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18 Really F*cking Cute and Gay True Stories About How You Met Your Partner

In the year of our fickle goddess 2022, we undertook a massive Autostraddle Reader Survey, and out of that survey so much information and so many delightful anecdotes were shared with us, including the tidbits I shared in a list entitled “The 68 Absolutely Gayest Ways You Met Your Gay Partner(s).” But there were some stories about how you met your significant other(s) that were a little bit longer and a lot bit adorable, and today I am here to share some of those with you.

“We met at an interview for art school nine years ago. She hated me immediately. She also had a boyfriend and identified as straight. Reader, I married her.”

a cartoon representation of the story in which one person tells the other that they are straight and in a relationship with a boy and then, nine years later, asks them to marry them.

“We were friends and neighbors when we were little kids, but my family moved to a different part of town and we lost touch. In 2021, our parents ran into each other at Lowe’s and were basically like “Hey, my kid’s gay and mentally ill too!” I reached out on FB and we spent the next 6 months trying to figure out how to ask each other out. It finally happened over TikTok DMs.”

“Returning home to Malaysia after 11 years of studying in the UK on a music scholarship, I got my first job at a local music school. She was already a seasoned veteran working there. It’s common for kids at this school to pick up 2 instruments, so we shared students — she teaches the violin, and I teach the piano + theory/music history classes. On first impressions, I thought she was too cool for school, she thought I was a prat. We became friends after she realised I was not actually 100% a prat (most of the time), and due to our shared ‘custody’ of school kids, we had to communicate quite a bit. Then one day she opened up about knowing queer people and having had almost-queer relationships with people in her past (I was vocal from day 1 about being queer), and then I knew I may have had a shot (useless gay here, gaydar broken when applied to self). In the middle of the convo, she put her hand on my knee as comfortably as if she’d known me forever, and the furiously quick retraction of her hand a milisecond later was enough for the friendship to move silently into potential ‘what if’ territory. A ‘climbing date’ later (story for another time) and the rest is history – we’ve been together 6 years now.”

“I went to a swing dance in Moscow, ID, and saw her on at the outskirts of the dance floor. I asked her to dance, she said yes, I complimented her on her turtleneck, that led to a whole conversation about how turtlenecks are underrated, and over ten years later, here we are!”

“We went to high school together and were loosely friends at the time. I went to her 16th birthday party and made a card using rainbow duct tape. We also did a group project together that involved a fictional backpacking trip to the Pacific Northwest. Anyway, we both moved away to college to the same state and didn’t talk for seven years until we reconnected on tinder just before the entire world fell apart. Then we U-Hauled because I was supposed to be in Peru and had no job and no place to live. It’s all worked out great! ”

“Working at the library. I noticed how great her butt looked in her work pants and then spent the next year getting her to notice me by doing silly stuff like having her race me to put a cart of dvds away and making themes our all of the cds that showed on the front of the display.”

“Her roommate moved out. I was looking for a place to live at the same time. Met on SpareRoom. I moved in. We had a “Will they, Won’t they” thing for about 3 months til we got drunk one night and admitted we had feelings for each other. Been together 3 years now.”

“We first met at university where she worked and did her PhD and I studied and worked as a TA. But I was in a relationship at the time and we didn’t really get to know each other.Later we met in the German queer literature studies bubble on Twitter. (I swear that bubble is better than any dating app!) I instantly liked her a lot and after a while we met up in person. I developed a huuuge crush on her and kept asking myself whether or not she liked me back romantically (it may or may not have been obvious to the normal observer that the attraction was mutual but the more I like someone the less I trust my gut). Eventually I wrote her a postcard and told her about my feelings. She felt the same. That was about a year ago and I’ve never been so happy.”

“I was 23, depressed and sitting in a park near my apartment. A stranger stopped to see if I was okay. She got my number and checked in on me every day. We became friends, then romantic partners after six months. We’ve now been together for 8 1/2 years. ”

“We met while working together at Disneyland together about 10 years ago when we were 19! We went on a date after flirting during some shifts. After a few weeks of dates we made things more official. Then I invited her over one night to stay the night because she had gotten into a fight with her family and they didn’t want her staying there that night so she came and basically never left but at that point we were already falling in love. We traveled the world together and keep building our lives together now. We got married about 6 years into our relationship and have been married now for 4 years. We are still very much in love and I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I still find myself looking at her and thinking how lucky I am and how beautiful she is. I still cant enough of her kisses. We are currently starting to plan out having a baby! Somehow forever doesn’t seem long enough with her.”

“At a pro-queer university Christian club, this was the late 90’s, I was the one asking what everyone’s sexual orientation was so I could figure out who the very attractive new member was. And reader, I married her!”

“We met at science camp as teenagers and were super into each other but went back to our lives on opposite sides of the planet, I continued to nurse my crush through 12 years and their transition and then we matched on tinder and now we’re dating and it’s the best.”

“She was a pirate on stage, I was backstage crew. We hooked up after the last night, had an LDR for one year before she moved to England to be with me. Five years later she was directing and I was stage managing so I managed an onstage proposal in the same theatre where we met in Belgium. ”

“Back in the 90s there was a website hosted out of Germany called “Dykes World.” They had a moderated/safe message board for queer women under 21. My current spouse accidentally clicked on my profile and waited ages (it was during the days of dialup) for it to load – worried that their grandparents would walk in any moment and catch them on a queer website. To their surprise, I lived in the same US state – less than 2 hours away from them. They reached out in friendship with corny jokes that were adorable. After awhile as penpals, we met in person. I fed them and they never left 😂”

“We sat next to each other in class freshman year of high school, which was TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.”

“My former partner hosted a Lex meetup in our neighborhood. I’m not on Lex. The person I’m dating now is also not on Lex, but their best friend brought them along. So we initially met at a Lex gathering even though neither of us are on it. A few months later she recognized me at the cafe she was working at, and gave me her number, and we started hanging out! She gave me Covid on our first kiss (truly tragic even though it was a great kiss) and now we both have debilitating Long Covid symptoms. We have been navigating a lot of care together! What is sweeter than weekly dates to the community acupuncture place? A nice queer love story.”

“We were high school best friends. I moved away for college. She stayed in our small Midwest town. We stayed friends through college. Came out to each other during that time. After college she moved up to work with me in the tourist town I lived in. Two weeks later we were in bed together and professing our love to each other. Nearly 30 years later we are still together. ”

“We have been best friends since 8th grade (20 years). About 2 years ago we discovered that there were more feelings beneath the surface that never use to be there. Got lucky to have my best friend as my partner.”

“We met in high school at a nerdy, extracurricular banquet. Our parents recognized one another from decades prior so we sat together. We like to say that our parents introduced us.”

“We were friends for three years! We met at a party in my first year of grad school, and she offered me chickpeas she roasted herself. I thought, “oh she’s gay”, but then a mutual friend told me she wasn’t and she also started dating a male friend of ours. I dropped the thought and was happy to be friends with such a kind and cool person. The whole time they were dating, she slowly came to realize that she had feelings for me. I was, of course, oblivious — both to how she felt and how I did. When they broke up, we started spending a lot more time together — I’d drive two hours every weekend just to hang out and she’d spend a ridiculous amount of money that she didn’t have to come to me. That whole time, we circled around each other. I’d realized I was interested in her, but she was steadfast that we were just friends (while laying on top of me at every given opportunity, bless her). She started going to therapy to work on accepting how she felt about me, which is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. I knew we were going to date the moment she held my hand in the mall, and I’ve never been so sure of anything or anyone in my entire life. I know her like I know myself. She needed time and I was happy to give it to her, always saying, “You ready to admit we’re dating yet?” She’d always giggle. When I was in a car accident, it was the trigger for both of us. She was the first person I called after 911 and the only person I wanted to talk to, and she realized very suddenly that she loved me and could have lost me. When we were finally able to see each other again after, we went on our first actual date and talked. And she finally said that, yes, she was ready to admit we were dating, and had been for a while. It’s been 6 months so far, we’re slightly less long distance than before, and I’m so in love with my best friend that it’s crazy. I’m so happy to call her my girlfriend. I’ve never felt more loved or known in my entire life.”

Data Party! Insights into Nonbinary Readers from the 2022 Reader Survey

Feature image via the Gender Spectrum Collection

Nico: Hello fellow humans and a very happy International Nonbinary People’s Day to all who celebrate! I’m here to introduce this post, which, much like the 2022 Autostraddle Reader Survey, I worked on in collaboration with Riese, a human who loves data. What follows are some data points we found interesting when comparing survey results from our nonbinary readership against the readership as a whole (which includes nonbinary people). For the purposes of defining “nonbinary,” we included all folks who identified as nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, or agender. While I know it’s not perfect and that some people identify with only one of these labels, we felt it was the best way to look at a group of readers who do not identify along the lines of binary gender. I should probably also define “interesting” which is a) something we thought you all would find engaging and b) areas where the results varied significantly between nonbinary readers and the population of survey takers as a whole, because, of course, there were many times where there weren’t notable differences.

a chart that reads "Our readers have genders sometimes!" Let's break it down by Percent - 27.3% of AS readers identify outside the gender binary. This breaks down as 4.26% other, 5.82% I don't know, 2.01% agender, 1.23% trans man, 25.3% genderqueer / genderfluid / nonbinary, 2.88% trans woman, 58.49 cis woman

Nico: Riese, what do you think of the above results? I suppose I should go back and look at prior years to see if it’s changed at all, but I know you’ve also done that.

Riese: I have! Some of the long-term data is hard to understand clearly because the way we asked about gender has also changed over time — like in 2011, our options were, well, very 2011: female (93%), male (1.45%), transgender (1.72%), genderqueer (8.32%), and “other” (1.75%). In 2016, we introduced language similar to what we’re using now, Now, our non-cis categories are trans woman, trans man, agender, genderqueer/fluid/non-binary woman, genderqueer/fluid/non-binary man, genderqueer/fluid/non-binary person. If we smash those last four identities together into one, we go from 23% under that umbrella in 2016 to 27.3% in 2022. We also added “I don’t know/still figuring it out” in 2022, which 5.8% of survey respondents (including me) picked, so that was a popular addition. A lot of people are on a journey. Another change I noticed is the most popular of the three “genderqueer/fluid/non-binary” options shifting from “genderqueer/fluid/non-binary woman” in 2016 and 2020 to “genderqueer/fluid/non-binary person” in 2022. But in 2020, those categories were already closing in on each other. I think people learned a lot about themselves in those years.

Nico: As a whole, I would say that AS is not very cis, are we? At least not compared to the actual general population.

Riese: So our survey sample is from all over the world, not just the U.S., but we do know that at least according to some studies,1.6% of American adults identify as transgender and/or non-binary, a number that’s even higher in younger populations — 5% of those under 30. A 2021 Williams Institute Study found that 11% of the LGBTQ+ population specifically identifies as non-binary — I think these numbers are changing pretty quickly, so I do consider that 2021 number a bit outdated, but, as you pointed out, 27.3% of our readers identify as outside of the gender binary, so that’s well over double the LGBTQ+ population as a whole, and 31.4% identifying as trans and/or non-binary. That’s not even including the “other” or “don’t know” group.

A chart showing the breakdown of sexuality among all readers vs just nonbinary readers. 39.6% lesbian, 18.3% bisexual, 30.6% queer, 3.7% gay, 4.5% pansexual, with a small contingency of people identifying along the lines of fluid, straight, other and do not know. For nonbinary people, the percentages worked out to 23.8% lesbian, 15.7% bisexual, 49.6% queer, 4.8% pansexual, 3.2% gay, and again, a very small contingency of people identifying as fluid, straight, other, don't know

Nico: I am not super surprised by this, but also want to take a moment to shout out the nonbinary lesbians for anyone and everyone who’s sent us an advice question wondering whether they can still identify as a lesbian if they’re nonbinary or genderqueer or agender or genderfluid. Because you can! There’s nothing stopping these readers, and I hope nothing will stop you! I was kind of surprised to see fewer bisexuals per capita in the nonbinary category, but also, I imagine people are substituting queer for that.

A chart showing the gender of partners of all survey takers vs nonbinary survey takers. For the entire sample, we have partners split up into 50.8% cis women, 14.5% cis man, 23% genderqueer / genderfluid / nonbinary, 3.6% trans woman, 2.5% trans man, 3% don't know. For nonbinary survey respondents, we have: 33.8% with cis women partners, 35.4% genderqueer / genderfluid / nonbinary, 15.3% cis men, 4.7% trans women, 3.3% trans men, 3.5% don't know

Nico: Absolutely love to see the data bearing out T4T.

Riese: Yes, makes sense!

a chart showing the relationship style of all surveyed readers vs nonbinary readers. for all surveyed, we have 67.8% monogamy, 13.4% monogamish, 15.6% polyamory, 3.2% other. In terms of nonbinary readers, we have: 54.5% monogamy, 15.9% monogamish, 25.8% polyamory, 3.7% other

Nico: Again, not surprised that people who question gender and the performance thereof are also people who are willing or drawn to exploring relationship structures beyond more “traditional” monogamy. Although, monogamy remains the most popular relationship style overall.

Riese: Yes, this has been true historically as well.

this chart asked survey takers if they were a person with a disability. the entire sample responded with: 62.6% no, 20.2% it's complicated, and 15.6% yes. When it came to nonbinary people, we saw the answers: 45.6% no, 28.3% its complicated and 24.6% yes

Nico: When I saw this, I was like “OVER HALF?!” but yes, we have over half of nonbinary readers identifying as either disabled or “it’s complicated.” I do want to point out that internet lore and apparently also this study have demonstrated that there might be a correlation between neurodivergence and trans and nonbinary gender identities. As someone who has a doctor’s appointment to talk about potentially having ADHD and who knows what next week, I am being read for filth by these survey results, also. Based also on my friend groups and working at Autostraddle, I’m just like, yes, this could be part of the reasoning. I also think that people define being disabled differently, and again, if you’ve done a lot of work to get to know your relationship to gender, perhaps also your body, you might be more likely to learn about any disability(ies) you have, but that is me speculating based on this data. What do you think, Riese?

Riese: Yeah I have a lot of the same questions and theories you do! I’m not sure if I would check “it’s complicated” or “no” for this question personally — I do have fibromyalgia, ADHD and major depressive disorder but I don’t know if any of those things “count,” you know what I mean? It’s difficult to know how specifically people are defining themselves, if people are including mental illness as a disability, because it’s widely true that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to have a mental illness diagnosis. (I also think Autostraddle specifically might have a lot of readers with mental illness diagnoses because it’s something we’ve always prioritized discussing and normalizing on the site.) There’s also just, so much to be discussed when it comes to how your relationship to your body is shaped by a physical disability and then also by a non-“normative” gender identity and how those things overlap or don’t. I also found at least one study showing trans people were twice as likely to have at least one disability than their cisgender counterparts at similar ages.

This chart represents answers to the question of whether folks had changed their name or go by a name different from their given name. It shows that in the entire sample 16.6% of respondents did go by a different name than their chosen and 83.4% of respondents did not. Among nonbinary respndents, the answer was that 31.22% had changed their name and 68.78% had not.

Riese: Sometimes I forget that I chose this name and it’s not my given name but I did and it isn’t! I sort of changed it around when I realized I was queer.

Nico: Haha Riese I always forget that about you. You might not know it, but Nico is not my given name. This is also unsurprising! Lots of nonbinary people choose names that they feel better reflect their authentic selves and I love that for us. Below is a list of names, in no particular order, that nonbinary people reported choosing for themselves in the survey. Maybe you’re looking for some inspiration? See if you can find yours!

Here’s a list of the chosen names you shared with us

Names indicated by more than one person have a number (x) of people who said they used that name next to it.

    • Adrian
    • Aicerno ÓCathasaigh Ap Gryffydd
    • Alder
    • AJ (2)
    • Akiva
    • Al (2)
    • Alex (7)
    • Alistair
    • Alixe
    • Alixivy
    • Alyx
    • Amalthea
    • Ames
    • Amren
    • Andy
    • Ang
    • Angie
    • Antonia
    • Apple
    • Ari
    • Arlo Roan
    • Ash
    • Ash Journey
    • Ashur
    • Athena
    • Avery
    • b
    • Bec
    • Benji (2)
    • Bex
    • Bina
    • Bo
    • Bobbi
    • Bowen
    • Bree
    • Bridget
    • Cal
    • Casey
    • Cee (2)
    • CJ
    • Clark
    • Cole
    • Cora Fageaux
    • Crow
    • Dani
    • Danie
    • Danny
    • Dante
    • Dash
    • DC
    • Declan
    • Del
    • Dell
    • Dre
    • Drumlin
    • Dylan
    • E.N. West
    • eL
    • Eli
    • Ellie
    • Ellis (2)
    • Em (2)
    • Emma
    • Erika Hazel Karney
    • Eviah
    • Face
    • Fee
    • Femmaleboss
    • Feyi
    • Fleshie
    • Flórián
    • Florian Ilya
    • Foster
    • Franklyn
    • Grida
    • Hadley
    • Han
    • Harrow
    • Hector
    • idris
    • J (2)
    • Jack
    • Jai
    • Jaime
    • Jake
    • Jamie (2)
    • Jarvis
    • Jasmine
    • Jax
    • Jay (5)
    • JD
    • Jes
    • Jimmy
    • Jonah
    • Jonas
    • Joy
    • Jude
    • Jules
    • Julien
    • Kade
    • Kai
    • Kalirissia Freyadora Zarabella
    • Kasper
    • Kat
    • Kay
    • KC (“Casey”)
    • keith
    • Kellen
    • Kevriel
    • Kit Julian
    • Kj
    • kk
    • Kris (2)
    • Lane
    • Lauren
    • Levi!
    • Liam
    • Lilith Routh
    • Lily
    • Lin
    • Linden
    • Lini
    • Lo
    • Loghan
    • Luca
    • Luka
    • Lux
    • M
    • Mack
    • Macks
    • Maddie
    • Majd
    • Marcie
    • Maren
    • Marin
    • MB
    • Mel (2)
    • Micah (3)
    • Mik
    • Mika
    • Miko
    • Milo (4)
    • Mitchell
    • Mo
    • Mont
    • Moog
    • Morgan (2)
    • Morgan Van Kesteren
    • Moss
    • Nash
    • Nate
    • Nathalie
    • Neri
    • Nic
    • Nico
    • Niko
    • Nix
    • Nono
    • Olive
    • Oliver
    • ollie
    • Oskar
    • Otter
    • Pallas
    • Parker
    • Pepper
    • Perry
    • Pike
    • Psylocke/Tegan/Jamie
    • Quinn Jack Orion
    • Rae
    • Rain (2)
    • Red
    • Reese
    • regi
    • Ren
    • Rex
    • Rex (2)
    • Ricki!
    • Riddhi
    • Riley
    • Rio
    • River (2)
    • Robin (2)
    • Ron.
    • Roni
    • Rose
    • Rousz
    • Ryan
    • Sal
    • Sam (6)
    • Savvy
    • Sawyer
    • Sebastian
    • Seren
    • Shan
    • Shane
    • Shep
    • Shquam
    • Shuli
    • Silver
    • Simon
    • Sirius or Lorcan depending on the spaces I’m in!
    • Skay.
    • Skye Firestone
    • So
    • Sonia
    • Soren
    • Stokes
    • Sully
    • sweet pea
    • Tess
    • Thatcher
    • Theo
    • Theodore
    • Tree
    • V / Venn
    • Vika
    • Violet
    • Watson
    • Will
    • Willa
    • Wren
    • Z (2)

The 68 Absolutely Gayest Ways You Met Your Gay Partner(s), According to the 2022 Reader Survey

Roller derby. Your college’s LGBTQ+ group. Roller derby! Forums for niche fandoms. Lex. Roller Derby. Climate justice protests. Academic conferences. Autostraddle Meet-Ups. Roller derby? OK Cupid. A-Camp. ROLLER DERBY. These are the places where you queer weirdos have met others like you, experienced the power of attraction and pursued relationships in which you remain to this very day! On the 2022 Autostraddle Reader Survey, we asked where you’d met your very special someone(s), offering a multiple choice array as well as a comment box.

From the multiple choice, the top answers were as follows: 29% met through a dating app, 21.5% through school, 21% through friends, 13% through work, 11% online (not through a dating app) and 7% at a bar or party. Over 700 of you also hit up the comment box to tell us exactly how you met — because you picked “other” or just wanted to get a little more specific. A solid third of these answers were people wanting to specify the dating app or website they used but the rest contained far more detail, which I am sharing with you now here, today, some ripped out of context, because sharing is caring. Specifically: I will be sharing some of the very gay ways your soul found another and united.

1. Pottery sale

2. Farming conference

3. “online through witchcraft”

4. Ladies Rock Camp

5. Talking about gay mad scientists from a children’s cartoon on twitter

6. We fell in love while sitting a housemate’s toads

7. Studying Wildlife Ecology in college

8. In the comment section of a fanfic they wrote about trauma and community and healing :-)

9. Bering and Wells fandom

10. We met in 1995. I was in grad school and had a job at the campus women’s center. I helped her hang an art show. We later hung out at a feminist science fiction convention. We’ve been together ever since.

11. We’re both librarians who met through a mutual friend (also a librarian)

12. We met on an AOL Teen message board when we were lonely teenagers 20+ years ago

13. I was sitting on an LGB panel in my now-wife’s class on the psychology of oppression (it was the 90s)

14. Sweat lodge – we had both worked with this particular medicine man in different states and she just happened to be in town and come to ceremony that weekend

15. I play DnD and she’s my dungeon master’s wife!

16. Working at the same summer camp. We were randomly paired to be counselors together and we immediately both wanted to find out if the other was gay. Here we are, several years and two cats later.

17. The Rose, a women’s-only transitional housing apartment building

18. A dyke meet up / conversation salon in the 1990’s!!

19. Band camp in high school

20. She saw my bio on the website for the volunteer board at the local LGBTQ Center and stopped by my public job but I wasn’t there. Then we emailed and arranged to meet ‘for a tour of the LGBTQ Center’ which went well and was followed immediately by a coffee date. And The Rest Is History.

21. Feminist young adult fiction forum in the mid-2000s

22. Buffy The Vampire Slayer Faith/Buffy shipping site in the early noughties

23. Search & Rescue Volunteer Organization

24. Infectious diseases summer school

25. Archaeological excavation

26. We both followed Heather Hogan and the #gaysharks crew on twitter

27. We both play roller derby and were introduced by my ex at a party at her house 😂

28. Lesbian book club that was organized locally and advertised on the Unofficial Autostraddle facebook group

29. Board game night at a comic shop

30. At a queue to Pink concert 9 years ago. She was watching hockey on a tablet, her country’s team was playing against mine. Didn’t think I’ll see her again after the concert, but she had other plans.

31. We were both at 2 protests in a row in a small town where I knew most other people there and got to talking and decided to get coffee!

32. Two Rabbis made the connection (a double-Rabbi shidduch, if anyone reading this understands the phrase ☺️)

33. Our union — we were both on the bargaining team

34. Smut Slam event at the Edinburgh Fringe organised by Cameryn Moore. They told a story about knife play, I asked them out afterwards.

35. An online text based X-Men RPG

36. Xena Fan Fiction Writer’s Fan Group. Merwolf, specifically.

37. Sailor Moon chat on AIM in 1999

38. Discussing gay fanfiction about the members of Fall Out Boy

39. Queer contra dancing in Chicago

40. Unofficial Hannah Hart fan meet-up

41. We both worked at the same very small vet clinic

42. We met at a party in my first year of grad school, and she offered me chickpeas she roasted herself

43. L Word quiz night: she hosted it, I won it.

44. Feminist Choir

45. I was the back of a pantomime horse and she was the front!

46. They directed the queer sapphic ballet in which I was one of the dancers

47. On a Scottish island at an outdoor education centre

48. Working at the farmers market & a coworker introduced us because we had “similar style” but the similarity was just that we both dress gay

49. Health food store take-out counter

50. I was a rope bunny at a Sexpo and I was cold so I asked them for a hug

51. Trans hormone clinic lol

52. My wife is a personal trainer. She was training the president of the college where I taught. The president, a closeted woman, thought all lesbians should know each other. So she walked her into my office. And, va-va-va-voom.

53. In the Peace Corps (but also, decolonize aid)

54. Organizing for Climate justice!

55. Working on abortion decriminalisation

56. A Zoom workshop for the group Showing Up for Racial Justice

57. She was a regular customer at the bookshop I managed. After many months of flirting she (finally!) leaned across the counter and asked if I ever got a coffee break.

58. We actually both went solo to the Gentleman Jack party autostraddle threw three years ago which would have been such a good meet cute, we even ordered the same drink! Sadly, we did notice each other there and matched on Hinge like three weeks later instead.

59. A class about sociology and cats

60. We went to Mormon church together when we were kids

61. Nolose conference in the early 2000s! Fat dyke 4 fat dyke!

62. 2019 Women’s World Cup Semi-Final in Lyon

63. Quaker meeting

64. We met at a mutual friend’s wedding and she lured me into a conversation by loudly talking about the Kristen Stewart Lizzie Borden movie during the cocktail hour.

65. Queer Soul Night, in line for the bathroom!

66. Community softball team

67. Volunteering at a folk festival

68. We were bunk mates at the OG A-camp. I looked up when I entered the cabin and locked eyes with her in her denim overalls and cute-as-heck smile. At the end of the weekend, I slipped her my number on the back of a library index card that was used for Slam Poetry inspiration. We kept in touch and eventually got married- she carries that index card in her wallet to this day.

69. She wrote fan fiction and I corrected her grammar. Where’s THAT movie? Grammar weirdos are sexy, damn it!

46 Very Special Ways You Explained Your Sexual or Romantic Orientation on the 2022 Autostraddle Reader Survey

Labeling your sexual orientation: some find it simple, some find it laborious, some would simply rather not. And, as in past years, many people who took the 2022 Autostraddle Reader Survey had a lot to say about their sexual orientations that did not fit neatly into any traditional label or survey response. But before we get into that, let’s look at the overall numbers:

graph showing the results for the sexual orientation quiz on the autostraddle survey: 40% lesbian, 31% queer, 18% bisexual, 4% gay, 4.5% pansexual and 2% "Other." Also, when asked if they identified on the asexual/aromantic spectrum, 77% said no, 13% said yes, and 10% said they were not sure

Below those questions we asked “if different from your selection above, how would you describe your sexual orientation?” and 997 of you seized the opportunity: to say that you identify with multiple terms, to reflect a current period of confusion, to tell me that you’re into everybody except cis men, to express confusion about your sexuality following your partner coming out as trans, to say you’re politically a lesbian but sexually queer, to get more specific about your attractions, to write “McRibb”, to tell me that you hated labels in general. Surprisingly, more than one person wanted to tell me that although they identify as pansexual, they prefer the appearance of the bisexual flag.

From the ethers of this magical comment box, I have extracted a collection of the responses that I found particularly entertaining or interesting or comforting-to-those-who-might-relate-to-it, and now I am sharing those with you all here, today.

1. 99% lesbian, 1% holding space for the woman I used to be and the past relationships I had

2. That awkward Kinsey 1-2 space of perpetual bisexual impostor syndrome

3. My sexual orientation was never detected by anyone, it roams freely like a cryptid.

4. Women excite my whole being. Other people excite some of me for some time or some aspect.

5. guys are chill but i’m not sexually attracted to them

6. im gay 4 gay ppl

7. Everyone is kinda hot idk what that makes me 🤷🏽‍♀️

8. dykey fag / faggy dyke

9. get down on all fours

10. I am mostly t4t but also like women in a gay way and some men also in a gay way

11. I love reclaiming slurs so most of the time I call myself either a faggot or a dyke, depending on my mood

12. vamong us free robux tycoon

13. Currently my identity is weirdly closest to “not cis men, unless they’ve been in AMC’s The Terror (2018)”

14. Hasbian, as in done, out of business, given up, over the hill, fed up, retired, all dried up.

15. Bisexual, heavily into women/NB lovelies and Benedict Cumberbatch 😳

16. Took a bdsm quiz thats options included ‘homoflexible’, and I kinda latched on like a leech on a wound.

17. god I hate words (on a personal level! obviously whatever words bring you joy go for it)

18. Would have described myself as a lesbian until at 32 years old I fell in love with a cis man for the first time SO APPARENTLY IM BISEXUAL NOW

19. Absolutely no clue. I thought I was bisexual, but since falling in love with my girlfriend I am repulsed by all men.

20. People are gross

21. “may as well be a lesbian”

22. I don’t like labels but I like maths: 98% that my next relationship will be with a woman

23. I generally call myself gay because I am a gender queer bisexual misandrist

24. Best described as low effort, high style.

25. le dollar bean

26. Glitter Butch Dyke

27. Dangerous Bisexual

28. this survey is too long

29. Mostly lesbian, but I’m also coming out of a 10 year heterosexual marriage where I was mostly sexually satisfied, but always felt something was missing. Always was curious about women and now in a lesbian relationship and it feels so much more “right” than before

30. Some hybrid of queer lesbian ace plus the occasional TV man. I don’t think I’m generally attracted to straight people

31. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, but in a way that’s about gender and chemistry and stuff?

32. Into other queer people / in love with my friends

33. fag of dyke experience

34. short answer: Tired. long answer: aromantic asexual kinky lesbian

35. Punksexual

36. IDK I’m genderqueer so definitely not “straight,” sometimes I say “queer” but I don’t want to give any of the cis gay boys in my friend group false hope so I’m trying on “femmesexual”

37. Probably straight but I have a crush on a female friend

40. Lipstick lesbian…. also raised by wolves

41. i don’t know if i’m bisexual or a lesbian but i am a girlkisser so jot that down

42. I’ve historically been bisexual and still think the term could apply to me but so much of my interactions with men are tied up in gender, it’s too much for me right now plus roe v wade ruined cis men until they go get my rights back

43. I like who I like and it happens very rarely

44. I called myself bi for years and it’s technically probably accurate but at the moment I stick with queer because it’s shorter than “I’m definitely into women and also kind of ace and I’m maybe into men but only very queer men and only occasionally and I haven’t done anything with a man since I was 21 soo ??”

45. Butchosaurus

46. I have zero interest in dating men, but Laneia’s recent hate-fuck article struck a *chord*. I’m into women but open to a good time, you know? Of course you do.

HEY GAY! Take the 2022 Autostraddle Reader Survey!

Feature Image via Shutterstock

A GIF that reads Hey Gay Take Our Survey: We need you to take the 2022 Autostraddle Reader Survey

It’s Autostraddle Survey time, and this survey’s important for so many reasons!

Firstly, we haven’t conducted a reader survey in a few years, and that means that we don’t have up-to-date information about who you are and what you want. That information helps us shape our content to meet the needs of our community. Our editorial decisions have been informed by survey data for many years. (And sometimes the survey creates content for us!)

Secondly, the survey helps us with obtaining funding. We learn stuff we can use when talking to advertising partners and when planning future fundraisers.

We’ve also gotten a lot of individual questions about when we’re going to start having live events again and know that live events is a crucial element of all modern media companies, but we wanna get a hold on how the whole community feels about it. We realize in light of the pandemic that this is an incredibly nuanced topic, and the questions about it contain opportunities for open-ended answers.

Lastly, it’s just fun! You get to talk about yourself, a fascinating topic. Learning about our queer community is FUN! We value that Autostraddle is a transparent, permeable publication and we’d love to know more about you and to hear directly from the people who make our world go round! THANK YOU if you take the survey! Truly, your participation is an important part of making this whole indie queer media project possible!

Your answers are completely anonymous and no, we don’t track your IP address or sell your data. This is about us, learning about you, and making a better Autostraddle with the results!

TAKE THE 2022 AUTOSTRADDLE READER SURVEY!

Okay but what if you’re somehow, against all odds, not into this yet? Did you really not click that link above? I have made you a helpful flow chart:

a flow chart that starts with: Do you: Have some ideas for ways to make autostraddle better? if yes, it points you to the bottom where it says "you should take the survey" if nope, it points you to "okay, well, do you want to tell us what we're already doing that you love so we keep doing it? answers are idk or yeah sure! yeah sure! points to taking the survey. idk points to OKAY GAY do you have a couple of minutes to help indie queer media out so we survive? it then reads, "you got me!" and points you to "you should take the survey"

TAKE THE 2022 AUTOSTRADDLE READER SURVEY!! DO IT!

An Abundance of Librarians, Both “Sexy” and Unspecified: 544 Jobs A+ Members Have!

Below are the responses we received when we asked you all what you did for work in the 2020 Autostraddle Reader Survey.

AND WOW going through your responses was so heartening. The gays really are everywhere! On a Very Important note, this survey was anonymous, so I’m also left wondering who our cheesemonger is. So if you are a cheesemonger, you have to tell me, okay? Thank you.

Just as an FYI, if we had multiple people responding with the same job, I wrote, for example, “x3” so that if that’s you, you know you have company! Did you not respond to the survey? Go ahead and tell us about yourself in the comments!

Jobs You Fascinating Weirdos Have:

  1. 911 Dispatcher
  2. Academic advisor
  3. Academic in gender studies
  4. Academic publishing production coordinator
  5. Academic researcher
  6. Academic [Assistant, in Gender Studies, Publishing Production Coordinator, Researcher]
  7. Accountant (x6)
  8. Accounts Payable Client Onboarding (yes, I know, wtf even is that)
  9. Actor (x3) including one “Actor, Communications Coach, Consultant, Grantwriter, it’s a lot”
  10. Addictions clinician
  11. Adjunct lecturer @ a big university
  12. Admin / Admin Assistant, Unspecified (x4)
  13. Admin Assistant
  14. Admin for Planned Parenthood
  15. Administrative support in medical education/higher ed
  16. Administrative work for an accounting firm
  17. Administrator (x3)
  18. Admissions. I trick you into attending grad school
  19. Adult education specialist at homeless shelters
  20. Adult reference librarian
  21. Aerospace Engineer for flight simulation (mostly programming, just a fancy name)
  22. App Developer (PHP/Java/JavaScript)
  23. Archive Assistant (x5)
  24. Archivist (x4)
  25. Art Conservation
  26. Art Director
  27. Art teacher
  28. Artist, Teacher, Set Designer
  29. Artistic research / performance artist
  30. I run a support group for trans folks in my community through the local queer community center
  31. Assistant at literary agency
  32. Assistant Buyer
  33. Assistant curator, visual resources center
  34. Assistant Director (Film/TV)
  35. Assistant Paralegal
  36. Assistant Principal
  37. Assistant Professor or Assistant Teacher, unspecified topic (x3)
  38. Assistant teacher
  39. Associate Attorney
  40. Associate Director of Internship Services
  41. associate publicist at a publishing company, and I work on audiobooks for children and teens
  42. Asst. English Professor
  43. Athletic Trainer
  44. Attorney (x6)
  45. Baker (x2)
  46. Barista :)
  47. Barn manager
  48. Bartender
  49. Behavioral ecology PhD candidate
  50. Billing specialist at a primary care practice
  51. Bioassay Development
  52. Biological Technician
  53. Biotech
  54. Book Designer
  55. Book Editor
  56. Book Indexer & Seed Wholesaler
  57. Book Publishing
  58. Bookkeeper
  59. Building Management for a student union
  60. Business Analyst
  61. Business Applications Engineer
  62. Business Development Manager
  63. Campaign specialist at a political news site
  64. Cancer biology research scientist
  65. Canvasser for a liberal organization getting out the vote
  66. Case Manager (x3)
  67. Cashier
  68. Cheesemonger (yes really)
  69. Chemist
  70. Children’s librarian (x2)
  71. Civil engineer
  72. Civil Engineering Graduate
  73. Civil rights lawyer
  74. Claims Analyst
  75. Classical singer, also arts & culture writer
  76. Classroom teaching assistant
  77. Clerk (filing, data entry, switchboard, etc)
  78. Client Support Services for Lab Medicine at a major hospital
  79. Clinical dietitian
  80. Clinical Research Project Manager
  81. Clinical Social Worker (x5)
  82. Clinical supervisor at Children’s mental health agency
  83. College Administrator
  84. College Instructor (x3)
  85. College Professor (x3)
  86. Comedy writer
  87. Comms and Engagement
  88. Communications
  89. Communications officer (x3)
  90. Communications Strategist
  91. Communications/PR
  92. Community college arts administration
  93. Community Engagement Program Manager
  94. Community Management
  95. Community Outreach & Casework
  96. Community Support on an app/website
  97. Community Support Worker
  98. Complaint and incident investigations in a hospital
  99. Computational Biologist
  100. Computer programmer
  101. Computers
  102. Conservation Agent (wetlands protection)
  103. Constituent services for a state Senator
  104. Construction Project Manager
  105. Consultant (x3)
  106. Contact center coaching and training our agents
  107. Content creation, social media management, copywriting
  108. Content Designer
  109. Conveyancing
  110. Copy editor (x2)
  111. Corporate Communications
  112. County Public Works Engineer (Construction and Drainage)
  113. CRM Consultant
  114. Cultivation Manager in the cannabis industry
  115. Curriculum development/instructional design
  116. Customer service (x2)
  117. Customer Service Specialist (front desk/receptionist/non-emergency call taker)
  118. Customer Success Manager
  119. Cyber Defense Educator
  120. Cyber security
  121. Dancer
  122. Data Analyst (x4)
  123. Data Engineer
  124. Data Scientist (x3)
  125. Data systems manager
  126. Database Admin
  127. Dentist (x2)
  128. Deputy Attorney General
  129. Design
  130. design brands, sign systems and other large scale 3D graphics. I am a senior person within my studio with lots of project management and art direction responsibilities.
  131. Design Research & Strategy
  132. Designing satellites so you can check the weather
  133. Development & Communications Manager for a food bank
  134. Digital Marketing (x2)
  135. Director
  136. Director of Development & Evaluation for a nonprofit that serves young people experiencing homelessness
  137. Director of Student Relations for a tutoring company
  138. Diversity and Health Equity Project Assistant
  139. Doctor (x8)
  140. Dog walker/pet sitter
  141. Doordash, PostMates, Instacart, Rover plus I do other gig work
  142. Editor and Proofreader
  143. editor for a small children’s book/educational resource publisher
  144. editor for text books (secondary school). I hope that counts as “education”, although I’m not teaching myself
  145. Editor, Executive Correspondence Unit
  146. Editorial assistant
  147. Education Manager
  148. educational services representative, as an adjunct faculty member teaching flute at a community college, and as a private flute instructor
  149. Electrical Engineer for a government contractor
  150. Electrician
  151. Elementary School Teacher (x4)
  152. Emergency Medical Dispatcher – Ambulance
  153. Employability officer
  154. EMT at events (concerts etc)
  155. EMT Program Coordinator but now in a Masters of Nursing Program full time
  156. Energy policy advocate
  157. Engineer (x4)
  158. Engineering Intern
  159. English as a Second Language Teacher
  160. English teacher (x6)
  161. Environmental Consulting / Planning (x2)
  162. Executive Assistant
  163. Executive chef
  164. Executive Director of a 501(c)(3)
  165. Executive Secretary at University LGBT Resource Center
  166. Eyebrow specialist – I work in a salon
  167. Family Engagement Specialist
  168. Farm and Garden Educator
  169. Farm worker (x3)
  170. Federal public health policy
  171. Finance (x2)
  172. Fine Art Admissions Counsellor – higher ed administrator/student affairs
  173. finishing my PhD this month and starting a research position in August
  174. Floral/event designer, and artist.
  175. Forest Fire Ranger
  176. Forester
  177. Foundation medical student
  178. Founder/CEO
  179. Costume Designer
  180. Editor
  181. freelance work in the NFP sector
  182. Freelance writer/editor; poet; events manager; casual retail salesperson
  183. Freshly-Minted Associate Attorney
  184. Front End Software Engineer
  185. Frontend Developer
  186. Fund development specialist at my local humane society
  187. Fundraising
  188. Fundraising for a healthcare nonprofit
  189. General Manager/HR
  190. Girl scout troop leader for underserved girls and substitute teacher
  191. Graduate Student (x9)
  192. Graduate {Research,Teaching} Assistant (TBD next semester)
  193. Graduate Student Instructor / Worker / Researcher (x7)
  194. Grant writer for human services nonprofit
  195. Grants & Evaluation Manager at a community development agency
  196. Grants administration
  197. Grantwriter (technically an Assistant Director of my specific department)
  198. Graphic Designer (x2)
  199. Graphic Designer for a coffee company
  200. Grassroots Organizer
  201. Grievance Officer for a union
  202. Grocery Stock Clerk
  203. Health Care Advocacy and Communications
  204. Health care research
  205. Healthcare communications
  206. High school Arts teacher
  207. High school Environmental Science Teacher
  208. High school German teacher
  209. high school History teacher (2x)
  210. High school Substitute teacher
  211. High School Teacher (x5)
  212. Higher education access programming for underserved urban public high school students
  213. Historic preservation
  214. Homelessness and mental health strategy for municipal government
  215. Homeschooling gardener
  216. Hospice social worker
  217. Hospital admin assistant
  218. Hotel Front Desk Clerk & Public Librarian
  219. Housing Office Team Lead
  220. HRIS Consultant
  221. Humanitarian/development researcher and activist
  222. I operate a particle accelerator at a government lab
  223. I run an outdoor ed program for the Y
  224. I run the arts programs for a middle school and high school
  225. I support a peer-to-peer activist and consciousness raising community of folks with developmental disabilities
  226. I was a lifeguard as well as a student *sobs in nonessential worker*
  227. I was a payroll processor. Now I’m freelance writing.
  228. I write trainings for corporate employees. It’s only slightly soul-crushing.
  229. I write trainings for large corporations. Why yes it IS quite soul crushing how kind of you to ask!!!
  230. Immigration legal service paralegal
  231. In my day job, I edit training content for pharmaceutical sales reps (Big Pharma… blerg). I also have a couple of education-sector editing side hustles.
  232. Inside Sales for an Automotive supplier (but I just got a promotion and am moving departments!!)
  233. Inspiration writer/performer/speaker
  234. Insurance claim adjuster
  235. Insurance Claims Adjuster dreaming of being a sex educator
  236. Intern in a law office
  237. Inventory Manager at a used book store
  238. Investment Banking
  239. IT Analyst / Engineer / Support / Security Specialist / Consultant (x6)
  240. It is an emerging discipline I am helping to create that doesn’t even have accurate job listings in the world today
  241. IT Tech. Being a stereotypical transgirl and all.
  242. Jewish non-profit event planning/programming director
  243. Journalist / Reporter (x2)
  244. Lab technician (x2)
  245. Landscaper/Gardner
  246. Language consultant
  247. Law student
  248. Lawyer (x12)
  249. Lead bookseller at an independent bookstore
  250. Lead Designer at a small media & events business
  251. Lead Writing Tutor at a community college (making resources, wrangling student tutors)
  252. Lecturer I of Spanish
  253. Lecturer in English
  254. Lecturer, Department of Biological Sciences
  255. Legal assistant
  256. Legal fellow
  257. Legal/finance hybrid kind of role
  258. Librarian or Library Director or Coordinator or Manager or Assistant or Technician (x32)
  259. Light technician/design in theatre
  260. Litigation paralegal
  261. management consultant
  262. Manager
  263. Manager- Insurance
  264. Manager of a travel company
  265. Manager of Institutional Research at a university
  266. Manager, Area Control Centre Operations
  267. Managing editor of a local newspaper
  268. Marine Biologist (x2)
  269. Marketing or Marketing Lead/Manager/Coordinator (x6)
  270. Marketing at an Audiobook Company
  271. Marketing lead / graphic designer at a theatre company
  272. Marriage and Family Therapist
  273. Massage therapist
  274. Materials Engineer
  275. MBA student
  276. Mechanical buildings consulting engineer in training
  277. Mechanical Engineer (x2)
  278. Media & PR Manager
  279. Medical editor
  280. Medical Laboratory Scientist
  281. Medical Research
  282. Medical student
  283. Medical writer
  284. Middle school Teacher (x3)
  285. Montessori teacher
  286. Most recently – HS math teacher. Currently – math grad student
  287. MSW student – previously worked in social services with trans/GNC immigrants
  288. Museum Curator
  289. Museum Educator/Manager
  290. Music Educator / Instructor / Teacher (x3)
  291. Musician & Composer
  292. Nature Reserves Manager
  293. Network Engineer
  294. NICU Nurse
  295. Night Auditor at a hotel
  296. NLP research
  297. Non profit director
  298. Non-emergency medical driver
  299. Non-profit strategy
  300. Nurse practitioner
  301. Nurse’s aide
  302. Office assistant and part-time tutor
  303. Office manager (x2)
  304. Office support for a construction company
  305. Officer in USAF, basically project manager for future programs in my careerfield
  306. One part copy-editor, one project manager for peer-reviewed scientific papers
  307. Online educational developer/adjunct professor
  308. Online learning designer
  309. Online sales and inventory management
  310. Opera singer aka professional superspreader
  311. Operation agent
  312. Operations + Executive Assistant
  313. Operations Director
  314. Operations Manager at a Theatre
  315. Operations Manager at public affairs and comms firm
  316. Ophthalmic technician
  317. Oral historian, a content creator for my university, and a camp counselor at the moment
  318. Organ transplant
  319. Organizing Director
  320. Outdoor educator (x2)
  321. Outpatient physical therapist
  322. PA/Admin
  323. Paleontologist (x2)
  324. Paralegal (x2)
  325. paralegal at a nonprofit immigration law firm
  326. Parent
  327. Parent, finance manager, secretary
  328. Park Ranger
  329. Part time pastor, part time journal managing editor, also grad student
  330. Pastry chef
  331. Payroll
  332. Payroll and billing for in home care company
  333. Performing arts critic
  334. Pet Care Associate at PetSmart
  335. Pet stylist
  336. Pharmacist / Pharmacy Tech (x2)
  337. PhD Candidate in Ecology
  338. Phd candidate, religion
  339. PhD researcher
  340. PhD Student and/or TA, unspecified topic (x6)
  341. PhD student (biosciences)
  342. PhD student in STEM
  343. Photographer
  344. Physicist
  345. Pianist/vocalist
  346. Pipeline Integrity Supervisor
  347. Planetary scientist
  348. Planner
  349. Playwright (x2)
  350. Policy Adviser
  351. Policy Analyst or (x3)
  352. Policy development
  353. Policy officer at medical regulator
  354. Political consultant (polling/survey research)
  355. Political staffer
  356. Post Doctoral Researcher or Research Associate (5x)
  357. Post Producer
  358. Post Production Manager
  359. Postdoctoral fellow
  360. Postdoctoral fellow in art history
  361. Post-doctoral researcher / research associate (x3)
  362. Preschool Director
  363. Preschool teacher (x2)
  364. Prior to the pandemic I was in shipping & receiving, now I wfh as a writer/editor
  365. Process, catalog and scan old images
  366. Produce Buyer for a national grocery store
  367. Producer
  368. Product Designer
  369. Product developer/designer/editor for a children’s educational company
  370. Product Manager (x5)
  371. Product Regulatory Specialist
  372. Product Support for GIS software
  373. Production Manager at a non-profit children’s theatre
  374. Professional Dance Artist & Arts Organizer
  375. Professor, Unspecified (x2)
  376. Professor, Science (x2)
  377. Professor, History
  378. Program Analyst/Auditor
  379. Program Coordinator at an education nonprofit
  380. Program Coordinator for a youth outreach program!
  381. Program Coordinator for New Students
  382. Program manager- ESL nonprofit
  383. Program manager for technical writing organization
  384. Program Officer in International Education Development (Non-profit)
  385. Program VP
  386. Project Associate and Data Analyst in International Public Health
  387. Project Director
  388. Project Manager (x11)
  389. Project manager for training program at a nonprofit
  390. Projectionist
  391. Proofreader (x2)
  392. Proposal Coordinator
  393. Prosecutor (x2)
  394. Prospect Research Analyst
  395. Psychologist
  396. Public interest law student, specializing in access to justice for children/juveniles and incarcerated populations
  397. Public programming/education for a museum
  398. Public sector Digitalization
  399. Publishing consulting/editorial
  400. QS for the office for cultural heritage preservation
  401. Quality management (professional services) in a university
  402. My job title is Collaborations and Partnerships Senior Standards and Quality Officer
  403. Queer youth worker
  404. RA/QA Specialist
  405. Radiographer/Sonographer-radiology tech in US
  406. Receptionist
  407. Receptionist at a reproductive health clinic (which provides abortions)
  408. Records Manager
  409. Registered Nurse (x6)
  410. Rehabilitation for senior citizens with low vision
  411. Research Analyst
  412. research and teaching assistant, writing center tutor, yoga studio staff and teacher, freelance professional photographer, childcare provider, full time women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and anthropology double major
  413. Research assistant (x3)
  414. Research Associate at a consulting firm
  415. Research chemist
  416. Research Data Analyst (education nonprofit)
  417. Research programmer
  418. Research project manager working in HIV and covid
  419. Research Scientist (biologist)
  420. Researcher
  421. Residence Hall Director
  422. Retail assistant at a high street store
  423. Riding instructor
  424. Sales Associate (x3)
  425. Sales Coordinator at a major children’s book publisher
  426. Satellite/Spacecraft Engineer
  427. Scheduler, House of Representatives
  428. School Counselor
  429. School Psychologist (x3)
  430. School-based behavior interventionist
  431. Science Professor
  432. Scientist (x2)
  433. Script supervisor
  434. Seismic data analyst
  435. Self-employed proofreader, teacher
  436. Senior editor at a travel trade publication
  437. Senior Engineering Specialist
  438. Senior Lecturer at a private university
  439. Senior Officer – administrative worker at a University
  440. Senior Research Associate at a Public Interest Law Firm (we’re suing Trump it’s great)
  441. Senior Software Developer / Consultant
  442. Service Operations Manager
  443. Sewing Machine Technician
  444. Sex health educator & community worker for LGBTQ org <3
  445. Sexual assault prevention at a university
  446. Sexy Librarian
  447. Shelter Staff at Domestic Violence Agency
  448. Shipping/Receiving manager for retail
  449. Soccer coaching
  450. Social Media Manager
  451. Social Media Marketer
  452. Social media moderator
  453. Social Worker (x6)
  454. Social Worker at an addiction rehabilitation center (for men, I know)
  455. Sociologist in a prison
  456. Sociology Professor
  457. Software analyst
  458. Software Developer (x6)
  459. Software Development Manager
  460. Software Engineer (x23)
  461. Software Engineer at Twilio
  462. Software Product Manager
  463. Spatial Practitioner
  464. Special Education Teacher (x2)
  465. Speech Language Pathologist
  466. Speech therapist
  467. Sr. Research and Data Analyst
  468. Staff Attorney
  469. Staff writer of membership magazine for a national UK women’s charity
  470. Stage hand
  471. Stage Manager (x2)
  472. State level public health official
  473. Stay at home parent
  474. Student – math major
  475. Student of physical therapy
  476. Student Support in Higher Education (postgraduate degrees)
  477. Student Union Volunteering Manager- running the team that finds volunteering for students (UK)
  478. Student/Teaching Assistant/Producer/Musician
  479. studying for a Bachelors in Biomedicine
  480. Substance Use Counselor
  481. SUD/MH therapist
  482. Supervisor at UPS
  483. Supply Chain Quality Assurance
  484. Support Medicare programs
  485. Supportive Housing Worker
  486. Surgeon
  487. Systems developer
  488. Tarot teacher and reader, writer and theatre artist
  489. Teacher, Unspecified (x8)
  490. Teacher (ESL, French, Philosophy)
  491. Teacher and equity facilitator
  492. Teacher of children
  493. Teacher of students with visual impairments/orientation & mobility teacher
  494. Teacher Teaching on Call (substitute teacher) + book blogger
  495. Teaching Assistant
  496. Teaching Consultant
  497. (Tea) Brewery Manager
  498. Tech educator for seniors / web design
  499. Tech Recruiter
  500. Technical Support Consultant (self-employed, small business owner)
  501. Technical trainer
  502. Television editor
  503. Teller
  504. Theatre freelancer (director, lighting designer, stage manager, etc)
  505. Theatre lighting technician
  506. Theatre Producer
  507. Therapist / Social Worker (x6)
  508. This! I do this, but for companies like Google and Amazon and Best Buy. (my exact title is Manager, Quantitative Research, if that’s what you were looking for here)
  509. Toxicologist (x2)
  510. Trade and Investment Analyst for the UK Govt
  511. Trainee Lawyer
  512. Trainer of new staff!
  513. Translator (x4) (including one Yiddish translator!)
  514. Copyeditor, and fitness instructor
  515. Transportation Analyst / Planner (x2)
  516. Transportation Planner
  517. Tutoring and teaching at the college level
  518. Tutoring mentoring and casual data admin
  519. Unemployed artist living the dream!
  520. University Admission Assistant
  521. University archive
  522. University case manager
  523. University employee (Administrative Support & Adjunct Instructor)
  524. University faculty
  525. University lecturer (x2)
  526. University TA and instructor
  527. Urban Planner (x2)
  528. UX Designer (x3)
  529. Veterinarian
  530. VFX artist
  531. Visitor Services and Experience in a museum
  532. Waiter
  533. Wardrobe stylist
  534. Was a barista and coffeeshop manager
  535. Web Content Manager for Outward Bound
  536. Web developer (x2)
  537. Wildland firefighter
  538. Work at an NGO focused on health
  539. Working for a flexible packaging startup and doing a bit of everything: sales, marketing, finance, admin, operator :)
  540. Workshop facilitator/researcher
  541. Writer
  542. Writer, performer, teacher
  543. Writer-Researcher
  544. Writing tutor

P.S. Hey to my fellow fundraisers! I see you and love you! I’ve written many a grant in my life so hello also to my colleagues who specifically called themselves grantwriters! Let’s keep the organizations doing the work going. We’ve got this. 💖

AS Politics Survey: LGBTQ Health Care & Amy Coney Barrett’s Impacts

As we head into the 2020 election, our contributing data brain, Himani Gupta, is analyzing data from past Autostraddle surveys to find out what issues are most important to our community and what is currently at stake.

In this week’s Senate confirmation hearings, Amy Coney Barrett’s reticence to talk about her positions made it pretty clear how much damage she plans to do once she gets to the Supreme Court. Among the many disturbing things we know about Barrett’s political views, her stances on several health care issues are going to inflict a lot of harm on a lot of people.

Autostraddle’s Politics Survey, launched in December 2019, asked about a number of topics related to health care, namely: religious freedoms, reproductive rights and the affordability of care. At the end of July, I followed up with some of the original survey respondents to see if anything changed in terms of how they thought about the affordability issues in the wake of the pandemic.

We’re going to look at just how important these issues are to our community and discuss what’s at stake with Barrett’s impending nomination to the Supreme Court.

Who Took the Politics Survey

Before we turn to those results, we need to start by understanding who took the Politics Survey and who participated in the follow up.

The Politics Survey was available for anyone to take on Autostraddle’s website between December 3, 2019 and January 10, 2020. Over 4,400 people started the survey and just over two thirds made it to the mandatory questions on gender identity and sexual orientation. The analysis is restricted to queer people who identified as women, non-binary and/or trans, which gives us our sample of 2,834 respondents.

At the end of July, I reached out to the 994 Politics Survey respondents who said they were open to being contacted for follow up. Between July 26 and August 16, 662 people completed the Follow Up Survey. This divides our original sample into two subsamples: people who took the Follow Up Survey and people who didn’t.

For the most part, the Follow Up Survey respondents are a similarly diverse group of people compared to those who didn’t take the Follow Up Survey. A slightly greater proportion of trans women and non-binary women took the Follow Up Survey. The gender identities and sexual orientations of respondents to both surveys are shown below.

This image shows the gender identities and sexual orientations of Politics Survey respondents and those who took the Follow Up survey. In terms of gender identity: 64% of politics survey respondents are cis women, 6% are trans women, 13% are non-binary women, 14% are non-binary people and the remaining are non-binary men, trans men, intersex or questioning. On the follow up survey we have 62% cis women, 9% trans women, 14% non-binary women, 13% non-binary people and the remaining are non-binary men, trans men, intersex or questioning. In terms of sexual orientation, on the politics survey: 40% are lesbian or gay, 31% are queer, 24% are bisexual, pansexual or sexually fluid, 2% are asexual or similar, and the remaining are other sexualities which includes trans men and non-binary men who identify as gay, trans and non-binary people who identify as straight and questioning. On the Follow Up survey that's 38% lesbian/gay, 33% queer, 25% bisexual, pansexual or sexually fluid, 3% as asexual or similar and the remaining as other.

While the two subsamples are similar in terms of race/ethnicity, disability status and age, they differ on education. As shown in the figure below, more of the Follow Up Survey respondents earned a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree.

This image shows demographic characteristics of Politics Survey respondents and those who took the Follow Up survey. For Race/Ethnicity on the Politics Survey: 84% white, 5% Latinx, 5% multiracial and less than 5% Black, Asian/Pacific Islander or indigenous. Among the Follow up survey respondents: 84% white, 5% Latinx, 6% multiracial and less than 5% Black, Asian/Pacific Islander and indigenous. Compared to LGBTQ+ people (data from the Williams Institute) who are 58% white, 21% Latinx, 12% Black, 5% multiracial and less than 5% Asian/Pacific Islander or indigenous. Compared to the U.S. Adults from the census who are 61% white, 18% Latinx, 12% Black, 5% Asian/Pacific islander and less than 5% multiracial or indigenous. For disability status: on the politics survey 15% are living with a disability and 20% said it's complicated. Among follow up survey respondents that's 13% living with a disability and 23% said it's complicated. From the CDC, 26% of adults in the U.S. are living with a disability. For age: on the politics survey 20% are ages 18-24, 32% are ages 25-29, 24% are ages 30-34, 11% are ages 35-38, 7% are ages 39-44 and 6% are 45 or older. Among follow up survey respondents, 19% are ages 18-24, 35% are ages 25-29, 23% are ages 30-34, 12% are ages 35-38, 5% are ages 39-44 and 5% are 45 or older. LGBTQ+ adults are 30% ages 18-24, 26% ages 25-34, 20% ages 35-49, and 23% 50 or older. U.S. adults are 12% are ages 18-24, 9% are ages 25-29, 9% are ages 30-34, 7% are ages 35-38, 9% are ages 39-44 and 54% are 45 or older. U.S. registered voters are 9% are ages 18-24, 8% are ages 25-29, 7% are ages 30-34, 6% are ages 35-38, 9% are ages 39-44 and 61% are 45 or older

Another key difference is that fewer people living outside the U.S. participated in the Follow Up Survey. As a result, more of the Follow Up Survey respondents are registered to vote in the U.S. Once we account for this difference, the two subsamples are similar in terms of what region they live in. They also live in similar types of places, generally. (Note that the U.S. Census uses “urbanized clusters” and “urbanized areas” in its data collection, which are very different from how most people think about urban and suburban.) In terms of income, there is some variation, even after accounting for the differences in the proportions of non-U.S. residents.

This image shows the residence of Politics Survey respondents and those who took the Follow Up survey. On the Politics Survey, 24% of respondents live in the Northeast, 17% in the Midwest, 19% in the South, 24% in the West and 15% outside the U.S. Among Follow Up survey respondents, 25% live in the Northeast, 17% in the Midwest, 22% in the South, 26% in the West and 10% outside the U.S. Among the LGBTQ+ population in the U.S. (according to the Williams institute), 19% live in the Northeast, 19% in the Midwest, 35% in the South and 27% in the West. Among U.S. adults (from the Census) 18% live in the Northeast, 21% in the Midwest, 38% in the South and 24% in the West. Among registered voters, 18% live in the Northeast, 23% in the Midwest, 38% in the South and 22% in the West. In terms of urbanicity, among politics survey respondents, 62% live in an urban area, 29% live in a suburban area and 9% live in a rural area. Among follow up survey respondents, 63% live in an urban area, 28% suburban and 9% rural. Among U.S. adults 71% live in an urbanized area, 10% live in an urban cluster, and 19% rural. In terms of voter registration, among politics survey respondents 85% are registered to vote and 13% are not eligible. Among follow up survey respondents, 92% are registered to vote and 6% are not eligible. Among U.S. adults, 61% are registered to vote and 8% are not eligible. In terms of income, on the politics survey: 15% made less than $30,000, 17% made between $30,000 and $50,000, 26% made between $50,000 and $100,000, 20% made over $100,000, 15% lived outside the U.S. and 7% of the data is missing. Among follow up survey respondents: 15% made less than $30,000, 21% made between $30,000 and $50,000, 27% made between $50,000 and $100,000, 22% made over $100,000, 10% lived outside the U.S. and 5% of the data is missing. Among U.S. adults: 12% made less than $30,000, 13% made between $30,000 and $50,000, 27% made between $50,000 and $100,000, 27% made over $100,000, and 21% of the data is missing. Among registered voters: 10% made less than $30,000, 12% made between $30,000 and $50,000, 29% made between $50,000 and $100,000, 34% made over $100,000, and 16% of the data is missing.

There are, of course, unmeasurable differences between the type of person who would complete a second political survey and the type of person who wouldn’t. That being said, the Follow Up Survey provides important insight into shifts within our community.

“Anyone Who Would Discriminate ‘Based on Their Religious Beliefs’ Should Not be in Health Care.”

Far too often religion becomes the justification for mistreatment in health care, particularly when it comes to LGBTQ+ friendly and, especially, trans-inclusive care and reproductive rights. Based on a poll conducted by The Economist/YouGov in October 2019, Americans are conflicted in their views on a government regulation allowing medical providers to deny services because of their religious beliefs. Those divisions are largely along partisan lines with 81% of liberals opposing such a measure compared to 55% of conservatives supporting it.

Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents were in resounding opposition. Going beyond that question, several people further emphasized in free text comments that providers who have religious qualms about providing services should not be working in health care.

The figure below compares the results from the Politics Survey to the Economist/YouGov poll.

This image shows Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents' views on religious freedom in health care. When asked if they supported or opposed allowing medical providers to refuse to provide any services which violate their religious beliefs to any patients, 95% of politics survey respondents opposed and the remaining either supported were not sure. This compares with an Economist/YouGov poll conducted October 2019 where 28% of U.S. adults support allowing medical providers to refuse to provide any services which violate their religious beliefs to any patients, 50% oppose and 23% are not sure.

While the topic of religious freedoms in health care specifically didn’t come up in the confirmation hearings, Barrett’s views on religious freedom more broadly are well established. Earlier this week, writers for the Washington Post laid out Barrett’s disturbing history of supporting “preferential treatment” for religious expression. It’s likely, based on her record, that if a case on religious freedoms in health care were to make its way to the Supreme Court, she would rule in favor of those who are denying health care.

It’s also very possible that a case on this exact issue will make its way to the Supreme Court soon. In May 2019, the Trump administration created “conscience” protections that would prevent health care institutions from accessing federal funds if they took disciplinary actions against health care workers who denied services because of their religious beliefs. A few months later, in November of that year, a federal judge struck down the rule.

Anti-Trans Discrimination In Health Care Was Already A Big Problem. And Then the Trump Administration Intervened.

The Politics Survey asked respondents if they had been denied health care because of their gender identity or presentation. Among the overall sample, 5% of respondents said they had been denied services and 8% said they were unsure if that had happened to them.

But those overall numbers mask a deeper story. The figure below shows the stark differences in responses to the question on denial of services by the gender identity of the survey respondent. 50% of our trans women respondents had either been denied services because of their gender identity or presentation or had an ambiguous experience along those lines. About a third of our non-binary respondents shared that experience as well.

This image shows responses to the question from the politics survey about being denied services by a medical provider because of gender identity or presentation. 1,784 cis women answered the question and 6% were unsure if they had that experience. 154 trans women answered the question and 22% had been refused services while an additional 28% were unsure if that had happened. 342 non-binary women answered the question and 5% had been refused services while an additional 18% were unsure if that had happened. 368 non-binary people answered the question and 10% had been refused services while an additional 33% were unsure if that had happened. 91 people of other gender identities (non-binary men, trans men, intersex or questioning) answered the question and 14% had been refused services while an additional 18% were unsure if that had happened.

In addition to the responses shown above, several people shared other negative experiences in free-text comments, such as being discriminated against in other ways, traumatized and mistreated by trans-incompetent health care providers. Others mentioned putting off health care to avoid mistreatment and discrimination.

In an effort to address some of these issues, in 2016 the Obama administration implemented anti-discrimination protections on the basis of gender identity. In June of this year the Trump administration eliminated those protections. Mere days later, the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County. In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that discrimination against trans people qualifies as “discrimination on the basis of sex.” Although that case was dealing with employment protections in the Civil Rights Act specifically, the same logic applies to a whole swathe of other legislation, including the Affordable Care Act. In fact, in August, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to end trans health care protections, citing the Bostock decision.

It seems almost inevitable that trans health care protections will find themselves before the Supreme Court sooner or later. And while Barrett’s views on the rights of trans people did not come up in the confirmation hearings, her use of the term “sexual preference” when asked about LGBTQ+ protections speaks volumes about how she views the community as a whole. Though she later apologized for using the term, her ties to a law firm that has fought to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ+ people have also been reported this week.

Reproductive Rights Have Been Steadily Eroded for Decades.

Even before Barrett was nominated, the alarms were sounding that Roe v. Wade would be effectively gutted by a Supreme Court with a conservative-majority. In many ways, it already has been. Abortion is such a hot button issue that any law that gets passed, whether at the state or even a long-shot attempt in Congress, inevitably will make its way to the courts and, often, up to the Supreme Court. That small handful of people wields an incredible amount of power when it comes to reproductive rights.

Barrett’s views on abortion are clear. She has a long history of explicitly opposing the right to choose. Yet, when directly confronted on the issue during the Senate confirmation hearings, she, unsurprisingly, punted, claiming she would not be going in with an “agenda.” I’m not sure how someone who sponsored a “right to life” ad in 2006 can claim to not have an agenda on this topic.

Respondents to Autostraddle’s Politics Survey could not be farther from Barrett in their views. There was near unanimous support for abortion with almost 90% supporting that basic right to choose in all circumstances and another 10% wanting it to be “legal with limitations.” That was, more or less, consistent no matter how I sliced the data. In contrast, a Monmouth University poll from June 2019 found that while nearly two-thirds of American adults want abortion to be legal in some capacity, only 29% fully support it in all circumstances. The figure below compares these results.

This image compares views on abortion from the Politics Survey to U.S. adults (based on a Monmouth university poll conducted June 2019. Among politics survey respondents, 89% think abortion should always be legal and 11% think it should be legal with limitations. Among U.S. adults, 32% think abortion should always be legal, 31% think it should be legal with limitations, 24% think it should be illegal with exceptions, 10% think it should be always illegal and the rest don't know.

The High Cost Of Health Care Hits Our Community Particularly Hard.

Alongside these battles over what medically-necessary services are legally permissible is the fight over the prohibitively high cost of health care. A well-established problem nationally, this is another aspect of the health care system that especially harms our community. The Politics Survey asked whether respondents to indicate whether they or someone in their household had forgone needed services because of they could not afford them. Results from the Politics Survey are compared to a Monmouth poll conducted May 2019 in the figure below. Note that all results discussed in this section exclude Politics Survey respondents who live outside the U.S. because of the policy-specific nature of this issue.This image compares responses from the politics survey to a Monmouth university poll conducted May 2019. When asked if they or someone in their household had gone without needed health care in the past two years because they could not afford it, 63% of politics survey respondents said yes and 27% of U.S. adults said yes.

Once again, the overall numbers hide a deeper story. The Monmouth University poll found substantial differences in the response to this question by income, which is unsurprising given that cost is the underlying issue. A similar pattern was observed among Politics Survey respondents, as well. This comparison is shown in the graphic below.

This images shows responses to the question asking whether the respondent or someone in their household had not gone for needed care in the past two years because they could not afford it. It compares data from the politics survey and a Monmouth University poll conducted in May 2019 by income level. On the politics survey, 565 respondents had an income over $100,000 and 43% of these respondents said they had gone without care. 733 respondents had an income between $50,000 and $100,000 and 65% of these respondents had gone without care. 475 respondents had an income between $30,000 and $50,000 and 73% of these respondents said they had gone without care. 427 respondents had an income below $30,000 and 82% of these respondents said they had gone without care. On the Monmouth university poll, among people with an income over $100,000, 17% had gone without care. Among people with an income between $50,000 and $100,000 30% had gone without care. Among people with an income below $50,000 34% had gone without care.

A direct consequence of these disparities in access to care by income level is disparities in access to care by other demographic characteristics that are correlated with income, including gender identity, race/ethnicity and disability status. So while the rate of forgoing health care because of the cost among our community as a whole is 63%, among trans women and non-binary people that rate is 70% and 73% respectively, among Black and Latinx people it’s around 70% and among people living with disabilities it is a galling 78%. Health care is just one more arena where some of the most marginalized members of our community face the dual threats of identity-based discrimination and poverty.

The Growing Appeal of Medicare for All

Several policy ideas have been floated in the last few years to address the high cost of health care. A single public plan like “Medicare for All” has gained substantial traction on the left and dominated much of the conversation during the Democratic primaries. Among Politics Survey respondents, over 80% wanted to move towards a universal public system either immediately or eventually. The American public, of course, is much more divided. The figure below compares responses from the Politics Survey to a Monmouth University poll conducted in August 2019.

This image shows responses to questions about how respondents would like to see health care handled from the politics survey and a Monmouth University poll conducted in August 2019. From the politics survey, 69% want to get rid of private insurance for a single public plan like Medicare for all. 13% want the option to opt into Medicare or keep private coverage but eventually move to a universal public system. 7% want the option to opt into Medicare or keep private coverage and always have that option. Less than 5% of respondents selected any of the other choices for how health care should be handled. Among U.S. adults, 22% want to get rid of private insurance for a single public plan like Medicare for all. 18% want the option to opt into Medicare or keep private coverage but eventually move to a universal public system. 33% want the option to opt into Medicare or keep private coverage and always have that option. Less than 5% said they want the option to opt into Medicare or keep private coverage and are unsure what should eventually happen. 7% said they wanted to keep insurance private for people under 65 and regulate the costs. 11% said they wanted to keep insurance basically as it is. And less than 5% said other or don't know.

Support for a single payer was substantially higher among Politics Survey Respondents than U.S. adults, regardless of income. But, nonetheless, a greater proportion of our lower income respondents wanted to move towards a universal public system at some point than our higher income respondents: 88% of respondents with an annual income below $30,000 compared to 78% of respondents with an income above $100,000. There wasn’t much variation in support for Medicare for All by gender identity, race/ethnicity or disability.

I was curious to see if the pandemic led to any shifts in how people viewed Medicare for All, so this same question was asked on the Follow Up Survey. Among the people who took the Follow Up Survey, support for moving to Medicare for All at some point stayed about the same. The urgency, however, changed. In the Politics Survey (conducted December 2019 – January 2020), 70% of Follow Up Survey respondents said they wanted to get rid of all private insurance compared with 14% who preferred an opt-in with eventual transition to single payer. By the time of the Follow Up (conducted July – August 2020), that had shifted to 77% and 9%. The change is modest but not statistically significant.

The Supreme Court Could Affect Single Payer Health Care in Many Ways

One of the drawbacks of a single payer public health plan is that, depending on who’s in power, it might not cover politically divisive but medically necessary procedures like hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery or other trans-inclusive care, contraceptives or abortions. If recent history is any model, it’s fair to assume that even if Democrats managed to pass a plan like Medicare for All that covered all of these things (more on that in a minute), private companies would start suing left and right and the matter would make its way to the Supreme Court. Conservatives on the Court have already proven that they will side with religious freedoms at the expense of contraceptive care, as we saw in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. All evidence suggests they would act exactly the same way if there were a single payer law with a mandate for covering trans-inclusive care or abortions. And we know Barrett will fall even farther to the right on this than the conservatives currently on the Bench.

In addition to legal scrutiny over what could be covered in such plan, a single payer plan will very likely find itself in court for mandating health coverage, the way the Affordable Care Act has on multiple occasions. Here again, history is instructive of what the future may hold. In 2012, the ACA was narrowly saved with Roberts writing the majority opinion. As a legal scholar explained in a recent interview with The New Yorker, a key issue in that case and the one that will be heard by the Court the week after the election is whether requiring people to purchase health insurance is “an unconstitutional act of coercion.” In the 2012 case, Roberts ruled that the ACA, specifically, was not because of the fines imposed on people who did not purchase health insurance (which Roberts viewed as a “tax” and therefore under the purview of Congress). After Republicans did away with the fines in 2017, the latest challenge to the ACA argues that the current form of the ACA is now coercive.

Many are concerned that Barrett’s hasty nomination to the Court will be the end of the ACA once and for all (a Republican dream and Trump campaign promise). In the hearings, Barrett, of course, punted on the issue, but she has previously criticized Roberts’ 2012 opinion that saved the ACA.

It’s hard not to imagine that all of this would replay itself in one form or another if a public, single payer plan were to somehow become the law. Once again, the Supreme Court has tremendous power in determining the shape of health care in this country.

Biden, of course, does not support single payer, though Harris did during the primary. As the pandemic has worn on, Biden’s moved closer and closer towards it. In July, a “unity task force” between the Biden and Sanders campaigns put forward a plan to expand health care access substantially. While not single payer, the plan will lower the qualifying age for Medicare and includes a government-run public health insurance option. That public option would be available to anyone but would automatically enroll low-income people who lose their jobs. Again, what a conservative court will do with such a law remains to be seen.

Is Everything Doomed?

Barrett will be confirmed before the election. Republicans are bending every rule and norm to make that happen. We will have a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court in a matter of weeks. Roberts’ seemingly liberal sleight of hand votes that have, bit by bit, undermined policies that enshrine basic rights will no longer put off the inevitable. So where do we go from here?

The only say we have over who’s on the Supreme Court is through who we vote into office in the Senate and the Presidency. For his part, Biden continues to dodge questions about court-packing, which leaves us with something to hope for. Last week, Natalie covered the close Senate races; If you have the money or the time, donate to and volunteer to campaign for those races. And after the election, the phones need to start ringing.

AS Politics Survey: Where Our Readers Stand On Criminal Justice Reform

As we head into the 2020 election, our contributing data brain, Himani Gupta, is analyzing data from past Autostraddle surveys to find out what issues are most important to our community and what is currently at stake.

America’s criminal justice system was racist from its inception, but the issue only garners mainstream attention after high profile, tragic murders of Black people at the hands of law enforcement. This summer was one of those moments, with a resurgence of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s brutal murder.

Back in December 2019, Autostraddle conducted its first ever politics survey. As I began working the data, the world started changing at an accelerating rate. But many of the key questions at the core of that survey remained: where does this community stand on pressing criminal justice issues including bail, incarceration and police brutality?

We’ll explore those questions using data from the Politics Survey and more recent data from Autostraddle’s 2020 Reader Survey.

Who Took the Surveys?

To make sense of our survey results, we first need to take a look at who took the two surveys!

Both surveys were available online through posts on Autostraddle’s website. The Politics Survey was open from December 3, 2019 through January 10, 2020. Over 4,400 people started the survey and about two-thirds made it to the mandatory questions on gender identity and sexual orientation. The Reader Survey was open July 7 through July 15. Nearly 3,400 people started the survey and over 90% made it to those same mandatory identity questions.

The analysis samples are restricted to LGBTQ+ people who identify as women, non-binary and/or trans living in the U.S. (The criminal justice questions on the Reader Survey were only asked of people who live in the U.S. so both samples were restricted to U.S. residents.) This gives us our final samples of 2,409 people on the Politics Survey and 1,950 people on the Reader Survey.

These are what the stats-y among us call “convenience samples” because anyone online could opt to take the surveys, so there’s self-selection bias. This limits how much we can use these results to make general statements about the political views of LGBTQ+ people who identify as women, non-binary, and/or trans.

The figure below shows the gender identities and sexual orientations of our two samples. We got comparable mixes of respondents of different gender identities both times, though fewer trans women responded to the Reader Survey than the Politics Survey. Respondents are also fairly similar based on their sexual orientations1, although the reader survey had more respondents who identified as lesbian/gay as a whole.

Gender identity and sexual orientations of Autostraddle Politics Survey and Reader Survey respondents. In terms of gender identity: on the reader survey, 66% of respondents are cis women, 3% trans women, 13% non-binary women, 15% non-binary people and 3% other genders. On the politics survey: 65% cis women, 6% trans women, 12% non-binary women, 14% non-binary people and 3% other genders. In terms of sexual orientation, on the reader survey: 44% lesbian/gay, 32% queer, 23% bi/pan/fluid and 1% other. On the politics survey: 39% lesbian/gay, 33% queer, 25% bi/pan/fluid and 3% other. In terms of ace/ace spectrum: on the reader survey 9% ace or ace spectrum and on the politics survey 10%. The politics survey sample size is 2,409 and the reader survey sample size is 1,950. The other gender category includes non-binary men, trans men, intersex people and questioning. The other sexual orientation category includes trans men and non-binary people who identify as gay, trans and non-binary people who identify as straight, people who only identify as asexual or ace spectrum, questioning and other sexualities.

The two samples are similar on some demographic characteristics but share some noticeable differences. The figure below compares the demographic characteristics of our two samples and also provides data on the U.S. adult population (from the Census and CDC) and LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. (from the Williams Institute) for reference. Respondents to the Politics and Reader Surveys were similar in their racial/ethnic makeup and in the types of places they live in. (Note that the Census uses “urbanized clusters” and “urbanized areas” for reporting, which are substantially different than how most people define urban and suburban.) The Reader Survey had fewer respondents with disabilities than the Politics Survey. Reader Survey respondents were also slightly older and generally had higher levels of educational attainment. The biggest difference is in terms of household income: respondents to the Reader Survey had substantially lower household incomes than respondents to the Politics Survey, even before the pandemic hit.

This figure shows the demographic characteristics of the samples. For race/ethnicity: Reader survey respondents are 84% non-Latinx white, 5% Latinx and less than 5% all other races; Politics Survey respondents are 84% non-Latinx white, 6% Latinx, 5% non-Latinx multiracial and less than 5% all other races; LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. are 58% non-Latinx white, 21% Latinx, 12% non-Latinx Black, 5% non-Latinx multiracial and less than 5% all other races; U.S. Adults are 61% non-Latinx white, 18% Latinx, 12% non-Latinx Black, 5% non-Latinx Asian Pacific Islander and less than 5% all other races. For disability status: 9% of Reader survey respondents reported having a disability and 18% said the situation is complicated compared with 14% of Politics Survey Respondents with disabilities and 20% complicated. 26% of adults in the U.S. have disabilities. For age: Reader survey respondents are 15% ages 18-24, 34% ages 25-29, 27% ages 30-34, 11% ages 35-38, 8% ages 39-44 and 5% ages 45 and older. Politics survey respondents are 19% ages 18-24, 32% ages 25-29, 23% ages 30-34, 12% ages 35-38, 7% ages 39-44 and 6% ages 45 and older. U.S. adults are 12% ages 18-24, 9% ages 25-29, 9% ages 30-34, 7% ages 35-38, 9% ages 39-44 and 54% ages 45 and older. LGBT+ adults are 30% ages 18-24, 26% ages 25-34, 20% ages 35-49 and 23% ages 50and older. In terms of urbanicity of where people live: 62% of Reader Survey respondents live in urban areas, 30% suburban and 8% rural areas. 61% of politics survey respondents live in urban areas, 29% suburban, and 9% rural areas. 71% of U.S. adults live in urbanized areas, 10% live in urban clusters and 19% live in rural areas. In terms of education: less than 5% of Reader Survey respondents have a high school degree or less, 11% have some college or an associate's, 45% have a bachelor's degree and 42% have an advanced degree. On the Politics survey: less than 5% have high school degree or less, 16% have some college or an associate's, 48% have a bachelor's degree and 3% have an advanced degree. Among LGBT+ adults: 41% have high school degree or less, 30% have some college or an associate's, 17% have a bachelor's degree and 13% have an advanced degree. Among U.S. adults: 39% have high school degree or less, 28% have some college or an associate's, 21% have a bachelor's degree and 12% have an advanced degree. In terms of income: Reader survey respondents reported that at the time of the survey (July 2020) 29% had an income less than $30,000, 21% between $30,000 and $50,000, 31% between $50,000 and $100,000, 12% over $100,000, and 7% did not disclose. Reader survey respondents also shared that prior to the pandemic 26% had an income less than $30,000, 22% between $30,000 and $50,000, 33% between $50,000 and $100,000, 13% over $100,000, and 6% did not disclose. Politics survey respondents shared that 18% had an income less than $30,000, 20% between $30,000 and $50,000, 31% between $50,000 and $100,000, 24% over $100,000, and 8% did not disclose. Among U.S. adults, 12% have an income less than $30,000, 13% between $30,000 and $50,000, 27% between $50,000 and $100,000, 27% over $100,000, and 21% did not disclose

In addition to these measured differences, the two samples are, by definition, going to be different because of self-selection. It’s very likely that a different type of person might be motivated to take a survey dedicated to political issues in the U.S. (and a fairly long survey, at that) than the type of person who will take a more general reader survey.

Despite all these caveats, there’s still a lot we can learn from these data about our community’s perspectives on criminal justice reform and how that has shifted in the wake of this summer’s BLM protests.

Much of Our Community Was Already Supporting Progressive Stances on Criminal Justice Issues

The Politics Survey asked questions that touched on several aspects of the criminal justice system. The questions were taken from a study by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund conducted in July 2019 and polls conducted by the Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago (AP-NORC) in September 2019 and NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist (NPR/PBS/Marist) in July 2019.

View of the System as a Whole

Two questions taken from the CAP study asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with the overarching value propositions that guide the U.S.’s criminal justice system currently: criminalizing behavior and investing in law enforcement. The figure below compares responses from the Politics Survey to the data released about registered U.S. voters. Politics Survey respondents were nearly unanimous in rejecting the positions that guide the U.S.’s criminal justice system, agreeing that “the U.S. relies too much on criminalizing behavior” and disagreeing that spending more money on police, prosecutors and prisons will make communities safer. This stands in contrast to registered voters nationally who were more divided on these two questions.

This figure shows the percentage of respondents from Autostraddle's Politics Survey who agreed and disagreed with statements describing the guiding values of the criminal justice system in the U.S. The first statement is "The U.S. relies too much on criminalizing behavior to make communities safe. There are smarter, less expensive, and more humane ways to deal with many societal problems outside the criminal justice system." 96% of Politics Survey respondents agreed with this statement, compared with 56% of U.S. Registered Voters from the CAP survey. The second statement is "Making communities safe is a straightforward issue - the more the U.S. spends on police, prosecutors and prisons, the safer communities will be." 94% of Politics Survey respondents disagreed with this statement compared. 46% of U.S. registered voters from the CAP survey agreed with the statement.

Substantial Support for Legalizing Marijuana

There’s been a national surge in support for legalizing marijuana in the last several years, with states steadily moving towards passing this policy. The figure below shows how Politics Survey respondents viewed the issue, compared with U.S. adults. Politics Survey respondents largely supported legalizing marijuana. A generally popular issue, at the time of the NPR/PBS/Marist poll, just under two-thirds of U.S. adults also supported the policy; this has largely held constant since last year.

This figure shows how many people supp

Near Consensus that Bail Creates a Double Standard

Nearly all Politics Survey respondents felt the bail system created “two standards of justice;” this position also had significant support nationally. Bail reform was a big topic at the time, as New York state (most notably) was considering a massive change to its bail system that would eliminate bail for most arrests. (That reform passed and went into effect on January 1 of this year, but in April the state legislature and governor walked it back, a pattern we’ve seen play out a few times, now.) The figure below shows responses from the Politics Survey compared with U.S. voters.

This figure shows the percentage of respondents from Autostraddle's Politics Survey who agreed and disagreed with the following statement: 'The U.S. should not have two standards of justice where rich people accused of crimes are allowed to stay at home prior to their court dates, while those who are poor must stay in jail for weeks or months simply because they cannot afford bail.

Multiple Perspectives on Incarceration

Politics Survey respondents overwhelmingly rejected the current guiding principles of the criminal justice system and the bail system and think marijuana should be legalized. On incarceration, though, our respondents are more conflicted. The figure below shows their responses to two questions on incarceration. There’s still strong support for reducing incarceration rates and that level of support is higher than the U.S. overall, but there’s a greater mix in Politics Survey respondents’ views on the issue compared to the ones discussed earlier.

The figure shows Autostraddle Politics Survey respondent's views on incarceration questions. There were two statements people were asked to agree or disagree with. The first statement was 'Reforming the criminal justice system by reducing the number of people who are arrested and incarcerated will help make communities safe.' Among politics survey respondents, 83% agreed with the statement, 10% neither agreed nor disagreed, 5% don't know and the remaining disagreed. Among U.S. registered voters (from the CAP survey) 39% agreed. The second statement was 'Those with mental health disabilities or substance abuse problems should not be in prison, they must be provided treatment by health professionals.' Among politics survey respondents 84% agreed with this statement, 12% neither agreed nor disagreed and the remaining either don't know or disagreed. Among U.S. registered voters (from the CAP survey) 63% agreed with the statement.

Several respondents shared their thoughts in free-text comments on the question specific to those with mental health disabilities or substance abuse problems. A few common themes emerged among those who did not agree with the statement. First, respondents’ position depended on the crime with many saying that violent crimes such as murder and rape warranted incarceration. Second, several felt it was important to clarify that no one should be incarcerated for their mental health or substance abuse problems. Third, many expressed that proper treatment should be provided in the situations where incarceration is warranted.

The view that some crimes do justify arrest and incarceration also appeared in the free-text responses of people who agreed with the statement that people with mental health disabilities or substance abuse problems shouldn’t be incarcerated. Many who agreed with the statement called for increased investment in communities, social services and rehabilitation to addressed the underlying problems currently leading to arrest and incarceration. Several people decried private prisons while others went further and called for full abolition.

Near Consensus that Police Violence is a Problem

Back in December, a large majority (over 80%) of Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents already believed that police violence against the public was an extremely or very serious problem, compared to just over a third of U.S. adults as a whole. This is shown in the figure below.

This figure shows responses to questions about police violence from the Politics Survey. When asked 'How serious a problem do you think police violence against the public is in the U.S.?', 82% of Autostraddle Politics Survey Respondents said it was an 'extremely or very serious problem,' 17% said a 'moderately serious problem' and the remaining said 'not too or not at all serious problem' or 'don't know.' In contrast, U.S. Adults on the AP-NORC Center poll from September 2019 were 36% 'extremely or very serious problem,' 33% 'moderately serious problem' and 30% 'not too or not at all serious problem.' A second question on police violence asked: 'In general, do you think the police in most communities are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person, more likely to use deadly force against a white person or don't you think race affects police use of force?' 99% of Politics Survey respondents said police were more likely to use deadly force against a Black person. In contrast, on the AP-NORC poll from September, 55% said 'more likely to use deadly force against a Black person,' 41% said 'race doesn't affect deadly force' and the remaining said 'more likely to use deadly force against a white person.'

This isn’t entirely surprising because 29% of Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents said they were worried about being the victim of police brutality and another 8% were unsure (not shown). In contrast, when Quinnipiac University asked registered voters this question in April 2018, only 21% shared those worries while 79% definitively said they were not worried. But, awareness of the issue of police violence among Autostraddle Politics Survey respondents also went beyond personal experiences: there was a near consensus that police are more likely to use deadly force against a Black person. And while that statement is a fact and not an opinion, just over half of U.S. adults actually believed it last September (this June that was up to 61%).

What’s Shifted in Our Community on Criminal Justice Reform

Given the substantial support progressive criminal justice reform issues already had back in December, there were only small pockets of our community that might have shifted their views on these particular questions in light of everything that happened this summer. The Reader Survey asked fewer questions about criminal justice reform. Two were repeated from the Politics Survey. The CAP Survey doesn’t have new results available, but the AP-NORC poll was conducted again more recently in June. A third question was added from a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted at the end of May.

Support for Reducing Arrest and Incarceration was the Same on the Reader Survey

Interestingly, there was no change in the proportion of Autostraddle Respondents who agreed that reducing arrest and incarceration rates would make communities safe. We did not ask the question about people with mental health disabilities or substance abuse issues a second time, and there is no new data on U.S. registered voters from the CAP survey. Neither survey asked about prison abolition so we also don’t know how much traction that position has within our community. On the Reader Survey, many people explained their thoughts on this question in free text comments, and the same themes from the Politics Survey emerged.

Police Brutality was Viewed as a More Serious Issue among Reader Survey Respondents

Police brutality was under a spotlight this summer after the murder of George Floyd was followed by video after video of police officers’ violent treatment of Black people and unwarranted responses to protesters. We wanted to see if this changed how our community views police violence. Results from the Reader Survey are shown in the figure below. The proportion who view police violence against the public as an extremely or very serious problem did increase by eleven percentage points between the Politics Survey and the Reader Survey, which is comparable to the shift we see among U.S. Adults nationally. But, as mentioned before, the Politics and Reader Survey samples are clearly different, so it’s hard to know if that shift is indicative of changes in our community’s views on police violence against the public or because different people were asked this question. The truth is probably a little bit of both.

This figure shows responses to questions about police violence from the Autostraddle Reader Survey. When asked 'How serious a problem do you think police violence against the public is in the U.S.?', 93% of Autostraddle Reader Survey Respondents said it was an 'extremely or very serious problem,' 7% said a 'moderately serious problem' and the remaining said 'not too or not at all serious problem' or 'don't know.' In contrast, U.S. Adults on the AP-NORC Center poll from June 2020 were 48% 'extremely or very serious problem,' 31% 'moderately serious problem' and 21% 'not too or not at all serious problem.' The second question asked 'Cutting funding for police departments has been proposed to reduce deadly force encounters involving the police. Do you favor or oppose this measure?' 93% of Autostraddle Reader survey respondents favored the measure. Based on a poll conducted in May 2020 by Yahoo News and YouGov, 16% of U.S. adults favor the measure, 65% oppose it, and 19% said they are not sure.

Finally, the Reader Survey asked about defunding police and an overwhelming majority of respondents favored defunding. In free-text comments, many people went further and wanted to see full abolition. While in stark contrast to the U.S. nationally, this position doesn’t come entirely as a surprise based on the other perspectives on criminal justice issues shared in the Autostraddle Reader Survey, and the overwhelming support for progressive criminal justice positions observed on the Autostraddle Politics Survey.

Summing Up: How Our Community Compares to the U.S. Nationally

Clearly, there are substantial differences between where our community stands on these issues compared to the U.S. overall. That was strikingly true in December 2019/January 2020 and it remained true in July 2020. But as we saw earlier, our community is strikingly different from the U.S. population. Our group is quite a bit younger, quite a bit more educated, quite a bit less affluent, quite a bit whiter, quite a bit less likely to live in a rural area and quite a bit more likely to vote Democrat. While it’s true that younger, less affluent people who live in urban areas and vote for Democratic candidates are more likely to look at the criminal justice system from a progressive reform or abolition lens, even when accounting for those characteristics, our respondents were still in favor of substantive criminal justice reform at much higher rates than their counterparts nationally. (Also, on the flip side, white people, nationally, generally view progress criminal justice reform propositions less favorably than Black or Latinx people.)

With Such Overwhelming Consensus on These Issues, Any Differences within Our Community are Largely Undetectable

At this point, some of you may wonder whether there were any meaningful differences within our community. Are trans women and non-binary people, for instance, more likely to be in near- unanimous consensus on these issues compared to cis women? What about people who identify as lesbian or gay versus those who identify as bisexual, pansexual or sexually fluid versus those who identify as queer; or people who identify as asexual or on the ace spectrum compared to those who don’t? Race and ability have to factor into all of this as well, right? Certainly, these are questions I had.

I looked at all of this, and more, and the tl;dr is there was no indication of differences based on the identity characteristics of our respondents.2 There was some evidence to suggest some differences by age, with people aged 45 or older being more likely to take a middling position (for example, “neither agree nor disagree” or the issue is a “moderately serious” problem) than younger respondents. However, while the differences were substantively meaningful – for instance 66% of Reader Survey respondents aged 45 or older agreed on the question on reducing incarceration and arrest rates to keep communities safe, compared to 88% of Reader Survey respondents under the age of 29, and the same was true on the Politics Survey –  the differences were not statistically significant due to the relatively small number of people on our surveys in the 45 and older age group. So there’s some suggestive evidence that something might be going on by age, which aligns with what we know to be true nationally as well.

What all of this tells us is that while there are differing perspectives in our community on the criminal justice system, the drivers of those differences don’t seem to be identity factors, by and large.

Beliefs in Action

The Reader Survey asked if respondents supported the Black Lives Matter movement and a near unanimous 98% said they did. This support did manifest in concrete actions related to race and racial equity. Some of the actions taken by Reader Survey respondents are shown in the figure below, with national comparisons from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in June 2020.

This figure shows actions taken by Reader Survey respondents on the topic of race or racial equity in the month prior. Among Reader Survey respondents, 96% had conversations with family or friends about it, 81% contributed money to an organization focused on it, 74% posted or shared content on social networking sites about it, 50% contacted a public official about it and 38% attended a protest or rally for it. Among U.S. adults from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in June 2020, 69% had conversations with family or friends about it, 9% contributed money to an organization focused on it, 37% posted or shared content on social networking sites about it, 7% contacted a public official about it and 6% attended a protest or rally for it.

In a follow up question, nearly 85% of Reader Survey respondents who hadn’t attended a protest or rally said they didn’t because of concerns about spreading or contracting COVID-19; 15% indicated that accessibility was an issue as well (respondents could select more than one answer for this question).

Our community wants to see real, meaningful change when it comes to the criminal justice system. The upcoming U.S. elections are an opportunity towards building that. So much of what happens with the criminal justice system is in the hands of local and state governments. We’ve seen this play out time and again this year, from the bail reform effort in New York to Minneapolis City Council’s attempt to dismantle the police department to Austin’s reduction of the police budget. Many of the policies discussed here are decided by lower level, elected public officials and others are directly on the ballot. Check out this guide from “What’s on the ballot?” for information on district attorney races and state supreme court seats as well as ballot measures on drug policy, policing and more.

Voting — at all levels — is an important first step towards turning these beliefs into policy. Honestly, no one has said this better than these strippers from Atlanta:

1Sexual orientation was asked differently on the two surveys. On the Politics Survey, respondents were asked to select the sexual orientation they most strongly identified with from the following list: lesbian, queer, bisexual, pansexual, sexually fluid, asexual (or similar), gay, straight or other; they were then asked to select any other sexual or romantic orientations they identified with (same options as before plus: homoromantic, panromantic, biromantic, aromantic and heteroromantic). On the Reader Survey, respondents were first asked if they identified as asexual or on the asexual spectrum. Then, all respondents were asked to pick the term that best described their sexual / romantic orientation from the following list: lesbian, queer, bisexual, pansexual, sexually fluid, gay, straight, not sure or other. To align these, the Politics Survey data was recoded as follows: anyone who identified as asexual or aromantic on either of the two questions (or indicated an asexual adjacent orientation such as demisexual or graysexual in the free text) is considered part of the “Ace spectrum” group. For those who indicated they are asexual on the first question, their responses to the second question were analyzed to see if they could be recoded as any of the other sexual orientations. If they selected more than one or if they only indicated asexual/aromantic then they were included in the “other” category.
2 For the stats people: The results were not statistically significant by and large. There were nine different measures. Looking at the overall results, there’s no way there would be variation by demographic on the questions about bail, criminalizing behavior to make communities safe, spending more money on the criminal justice system to make communities safe or police use of deadly force against Black versus white people. This leaves us with five measures where there could be differences. However, because so few people selected “disagree” or “oppose,” most of the tests failed to calculate properly due to low sample. Basically, there just isn’t enough variation in the data to indicate statistically significant differences. On income, one measure was significant, but I didn’t count that since the others were either not significant or were inconclusive (in an attempt to acknowledge multiple hypothesis testing issues). Sexual orientation did turn up significant differences when I excluded the “other” orientations category, but they were qualitatively meaningless and more likely artifacts of the large sample size than true differences (the largest difference was 8 percentage points). The one exception to this (age) is discussed in the text.

31 Extra-Special Ways You Described Your Sexual Orientation on the 2020 Reader Survey

Sexual orientation labels! They matter to some people and don’t matter to some other people! Some people think about them and some people don’t. In the end, we are all made of stars. On our 2020 Reader Survey we asked our readers to select the sexual orientation label that best applied to them, but also offered another open space for them to get more or less specific, in line with their deepest desires. And as usual, everybody had a lot of fun ways to discuss who they are into or who they might potentially develop a crush on if we’re ever allowed to spend time with strangers ever again! Firstly, the big-picture numbers:

[Image 2] Pie chart depicting the 2020 Autostraddle Reader Survey Sexual/Romantic Orientation labels. 41% Lesbian 28.5% Queer 23% Bi or Pansexual 4.5% Gay 3% Other Bar graph answering the question “Do you identify on the Asexual Spectrum?

A lot of the answers from the 605 who pitched in on the open-ended sexual orientation box were people who wanted to: share the details of their uncertainty on this matter, note that they are attracted to everybody besides cis men or that they’re into non-binary people as well as women, specifically acknowledge their ace-spectrum identity as well as their homo-or-bi/panromanic identity, clarify the impact of their gender identity and trans status on their sexual orientation, or otherwise discuss their journeys.

Here is a sampling of some of your most specific/special/interesting write-in answers, assembled here for your enjoyment and opportunity:

1. 90% very gay, 10% dudes are fine

2. Slut (but ugh covid :((((

3. Probably pan, but I like the bi flag colors more

4. queer dyke, but I often round it up to lesbian

5. A wavy slightly confused human who likes other humans, especially ones in beanies and flannels and tattoos and who are soft and gentle and like to eat food and read books and hang with cats

6. Dyke with one (1) exception

7. Ladysexual

8. Dykey soft butch femme lord with dangerous bisexual energy

9. Do I like men or am I just traumatised?? Can I be gay if I don’t have a gender??? These questions don’t keep me up at night but maybe they should

10. Raging Dyke

11. Unconcerned about exact bodily presence but consistently attracted to queer masc of centre personal energy

12. Horny Queer lesbian

13. Queer; gay bitch; A Bi Who Probably Could Never Have a Serious Relationship with a Man

14. Gay. So gay. How can anyone say no to boobs? Boobs are the best.

15. Lesbian lesbian lesbian gay gay gay gay

16. Bykesexual, as in, I’m a bisexual who prefers women

17. Really I’m queer and into all the babes regardless of gender but I like saying gay because I think it’s cute

18. Technically bi cause Chris Hemsworth exists but basically gay

19. Girls are pretty and ugh

20. Grey lesbian, queer, lots of handwaving

21. Super not sure these days, since most orientations are relative to your own gender, and I no longer WANT a gender, so how do I describe the sort of people (female-identified) that I prefer? And that’s just romantically; sexually I’m both demi and unfussed, so I both don’t care and don’t want :X yay?

22. Bi-fluid. I made it up.

23. I’m attracted to AFAB butches, androgynous people, enbies, trans dudes, masc women, and the occasional skinny cis man with soft features

24. Lesbian/Pansexual. Queer just allows me to not have a longer discussion about my identity especially because I once dated dudes. To be fair I haven’t in 7-8 years so it’d be great if people would shut up about it. 😉

25. Confused.

26. “Queer” if speaking/writing english. Only exists as an anglizism in german, so there I most often use the equivalent of lesbian, especially when not in a queer setting

27. I say lesbian, but I’m not 100% sure I’m not attracted to men. I KNOW I like women, both in real life and in “briefly seeing a random attractive person on tv” contexts. I am not 100% sure I won’t ever be attracted to men, although I never have been in real life, but then again, I haven’t been attracted to that many people in real life anyway, and I have had some experiences with movie characters that might be analogous to the sort of “passing attraction” I sometimes feel towards women, but I’m not sure. And I enjoy reading MLM stories, including (sometimes) explicit ones and thinking about them in a fictional context, but not as something I would actually want myself (I think.) So, in short, I ly identify as a lesbian, it’s possible I’m actually bisexual (probably in the “70/30 women to men way”) and at this point I don’t really care, I’m keeping myself open to whatever comes, but still strongly identify with lesbian identifying experiences. We’ll see.

28. Every combination of the words “Queer” “Lesbian” and “Dyke” with a rainbow and double heart and sparkle emoji

29. Anyone but men I think??? So like not just women, for sure, but also a hard no on dudes.

30. Sapphic Slayer

31. The more specific term would be “Baffled”

34 Feelings You Have About Voting For Joe Biden

On our most recent reader survey, we asked quite a few questions regarding the upcoming election. One of those questions/answers was taken from a Monmouth survey of Democratic voters in eight states regarding voter enthusiasm around Joe Biden. Monmouth found 33% of their sample enthusiastic about Joe Biden as the nominee, compared to 1.33% of the Democratic voters on our survey.

Which best describes your feelings about Joe Biden as the likely Democratic nominee?

Sample: All U.S.-based Autostraddle survey-takers who consider themselves Democrats

Enthusiastic 1.3%
Satisfied 16.4%
Dissatisfied 44.2%
Upset 20.32%
Neutral 16.12%
Not sure 1.67%

Of Monmouth’s panel of Democrats in Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Virginia; 93% said they intend to vote for Biden. On ours, 96.6% of Democrats said they intend to, and 92% of our entire group does (our entire group is 78% Democrat, .11% Independent, 10.6% Other, and less than one percent Republican.) The remaining 8% are split pretty evenly between Unsure, Voting for a Third Party Candidate and Not Voting, with a whopping .30%, or six people, of the 1,969 U.S. residents who took the survey, pledging their support to Trump.

But my friends, your comments on the “how do you feel about voting for Joe Biden” question were real shimmers of dark sunshine on a bright night. Therefore I present to you, wrestled out of context and pasted here for your entertainment, a plethora of feelings you expressed regarding your intention to vote for Joe Biden this November:

1. Fuck that dude, but also I will vote for him

2. Sigh.

3. Not a good choice, but I’d vote for a potted plant before Trump

4. I can’t believe we could have had Warren or Sanders and we went with Biden???

5. I mean I’m gonna vote for him but only because his competition is literally modern Hitler.

6. I literally hate how he managed to fail up

7. Of course I’ll vote for him over Cheetos

8. Ugh. Of all the options, this is where we ended up—?

9. We need sweeping change, not a damp water cracker.

10. I would vote for a dead dog if it was running against Trump.

11. I would vote for my dog if it was running against Trump

12. Harm reduction it is, i guess.

13. Dreaming of a day when we can get another candidate who, at the bare minimum, has zero sexual assault allegations.

14. He’s not Warren but our choices are milk that’s just started to turn sour or milk that has festered in the depths of a cave for millenia, where the combination of minerals and bat droppings have combined to form a satanic force to destroy the world.

15. I’ll vote for him but I’m gonna whine about it. And I hope he picks a good running mate so I can be happy voting for her.

16. Look, I’ve vote for a stale ham sandwich if it was running against Trump but that by no means should be taken as an endorsement of Biden

17. My Slytherin ass will still vote for him because SCOTUS, but god why can we not have a candidate who isn’t an old white man with rape allegations?

18. I’m camp Any-Idiot-But-Tr*mp 00

19. Not my first choice, but I’ll still walk on broken glass to make sure he’s elected

20. Jesus fuck I hate that Biden is the nominee and that I have to vote for him to get fuckface out of office. Middle fingers to the entire Dem establishment that made it happen.

21. He has a pulse

22. I don’t like him, but I’ll vote for him… An online comedian (I forget his name) said,”To me, voting Democrat is like condoms. Like, I’m not excited about it, but I guess it’s better than the alternative?” and I really felt that.

23. I’m dead inside at this point tbh

24. This election is cool because i get to pick between two different conservative rapists

25. Yet, I will still vote for him before a trump kills us all

26. I was way more upset/super pissed before but I’ve been worn down to dissatisfied

27. I would trust a Canadian goose over Biden! He’s the candidate I’m least enthusiastic about and I actively dislike him, but I’m fairly certain he won’t try to kill me, my friends, or my family, so vote blue no matter who.

28. I think he’ll work with party members who are committed to a functional and conventional White House, but I do not believe he will make any meaningful effort to advance progressive policies. Also I think he’s a bigot, an asshole, and probably a sexual offender. I think I have to vote for him anyway, as the best-case scenario, and I resent that enormously.

29. Any sentient adult

30. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww. But I’m still gonna vote for him.

31. I cannot even begin to describe how upset it makes me that the most diverse democratic race gave us Joe Biden. The only reason I am going to vote for him is because Angela Davis said we have to

32. Honestly I’m upset but resigned and will vote for him because the world is on fire and my alternate act would be high treason which is fine I just don’t have the skills I need to see it through so I guess it’s Biden and maybe he gets replaced real fast by his VP

33. But I’m still going to vote for him, of course, because treading water is better than drowning.

34. We could have had literally anyone!!! But I guess not!!!!

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Take Autostraddle’s 2020 Reader Survey: We Want to Know All About YOU!

We know it’s been a minute since we’ve had a general reader survey — and by a minute, we mean… a few years. There was a mini reader survey back in 2017, and while we’ve asked about sex, travel, politics and other specific topics since then, it’s been a minute since we’ve had a very big survey.

So, whether you pop in here every other month for even just one article or whether you read and comment regularly — or somewhere in between — we hope you’ll take part in this survey that’s all about you.

By telling us about what you like, your identity, your views and your life, we’re able to make a space that better serves you and others who spend time in this queer space on the internet called Autostraddle dot com. Besides understanding you better, the data we collect will also help us with creating content, planning for fundraising and A+ membership drives.

We also want you to know that the survey is completely anonymous and we’re not tracking your IP address. Also good news: when you finish the survey, you’ll get a code for 20% off the Autostraddle store, good through July 15, 2020.

So let’s take the 2020 Autostraddle Reader Survey now!

Tell Us Your Best Pride Stories So We Can Celebrate Together Virtually!

Well pals, the year 2020 does not look the way any of us anticipated. June is just a few days away, but due to the social distancing measures put in place as a way to manage the coronavirus and lessen potential harm to both the most vulnerable among us and the collective, in-person Pride events are all canceled. Does this mean the month of Pride is canceled? It does not. It just means we have to be creative about how we come together and share community.

It’s an Autostraddle tradition to host IRL Pride Straddler Meet-Ups, and for the past decade our staff and our dedicated readers and community members have all hosted hundreds of picnics, brunches, protest groups, dance parties, fundraisers, and more. These events have taken place all over the world, and our personal connections to one another help Autostraddle feel like a home, not just a website. This year we won’t be meeting in person, of course, but that doesn’t mean we’re giving up on Pride. We’ve got a really exciting robust schedule of Pride content for y’all planned for the month of June, and we hope it makes you feel invigorated, radicalized, moved, caring, cared for, and loved. We also wanted to bring some of the messy, fun, and sexy elements of Pride to our virtual celebrations, because while our history is political, Pride weekend can be just as much about the sloppy dance floor makeouts and the intimate moments with friends as it can be about the marches.

In the hopes of capturing the silly, the fun, the slutty, and the heartwarming moments of Pride, we have put together this survey about your very own Pride memories. We will compile everyone’s answers and throughout the month of June we’ll run a different community listicle each week in an attempt to make you feel like you’re gossiping with friends at Dolores Park in San Francisco, or jumping in the fountain in Washington Square Park in downtown Manhattan, or hanging out in a friend’s backyard for a BBQ instead of going to the Parade on Sunday, or or or or. What does Pride weekend mean to you? Where do you go? Who are you with? What does it smell like? Did your diva cup ever fall out of your body while waiting in line at a porta potty right after seeing your ex-girlfriend? (Okay, okay, that one is just me.)

We want to hear all about what Pride has looked like for you over the years. The deadline for this survey is Monday, June 1 so that we have time to compile all your answers and share the posts throughout the month of June, so if you want to contribute make sure to do so this week or weekend! You do not need to answer every question to participate – if you just want to share a political awakening memory, or a hot selfie, that’s fine! The form will submit even if you only answer one question. Most of these articles will be available for everyone to read, but a few will only be available to A+ members. It’s a great time to join A+ if you aren’t a member, so you can submit to our thirst trap gallery, share and read the hottest Pride takes, and help ensure the survival of independent queer media all at the same time! We love you, and we can’t wait to celebrate with you all month long.

Tell Us All About Your Weird Pandemic Sex Dreams!

As we enter month 567 of the pandemic, many of us are noticing… some weird stuff. Well, maybe not weird; maybe a set of totally normal reactions to a very abnormal situation — whether you’re having surprising food cravings, developing new coping hobbies you could never have imagined you’d care about, or are just spending hours a day recreating the gardens of Versailles in Animal Crossing, our brains are all over the place. One thing it’s impacting is our dreams — we’re having a whole new range of anxiety dreams, or dreaming of wild animals from inside quasi-confinement. I’m pretty sure we’re also having some weird sex dreams! Here at autostraddle dot com, we’d love to hear about them in a respectful manner, for journalism. Here’s how this project will work:

You can use the form below to tell us about your pandemic sex dream(s) in as much or as little detail as you wish — it can be two paragraphs or it can be “margaret thatcher :(“. It will be completely anonymous; this form doesn’t record any info about you at all. You can use it as many times as you want, entering multiple dreams at a time or coming back a few days later when you have a new dream. Much as with lesbian sex itself, we will let you decide what qualifies as a sex dream. Dreams must be your own; you cannot submit someone else’s that was related to you, even if it’s a really good one. We’ll collect responses for a week — so, until Monday May 18th — although we might leave the form open if you wanna like, use it as a diary. Selected responses will be published on Autostraddle as an A+ post; we reserve the right to not necessarily publish all of them. It’s a great time to join if you aren’t a member, so you can be nosy and help ensure the survival of independent queer media at the same time!

Take Autostraddle’s Politics Survey: We Want Your Queer Opinions

Autostraddle is conducting a US politics survey, and we want to hear from you!
What are the political issues in the US you are most concerned about? What are your priorities for securing LGBTQ+ rights? And if it were up to you, dear reader – of any citizenship, living in any country – who would you vote for in the US presidential primary elections?

This information will allow us to understand our community better, which also means that the world will understand our community better. As you may know, Out recently published results from a poll of LGBTQ+ voters. We’re excited to expand on that and learn more about the issues facing LGBTQ+ women, nonbinary and other trans people specifically, because the LGBTQ+ community isn’t exactly a political monolith.

The survey focuses on the US in order to keep it manageable. Yes, I know the world is a much bigger place, and some day I dream of learning about this community’s perspective on global issues. But that day is not today. Even if you have not been tuning into to the variety show that is the current US political scene, this survey is STILL FOR YOU! Tell us about the issues you care about! Tell us about your political engagement! Tell us about the politics of the place you live and the place you came from!

A lot of questions on the survey come from polls conducted nationally in the US. We indicate the poll at the beginning of the question when applicable. We’re doing this so we can provide you with meaningful information about how our community compares to the US nationally. For instance, while it might be cool to know that 40% of LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people own a cat that number really takes a whole other meaning when we find out that only 23% of people surveyed in 22 countries do. So, same idea here.

One of the drawbacks of relying on national polls is they tend to use language that leaves something to be desired. (One poll I found, not used in our survey, asked respondents “How important are gay rights to you?” No comment on that.) Regardless of how the questions are asked, I’m committed to writing about these results using language that is inclusive. But, we do still need to ask the questions in the same way, unfortunately, in order to make clean comparisons.

So take the survey! Our testers said it took anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes to complete!

CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY!

Take Autostraddle’s Big Queer Money Survey So We Can All Prosper

Wow, money is everybody’s absolute favorite thing to talk about and think about, especially in online surveys. Right? Well, just kidding of course it isn’t but we’re hoping you like us more than you dislike talking about money, and you’d be so kind as to participate in this very important survey about two things: 1. Money (how you earn it and spend it), 2. Autostraddle (how you feel about it and do/don’t spend money on it).

There are questions about charitable giving, loans, living situations, discretionary spending and so much more!

Basically, we are trying to sort out our financial future (to sort out if we have a future at all) and understanding more about how our audience (a.k.a, “customers”) do money is very useful information for us. We do a lot of planning around what we imagine your financial realities to be, but very rarely ask you directly about it aside from an annual income question every few years or so on a random reader survey. Some of what we’re asking you for though are just pieces of information that we think will be valuable and compelling for potential posts about how queer women and trans people do money.

As you can see, I’m launching this survey at 9pm PST on a Monday night, which I expect to be a relatively slow time period on the internet. So if you spot any errors, please let me know in the comments so I can fix them before we social media this thing tomorrow at full force! However, when I fix a mistake, it sends everybody in progress on the survey back to the beginning of the survey, so I’m only gonna fix things that are really crucial rather than just suggestions, which I instead will file away on my extensive list of life regrets.

From our test runs, it should take you between 10 and 25 minutes to take this survey.

Take The Survey Now!

Take Autostraddle’s Very Exciting LGBTQ+ Travel Survey!

Next month I’m giving a presentation at a Lesbian & Gay Travel Marketing conference and as I sat down to consider the pressing reality of this commitment and the looming deadline for me to turn in my draft, I thought, you know what would really help me with this? If I knew more about how y’all travel!

And then, of course, the more I thought about it, the more I decided this would be great information to have about you in general, especially as we perhaps eventually consider expanding the A-Camp wing of our business in the future. It’ll be great material for lists and articles, and also for helping us understand what kind of coverage you want in the world and what kind of human beings you are.

There’s questions about traveling for weddings, about your travel experiences as an LGBTQ+ person and/or a POC and/or a disabled person, about what you do when you travel, where you like to stay — so many things I’d like to know about you! (I’m not done analyzing the Lesbian Stereotypes Survey, don’t worry)

Here’s the survey: you should take it!

Also if you had fun taking this one, you should ALSO take The Community Marketing Survey on this exact topic! There are two questions I snagged from their survey and adapted for this one, but the rest of it is pretty different, and they’ll give us the results of all the Autostraddlers who took the survey when it wraps up in December, so.

33 Deeply Enchanting Feelings You Have About Witchcraft

Our Lesbian Stereotypes Survey asked y’all about your affiliations to witchery, as there has been an association between lesbians and witchcraft for many moons. This includes, most legendarily, Pat Robertson’s famous assertion that “the feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Although we don’t know the international rates of witchdom, it does seem like a whole lot of you are indeed witches:

In addition to answering the question, 562 used the “comments” section to share various emotions about the question itself and your own experiences with witchery. We’ll talk a little more about the witchcraft you talked about in a serious way in an upcoming post.

Below is a listling of your commentary on the witchcraft question, ripped mercilessly out of context and pasted here for your spiritual enjoyment.

sparkles divider

1. I just burned my ex’s left-behind Tarot cards while chanting “I will not set myself on fire to keep someone else warm”

2. i just made some pasta and it was witchcraft

3. Geez as a lesbian drummer in a doom metal band I get asked this question all the bloody time…

4. Willow from Buffy changed my liiiife

5. Very rarely I’m like “hmm… but what if I did do witchcraft”
but then…
I don’t

6. I WAS A TEENAGE GOTH. IT’S BASICALLY A REQUIREMENT

7. Well, there was a Buffy/Charmed phase

8. I have seen The Craft several times

9. I had a phase when I was 17… which coincides with when The Craft came out

10. I was Wiccan for a year of high school, like any lesbian

11. Show me a person who hasn’t used the evil eye at least once and I will show you a person who clearly has never lived or loved

12. …I don’t practice witchcraft unless you count the time when I read tarot cards to a Russian friend as a pastime, until I realized she took what I dead seriously and called me a “white witch”

13. My abuela decided I am a pussy and didn’t pass the magic to me

14. I light candles and learn herbs and practice good intentions and once officiated a cat baptism so…. sure.

15. I believe that witchcraft is real but I think it’s not a good idea for my white ass to involve forces I don’t understand or have family connection to into my life like that’s literally the plot of every horror movie

16. Gosh, this is why people think lesbians are awful.

17. SECOND WORST LESBIAN STEREOTYPE

18. Witches are hot AF. Don’t want to be one, do want to date one.

19. I mean… I lived right near Salem Massachusetts for 3 years. These things happen!

20. One day I will end up a witch on the corner with thirteen black cats cursing the prime minister

21. I’m totally cool with burning effigies of conservative politicians

22. I don’t do witchcraft, with the exception of the night before the 2016 election. I looked up a practical magic-esque “how to make a bad thing not happen” spell. Clearly that didn’t work.

23. I have lit a candle in the hopes of getting a research assistant job in the past (it didn’t work)

24. I’m not a witch, but I decorate like one.

25. I burn sage and get my tarot read every once in a while because I live in Los Angeles okay????

26. Lord knows I was casting spells and waiting for my Hogwarts letter when I was a kid.

27. I mean, we all wish we were Hermione, but no.

28. Hogwarts forgot to send me my letter

29. A girl (who in hindsight I definitely had a crush on) did convince me I was a witch in third grade

30. I genuinely don’t understand how someone can practice something that isn’t real, but then I guess I think that describes all religions so… you do you, witches.

31. I wrote an essay about lesbian witches one time.

32. DONT BUY WITCH KITS FROM SEPHORA OKAY?? Just… don’t.

33. I’ve just bought a book about it soooo… tbd

Queer Women Very Much Not Fans of Christianity

Hello, it’s me, a misandrist lesbian born to a Quaker father and a Jewish mother, here to talk to you about the shocking religion-related results of our Lesbian Stereotypes Survey.

Namely, YOUR LACK OF RELIGION. First, a confession (get it? that’s a religion joke!): I wish I’d asked more questions than I did on this survey! I was trying to keep it as short as possible ’cause I was hoping to get at least 5k responses. We ended up getting so many (over 12k) that now I realize I could’ve asked a lot more questions about your religious beliefs and practices than I did.

This survey was conducted by soliciting participants via Autostraddle.com, so it was self-selecting and not a random sample. These are the demographics of the group that turned up:

How Religious Are We?

In order to answer this question, I compared our data to data from the exhaustive hotbed of information assembled by The Pew Forum’s Religious Landscape Study, most recently conducted in 2014. As you can see, we are not quite as Christian as the rest of this fine country:

Here are the numbers for the other Commonwealth countries with significant showings on the Survey, assembled using statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the British Social Attitudes Survey and the National Canadian Household Survey:

As you can see, we are falling behind when it comes to some organized religion all over the world! We are, however, maintaining a mysterious abundance of Jews. (I’m Jewish so I’m allowed to say things like “mysterious abundance of Jews.”)

The Limit For This Sample Does Exist

We’ve written quite a bit about religion on Autostraddle, although the bulk of it, especially during the first five years of our existence, have been about conservative Christian groups trying to ruin our lives. But we’ve told personal stories, too. We did a roundtable that includes people raised in Jewish, Mormon, Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, Southern Baptist and Methodist households. We’ve done fun articles about queering Jewish holidays,  how to support your Muslim friends during Ramadan, finding a “Muslim RuPaul” and how to love your neighbor and yourself by reading the Bible for Pride. Al and Audrey, who are both practicing Christians, have written heartwarming and complicated pieces on their relationships to the church. Yvonne and Mey have written about spaces within Catholic traditions they’ve carved out for themselves. But we’ve also done a lot about leaving or struggling with religion — escaping Christofascism, divorcing Jesus to love sex, Twitter providing a “black church” feeling not found in actual black church, feeling like a “bad Muslim” for being attracted to women, feeling God’s love as unrequited, a Mormon upbringing engendering internalized racism — it goes on and on and on. Queer people — and women and trans people! — have distinctly complicated and difficult relationships to organized religion generally, and, at least in the U.S., Christianity specifically.

In most cases, the sheer volume of responses garnered makes it easy to draw some conclusions from our survey about LGBTQ+ women and non-binary people on the whole, but when it comes to religion, that might not be true. It’s possible that involvement in a highly conservative or orthodox religious group necessarily sidesteps the possibility a person might be on this website to begin with, let alone be divulging their cat feelings to Surveymonkey. Pew collected data on religious identification of 1,197 LGBTQ+ people in 2013 — and their results turned up similar, but not identical trends. 48% of their group said they had no religious affiliation, compared to 59% of ours.

FYI, when I mention “the Pew group” in this post, I’m talking about their entire Religious Landscape Survey unless I specify the “Pew LGBT Survey.”

Another distinct and relevant thing about our group that is not intrinsic to queer people is that 84.6% of our 25+ survey-takers have at least a Bachelor’s Degree, compared to 31% of Americans on the whole and 34% of LGBT people in general. Even more unusual is that 37% of our survey-takers have a master’s or professional degree, compared to 11.3% of all Americans. This matters because of what Pew determined about Christianity, Atheists, Agnostics and educational attainment: “while college graduates are more likely than others to describe themselves as atheists or agnostics and less likely to identify with Christianity… they are not, on the whole, much less likely than others to identify with any religion.”

Our group skews young, and Pew has determined that “religious congregations have been graying for decades, and young adults are now much less religious than their elders,” so I broke out the data by age to see if that lessened the disparities. Although reducing the generational spread made Pew’s numbers go down, ours actually go slightly up.

56% of millennials on the Pew Survey are some sort of Christian, compared to 14% of 18-to-34-year-olds on our survey. 77% of Baby Boomers on the Pew Survey are Christains, compared to… 13.7% of our survey-takers over 45. This could just be specific to Autostraddle readers, or it could reflect Christianity being less hospitable to LGBT people when the Baby Boomers were growing up than it is now.

Religions that became more popular in older groups were those that, in the United States, one is more likely to choose to join rather than to be raised in. 5.7% of 45+ survey-takers are Buddhist, compared to 1.6% of the entire group. (73% of American Buddhists are converts.) On Pew’s survey, Buddhism gets less popular with age and never surpasses 1%. Furthermore, 23% of survey-takers over 45 are Unitarian Universalist or another liberal faith or of a “New Age” religion or practice, compared to 9% of the entire group.

They Gotta Have (Other) Faiths

Although we’re dramatically less likely to be Christian than Americans on the whole, we’re way more likely to be Jewish or to ascribe to a variety of religions that are extremely unpopular for the majority of Americans! This was true with Pew’s analysis of LGBT populations as well.

The options on Pew’s survey, which I replicated on our survey, were:

  • Christian (Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Historically Black Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox Christian, Jehovah’s Witness, Other Christian)
  • Non-Christian Faiths (Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Other World Religions)
  • Other Faiths (Unitarians and other liberal faiths, New Age, Native American Religions)
  • Unaffiliated (Atheist, Agnostic)
  • Nothing in Particular
  • Don’t Know

The only change on our survey is that I added “Wiccan” to our list of options because of how many Wiccans yelled at me last time we did a religion survey. There was also an “Other” box for write-in answers, which I then categorized manually into existing categories.

So let’s look at how Pew categorized some of the less popular faiths on their survey. Before we do, I just wanna say that I feel like some of what they’ve called a “liberal faith” might more accurately be “new age,” but this is the edict that Pew has passed down to us in a dense cloud. I’m just the messenger, otherwise known as “the prophet.” In this metaphor, Pew is god. Here’s what Pew has deemed right and just upon us:

New Age Religions: includes Pagan or Wiccan practices. Paganism encompasses spiritualities like Druidism, Hellenism and Discordianism.

Unitarian Universalist or other liberal faiths: includes “Spiritual but not religious,” Humanist, Deist, “Eclectic, a bit of everything, or I have my own beliefs.”

Native American / Indigenous Religions

1.5% of Pew’s sample ascribed to any of the above faiths or practices — but 9% of our entire sample did. 

Our Other Religions / Spiritualities

Y’all brought a true spiritual buffet to the table in the “other” write-in section of the survey. Within it, I found an abundance of Jewish Atheists or those identifying as culturally, but not religiously, Jewish. We had ourselves some Ex-Muslims, Ex-Mormons and Recovering Catholics, as well as people using the “other’ section to say things like “Why wasn’t atheist an option?” even though it was, or writing in “Quaker” which technically, according to Pew at least, falls under Mainline Protestant (Although I did separate out those who specified “Quaker but not Christian”), as does Anglican and Episcopalian, which were also popular write-ins.

Very many people noted that they were “witches, but not Wiccan.” There were quite a few practitioners of indigenous religions, a lot of people who find spirituality in mother earth, and many who wanted to “fuck Religion.”

Before I get into the religious laundry list, note that I’m not a religious scholar by any means, and therefore will probably get things wrong! Please correct me in a manner that could be described as kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving, as surely G-d has forgiven you for your trespasses.

Paganism — which in the modern era generally recognizes a plurality of divine beings, has a concept of the divinity of nature, and recognizes the female divine principle / sacred feminine — was a very popular write-in. Some mentioned specific sub-sects like Goddess Spirituality, Adonism, Hellenic Polytheism, Neo-Druidism, Anderson Feri and ADF Druid. (Wiccan and Witches also fall under the Pagan Umbrella.)

Taoism, “a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao,” was a very popular write-in. A few more religions with Indian origins, besides Hindu (which was a multiple choice option), showed up too: Sikhism (originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent), Hare Krishna (founded in New York, core beliefs based on Hindu scriptures, which originate in the Indian subcontinent) and Jainism (nontheistic religion founded in India in the 6th century BC).

Other Middle Eastern spiritualities included Bahá’í Faith (established in Iran, teaching the essential worth of all religions and the unity and equality of all people) and Sufism (Islamic mysticism).

Specific Indigenous religions mentioned included Shinto (a traditional religion of Japan), Ojibwe spirituality, Shamanism, African-based spirituality, Ancestral Animism, Mapuche (indigenous mythology and religion of the Mapuche people of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina), Umbanda (a syncretic Afro-Brazilian religion) and the Native American Church.

Many indicated an allegiance towards “Humanism,” described by the all-knowing Wikipedia as “a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition.” Others preferred Shaivism — the religious belief that objects, places and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism also attributes a soul to plants, inanimate objects and natural phenomena, and can be considered an indigenous spirituality.

All you funny guys out there though with your parody religions, I’ll have you know that I did indeed google Pastafarianism, Discordianism, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the very impressive Jeddism movement.

Last but not least, Satanism! A group of idealogical and philosophical beliefs based on Satan! Then there’s The Church of Satan, founded in San Francisco in 1966, which is not about the Christian or Islamic notion of Satan but rather a group of “skeptical atheists” devoted to the Hebrew root of the word “Satan,” which is “adversary.” LeVeyan Satanism is the Church of Satan’s orientation, and it is critical of Abrahamic sexual mores, has consent written into its Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth, and is explicitly accepting of LGBT people, BDSM, polyamory and asexuality.

Also,m two people mentioned Santa Muerte, who turns out to be a female deity or folk saint in Mexican and Mexican-American folk Catholicism who is seen as a protector of LGBT people in Mexico! She sounds great.

Religious Retention

We didn’t ask what religion you were raised in, but only about 9% of Americans were raised in an entirely non-religious household. Of Americans raised in a religious tradition, 34% eventually adopt a different religious identity than the one they were raised in, and 18% reject religion altogether.

So the story we’re telling right now with our survey data, then, is mostly a story of adults rejecting the religion they were born into. Christianity, according to Pew, has the hardest time retaining its adherents, and our data certainly seems in line with that determination.

Pew notes that Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses due to religious switching, which is probably not unrelated to the current sex abuse crisis. The “Other” section of our survey had an entire 125 people identifying as “lapsed Catholics” or “recovering Catholics.” Some went into more detail like, “Catholic, but in that why the hell am I still Catholic??? kind of way” or “I believe in God and have cultural ties to Catholicism but like, lol fuck the church as an organization” or “I was Catholic but I’m so mad at Catholicism right now I can’t put it down.” Some described spending holidays with families or feeling an eternal Catholic influence on their spirituality regardless of current affiliation.

Pew found that Muslims, Hindus and Jews have the best “retention rates.” We didn’t get a lot of Muslims or Hindus on our survey, and neither did Pew’s 2013 LGBT survey. But there sure were a lot of Jews! The majority of Jews who chose “other” instead of checking off “Jewish” didn’t express the same animosity towards or disappointment with the religion that we saw amongst Catholics. Usually they were just noting that they were atheists, or that they were also Pagans or just “culturally Jewish.”  Although segments of and people within Orthodox Judaism can be sexist and homophobic; Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have a much more liberal and accepting reputation, which might be part of why it’s the most popular Judeo-Christian religion in our group. No single Christian denomination — not even the entirety of Mainline Protestants — even approached the numbers of Jews we have here.

Which brings me to this: there is a direct correlation — like, PRECISE — between how tolerant a religion is of gay people and how likely we are to be a part of it. To make the populations as comparable as possible, I narrowed the comparison with Pew’s data to Millennials and Generation X-ers, and… ta-da!

Another fascinating tidbit for you: the LGBT Pew Survey asked survey-takers for their perception of various religion’s friendliness towards LGBT people. In order of perception of friendliness, from least friendly to most, the results were:

  1. Muslim Religion (84% of LGBT people think this religion is unfriendly to LGBT people)
  2. Mormon Church (83%)
  3. Catholic Church (79%)
  4. Evangelical Churches (73%)
  5. The Jewish Religion (47%)
  6. Non-Evangelical Protestant Churches (44%)

But if you look at Pew’s Religious Landscape Study survey and the percentage of faith adherents who think homosexuality should be discouraged, that list would go like this:

  1. Mormon Church (57% think homosexuality should be discouraged)
  2. Evangelical Protestant (55%)
  3. Muslim Religion (47%)
  4. Non-Evangelical Protestant Churches (26%)
  5. Catholic Church (23%)
  6. Jewish Religion (16%)

There’s some huge disparities here but let me say first that the Pew Religious Landscape survey was a survey of individuals sharing their personal feelings on the acceptance of homosexuality, which isn’t necessarily the same as the position of the church or faith they belong to.

Still, it’s truly bananas that Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity, which are quite explicitly homophobic, would not be clocked as the least friendly faiths, or that Judaism would be perceived as more homophobic than mainline Protestant faiths. I’m also curious how much Islamophobia played in to these rankings. That being said, mainline Protestant does include a lot of faiths that are LGBT-friendly, and it’s quite possible those who ranked it as not unfriendly are members of those groups — Episcopalian, for example, as well as Quaker / Religious Society of Friends, Lutheran and The Metropolitan Community Church. You’re not the only queer Christian.

Here’s What We Do Believe In, Though

Basically everything Pat Robertson said about us was true, and I’m very proud of everybody here. Next week, we’re gonna talk about other spiritual and supernatural things. Here’s a fun fact: when asked, “Do you believe in astrology  — that the position of the stars/planets can affect people’s lives?”, 28% of y’all said yes.

Stereotype: LGBTQ+ Women & Non-Binary People Not Being Into Christianity
Verdict: thumbs up True

It’s True: Queer Women Own The Most Cats

Welcome to our very first post containing information drawn from the 2018 Autostraddle Lesbian Stereotypes Survey! Over 12,000 people completed the survey, and these are the demographics of the respondents:

We’re kicking off our analysis with a topic near and dear to the hearts of far too many of us: pet ownership. Specifically, is it true that “lesbians love cats”? My friends — it’s… mostly true. Despite 26% of Europeans and 12% of Americans being allergic to cats, including me, queer women and non-binary people continue obtaining, raising, and loving cats with absolute abandon, at relatively significant rates. Conversely, despite the general excellence exhibited by dogs throughout human history and the superiority embodied by my dog Carol specifically, queer women and non-binary people are not more likely to own dogs than your average everyday heterosexual Jo. (jk there are no heterosexual Jos).

Overall Pet Ownership

Before we get too deep into this important news, let us first declare that we are also a little bit more likely to own pets in general. 68.6% of U.S. residents on our survey said they own at least one pet, compared to 62% of all Americans (according to a 2015 Harris Poll that surveyed 2,205 U.S. adults), but it’s worth noting that our survey group skews young, which is not an inherent characteristic of a queer group, and young people are apparently more likely to own pets.

65% of millennials own pets, according to that same Harris Poll, whereas 66% of our 18-to-34 group does. They found 71% of Gen X-ers owning pets, compared to 76% of our 35-to-44-year-olds. So age did indeed give us an edge, but we’re still doing a lot of the heavy lifting ourselves. However, most of our lift takes place in the realm of… cats.

Your Animal Kingdom

There are only two types of pets we are more likely to own than straight people: cats and reptiles/amphibians.

Some other interesting comparisons:

  • We’re Switching It Up On Crossover Ownership: On our survey, 30% of U.S. cat owners have dogs, and 37% of dog owners also have cats. On the Harris poll, 49% of cat owners have dogs and 34% of dog owners also have a cat.
  • More Kids = More Pets: On the Harris poll, 73% of Americans with kids in their household had at least one pet, compared to 57% of those without. On ours, 79% of kid-households had at least one pet — and so do 67.6% of those without. So, childless queer folks are significantly more likely than childless straights to have pets. 
  • In fact, a full 71% of survey-takers who don’t want to ever have kids have pets, because who needs babies when you have fur babies.
  • People in relationships are more likely to have pets than those who aren’t — 48% have cats and 37% have dogs, compared to 37% of single people with cats and 31% with dogs. Once you get married, you commit to pets, too: 53% with cats, and 48% with dogs.
  • Residents of rural areas were most likely to have pets (84%), followed by suburbanites (75%) and city-dwellers (64%).
  • Only 26% of our city-dwellers have dogs, and 38% have cats; compared to 51% of those in rural areas with dogs and 57% with cats.
  • The only cities where dog-owners outnumbered cat owners were all in warm climates: Los Angeles, Dallas/Ft.Worth, Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami, San Diego and Austin.

Yes, Cats?

This survey’s cat-ownership numbers were a little higher than what we’ve seen in prior surveys. Our 2016 Autostraddle Reader Survey showed 37% of all respondents and 40% of all U.S. residents admitting to cat ownership, but that number has crept forward over the last two years. This may be because a queer woman in possession of a cat is exactly the type of person who would want to take a survey about lesbian stereotypes, or perhaps everybody went out and bought a cat in 2017 because they needed something to hold onto while democracy dies.

Still, even those old numbers are at least slightly higher than overall numbers of cat ownership, regardless of which survey you compare ours to — and there are plenty to choose from!

Now, let’s venture into new lands.

Cats of the Commonwealth

We had enough survey-takers in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada to look at their numbers, too. And the preference for cats over dogs gets even more dramatic outside of the U.S., as does our apparent indifference towards fish and birds:

Apparently in these three countries, the preference for dogs over cats amongst all humans is not quite as dramatic as it is in the U.S..

Autostraddle’s very high cats vs. dogs numbers in Canada specifically might be due to 76% of our Canadian survey-takers living in urban areas (compared to 62-63% of others), where it can be easier to own a cat than a dog. Four times as many Montreal residents, for example, own cats rather than dogs. On a related note, Montreal is a lovely city and also the coldest place I have ever been, and also there are apparently just a lot of cats in Canada.

But… why are queer women and non-binary people at least slightly more likely to own cats than the population-at-large? The obvious answer is: because women are more likely to own cats than men, and our group is mostly women. I mean, that’s what pop culture has told me. Hell, Shutterstock’s got 426 pictures of women with cats, but only 96 for men.

Well, my friends: it’s all a lie.

The Patriarchy Also Loves Cats

If you search “how many men own cats” you’ll get a lot of articles like “8 Reasons You Should Consider Dating A Guy Who Owns A Cat” and “Is it Usual for Straight Men to Own Cats?,” but despite this apparent cultural unease, men are living with cats like there’s no tomorrow.

In 2001, a Gallup poll declared “the stereotype of older women loving cats — and lots of them — is not supported by the Gallup results.” They found older men just as likely as older women to own cats, and “little difference” between these two genders for cat or dog ownership across age groups.

The 2016 gfK survey found 40% of men and 38% of women in the U.S. owning cats. Last year, multiple news outlets in the U.K. reported that more than two-thirds of cat owners are men. Mintel Research, in the U.S., also found that men were more likely than women to have a cat, with a whopping 46% of millennial men owning cats. In 2008, The New York Times wrote a trend piece about busy working men who found cats to be the perfect furry companion for their lifestyles, declaring the rise of “a growing number of single — and yes, heterosexual — men who seem to be coming out of the cat closet and unabashedly embracing their feline side.” In 2016, an Australian newspaper hailed “the rise of the cat man.” I missed all of these articles because I don’t care about men, but there’s so many more where those came from.

So, it’s not our gender that makes our group more likely to own cats than the population-at-large. I can only conclude that it is a worldwide conspiracy against me, but I am open to theories from cat-lovers in the comments.

Some Fun Stats Regarding Different Types of Pet Owners

This survey got a ton of responses and is teeming with bizarre information, which makes it a virtual playground for irrelevant data collection. I set SurveyMonkey to compare all different types of pet owners, and then went on a terrific jaunt through the rest of the survey to see what their algorithm declared statistically significant.

Before I give you this information, let me be clear: when I say “cat owners are more likely than dog owners to be vegan.” I don’t mean that most cat owners are vegan! I just mean that the number of cat owners identifying as vegans was declared significantly higher than the number of dog owners identifying as vegans.

So, here we go:

Cat owners are more likely than dog owners to be vegan (6%), identify as hard femme (7.5%), be trans (which includes non-binary people) (28%), be queer-identified (29.5%), have an undercut (20%), not remove any body hair (11%), have long nails (8.6%), use menstrual cups (29%), have complete confidence in their sewing abilities (48%), read their horoscopes regularly (23.4%), be an unaffiliated atheist (25%), do at least some witchcraft (23%), have gone to a women’s college (7%) and to prefer non-monogamy (22.4%). Cat owners are more likely than dog owners to live in the city.

Dog owners are more likely than cat owners to be tomboys (21%), be married (24%), have children (12%), identify as lesbians (45%), prefer monogamy (68%), shave their legs (68%), have complete confidence in their stick-shift driving abilities (27%), be Catholic (3.6%), be a Pisces (9%), be sports fans (35%), play sports (the only sport where cat-owners outnumber dog-owners is roller derby), have been hunting or fishing within the past year (12%) and been camping overnight within the past year (42%). Dog owners are more likely than cat owners to live in the country.

Other interesting situations include that small mammal owners are the most likely to be vegan or vegetarian and reptile/amphibian owners are the most likely to have ever seen a ghost. Like… by far. 39% of reptile/amphibian owners have seen or been in the presence of a ghost — all other pet owners are at around 28%-30%, and non-pet-owners are at 18.5%. I can therefore safely conclude, with the authority vested in me by the fact that it’s too late at night for another editor to edit this post before it’s published in the morning, that ghosts are attracted to reptiles and amphibians as well as animals in general. If you’d like to see a ghost, you should probably buy a lizard.

Unsurprisingly, those who own horses and other farm animals are the handiest around the house by far, as well as the most environmentally conscious and the most likely to be former vegans and vegetarians.

In Conclusion

There are a lot of weird narratives around cat ownership for straight people, like the aforementioned concern that only gay men own cats. Then there’s the “crazy cat-lady stereotype,” most strongly associated with not just unmarried women, but undesirable unmarried women, which has thrived for some time. In “The Crazy History of the Cat Lady,” Linda Rodriguez notes that after centuries of cat ownership being associated with witches and widows, followed by several decades of terrifying media depictions on shows like Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, “Cat ownership by an unmarried woman had come to signify a kind of mutual capitulation of that woman to a society that wouldn’t or couldn’t marry her.” Rodriguez believes that the stereotype is changing, however, thanks to Taylor Swift having a cat, the evolution of the role of marriage in society, increased visibility of actual cat owners on the internet, and a cultural shift initiated by marketers to embrace pet owners with outsize affection for their furry friends. I’ve got another theory to add to that stack, though. Maybe — just maybe — it’s got something to do with us.

I honestly expected the numbers to be even more dramatic than they are — but maybe that’s because the real difference isn’t that we own oodles more cats than everybody else, it’s that we talk about cats a lot more than everybody else.

So many lesbian stereotypes come down to one thing: a perception of lesbians as unashamed to be enthusiastic about things straight women are supposed to avoid or, at the very least, stay quiet about. For example: being fat, sporting body hair, dressing for comfort over style, foregoing makeup. “Being obsessed with our cats” would fit neatly onto that list, I think.

Proud cat ownership, much to my personal despair as somebody who is allergic to the furniture in the homes of 40% of my potential dating pool, is just another example of us setting trends and being way ahead of the curve.

In conclusion, my dog Carol is really great!!!!

Stereotype: LGBTQ+ Women & Non-Binary People Love Cats
Verdict: thumbs up True

Take Autostraddle’s Important Lesbian and Queer Stereotypes Survey!

Lesbian stereotypes: we love ’em, we hate ’em, they destroy us, they define us. But are they true? In this big Autostraddle reader survey, we’re getting into it.

It’s chock full of questions on important topics like spirituality, U-Hauling, cat ownership and so much more. We had so many more things we wanted to ask about than we had time for, but we think this’ll be a good start.

Most of the questions and answers on this survey were pulled from other surveys so that we can make direct comparisons between this data and data conducted by Harris Interactive, the Pew Research Center and a whole bunch of consumer groups and academic researchers. Usually we put great care into making sure each question is catered to our audience — that won’t always be the case this time. So just a heads up!

This survey is open to all lesbian, queer-identified and bisexual women as well as any non-binary people who consider themselves a member of this community. Basically if you think this survey is relevant to you, go ahead and give it a go.

Also — in a weird collusion of the stars or whatever, a research group out of Los Angeles launched a grant-funded game today that looks at a similar topic. It’s called LezParlay, it’s for lesbian and queer identified women in Los Angeles and if that describes you, you should check it out! You can win money! On this survey, all you win is a bunch of really interesting posts about you.

Take the Autostraddle Queer Stereotypes Survey now!

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