happened to be friends with Emily, and she cobbled together a little nook for us, squeezing us in.

The Ruby Fruit, when it’s open, is a dimly lit, cozy wine bar/restaurant where the vegan hot dogs are actually good and so is the rest of the menu. It’s a neighborhood lesbian bar that seems to say, our community deserves something really chic and elevated. If you want a messier, wilder night, you can go to a different gay bar and have a great time. If you want to eat a nice, dietary-restrictions-friendly meal with your friends/your date surrounded by other queers and still make your 9pm bedtime, The Ruby Fruit is for you.The bathroom is Indigo Girls-themed and outside it there’s a bulletin board where people left their numbers and notes for each other. You are as likely to see a famous bisexual from your favorite TV show as you were to see an ex you hadn’t thought of in a decade. It attracts a diverse, intergenerational crowd. You can get dressed up or you could go in sweatpants.

Listen: I’m not saying The Ruby Fruit is perfect. Those little wooden stools always make my back go into spasm and I never manage to spend less than $75 on cloudy wine and olives and fries. Dykes like to glare at each other across the room, that kind of undefinable does-she-want-to-fuck-me-or-does-she-hate-me look. When it was open, the space often didn’t feel big enough for the demand, and they didn’t take reservations, which made going feel like a gamble on weekends. You always had to have a back-up plan, where to go for dinner if you couldn’t get a table.

And you know what? I love it all the same.

It was like a sitcom fantasy of what adulthood would be like in a big city. As author and Silver Lake local Celia Laskey put it, “A sapphic bar walking distance to my apartment that opened shortly before my separation from my wife? Yeah, I was there like every week. It was my Cheers, where everybody knows your name.”

My best memories of gay bars — like Cubbyhole and Ginger’s in New York — are of being so packed in like sardines that you have no choice but to talk to the girl next to you, and I worried that Rubyfruit’s cafe-style seating would mean no intermingling. But that wasn’t the case. We were often striking up conversations with the people sitting next to us or with people standing outside.

Because even the outside is nice; on the sidewalk, there’s a bar and stools and plants. Landscape designer Angela Huerta made custom wooden planters spilling over with lush green succulents for the bar’s front. “I decided last year that instead of dreading my birthday, I’d serve others and make my friends labor for me as a gift,” she told me. “So we made these four rolling planters. I raised a little money and supplemented it with my own money.”

As LA resident Jennifer Perlmutter told me, “Ruby Fruit was the place I walked to nightly when I first moved back to Los Angeles post-breakup. I would sit at the counter, indoors or out, and read a book. The staff was always more than friendly, they were conversational, and kind. They made it known that this place was more than a bar, it was a community.”

It also isn’t just a bar. They were open for lunch and sometimes my writer friends and I would go with the aim of working and instead spend the whole time talking to each other, laptops open but screens black.

The thing about having a community hub, a place you return to again and again, is that it makes the city feel smaller. You start to run into the same people; you realize that friends you’ve made from totally different parts of your life already know each other— that we’re all more interconnected than we feel. Suddenly, sprawling LA felt like it had a center.

In April of 2024, The Roob, as people started calling it, took over the lease of the dentist office next door, cleverly named The Dental Dam. There, they were just starting to hold all kinds of events; parties and meet-ups and book clubs. At group readings like Empty Trash, hosted by authors Jen Winston and Greg Mania, you could hear a best-selling queer author read her unpublished work. Jen described the Dental Dam as “a space so magical it was almost futuristic—somehow both ahead of its time and right on time.”

I’ve participated in literary events at myriad LA locations — it’s rare to be able to count on anyone coming to anything at all. But it was different at the Roob’s new space. “You could hold an event there and people would just show up to hang out,” said writer Elizabeth Teets, who runs the reading series I Blame Television, where I once got to read an impassioned plea for a lesbian season of Love is Blind.

At this point you’d think we’d be used to the disappointment of a beloved queer space closing, but the thought of losing the Ruby Fruit permanently is landing in a different way. After all, unlike the smaller, dive-ier bars of yore, they had so much press. They had so many famous patrons. They were so often at capacity. The food was not cheap! And we still ordered it! En masse! If a lesbian bar like that can’t stay open, what can?

We won’t really feel the effects of its absence until things start to feel normal again in LA, if they ever do, after the fires are put out and the dangerous winds have settled. To Emily’s point, there are more urgent things happening in the city; so many people who have lost everything.

In the meantime, Honey’s, which opened in East Hollywood around the same time as The Ruby Fruit, is now the only open sapphic bar in LA. Honey’s and The Ruby Fruit fulfill different needs: Honey’s is less of a sit-down eatery, more of a speakeasy lounge with a hip party vibe. Other lesbian bars around the country have announced a fundraiser to help it stay open.

Perhaps the outpouring of support The Ruby Fruit garnered since their announcement has attracted interest from more sustainable funding sources. Or maybe like so many humans and businesses in this city, they’re not saying goodbye forever but rather simply pausing as the city itself figures out a new identity in the wake of disaster, and as other financial models present themselves—models that are more suitable to our new reality of climate disasters that upend daily life with increasing frequency.

I’m reminded of the seed drive currently happening for Altadena to replace the native plants that were lost. If we can come together to rewild burned land, surely we can find a way to reopen what to many felt the heart of something bigger than all of us.

They Should Have Sent A Poet

Contact (1997) is the story of one woman’s lifelong belief that if you can just listen closely enough, you’ll be able to hear what you’re looking for. Ellie (Jodie Foster), the scientist at the center of the story, is listening for aliens, but like all great science fiction, it’s a metaphor, too. Also, Jodie Foster has never looked better than she does in a green T-shirt and a frizzy ponytail in this movie, and while this is a hill I’m prepared to die on, it’s not the (entire) reason I watch this movie every few years, nor why I always cry at the end.

See, Contact is a film about the clash of politics, religion, and science. But while the characters spend a lot of time focusing on what they believe in—God, math, or some secret third thing—revisiting Contact today, I’m struck more by the question of who they believe, or rather, who they don’t. The film poses plenty of questions about faith, yes, but the only thing the characters consistently fail to have faith in is the woman at the heart of the story.

It’s also a film about grief; how it steers you, how it defines you. These two themes—how hard it is for people to believe women, and grief as infinite as the universe—are quieter than the film’s science versus religion situation, but they’re also what stick with me year after year.

When we first meet Ellie, she’s eight years old, turning the dials of a radio trying to see how far the signal goes. With the encouragement of her father, she makes contact with Pensacola, Florida, the furthest she’s reached yet. But the place she really wants to reach? Wherever her deceased mom has vanished to. When her father dies one year later, it’s no surprise that she runs for the radio, trying now to reach him, too.

Listening on the radio becomes a lifelong obsession, fueled by what we learn is her superior intellect and ardent belief that if she can just listen hard enough, she’ll hear what no one else has: evidence of life on other planets. That her attempt to reach her late parents morphs into an attempt to find aliens lurks just below the surface of her character; she’s wound so tight with grief that the only thing left to do is throw herself into her work, forever.

Cut to adult Ellie. She’s living in Puerto Rico, working for the SETI program (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence), and generally looking extremely beautiful in an understated, outdoorsy low-femme science nerd way. There’s just nothing hotter than someone who is passionate about what they do. Ellie’s job—which she is deadly serious about, despite being treated like a joke—is to listen to the great beyond with huge satellites, a major upgrade from her bedroom radio. She’s also being pursued by a man named Palmer, played by Matthew McConaughey, who is some sort of author/religious figure, just short of a priest because of the whole celibacy thing. I’ve had a lifelong dislike of Mr. McConaughey and I think this movie is the root of it. He’s just kind of always in the way, and their chemistry is really hard to buy into. It’s my only complaint about this movie.

At any rate, Ellie and Palmer make a Venn diagram; though they both looked up at the sky and found their life purpose, the stars made her want to become a scientist, and he found God. This is what the film will have you believe is its central tension, and maybe it is, but in my opinion this intellectual conflict is far less compelling than the emotional ones throughout.

Shortly after they meet, the science center loses its funding thanks to David Drumlin, the President’s science advisor, who doesn’t see its value. Ellie sets out to secure her own funding, leaving Palmer and South America in the rearview. She finds a private investor and sets up shop in New Mexico using government equipment. A few years go by, and then we find out that she’s about to lose funding again, and only has three months left on the contract. Thus is the nature of doing work you love at the whims of others. It’s what I’ve experienced in my career too—just when you think you’ve got a good situation, someone above you comes and takes it away.

Dramatically speaking, this is an ideal time for the aliens to finally reach out, and they do! In the film’s most iconic scene, Ellie is laying on top of her car with her eyes closed in the fading light, headphones on, when the signal comes through: a series of prime numbers, and the origin, as the excited scientists scream to each other, is not local. In fact, it’s from the distant star Vega, 26 light years away.

Word gets out, and the science center fills with men from the government and the military. Ellie fights to maintain control as they yell at her and mansplain to her and just generally ruin the vibe.

There are a few main guys getting in the way here. There’s Drumlin, who up until this point has been trying to sabotage her work; now that she’s actually found something, though, he inserts himself above her, becoming the face of the project. Then there’s Michael Kitz, head of the National Security Council, a skeptic who from the beginning doesn’t seem to see the work’s value. Meanwhile, thousands of indecipherable pages are decoded from the prime numbers, and Ellie can’t even present them to the government without the men talking over her.

The public’s imagination takes off, and while religious groups argue with scientists on the news about whose domain this is, people begin to camp outside of the science center, cult-like with tents and costumes. Neo-Nazis show up, as does a really creepy dude asking the crowd if they really want scientists—”non-believers”—to be the ones talking to God.

Once it’s revealed that the pages are instructions for how to take a single human occupant to space using a sort of enormous ball situation, a committee is formed to decide who will go. Ellie is at the top of a short list, and Palmer’s on the committee to pick—which means they can’t have sex again, a relief to me personally, but not necessarily to them. And while he implores her to drop out of the running because of the risks, she says she’s willing to sacrifice herself to answer the question of why we’re here. Also, it’s literally the culmination of her life’s work, and no one deserves it more than her. Still, she’s put on trial alongside several other candidates.

In the final interview to decide who is to go, Ellie is asked what she’d ask the Vegans (the aliens, not the diet) should they meet. She says: “I’d ask them how they did it. How they survived this technological adolescence without destroying themselves.”

And you know what? It’s a really good question, one I think we could still use an answer to, as we get closer and closer to self-destruction here on Earth. Between climate change, war, and a certain looming presidential election, it’s hard to feel optimistic about our progress as a species, even in the midst of technological advancements. Or maybe it’s because of the technological advancements. It’s hard to think of things like the AI boom as a net positive, when the reality is that it’s already taking jobs and stealing creative work. If this was a relevant question in 1997, it’s only become more dire today. I know this scene moved me the first time I saw it, as a kid, and as an adult it has me thinking about my own role in the self-destruction of humanity. A lot of modern day comforts become hard to justify if you think about them too hard—things like, you know, international travel, or really anything involving fossil fuels. If there was a super-advanced alien species who could tell us how to get through it, that would be great!

So, back to the hearing. Just when things seem to be wrapping up, Palmer jumps in and asks her if she believes in God—the ultimate betrayal, since he already knows the answer, and knows that her atheism will bar her from being chosen. As for who gets picked? Well, it’s Drumlin, the guy who has been standing in her way this whole time. It was never not going to be him. This is just how things go on Earth. And who among us hasn’t been there, really? In my experience, the man above you almost always gets credit for your work.

At the test launch, the alien-designed, human-built machine looms large. Ellie’s there because she’s a good sport, and all seems to be going well until she catches a security breach—that creepy man preaching outside the science station? He’s there, and he’s got a bomb.

Before you know it, he hits “detonate,” and the whole thing explodes. It’s another moment of a man sabotaging a woman’s work, and of religion sabotaging science. It’s all over, or so we think. It was far too expensive to recreate. Faith in God seems to have won this battle.

Ellie returns to the science center where it all began. When she gets home, she’s contacted by the billionaire who has been helping her from the sidelines (long and kind of random subplot, not worth recapping). He’s living on a Russian space station, and reveals that the government contracted his company to build a second alien machine off the coast of Japan. And now it’s her turn to go in it.

When she gets there, she finds there’s just one problem: the team who built it wants to include a chair in the ball, which is not part of the original design. It’s an argument she loses for safety purposes, and because even when she’s chosen, no one is really listening to her. At this point if you feel like bashing your head against the wall, I’m right there with you. Ellie herself seems to be getting more and more worn down, and doesn’t put up her usual fight.

Palmer is there, too, because where isn’t he at this point? He confesses that he didn’t vote for her to go on the first one because he doesn’t want to lose her, which, you know, we knew. Yeah, it’s love or whatever, but he’s literally just another man in her way.

So, now it’s time to get in the ball. The machine powers up and Ellie loses comms, because of course, but they go ahead with the launch anyway. The film takes a turn for the trippy, and Ellie is shot through a wormhole and into space. She dislodges herself from the chair, which is shaking to the point of coming loose, because it wasn’t supposed to be there and obviously has a flawed design.

She has no words for the beauty of the universe as she travels through it. “They should have sent a poet,” she whispers. As she marvels at it her face shifts, momentarily changing into Ellie at nine years old; she’s becoming literally childlike in her awe.

We all carry our childhood selves with us, nurturing them or punishing them or letting them trigger us. Ellie’s career is the manifestation of her childhood dreams, so it stands to reason that when that dream comes true, her inner child is stoked. There’s something deeply emotional about it. I think many of us lose sight of our childhood dreams (like, for example, wanting to write science fiction novels) as we age because we have to focus on things such as, you know, making money and being a productive member of society. Not Ellie. She’s been singularly focused this whole time, never betraying any version of herself. It makes me wish I could go back in time to me at 22, before I abandoned my dreams of becoming a novelist. Now, in my mid-thirties, everything I do feels like trying to make up for the time I lost when I was chasing after things that were besides my own point.

Eventually Ellie passes out or falls asleep and wakes up on a sparkly, intergalactic beach, where she meets an alien. To make Ellie feel more comfortable in their world, the alien who greets her has designed things to look like her drawing of Pensacola, Florida, and takes the form of her father.

Though it’s comforting, the encounter isn’t satisfying to Ellie, or to the viewer (me). She doesn’t get to stay. She doesn’t get to bring anyone back with her. Instead, the alien explains that this is just the first step in a contact tradition that’s billions of years old. While they don’t know who built the wormhole that brought her here, he assures her that humans are not alone; far from it. “In all our searching,” he says, “The only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.” Not unlike what she’s found in her own searching (or rather, what she will in the final moments of the film). Regardless, he sends her home, with no evidence or proof of what she’s experienced. Back on earth, she finds she hasn’t been gone at all, but probably knocked out by that dang ill-advised chair when it came loose. Though she tells the bewildered team what happened, no one believes her.

We end with Ellie speaking at a Congressional hearing, led by Kitz. She’s in front of hundreds of people and a panel of government officials who don’t believe her. Her insistence that her experience is what happened is written off as “delusional.”

She has no record and no evidence, just her story. They yell at her and belittle her, and while she concedes that she can’t prove it, she insists that doesn’t make it any less true. She wants to share what she experienced with everyone. But she can’t, because it only happened to her. The scene of Ellie’s hearing conjures images of so many women who have testified about their own experiences, fighting for the right to be believed, to be taken seriously by the men who have made themselves the gatekeepers of what counts as truth.

After the hearing is over, she reunites with Palmer, whose whole thing is his faith in the unprovable. He believes her, and doesn’t mind saying so publicly. Faith and science have finally come together, and so has this couple, and even though it’s deeply heterosexual, it’s also kind of sweet, and I’ll allow it. And anyway, I, for one, believe her too, especially because at the end we see Angela Bassett share that in the confidential findings, they found 18 hours of static, the exact length of time Ellie claims to have been gone for.

The film poses more questions than it answers, the main one being: was Ellie right—about any of it? Were all the years she spent listening worth it? But it goes deeper than that. The truth or not truth of her alien encounter is besides the point. Because really, she’s not looking for aliens. She maybe never was.

Trauma tends to freeze your emotional development. Ellie, who’d lost both her parents by the time she was ten, remains, in many ways, that same little girl trying to reach her dead parents on the radio. That she devotes her whole life to listening to the great beyond feels to me less about the science of it all and more about an unnameable longing for the people she’s lost. Even her fleeting attachments all go back to her parents; after all, she’s originally drawn to Palmer’s character when he parrots something her dad used to say, and she closes off from him when he probes too deeply into the magnitude of her loneliness. And when the alien knows to take her to Pensacola? Well, it proves the point: it’s the moment she’s been trying to get back to this whole time, a moment she perhaps never moved on from in the first place. And though it’s because of trauma, it also served her; it became a strength in the end. Keeping her sense of childlike awe for the breadth of the universe has brought her to this point.

I was around the same age as young Ellie when this movie came out. The way she so clearly carries her childhood self with her made adulthood legible; it made time seem like less of an unknowable straight line and something more like a circle. Watching it as an adult I have that same feeling. I think we’re our best selves when we can acknowledge the little kid that lives inside of us, when we hold onto the things we used to want back when life was simpler.

In the final courtroom scene, Kitz tries to discredit her by describing her alien encounter as “windsurfing with dear old dad,” cruelly disregarding not just the power of her experience but the personal significance of it. But what he says doesn’t matter. Ellie doesn’t need to be believed to stand in her truth.

Her grief was as big as the universe, but she traversed it anyway, and came away with faith in herself. It’s not exactly believing in God, but it comes pretty close.

Embracing the Dark Pleasures of Dystopian Literature: 10 Novels That Inspired Me To Write My Own

I often wonder why dystopian fiction is so compelling to so many of us, especially these days, when our real world looks more and more like a dystopia itself. What good is escape if what you’re escaping to is just a fun-house mirror? All of my favorite dystopian novels have this quality —that eerie too-close-to-home feeling that allows you to feel just unsettled enough to keep reading.

But why do we like to be unsettled? Life is pretty hard already. Maybe it’s because good fiction, with its low barrier to entry and captivating prose, allows us to understand the world around us without staring directly into the void; like looking sideways at the stars to fully see their light. Maybe fully acknowledging the real dystopia of capitalism and war and inequality is just too painful for our weak human brains, but through metaphor and lyricism, we can start to understand the forces at play off the page.

How else to explain the dark pleasure of not just reading dystopian literature but writing it? My own dystopian debut, Yours for the Taking, came out in December and is about a near-future New York City ravaged by climate change and a group of queer people who come together under the worst of circumstances. I didn’t write it to be realistic — if anything, I tried to make it a little ridiculous in order to inject some levity into its darker themes — so you can imagine my surprise when reader feedback started coming in about how close to real life it felt. I also knew that meant I had gotten something right.

Friends and readers keep asking me how I took care of myself while writing something so disturbing. I don’t really have a good answer for this. The writing was self-care. I worked on this book between 2019 and 2023, years not exactly known for… incredible progress. In many ways, letting myself slip into another, imaginary world — albeit a worse one — was how I made sense of it all. And when I got stuck, I turned to other dystopian books, looking at how both classic and contemporary works dealt with darker themes. Here are the ten that impacted me the most. While vastly different in subject matter, they all have echoes of our own world, as though the seeds for the future societies they describe have already been planted.

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Black Wave, by Michelle Tea

This novel was the first time it occurred to me that you can take familiar-feeling queer drama and set it at the end of the world, instantly upping the stakes. Imagine! I’ll be a fan of Michelle Tea forever and this was just one of many books that made me feel in awe of her. In Black Wave, the world is ending in 1999, and the fictional character Michelle is living in a bookstore in San Francisco while trying to stay sober and also date Matt Dillon. It’s very funny, surreal, and incredibly original.

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Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

If you haven’t read this or seen the movie, go into it blind. Unwrapping the mystery of what the fuck is going on in this book is half the fun of reading it; and by fun I mean the first time I read it, once it hit me what was actually happening, I felt like I was falling straight into a black hole of heartbreak! I won’t spoil it with a plot summary. I’ve returned to it many times to figure out how Ishiguro managed to pull off such a feat. Goes without saying this one is a masterpiece.

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Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

Multiple POVs span across decades in the aftermath of a global flu pandemic that wipes out most of the world’s population, though the heart of the book is a girl who is part of a traveling Shakespearean theater troupe and the dangers/joys they encounter on the road. Read it even if you think you want to avoid pandemic literature. Like most great sci fi it’s about something much larger; in this case, the way we’re all connected to each other by love and art and love of art. Also, as Riese and I discussed in our recent interview, the TV show based on the book is the best show ever made, full stop.

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The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker

A middle schooler navigates a drastically changing world when the earth suddenly starts spinning slower, making the days inexplicably longer. The “age” of miracles is both the time she’s living through and her literal age, in which she discovers first love, deals with the realities of her family, and tries to figure out who she is. It’s decidedly not YA despite focusing on young adults. This one’s a real gutpunch, and worth every second.

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Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler

One of the first dystopian novels I ever read, this one follows a young girl who lives in a gated community in a world ravaged by climate change and war and capitalism. When outside forces can’t be held at bay anymore, she leaves, starting a new religion based on her own ideas, amassing more and more followers on the journey to safer grounds. It’s the blueprint for a lot of contemporary literature, and a classic for a reason. By the end of it you might just want to join her, too.

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I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, by Mac Crane

Mac Crane’s debut novel is a master class in lyricism. In the future, in place of incarceration, a crime gets you an extra shadow, dooming you to live with the visible stigma of what you’ve done — though what counts as a crime and who gets to decide that is ethically murky. On the first page, our narrator’s wife dies in childbirth and the baby is given a shadow for her murder, setting the tone for a book filled with grief, love, found family, and an ever-present surveillance state. Told mostly as though the narrator is speaking to her late wife, and interspersed with experiments in form, it’s wildly imaginative and full of messy queer sex. I’ve taken to giving it as a gift.

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The City We Became, by NK Jemisin

When each borough of New York City is personified and brought to life, and they must find each other in order to defeat the interdimensional forces threatening to turn NYC into something sinister and unlivable. The sign that this evil is coming? Gentrification, mostly. A great example of how a wild story can so accurately reflect our reality, I haven’t stopped thinking about this book since I read it a few years ago.

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Children of Time, by Adrien Tchaikovsky

You might want to tell me that this is technically science fiction, but I’m not sure what is more dystopian than an unlivable earth and a scientist trying to inject monkeys on a terraformed planet with a virus to speed up their evolution (so that they can evolve to worship her, naturally) and accidentally creating a super-smart species of spider instead. Sorry! The spider planet is the scariest world I’ve encountered on the page, and therefore I’m including it on this list. The spider chapters alternate with the human ones, and by the first hundred pages of this epic I was sold: spiders do it better. When the humans and the spiders finally collide, well, I won’t give it away, you just have to read it.

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Severance, by Ling Ma

When the world is hit with a pandemic that turns the sick into zombies, one woman’s employer offers severance to anyone who keeps coming to work until the end date, and so she does — until she’s the last woman in New York City, eventually joining a band of other survivors and setting out into the terrible remains of the plague-stricken world. It’s a creepy meditation on exploitation and capitalism, and was extra eerie once the real pandemic happened and some of us (ahem) just kept going to our little jobs and typing on our little computers while the world was on fire.

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How High We Go In The Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Every time I recommend this book to people I also give them a heads up that it might ruin their life (but like, in a good way). It’s the story of an Earth forever changed by a virus unleashed by the melting permafrost, but becomes something much bigger than that. Each chapter feels like a separate story, taking us further and further into a pandemic-ravaged world, until you start to understand how it’s all connected — and that the very genre of the book might not be what you think it is. Ultimately it’s not just about how the characters and storylines are connected but how we all are, to each other and to things bigger than us. I really can’t count the number of times I cried reading it, and it cracked something open in my own creative process in terms of what you’re allowed to do with time and the scale of your story.

What To Know Before You Get a Dog

It’s going to seem like a really good idea.

You’re 22 and three months out of college and have been dating the same woman for almost a year and therefore you are an adult and totally ready for this. You make $15/hour which seems like a lot, definitely enough to support you and also a small mammal. Besides, your girlfriend says she needs to have an animal to be happy. It’s non-negotiable. You’re allergic to cats; ergo, dog it is.

So you’ll spend weeks on PetFinder before just going to the animal shelter with your sister and noticing the smallest, sickest, quietest dog hiding in the corner while every other dog barks at you. The dog is tiny and white and crusty. The woman working there, who has a dream catcher tattoo on her arm and an unzipped fly, immediately sees you noticing this dog and puts her in your arms. The woman is being aggressive; you can tell between that and the look on your sister’s face that this isn’t a dog a lot of people have wanted.

The dog smells like something is rotting and nestles her head underneath your chin. She weighs almost nothing and fits in your arms like an infant. The woman tells you about the horrific circumstances the dog came from; backyard breeding, whole life in a cage, etc etc. The dog is four, she says. You know you are not qualified to take care of a special-needs dog, but you tell the woman that you’re taking her no matter what.

You’ll bring her to the vet and the vet says, this dog is not four, this dog is at least eight or maybe even ten. Also, her teeth are rotting. Look how swollen her face is. She’ll need to get most of them out. She will otherwise die of the gum infection. It’ll cost $1,000, but don’t worry, it’s worth it.

You’ll bring her home and she’ll be terrified. She’ll hide in her crate. You bring her outside and she just sits there. She waits for you to go to sleep before she poops and pees everywhere.

You’ll bring her to the groomer, someone you find on Yelp that has good reviews for people with traumatized dogs. The groomer tells you that you should kiss the dog’s face. That’s how dogs show love to each other, he says. He buzzes her down to the pink.

Mostly she’s still afraid of everything, but one day she looks at you with recognition when you bring her food to her. She starts to connect the dots. You’re not scary, you’re feeding her, and not only that but you do it at the same time every day. You’re keeping her alive. Her tail wags when she sees you, a little. She starts letting you kiss her face. Fear will turn to trust. You’ll just have to be patient, consistent, and gentle. No sudden movements.

One night you’ll wake up to the crack of thunder and can’t find her. You check everywhere until you find that she is hiding in the back of your closet underneath a pile of clothes. You bring her into bed, where she curls up on your chest and never leaves.

After that you’ll be inseparable. Instead of hiding from you she’ll follow you at your heels. She can’t get on and off furniture by herself and cries to be picked up. She needs to have as much of her touching as much of you as possible at all times. She’s still peeing inside but who really cares. She sleeps on your shoulder or in your armpit at night.

You’ll wonder if this needy behavior is normal. You do a google search and learn about “velcro dogs.” You wonder if she’ll ever be attached to anyone else, like the girlfriend who insisted you get her in the first place. But mostly you love that she loves only you. It’s kind of the best feeling in the world. Besides, she seems happier like this. Sometimes she plays with a little stuffed giraffe. Sometimes she rolls in grass.

You’ll get a cool new job and the office is one of those hip downtown startups where they say you can bring your dog to work. You really shouldn’t do this — trust me, just get a dog walker — but you will. You’ll make some friends this way, because in general when people see a little white dog in your lap they understand that you are nice. But then one day the owner of the company finds your dog pooping on the vintage rug in the lobby, and he’ll probably think of this moment every time he sees you for the rest of the time you work there.

Eventually it will be time to break up with your girlfriend. You both see it coming but neither of you do anything about it for a while. When the time comes, you agree to try shared custody of the dog, maybe every other week or something, because over the past four years they’ve grown attached to each other — it didn’t happen as quickly as it did with you, but they love each other now and you’re trying not to be cruel, not crueler than you need to be at least.

You tell your therapist you’re glad that at least the dog is not a baby and she says, is the dog not your baby?

You’ll live alone for the first time in your life. Shared dog custody means some weeks you can go out after work and other times you have to sprint home and fall to your knees to greet her; she’s been alone all day and it’s the saddest thing in the world. You hate yourself for this. You’ll be flooded with guilt. But you’ve never really given yourself a chance to be wild before; you’re the kind of person who rescued a special needs dog at 22, for fuck’s sake. You need this time, you need to get a life. But you also need to keep her alive and it’ll be hard to balance the two things. Sometimes at the end of the day she’s so happy to see you that she pees on the floor. It doesn’t hit you how hard it is to raise a dog alone until the day you both get sick; she wrecks every surface of your apartment with diarrhea and vomiting and you have a fever and it’s winter. You’ll both get through it.

Soon you’ll start introducing her to new people. Some of them are charmed by her and the way you sometimes have to feed her by hand or bring the water bowl up to the couch. Some think it’s very funny and very gay that your dog is the child of lesbian divorce. Others ignore her and that’s how you know they’re not right. You’ll hurt a lot of people’s feelings during this time. You don’t mean to, but you’ve made a promise to yourself to never again let something go on past its expiration date. You’ll get hurt a fair amount too, and when you cry on the couch about being unlovable and then accidentally like an old Instagram photo of someone you shouldn’t be looking at, she will just sleep soundly next to you; she’s not one of those animals that wants to make you feel better, but her quiet presence does just that.

You’ll have the very strange experience of making a new friend and learning that she has already met your dog, through the person your ex is currently dating. Your dog’s reputation will precede her. She’s known, at least among a specific subsect of queer millennials in Brooklyn. Also, on the internet. She’s starred in a few videos for the various digital media companies you work for. People know you have a very cute very old white dog before they know anything else about you. One day in a room full of people a psychic will close his eyes and ask if someone present has a small white dog very attached to her spiritual energy. You figure he has googled you before this interaction, but a small part of you believes that he hasn’t, and that your bond is that intense.

She’ll never be good with other people, though, and this, you’ll think, adds to her charm. She doesn’t want strangers to pet her or even look at her. You can relate.

After a few years you meet a gorgeous woman who lives down the street who also has a dog, a huge squishy pit bull. That you both have dogs is really the only thing you know about each other, and one night at a party with mutual friends she turns to you and says, “How is Kimberly doing?” and you realize that she’s trying to think of ways to talk to you.

After you move in together, her dog and your dog will coexist peacefully. Sometimes they’ll cuddle and you take 100 photos of it. Mostly they’ll ignore each other.

When the pandemic starts and you’re both working from home, your dog will insist on spending the day in your lap, farting and snoring. It’s hard to work like this so you’ll say no, and she’ll take to asking to be put in your girlfriend’s lap instead. Your girlfriend is much more patient than you about this and she’ll let your dog sleep on her arm while she paints. It will be very sweet and you’ll be so glad that finally the dog has bonded to someone new. You will marry this person. She’s the love of your life.

One night after she eats dinner your dog is in an uncharacteristically bad mood. She starts growling and barking at nothing. You try to pet her and she snaps at you. She’s never done that before. Moving forward every night when the sun goes down she’ll have a similar fit of growling and barking. The vet tells you that dogs get dementia and this isn’t dissimilar to what humans experience. It’s called sundowning and she’ll do it for the rest of her life. Eventually the growling at night becomes so severe that she no longer wants to sleep in bed with you, she just wants to be left alone. This breaks your heart a little bit but it’s for the best, and it’s kind of nice to sleep without worrying about accidentally kicking her off the bed. You will miss it, though. You’ll miss the days when she would have let you use her like a loofa if you wanted. Now she just wants less and less from you.

One day she’ll cough up blood. You’ll take her to the vet who will tell you that it’s because her remaining teeth need to come out. This time, the price tag hurts your bank account a little less, but otherwise you’ll feel just as upset. It takes her longer to recover from the anesthesia. She has two teeth left.

Eventually you’ll get a job in Los Angeles and convince your little family to move across the country. You’ll have a hard conversation with your ex about finally ending your shared custody situation, and to your relief she agrees quickly that it’s for the best. She says she’ll come visit, and she does. She’ll bring her new wife, and you’ll feel glad that you can leave your dog with them while you go explore California, glad that this weird arrangement has allowed you and your ex to become family.

In LA, your dog will sleep in sun patches and smell flowers, but she’s lost her sight and her hearing by now so you’re not sure how much she knows about her new surroundings. It’s nice that there’s a backyard so you don’t have to put her harness on her, as by now she has started being sensitive about things touching her neck.

She’ll make it in LA almost a year before she starts having trouble standing up, like she’s experiencing her own personal earthquake. She falls over a few times and so you’ll take her to the animal hospital, where they tell you that because of the kidney failure and the liver disease and the arthritis in her spine, she probably has weeks, not months.

They’ll give you drugs to make her comfortable and you spend the next few days watching her sleep. You say things like, when the dogs die let’s move to Europe for a year. Or, should we just get a puppy? What if we had a puppy. We should get two puppies and name them Linda and Asparagus. Imagine their little bellies. What do you think Kimberly looked like as a puppy? She was probably so small.

You’ll watch her sleep some more. Sometimes you can’t find her, which hasn’t happened since that thunderstorm a hundred years ago, and eventually you’ll see that she’s wedged herself into some weird corner. Her little tail is still wagging a couple of times a day and you decide that once her tiny joys are gone, you’ll put her out of her misery. She shouldn’t be in pain, she’s too small.

Because bad things happen all at once, while she’s dying, you’re going to lose your job. I’m sorry. It’s going to feel like the world is ending. I don’t know what to tell you. In some ways, a version of the world is ending. But you’ve been here before. You’ve lost before. You always rebuild. Your life will contain a series of worlds that begin and end, overlapping in ways you don’t yet understand.

You’ll say to your wife, I don’t know how long to let this go on for. You’ll have kept her alive for 11 years, and since she was a senior adoption, that will make her the oldest dog on earth. You’ll know that other people have lost their dogs, and they’ve survived. But this feels sadder. It is, and it isn’t. Your instinct will be to feel that no one understands. They do, and they don’t.

But back to you. Back to this decision. When you first meet her, scared and sick and alone, you’ll know that if you don’t take her with you she’ll probably die. Of course, she’s going to die either way. Better to have a life with you first, you’ll decide. You’ll make it nice for her. You’ll try your best, at least.

Lesbians! They’re Evergreen

Dear reader,

In 2012, a Condé Nast website called style.com published an article with the headline: “IS LESBIAN CHIC HERE TO STAY?” In this thrilling piece of supposed journalism, the writer remarked, “Lesbians! They’re everywhere.” What followed was a breathless account of gay models peppered with some bad jokes about combat boots.

You do not need me to tell you that “lesbian chic” and, obviously, lesbians in general, existed long before — and long after — fashion media decided to acknowledge us. But you know what doesn’t exist anymore? Style.com.

2012 was also when I started writing for Autostraddle, joining a group of queer women who were devoted to telling queer stories in a way that was authentic and compelling. We obviously weren’t perfect in how we did this, and the readers didn’t hesitate to let us know when we messed up, which ultimately made this site stronger and better — truly a community effort.

After I left Autostraddle for a career in mainstream women’s media, I realized how incredibly rare it was to have queer people writing our own stories for a company run by other queer people. And beyond that, I’ve never worked anywhere that cares as much about what the readers think, though they have been more than happy to monetize those readers’ clicks. In a lot of ways I think that’s why places like style.com (and the entire print industry, for that matter) were doomed to fail; they were so out of touch. They didn’t want to have to listen.

Over the past decade, I’ve watched as women’s media slowly starts to realize that in order to survive, they can’t keep ignoring queer women. After all, we’re known to have an outsized impact on the larger cultural conversation. And while it’s so nice to see new lesbian editors and writers pop up at these mainstream publications all the time — and while I know from experience how hard those individuals are working to fight for representation — I can’t help but feel like the most authentic representation is coming out of brands and platforms that have never had to pivot to see and hear us, for companies that have never tried to declare us a new trend.

Now, though, we are at a critical juncture. The reasons Autostraddle has stayed so good and so authentic — mainly that it’s independent and therefore free from corporate interests, but also that it continues to be a brand that listens to its readers — are also the reasons why, from a business perspective, its future is not a guarantee.

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Autostraddle, at this point, is certainly not the only place where you can find queer storytelling. I don’t doubt that we will continue to see improved representation in mainstream media, which is totally great and very important. But it’s also important to keep in mind who is benefiting from that representation; us, sure, but also the business who is getting our clicks and subscriptions and views. And if you follow the money, I’m willing to bet that the people profiting the most from our stories are not part of our community.

So I guess the question for all of us is really this: Who do you trust to tell your stories? And what are you going to do to make sure they’re around to do it?

In solidarity,

Gabrielle

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EVENT: Making the Queer Media You Want to See in the World

In honor of the publication of Gabrielle’s book and our fundraiser, we’re hosting a conversation between Riese Bernard, Co-Founder and CEO of Autostraddle, and Gabrielle Korn, about queer internet culture, the current media landscape and how we go about building the queer media we want to see in the world. It will be so much fun and we hope to see you there!!!

*We’re giving away 5 free copies of Everybody (Else) is Perfect by Gabrielle Korn to randomly selected people who RSVP for this event! To be announced during the event! No purchase necessary to enter.*

Where: Crowdcast
When: February 18, 2021 4:30pm PST / 7:30 EST
How Much: Free
Accessibility: Realtime captioning for this event will be provided by White Coat Captioning. You can access the captioning by opening up the following Streamtext link in a separate window. A transcript of this event will be published on Autostraddle.com on February 19, 2021.

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Lez Get Dressed For Work: F*ck Yeah End Of Season Sales

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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Well kittens, it’s still hot as labia outside but you would never know it by the offensive influx of fall fashion into the shopping space. I can’t even look at the emails I’m getting about new fall clothes with their layers of heavy plaids and thick denim because it makes me overheated. Also, clothing brands, please don’t try to make my summer shorter; it only just started and it’s my favorite season.

There is one positive, though: end of season sales. The best time to buy clothes is when they’re going out of season because they are cheap! And, if you go for classic pieces, you’ll know you’ll want to wear them again next year. Since a solid work wardrobe is composed of classics/basics that you adore, end of season shopping for work clothes is really an ideal situation.

Take, for example, the sleeveless button front shirt. This is definitely a summer staple that I’ve talked about many times before, but who wants to pay $90 for one top? Not I. There are plenty on sale and I bet you’ll layer it all winter, too. Check out some of these options. They are making my heart sing. So cute, so work appropriate.

Also, importantly: many of you have asked me how to dress like you shop at Madewell without actually shopping at Madewell because you can’t afford that shit. I don’t really have an answer for that because I’ve never found anyone who does Madewell as well as Madewell, which is why their sales are so important to me. And I’m pleased to report that their current one is amazing, and will solve a lot of your problems. Here are a few work appropriate things I think you should get but please don’t take my word for it — go look for yourself!

On a related note, I’m often advising butches and bois to check out Topman, but that’s another situation that can get pricey. Until sales! Sales, you guys. These are my picks for you from Topman. I think you’d look real handsome in ’em. There are a lot more things on their website.

Your turn. Which stores do you sale stalk?

Lez Get Dressed For Work: Real Talk About Your Queer Hair At Work

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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A lot of you spend a lot of time thinking about your hair. This extremely scientific fact is supported by my very professional observations about how damn good your locks look. I think Autostraddle readers as a whole probably have the best looking hair around, statistically speaking. Of course, I’m not in charge of the universe, and what I think counts as great hair is not necessarily the same as, say, what your boss thinks.

If you’re just starting out in the professional world, or if you’re just starting out in the alternative lifestyle haircut world, it can be hard to figure out how to mediate the two. On the one hand, you have to be true to yourself and get whatever haircut makes you feel the best. On the other hand, you most likely need to work, and your coworkers might not understand that shaving the sides of your head is a queer signifier and instead think you’re maybe a little too rebellious for the office. It’s unfortunate, but true: the special element that gives your hair that super gay edge to it might be just the kind of attention grabbing look that is not encouraged in your line of work. As I’ve mentioned in this column, the hard part about dressing for work is that work isn’t about you (usually), and so you really shouldn’t be taking attention away from it. But hair is so central to happiness, to self-identification! What’s a homo to do?

Do you get the haircut and risk your job? Do you take the job and risk your individuality? Or is it actually not as big of a deal as you might think it is? Like, maybe your boss will just think you have a “pixie cut” and you’ll never correct her that what you actually have is a very specific “dyke cut” and it will just be whatever.

Maybe you saw this coming: there’s no right answer here. Every situation is different, and you have to feel it out. Maybe your alternative lifestyle haircut is frowned upon because you work with a bunch of homophobes who don’t deserve you anyway, or maybe you are just in the kind of office where everything on you needs to be proper and tidy (as an ALH tends to not be). Also likely is that it’s your own fear holding you back — fear of being visible, of looking different.

Currently, I’m lucky enough to have a day job where my weirdo haircut is fodder for articles, but I wasn’t always in such a situation. When I worked at an abortion clinic right out of college, my coworkers were constantly commenting on my hair, which at the time kind of looked like Baby Bowser. “You would look so pretty with long hair,” they’d say to me, which was actually not a compliment. The patients would stare at me, too. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because I looked like a dyke, but because I looked unprofessional in comparison with the other people working there. “Unprofessional,” of course, is a relative term. I looked unprofessional in the context of a medical facility, but would have looked very professional in the context of a blog for girl-on-girl culture. You know?

To further this discussion, I polled some other working queers of various professions to find out what their feelings are. It turns out there are a lot of feelings out there. No one is surprised. Read on to learn their stories.

Ashley, cashier: The day I came in with an undercut framed by my long hair, all hell broke loose. Several managers told me I couldn’t have it displayed in public, that I’d have to part my hair on the far side of my head to cover up the “bald spot” (what if I had had surgery?). I agreed with a few managers that once the warehouse was closed I would be able to wear my hair however I’d like (much like our tattoo policy, as soon as we’re closed, you may roll up long sleeves, take off covering bandages, etc). I conceded to this because I have to pick my battles. But on two separate occasions while the store was closed I had managers tell me to cover my head. I told them to walk around and make sure all our other employees were covered up too before I was covering anything. One manager even told me my lifestyle “connotates an alternative lifestyle,” even though I am cool with saying I live one! I still don’t expose my undercut while we’re open, but as soon as those doors close and the last customer walks out, it’s game over.

Allison, intern at Utah Clean Energy: About a year and a half ago I gave the ol’ middle finger to society, cut off ten inches of my dark curly hair, shaved the sides of my head, and began my life as a true rebel without a cause. I didn’t do it because I’m MOC and queer but because I needed a big change. My fauxhawk adds to my identity and I have enjoyed keeping my hair short and “alternative” ever since. I never saw it as a problem until I started interviewing for grown up jobs and internships. No matter how feminine or androgynous I dressed for my interviews my haircut stole the show and made it into Allison’s Genderfuck Variety Hour. A feeling of uncertainty is always present after the person interviewing finds out I’m the Allison they will be speaking with, almost as if I can see them thinking, “We were just expecting someone… different.” Ever been misgendered several times by the person interviewing you during the interview? I know this feeling well. There are very few vague laws protecting LGBTQ+ folk from workplace discrimination in Utah and the ones that exist in Salt Lake don’t stop institutionalized discrimination from happening. My hair makes it known that I am not a part of normalized society. I’ll never know if it was the true cause of me not getting hired but I know it has sometimes made a negative impression.

Abby, works in the legal field: I’d had long to very long hair for basically my whole life when I finally decided to cut it all off. I was nervous that I couldn’t really pull off short hair, but also I worked at a law firm and was nervous that if I got an ALH, I might get fired. Not because my bosses were homophobic, but because it was an environment that expected a certain level of professionalism in behavior and appearance. And despite being on the more casual side for law firms, you were still expected to dress on the conservative side. Also, people had been fired for a lot less. When I went to get my haircut, I hedged it with, “I want to go really short. I want something kinda gay, but I also work in a law office, so I need to be able to look professional too.” And the woman cutting my hair totally got it. Despite being a little nervous, I got only compliments on my hair when I went into the office the next day.

Rae, archivist: When I graduated from college , I was determined to get a job at the main research library of the NYPL. I was 22 and still had College Hair, specifically a College Mohawk. When the human resources department contacted me for an interview, I didn’t go out and get a new hairstyle (instead I went out and got a new button-down), but I instinctively combed my hair differently to make it look more like Job Hair. I still remember what it felt like to tuck the tail of my mohawk into my new shirt. So much meaning is invested in personal style, so I don’t necessarily advocate getting a hairstyle you don’t feel any connection to, or one that makes you feel like you’re doing an impression of somebody else. When I was just out of college, I basically started doing an impression of a version of myself that didn’t exist yet. In terms of what I think is appropriate First Job Hair, I’d say washing it is the most important thing. And starting to get more regular haircuts. And never underestimate the value of a comb or pomade. The NYPL hired me, so my mohawk didn’t sabotage me. And I was fortunate enough to be hired for a union position, so I probably could’ve kept my College Hair. But I wanted to start transitioning into the next version of myself as soon as possible.

Okay, now it’s your turn!

Lez Get Dressed For Work: It’s Hot AND Rainy, and Your Feet Are Miserable

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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Feature image via MoMo on We Heart It.

Hello little ducklings. Are you staying dry? I barely am. I mean right now it’s nice(ish) out, but for the past week NYC has really just been taking one long humid shower, the kind that makes you more dirty. Aside from stating the obvious, which is that summer is just doing it wrong, I think it’s time we talk about a sticky issue. Yes, I’m talking about shoes. When it’s ninety degrees and raining or at least maybe going to rain at some point, and you’re on your way to your air conditioned office in the sky, what the fuck do you wear on your feet?

Think about that question for a second while we take a break to talk about something really cute. Remember how two weeks ago I told you about Everlane’s new Poplin shirts? Well, at least one of you is listening to me, because look at this lovely gem that appeared in my inbox.

If you find yourself following the advice in this column, please send me a picture like Heather did (gabrielle@autostraddle.com). Thanks Heather! Also I like your necklace, it looks really good over that shirt. I would totally give you a promotion for this outfit.

Okay, back to feet. While waterproof winter shoes can be really super great (Hunter boots, I’m lookin’ at you), waterproof summer shoes are still definitely working on getting there. Sometimes it can feel like you have to choose between hot feet (rain boots) and wet feet (cute shoes). Neither are really work appropriate, though. Sure, you could wear your rain boots to work and then change your shoes once you get there, but honestly I don’t really find that convenient. Like, who wants to schlep a pair of shoes to the office when one is also carrying lunch, snacks, coffee, water, all of one’s makeup, and whatever else you can’t live without during the eight/twelve hour work day?

To be completely honest with you, so far this summer on rainy days I’ve been wearing black skinny jeans and Doc Marten’s with a very lightweight top. I look kind of like this by the time I get to work:

So, let’s get more appropriate shoes together, shall we? The first thing to consider is material. Nothing’s going to keep you dry like some good old fashioned rubber. But rubber’s not exactly known for it’s breathability. Here we find ourselves at a crossroads. Are you okay with wearing rubber sandals? Your feet will get wet but your shoes will stay dry, meaning you’ll have to wipe those feet off with a paper towel once you get to work, but after that it will be smooth sailing. Since jellies are kind of back in style but have been updated to be more grown up, it’s actually really easy to find a cute pair of jelly-inspired rubber sandals that are nice enough to wear to work. Plus, if you wear a cute enough outfit, people will think you are just wearing those shoes because you like them a lot. Also everyone is a little less fancy in the summer, it’s a fact of life, because sweat.

If rubber sandals don’t go with your spirit’s vibe, consider the rubber oxford shoe. Yes, it exists, and I’m kind of obsessed with it (pictured below, center). There’s also all kinds of rubber flats out there for your perusing pleasure. Granted, they’re going to be a little sweatier than sandals, but still less sweaty than big old boots. Boat shoes and other slip-on situations all come in rubber. Here are some nice ones that will suit a variety of gender expressions.

So, what are your strategies for keeping your feet dry in the summer rain when you also have to look professional?

Lez Get Dressed For Work: Everlane Makes Summer Dreams Come True

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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I’ve already mentioned to you my love of Everlane, due in no small part to their high quality basics that are the perfect things to build a work wardrobe upon (okay also I like their cotton t-shirts and their policy of “radical transparency”). Their silk blouses are really the best things, but, you know, $80 for a dry-clean-only situation isn’t always appealing. Plus, I don’t know about you, but silk isn’t my go-to summer material. So, when I caught wind of their new poplin collection that launched on June 20, I couldn’t wait to tell you about it.

Everlane’s poplin button front shirt collection is truly the perfect thing for your summer work life. Poplin is crisp yet great for hot weather, and these shirts appear to have just the right amount of breathing room to ventilate [certain kinds of] hot sweaty bodies while also looking professional. (Disclaimer: I haven’t seen one in person, but I trust this brand a lot.) They come in collared long-sleeve ($55), collared short-sleeve ($50), and sleeveless band ($45); there’s also a men’s version ($55). But, the women’s shirts are menswear inspired, so if you’re looking for something more tomboy than femme, this shirt will probably work for you.

I feel like $45 is a really good price for a high quality shirt that one could potentially wear twice a week for the rest of summer.  The colors are lovely, too: white, midnight, and sand for the women’s cut, and those plus dusk, light blue, navy, and Mediterranean for the men’s cut. They look good tucked in or not tucked in, will work with trousers, skirts, or shorts, and, maybe most importantly, have that special magical quality that makes something look pretty queer.

You should check out the Poplin Collection Lookbook on Facebook for all the ways you can wear these shirts to express your unique snowflake office self, and then tell me what your feelings are.

Lez Get Dressed For Work: The Working Bois Of Summer

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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Today I want to talk about how to dress for work when it’s super fucking hot outside and you don’t wear dresses. As I said when we talked about this issue for femmes, (literally going to just quote myself here, hope that’s okay with you) having a job to go to in the summer is a special brand of hell. Between the heat outside, the air conditioning inside, the schlep to and from the office, and your sanity, dressing for work in the summer is real challenge. As a people who, in general, know their way around some layers, it can be jarring to suddenly have to make an outfit out of as little clothing as possible.

Plus, if you’re masculine of center, your clothing options are already limited by the hyper-gendered nature of work clothes. I’m going to be pulling from both men’s and women’s clothes for this — if you’re shopping online, make sure you measure yourself first, especially if you’re ordering a “gender” of clothes you haven’t tried on in person. Men’s clothing doesn’t fit the same as women’s and vice versa, though it can definitely fit. My girlfriend has taught herself how to tailor men’s shirts to fit her, which for her involves just making them shorter, because that last button is trouble, as men’s hips are generally more narrow than women’s. If you just make the shirt shorter though, it won’t go over your hips and everything will be great.

Dressing for hot weather involves wearing less clothing for everyone, obviously. For more masculine clothing, it involves a certain amputation of your clothes’ limbs: pants become shorts, long sleeves becomes tee shirts, etc. For optimum temperature regulation, you should also change what material you’re wearing, and, importantly, your clothes should be a little looser. Nothin’ like getting some ventilation in there.

Depending on wear you work, shorts may or may not be an option. I love the Gap’s new “boyfriend” roll-up shorts (left, below), particularly because they are a lot longer in person than on the models shown (models have very long legs) and they feel very business casual to me when worn with other nice things. However, if you can’t wear shorts to work, cropped dress pants are a very reasonable options. According to Rae of The Handsome Butch, “Showing some ankle cools you off, and looks stylish, so long as you don’t wear socks. Wear boat shoes or other shoes that are forgiving when sockless.” (I don’t know if you know this but the images below are linked to the products. If the images aren’t linked there will be a link in the caption. I just want you to be able to buy things you want.)

Uniqlo is also currently selling linen vests and blazers, so if you work somewhere that’s air conditioned to be a walk-in freezer, you can bring your layers with you and put them on upon arrival. I highly recommend not getting fully dressed until you absolutely have to be when it’s hot out.

Okay bois, what are your hot weather work attire secrets? Don’t keep them to yourself. Also while I have you here, can you guys start sending me pictures of yourselves in your favorite work outfits? I really think that’s what’s missing from the internet right now. Thanks have a great weekend, don’t think about work too much!

You Should Go: Babeland Throws Us Another Party

Feature image courtesy of Babeland.

In case you haven’t noticed, many of us around here love Babeland. As it turns out, Babeland loves Autostraddle as much as we love them. To prove it, they’re throwing another party for us on June 20. If you missed the first one a few months ago, you should know that it involved cocktails, cuties and a workshop tailored just for you, all amidst shiny sparkling sex toys and safer sex supplies. This one promises to be even better. Why, you ask?

Well, since last time the workshop covered the basics, this time they’re bestowing us with kinky sex tips, just in time for Pride. Between the kinky queer workshop, free booze and Autostraddlers to mingle with, it’ll be like one giant birthday party for your sex life. Also, it’s free. Free!

Speaking of free, the first lucky fifteen humans to arrive will get free gift bags, so you can try all the kinky things out at home. So now that you’re convinced, let’s talk details.

What: Queer Pride Cocktail Party With Babeland + Autostraddle
Where: Babeland Soho, 43 Mercer Street
When: June 20, 7pm
Cost: Free
Age: You have to be 18+ to enter the store because, sex.

You can RSVP here to let them know how much booze to get how many people to expect. Questions? Comments? Feelings? I can’t wait to see all of your faces!

You Should Go: Top Picks Of All The Things In NYC This Month

It’s Pride month, and here in NYC that means there are suddenly more things to do than anyone can actually keep track of. This self-identified homebody in particular feels very overwhelmed by everything happening — in a good way! But still. It’s a lot. So, I went ahead and combed through the parties and the fundraisers happening around town this June and lined up the things I am most excited about for your viewing pleasure. My one wish is for everyone to find the party most relevant to their individual fun-time style, so please share what you’re doing this month so that no one has to miss out on anything. Hope to see you around!

Tuesday, June 11, 6pm, 21+
Annual Stonewall Raffle For The NYC Dyke March, at the Stonewall Inn
If you’ve never been to this yearly event, you need to go. It’s always packed, and the raffle prizes are traditionally amazing. One year I won original art by Alison Bechdel, just saying. There are also drink specials, and since it’s the first Dyke March event of the season, it’s pretty exciting. You could win an Autostraddle gift bag!

Saturday, June 15, 1pm-5pm, all ages!
The Dyke March Rock Show, at Public Assembly
Featuring Tin Vulva, Rusty Curtains, Kelly Montoya, Tiny Tusks, and Clinical Trials. Enough said.

Tuesday, June 18, 7:30pm, 21+
The Dyke March Cocktail Party, at The Dalloway
The fanciest party ever sponsored by the Dyke March. Put on your Tuesday finest and sip cocktails while learning what the Dyke March committee is up to this year.

Thursday, June 20, 7pm, 18+
Queer Pride Cocktail Party with Babeland + Autostraddle, at Babeland Soho
You have to come to this because you love Autostraddle and maybe also sex. The workshop will be about kinky tips and the first 15 guests get free gift bags. More info will be on this website soon since it’s our party.

Saturday, June 15, 8pm
Party With Pride For The Astrea Foundation, at the Gowanus Loft
Or, instead of going to a massive mermaid dance party, you could go to this party, which is in support of fierce queer activists around the world. It’s $50 before 9:30pm, but after that it’s $25! Also though, no one will be turned away for lack of funds, so actually this is however much you want it to be. There’ll be performances, dancing, food, drinks, etc. Sounds great.

Saturday, June 23, 9pm, 21+
SIREN, NYC’s Official Saturday Night Pride Beach Party, at Beekman Beer Garden Beach Club (South St. Seaport)
There are mermaids on the flier for this. Also, relevantly, it’s a dance party on the beach with like, 2500 lesbos, or so the invite says. It’s $25, but they’re donating some of the money to the Ali Forney Center, and honestly think about how quickly you’d spend that same amount of money at some boring bar not dancing with thousands of queer grrls and bois.

Thursday, June 27, 8pm
EVERYBOOTY Curated by Spankzine Buddy, HEY QUEEN! and Earl Dax, at BAM/Brooklyn Academy of Music
A radical night of multi-arts mayhem to ring in Pride weekend. Why the eff wouldn’t you go to this? It will literally have all the things a party could have. Plus it’s at BAM which is cool.

Friday, June 28, 10pm
Hot Rabbit Pride, at The Monster
Do you like hot sweaty dance parties? DJs, cheap drinks, cuties; this party was named one of the best Gay Nightlife Events by Time Out NYC for a reason. It’s $5 cover if you have the password, which is on the Facebook invite.

Saturday, June 29, 8pm, 21+
The Official Dyke March After Party, at Ginger’s
Join in the time honored tradition of getting totally wasted after the Dyke March at your favorite neighborhood lesbian bar, Ginger’s. This is a great thing to do even if you have plans to go to some hip dance party afterwards, because who doesn’t like Ginger’s and also you can get swag from this year’s march. Also, this is the Dyke March’s biggest fundraiser, so it’s important.

Sunday, June 30, 21+, 5pm
NYC PRIDE 2013 Whitney Day Events & Hot Rabbit Present: Wild Thang, at the Marquee Nightclub
So let’s say you’re not too hung over from the Dyke March After Party and even have motivation to do something during/after the Manhattan Pride parade situation. This looks like a good option if you like to dance a lot and have hot sweaty photos taken of you.

Sunday, June 30, 4pm
Yes Ma’am presents WHAM BAM!, at Huckleberry Bar
This party is bringing queer body positive nightlife into the daylight at an indoor/outdoor event with swanky lounge, good food, and great cocktails, and overall sounds really cute and like a great time.

Okay, what will you all be doing this month?

Lez Get Dressed For Work: 5 Reasons You Should Start Wearing Jumpsuits To The Office

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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If this column were called Lez Get Dressed For The Weekend, right now I would be telling you to get denim overalls. While I really think you should do that, I’ve brought you here to talk about what you’re wearing to the office, and you most likely shouldn’t be wearing your new weekend overalls. What you should wearing is the workday version of that: a jumpsuit!

Today I noticed a handful of people wearing jumpsuits in my office and they looked amazing, to the point that it inspired this entire post. The following is a list of reasons why you should look into investing in one. Or three. Unfortunately for my evening, there is apparently severe shortage of photos of queers rocking jumpsuits on the internet; the photos you see below will be mostly from brands. I’m sorry. It’s because you haven’t sent me a picture of yourself in a jumpsuit yet because you didn’t read this list yet. Anyway. This is why you should get one, like, now.

Lez Get Dressed For Work: Hot & Sweaty Summertime Femme

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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Well creatures, it’s been a long fucking road but it’s finally here: post-Memorial Day territory. It’s just a matter of time before our pit stains grow as long as the early evening shadows, and my pores are filling with dread. Having a job to go to in the summer is a special brand of hell and not just because of the precious beach time one has to miss out on. Between the heat outside, the air conditioning inside, the schlep to and from the office, and your sanity, dressing for work in the summer is real challenge. As a people who, in general, know their way around some layers, it can be jarring to suddenly have to make an outfit out of as little clothing as possible. And how do you wear as little clothing as possible while also looking professional and appropriate?

I had planned to write posts on this topic later on in the summer, but based on your feedback it seems you all need to talk about it like yesterday, so let’s do it. This one is a femme-ier take on the problem, so if the following advice and conversation doesn’t apply to you, hang tight! I haven’t forgotten about the needs of your sweaty office bod, I promise.

Before we talk about clothes, I want to talk about faces. Specifically, the greasy puddle my face would be without the magic of Fresh’s mattifying serum. This product has changed my life so much that I really can’t talk about summer fashion at all without telling you to buy it. I put it on instead of a moisturizer and then put my makeup on top of it, and it totally de-greases my face for the day. Even if you don’t wear makeup, this is a good thing to have. It will also help you out on those days that you don’t have time/the will to shower before work. I also switch my lipstick out for a matte stain (Sephora Collection Cream Lip Stain is made of miracles) and I stop wearing liquid eyeliner because that shit runs in sweat like that. Instead, I go for a waterproof mascara and I actually just put my foundation on my eyelids instead of eyeshadow. This gives my eyes a bright pop and stays put for the day. I also put foundation around my lips to be extra sure the lip stain stays where it’s supposed to. Between my natural greasiness and all the matte products at work, I end up in the middle at “dewy.” It’s a nice place to be considering the alternatives.

If your office is on the fancier side of things, consider dresses with black and white color blocking. White because summer, black because fancy, and a dress because the aforementioned reasons. It will look super chic, and because of the two-toned nature of the dress, it’ll trick people into thinking you planned a whole outfit when really you just put one thing on. This one would look cute on you:

One issue faced by the femmes I polled for this post was not the work dress, but things that surround the wearing of the work dress. Specifically, thighs. Thighs that chafe; bare thighs that now touch gross things like the subway when your dress rides up as you sit down; thighs that sweat and sweat and sweat with nothing to absorb it but your office chair. Anyone else ever leave a butterfly-shaped sweat stamp on their chair on a dress-wearing day? No? Just me? Cool. I hope no one from my day job reads this.

Luckily, there are things you can do about it. Wearing bike shorts under your dress, for starters, will definitely make a difference. There’s also lingerie specifically made to address the issues that your thighs, though lovely, present. The brand Luvees comes highly recommended to me, and though I haven’t tried them myself, their products are both pretty and claim to address inner thigh burn. So don’t just suffer through it if this happens to you!

So what about the days when you don’t want to wear a dress? For maximum temperature control, my personal non-dress solution involves an extremely lightweight sleeveless button down and similarly lightweight straight leg pants that can be rolled up. I love the Gap’s broken-in straight khakis (see below) for work wear because the loose-ish fit makes them breathable but the leg is nicely tailored, and since they are women’s menswear-inspired pants, they add that touch of andro which looks sexy (yet work appropriate!) with a femmier shirt. Throw some cute summer shoes on and you’re good to go.

Okay femmes, let’s hear it: what are your secret solutions for not drowning in sweat at work now that summer is upon us?

Lez Get Dressed For Work: The Suit-Not-Suit

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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So let’s say right now you aren’t at A-Camp and instead are sitting at your desk reading Autostraddle wishing you were at camp. Cool, same here. Cute girls are running around in matching camp t-shirts in nature and you and I are (probably?) in different places but are both staring at a screen. It’s like we’re looking at the same moon. Only it’s not the moon because we’re stuck inside, at work, in our work clothes. Great!

Maybe there are some people around you wearing suits. Are you wearing a suit too? Do you have to?

Unless you work in a super fancy shmancy corporate office where you have to wear a nice suit every day, you probably have some confusing wiggle room about how much of a suit to wear to work. Honestly I think having to wear a suit makes life a lot easier: you know you have to get dressed up and it’s pretty much set how to do it (now, finding things that actually fit you within that category is obviously a different story). But if your work environment is somewhere in between suit and not-suit, you have approximately an infinite amount of things you could wear and how are you even supposed to decide on anything?

I find it helpful to have a go-to, formulaic silhouette for these situations. Today I’m going to tell you about my personal version of it, and you’re highly encouraged to share your own. For me, when wearing a suit approximation, it’s important that the outline of the outfit looks like a suit: pants (or skirt!!), collared top (which we’ve talked about), blazer, oxford shoes. But it’s actually not a suit because it’s not a set, and that’s where your personality can shine through.

A suit is technically made of clothing from the same cloth. It’s really matchy matchy. If you don’t have to wear a perfectly matching suit, I want you to try something: go in the exact opposite route. In putting together your suit-not-suit silhouette, you shouldn’t be looking for gray pants to match a gray blazer, because the materials will be slightly different and the colors slightly different and it will thus look slightly sloppy. You should be looking for a bright blue blazer to go with those gray pants, or something could even have a pattern on it. Get creative if your office allows it. Bright colors are fun too.

The exception to this is black. If the blacks match, the materials can be different and it’s fine because black is a magical color. But if it’s not black, the worst thing that can happen is that it matches-ish, and you don’t want there to be anything ish about your outfit. So if it’s made up of very different colors yet complimentary colors, you’re color-blocking! Literally just blocks of color. That’s really in style right now and I don’t see it going anywhere. Also, stripes.

Okay, so what do you think? This is just my interpretation of a suit-not-suit that works for me. What works for you?

Lez Get Dressed For Work: Yes, Virginia, There Are Professional Tops That Aren’t Button-Ups

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. Read previous posts here.

Header by Rory Midhani

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A lot of people spend a lot of time and energy trying to look like they just rolled out of bed: perfectly messed-up hair, flannel thrown on just so, and maybe a little bit of smudged eyeliner, depending. Going to work is pretty much the opposite. Unless you are a morning person (what does that feel like!) you are probably familiar with the exact minimum amount of time you need to make yourself look professional; and likewise, the maximum amount of seconds you get to spend in a blanket cocoon with your eyes closed (omfg I’m so tired right now).

Today I had one of those days where I really stretched out that staying in bed time. When I finally crawled out of bed like an old homeless hamster, putting on clothes that weren’t my pajamas just felt bad, so I wore the closest things to pajamas I could justify: my softest nice skinnies with my Madewell silk boyshirt, untucked, and suede booties. I wore a gold bow tie necklace and between all those things I somehow managed to look like I’m a professional grownup, I think. This is a close approximation:

Wearing this outfit reminded me of something: you know how I keep telling you guys to tuck your shirts in? A lot of you responded to that advice by saying you’ll never feel comfortable tucking in, and I totally feel that. Actually I personally do it like 50% of the time. I’m not all that tall but I have a long torso, so it’s a rare shirt indeed that is long enough to actually tuck in. Also there are days like when I have my period or I ate a lot of pizza the night before when the thought of tucking it in really just makes me want to cry, so.

If you’re of the non-tucking persuasion, just pay close attention to where your shirt falls. If it falls above the top of your pants, wear an undershirt and tuck that one in. Actually even if it appears to meet your pants perfectly, wear an undershirt and tuck it in: you want to be able to lift your arms without showing off your tummy to all the ladies (this is work, not your women’s studies class). If it hangs down past the top of your pants, and you like to wear belts, make a note of what the bulk of the belt does to the way the shirt falls. If you can see the shape of the belt through the bottom of your shirt, maybe don’t wear it, and put on pants that don’t need a belt. (That’s just a pet peeve of mine. I hope it continues to be implied that you should do whatever you want that is also work appropriate. But really I feel like you shouldn’t be able to see a belt shape under your shirt.) Also, in general, you should probably be wearing an undershirt with your button up because guess what? That gapping problem? It happens to mostly everyone I’ve ever seen in a button front to at least some degree.

Last week I suggested getting things tailored if you’re one of the majority of people for whom off-the-rack clothing doesn’t fit perfectly, though I know that’s not very helpful advice since what we all want is to have this be as easy and cheap and painless as possible. This can be especially difficult with button ups, with their attendant gapping problems. A friend of mine suggested actually sewing the parts of the shirt that are gapping and then pulling the shirt over your head like a popover. But if you’ve given up on button ups, that’s totally fine and reasonable! Let’s talk about what else you can wear to work.

One of the reasons button front shirts look professional is because they have nice collars. There are plenty of regular shirts with nice collars, too. American Apparel in particular, although they are in many respects an eyebrow-raising institution, makes a lovely Silky Collar Tee that I may or may not have in two different colors (hey, if you love something, buy it twice, right? I got mine at a thrift store!). You can tuck or untuck, and it also looks amazing with high-waisted pants situations, which is a really good look if you’re femme and into being a little bit retro and also showing off your curves.

Maybe you don’t want to shop at AA because of your good politics. Collared tees are totally a thing that are relatively easy to find with some dedicated googling. Look, I’ll even get you started:

Next week, let’s talk about ways to queer a suit. Hint: it’s not actually going to involve wearing a suit.

Header art by Rosa Middleton.

Lez Get Dressed For Work: One Of A Lot Of Posts About Button Ups

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. 

Header by Rory Midhani

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Feature image via Pascal Pierrou

Last week, just to recap quickly, I gave you a lot of reasons about why I wanted to write this column. Based on your sweet and positive responses, it seems I didn’t need to spend so much time justifying it to you! I wrote like two paragraphs of actual suggestions, the main theme of which was “get some basics.” Then I got some emails that asked a very good question: what the fuck are basics? You didn’t say it like that actually.  (You also asked a lot of other questions which are now snug in a word document waiting to be addressed. So don’t fret if this doesn’t answer your question, I read it and I love you and think your hair looks nice.)

Basically, a “basic” is a foundational item that goes with most of the other things you own, can be worn in different ways, is comfortable, and fits you perfectly. It’s important that it fit you perfectly because every other part of your outfit relies on it for success. A basic is usually a standard, solid color, like black, white, brown, gray, navy blue, or whatever color makes sense with your wardrobe and the job you’re dressing for. If a basic isn’t a basic color, it is specified, like “neon basics.” Your basics are the building blocks for your outfit. A weekend basic might be cut-off shorts. A weekday basic is a button down. See? Sometimes fashions mags come out with “new basics for [insert current month]” and then try to tell you that you need something trendy as a basic part of your wardrobe. I call bullshit on that, because a basic should also be timeless, and that’s why I think you should invest in some high-quality ones. You can be trendy with the things you add to your basics — unless you have a salary that lets you update your basics according to what is in style, and in that case, know that I am jealous.

Today I want to keep talking about button downs, because that seemed to be a hot topic. Sometimes it can feel impossible to find one that fits you right, is affordable, and is well-made. Last week I mentioned Everlane and Madewell, but have you checked out the tops section of Uniqlo? For women’s shirts, I’m really impressed at how non-frilly and simple their button downs are, but they also come in patterns if your job allows you to wear fun things. They also come in linen, silk, and cotton, which are quality basic materials if I’ve ever heard ’em. And the best part? These are actually very reasonably priced.

The shirt pictured above is the Women Silk Long Sleeve Blouse, and is $49.90, which is great (in my opinion) for a nice silk shirt. Tucked into work appropriate pants and worn on its own or layered with a cardigan, crew neck sweater, vest, or blazer, this will look really good on you. If you feel that the way this shirt “drapes elegantly” is  too femme for you, they also have these really perfect Oxford Long Sleeve Shirts that are soft and thick and don’t have any of those frustrating dart seams that women’s shirts sometimes have around the chest. They also have narrow collars, so even though this shirt is very androgynous, the proportions are such so that you won’t look like you’re wearing your dad’s button up. The oxford shirts are $29.90.

If Madewell’s best most perfect boyshirt line is out of budget, another good option for androgynous women’s shirts is the Gap’s boyfriend shirt situation. I know, I know, everything about writing that sentence made me want to stab my own eyes out but it’s true: high quality, without awkward lady-shirt darts, long enough to tuck in but not tunic-y, these shirts are really good and super gay. They come in “shrunken” which is a little tighter and “fitted” which is a little more tailored.

Speaking of tailored, if you find that button down shirts gap over your bust or don’t button over your hips, you should get them tailored. I’d buy something that fits the widest part of my torso and take it to the tailor. I’d also get something that is machine washable so that one item doesn’t turn into a money-suck. Don’t be afraid of getting something tailored. Okay?

Another option for larger-busted workin’ queers is the pop-over. Do you guys know about popovers? It’s a shirt that doesn’t button down all the way, and they tend to be looser than button ups. So you can get one that fits your bust and tuck it into pants so that it’s not too flowy. J.Crew Factory Outlet has some good ones, and they are especially appealing if you can’t afford actual J.Crew (cool me either!).

So let’s say you work in kind of an “anything goes” environment and there are some people in jeans but you’re trying to make an effort to look nice without looking like you don’t fit in (apparently there are a lot of you dealing with this). Take the advice I’ve given so far as per button downs and apply it to a button down made of a less fancy material that is maybe a little more fashionable, like, say, chambray. Chambray button downs can be worn with the top button done and tucked into pants because they are thinner than denim shirts. Your silhouette will be professional, but you’ll look more casual than if you were in an oxford. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a good chambray; my favorite one is actually from the Old Navy outlet store and was approximately $10 I think. To femme this look up, add a statement necklace over the shirt and wear a colorful belt. For a more masculine look, keep your belt brown or black and wear a chunky watch and some nice men’s or menswear-inspired shoes. This will look good with black skinny jeans, just make sure the material of your jeans isn’t too thin (oh don’t worry, we’re going to talk about pants A LOT very soon). I like to wear mine with salmon colored skinny jeans.

Please continue to share your feelings in the comments and to send your lovely emails to gabrielle@autostraddle.com. Have a good day at work!

Header art by Rosa Middleton

Lez Get Dressed For Work: Beginnings

Because you deserve to be the best dressed homo in the office. 

Header by Rory Midhani

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Hello and welcome to the first ever edition of Lez Get Dressed For Work, in which we’re going to be talking a lot about work clothes. Why, you ask? Shouldn’t we be talking about something more substantial like how to even get a job in This Economy? Well, yes. But also: any job, no matter how shitty or fabulous, no matter if it’s something miserable to make money while you wait on your dreams or if it’s actually a job you’ve been dreaming of your whole precious life, is going to suck if you don’t feel good about how you look. Think I’m being superficial? I might be, a little bit, but I personally have never had a good day while also not feeling good about how I look. It’s just so distracting. And you’re here to work, not worry about your clothes. I’m here to worry about them for you!

I’ve had some pretty bad clothing crises in my life, and I’ve also had a lot of different kinds of jobs. Within these different jobs I’ve done a lot of navigating to find the balance between my visible queerness and professionalism: visual clues about the fact that I’m a big dyke, like my generous body hair, don’t often go well with nice jobs — not because a place is necessarily homophobic, but because the clothes that I’d have to wear to reveal that body hair would be inappropriate. I actually learned this one the hard way so I’m going to tell you about it. My first job out of college was at an abortion clinic. It was summer and approximately one million degrees out, which was made worse by my fifteen minute walk to the subway. So I wore shorts. They were from Express and gray pleated so I thought that that made them business casual. They were also way more professional than anything I had worn during my college job at a well-known sex toy store. That day my boss came into my office (one of two times she came to my office in the year I spent there) to give me a lecture about how she couldn’t let me “walk around like that.” I was (silently) outraged, and immediately assumed that it was because she didn’t want people to see my extensive blonde leg hair, which in my young mind meant she was clearly homophobic.

In hindsight, obviously, she just didn’t want me to wear shorts (and they were pretty short) as an employee of an abortion clinic, because, professionalism. She also probably didn’t even notice my leg hair because it’s blonde? The point was that my bare legs were attracting attention because they were bare and it was a medical facility. But I had spent so long cultivating this queer identity and trying to stand out and get noticed that I didn’t realize one major part of being an adult: at your job, you’re not really supposed to make a visual scene (with some exceptions that I will address shortly). So that’s why getting dressed professionally is so hard: you have to look Nice but you still want to look like yourself but you also can’t be a distraction from the actual work taking place because (usually) it’s not about you. Stressful!

I currently work at a place where the opposite is true, and I’ve found that to be equally stressful. Everyone looks hot and fabulously unique every single day and every outfit is more gorgeous than the next. But at the end of the day, there’s still a difference between a fabulous outfit in a stylish work environment and a fabulous outfit for not-work. And that difference is what this column is going to be about. You know how there’s that one (or more if you are lucky!!) hot homo at work who always looks so fucking cool and appropriate and like she was literally born wearing perfect oxford shoes and silk shirts, even if it’s 9am on Monday and not being in your bed is making you want to die? My goal is to get you to be that person. Not the one that wants to die. The first one.

So to do this in a way that meets all of your needs, I’d really like it if those of you who are having clothing crises every morning (been there!) would let me know what kind of place you work and what your gender presentation is like. Or, if you feel great about the things you wear, let me know so I can share that knowledge with the world. We’ll also inevitably be talking about hair and makeup, so let me know if you have questions about that. If not I’ll just riff. You’ve probably noticed by now if you’re still reading that I’m talking about work environments at which one doesn’t get dirty, aside from your hot sweaty bod and your smelly feet (oh is that just me? Sorry). I hope to eventually tell you about the best clothes to wear to jobs that involve physical labor, but I’m going to need one of you experts to tell me about it first. Okay? Thank you.

For now I’m going to tell you a little bit about my business casual strategy. It has a lot to do with button up shirts. Specifically, the top button. I feel strongly that any button up shirt — be it your favorite flannel or your most expensive silk — looks professional with the top button done (and the other buttons done too), tucked into pants and with a nice belt. As long as the shirt fits you well, is ironed, and doesn’t have any major holes or stains, this will make you look like someone who knows things. Promise. It’s also a good way to spend that treacherous first two weeks of a new job before you get paid when you can’t afford new clothes yet. Know what I mean?

When you can afford new clothes, I want you to invest in some high-quality basics. High-quality isn’t a set thing, of course, so do whatever makes sense for your financial situation. My favorite, favorite (overpriced) basics come from essentially two places: Madewell and Everlane. Both of these places sell women’s clothes that function well across a broad range of gender expressions. If you invest in some classic pieces, like a solid colored silk oxford shirt, you will have it forever and it will always be appropriate for that thing that’s giving you a clothing crisis, like an important editorial meeting or a job interview or the day you have a fancy work event after work. I feel anxious just thinking about the fact that my go-to navy blue silk button down is at the dry cleaner right now. I just need it all the time. Oh that’s another thing: I actually only have one silk button up shirt because hello, expensive. It’s just that life-changing.

That being said, this is infinitely more complicated than just having a go-to shirt. That’s why this is a weekly column and not one post in which I attempt to sum up professional lesbian fashion as a whole. Because obviously there’s no such thing as “professional lesbian fashion.” Just a lot of queers with a lot of different jobs and a lot of different anxieties about how they look. We’re all in this together in our own different ways.

You can email me at gabrielle@autostraddle.com if you have feelings that you don’t feel comfortable sharing in the comments. Lez do this thing.

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Header art by Rosa Middleton 

How To Own It: Tassel Necklaces

Hello beautiful, and welcome to How To Own It, where store-bought fashion meets DIY crafts.

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Hi. Do you have any feelings about tassels? I generally don’t, because of rugs and curtains and graduation caps. But recently I’ve been noticing tassels on necklaces and have been really feeling it. I feel like taking boring objects and putting them on necklaces makes them magically un-boring.

There are only so many kinds of statement necklaces out there and after a while it starts to feel like they are all kind of making the same statement, so I thought it was pretty exciting that a new aesthetic of big necklace is getting its moment in the sun. And the best part is that they look rad over a button up shirt, which is basically what I look for in a statement necklace.

Like most jewelry, tassel necklaces come in a delightful array of high and low prices, represented below. I’m really into the ones that have some bright colors mixed in, because it’s almost summer (right??) and summer and bright colors go together like dykes and DIY projects.

Speaking of which, this is a really easy DIY to do if you already have a severed tassel (or five) to just put on a chain. If you don’t have a tassel, you can get them at fabric stores, or you can sneak one off of something one of your relatives owns. If neither of those options appeal to you, you should one thousand percent check out this DIY tassel necklace tutorial by La maison de Loulou. I love how there are three pastel colored tassels because it’s just so damn seasonally appropriate. For a more masculine look, you can make the tassels with chains, or even suede cord. Actually you should use whatever material speaks to your heart… as per usual!

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Want to know how to own a look? Email gabrielle@autostraddle.com or tweet to @Gabrielle_Korn.

Header by Rosa Middleton

How To Own It: Scrappy Scarf Idea

Hello beautiful, and welcome to How To Own It, where store-bought fashion meets DIY crafts.

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I don’t know about you but right now I am drowning in scraps. I can’t get rid of them because they’re pretty but they’re too small for full projects on their own. Luckily, I’ve finally accumulated enough bits and pieces of scrap fabric to do something with. A girl’s gotta have goals, you know? So, after staring at this pile for a few days, I decided I would just go ahead and start braiding it. Eventually, it turned into a scarf. Because braids are a thing right now and it’s still cool enough out for scarves, I’m going to tell you how you can do it, too.

DIY Braided Infinity Scarf

All you need to do this is a bunch of fabric and some sewing supplies.

1. Cut your fabric into a long rectangle and then cut it into thirds, leaving a few inches at the top. Braid it tightly, then stick a pin in the end to hold it in place. Repeat for as many braids as you want. The braids don’t have to the the same thickness.

2. Sew the tops of the braids to each other in a straight line. Then bring the end of each one up and sew it to itself so that it makes a circle.

3. Wrap a piece of fabric tightly around the part of the circle where the braids are sewed to each other. Think of it kind of like a bandaid. Sew it around so that it conceals the stitches of the braids.

And there you have it! What was once a neglected pile of fabric is now a seasonably-appropiate accessory. So tell me: what do you do with your leftover fabric?

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Want to know how to own a look? Email gabrielle@autostraddle.com or tweet to @Gabrielle_Korn.

Header by Rosa Middleton