Editor’s Notes: 13 Days of A+ and the SHAME Series

I feel like every year, things get so chaotic at the end for the membership department that my plans for the 13 Days of A+ always go a little off the rails. This year, you might have noticed that we had to abandon the idea that we’d be able to do 13 consecutive days of A+ (now AF+) content. Chalk it up to Mercury Retrograde, working with a newly merged team to launch an app reader, all of us being burnt out by the end of whatever the heck 2023 was — but whatever it is, I don’t want to dwell on it, because we did in fact have some lovely things happen.

First of all, to those who came out to the pop-up Discord server — including all the wonderful people who joined Drew Burnett Gregory for the Carol watch-a-long that opened the server — it was phenomenal to see you all, to connect, to hang and share. Thank you if you joined us!

Near and dear to my heart is the revamped Anonymous Sex Diaries series, and we had two touching and sexy, melancholy and gorgeously written entries during the 13 Days. In “She Wants More” this Buenos Aires-based author takes us through a sensual meetup with a long distance girlfriend that leads to choppier relationship waters all within the span of a week. In “Tenderness Lingers,” the author leads us between an encounter in an adult video store’s upstairs arcade, back into her long-term, infrastructural relationship, to a gay dive with naked dancers, back into the relationship but with a third person invited into the bedroom, and then back into coziness and care in the safety of her and her partner’s home. I think they’re both well worth a read.

We published AF+ advice and we published crosswords AND Sally gave us the trivia quiz of the year!

And then there was the SHAME series of personal essays. What you probably know is that I asked queer people to pitch essays to me about SHAME, with the following prompt:

Queer people aren’t strangers to shame, or to reclaiming one of the darkest feelings a person can carry deep in their gut. Shame is distinct from guilt in that shame is about doing something nonnormative, whereas guilt implies a breach of morality. Still, the consequences of shame can be profound — isolation, stress, secrets. Shame is relative to our surroundings, to the people who have power over us or to the communities we try to find homes in. For this A+ personal essay series, pitch about things you can barely whisper aloud, things you thought was once a blemish that you’ve turned into a crown, things that make you feel like a “bad queer”, or the ways that other peoples’ shame has woven itself into your life and existence. Answers to nagging questions, positive conclusions from difficult times and happy endings are not necessary.

What you might NOT know is that every essay in this series, except the two written by Autostraddle team writers and one by a full-time staff member, was selected from the round of pitches sent in by AF+ members after I put the call in the Saturday AF+ newsletter. There were so many fascinating pitches, it was difficult to choose, but I’m so proud of every writer who poured themself into their essay for this series. And I’m so proud of you all! You also showed up in the comments to support these writers who put themselves out there in super vulnerable ways, and don’t think that doesn’t make a difference because it really, truly does.

We started with a writer who you might have noticed around the site — Motti! Motti heads up communications with For Them and is a comedian and a writer. They also wrote the brave and honestly seriously challenging piece, “What If It’s a Woman?” about navigating being assaulted by a queer cis woman as a trans person. Autostraddle team writer Katie Reilly deepened her exploration of her high school experiences with a reflection on the shame she accumulated after being bullied by her ableist gym teacher — who was herself a closeted queer woman. In “Unexpected Item in the Bagging Area,” Irene Keliher took us through the shame she associated with poverty and then the freedom and guilt of shoplifting, all while navigating ideas of presentability and assimilation politics, generational trauma, and class. While editing “Too Queer Too Smart for Abuse” by Holly Genovese, I would find myself getting up from the computer and wandering into another room to stare at the ceiling until I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. It’s not an easy read, but much like any discussion of abuse within queer relationships, it’s an important one. Gia Jones’ “Apparently, Shame Tastes Like My Cunt” is a smart, historically grounded look at the ways in which shame impacts the lives of queer sex workers. She writes about how sex-worker exclusion among queers contributes to division in our LGBTQ community as well as just plain shitty experiences for queer sex workers who deserve respect, and she offers some learning and possible solutions, too. “Shame as a Black, Autistic Queer Elder” takes us through the lifelone journey that the writer, Gloria Jackson-Nefertiti, has undertaken when it comes to navigating shame, and, conversely, coming to own her identity as her Black, autistic, queer, sex-positive, polyamorous self. She actually now speaks publicly and runs workshops on shame! And today, we closed the series with Autostraddle writer Em Win’s essay that follows her relationship to Taylor Swift as well as her relationship to her own labels for herself, her queerness and her bisexuality. As an editor of this series, there was something in each essay that I found related to me on a deep personal level, and I think that the same just might be true for you. And if not — it never hurts to expand our perspectives, to know that there is always more to ponder and learn as we continue to work on being in community with our queer peers.

Thank you for your part in making Autostraddle a space like no other, where we can have this multiplicity of queer voices and writers published in a welcoming space. Happy New Queer everyone. Whatever 2024 brings, I’m glad you’re here.

Editor’s Notes: BEGIN AGAIN

When I put out the call for essays for BEGIN AGAIN, I didn’t know what I was going to get. The theme was, at the time it was conceived, definitely and assuredly springing from the fact that I’d just gone through a breakup after dating the same woman for five years and then getting engaged only to break it off. When you shed such a big part of your life, it leaves you asking things like “who am I now” or “who was I before this relationship”? There’s both new construction and remembering because time is a flat circle and we are, if anything, cyclical beings.

So I asked writers to explore a transition, a move, grief, a breakup, repeating patterns or breaking patterns, cycles and rebirth, remaking yourself, or laying out plans for the future while standing in the ashes of something you thought was forever. The responses were each thought-provoking takes on the concept and, I hope, valuable pieces for you all to read. The comfort of the paywall, too, lets writers open up a bit more, knowing that, at the very least, someone has to forego the anonymity of lurking on the internet and become a member to read about the writer’s grief or their mental health.

Katie Reilly, an Autostraddle team writer, wrote about re-framing her outlook on work and disability, Capitalism and worthiness — and just how damn hard it is to deprogram ourselves from the society that teaches us with very harsh and real punishments, that money is safety. Autostraddle team writer Em Win wrote about their many moves, across the country and across the world, prompted by their bipolar disorder — and then the way they are finding stability and healing via the family they once ran from. There was something that makes me so bone-achingly tired, as someone who’s moved slightly less but who’s started over in new cities (and in the same one) to think about rebuilding community time and again like that — and yet queer people persevere, we keep going, we find a way and we move through.

Jude Little shared with us some poignant prose about returning to the sea, post-top surgery, to swim again, shirtless for the first time. They were returning to a place where they’d swam with their father, who taught them to navigate the waters with their body, but who they lost before their transition. Stacy Grover also returned to her childhood, but this time to the media frenzy around JonBenét Ramsey’s murder and all the ways abuse and girlhood and exploitation on screens and magazines and in adults’ words wove into her own experiences of growing up and being preyed upon, then not believed seriously by adults. She’d never examined the media, actually willingly consumed anything about JonBenét until adulthood, and the return with critical adult eyes reveals uncomfortable truths about the way we handle true crime and, especially, the victims of violence in media and American culture.

Machi also took us on a Journey as she returned to Lagos, Nigeria, a place that is supposed to be underwater in a few decades, where queerness is illegal. From Atlanta to Lagos to Toronto to Lagos again, we travel through her experiences of queerness in snippets, following the path of water. Finally, we conclude with how this all began — with beginning again after a breakup. Lindsay Eanet’s written for us many times, and in this heartfelt work, she takes us through how nerdiness and drag helped her find herself again post-divorce. Her character? A barbarian named Rusty Broadsword.

As for the imagery, I worked with overlays of film over-exposures and film burns to bring about a sense of memory, things kept and things altered by time and fickle machinery. Thank you, always, for being members, for making this a space where queer and trans people can share our deepest selves through writing. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this series and that if you didn’t get a chance to dig in, that maybe this Sunday calls for a cup of tea and some deep reading.

Editor’s Notes: Trans Awareness Week

Hello everyone! I am here with my first ever Editor’s Notes, because I have just hit publish on the last piece in my first ever package. It’s both fitting and not fitting that my first foray into leading a package was Trans Awareness Week — not fitting because I struggle with these sorts of gay themed holidays, fitting because I love a challenge.

Transgender Day of Remembrance was created in 1999 by Gwendolyn Ann Smith to honor the memory of Rita Hester, who was killed the year before. Trans Awareness Week was created in the mid-2000s to lead up to this day. Of course, a lot has changed in the past two decades. The last few years have shown an increase in violence against trans people, so, unfortunately, Trans Day of Remembrance is still relevant. But Awareness? Isn’t the increase in Awareness (and its sister Visibility) part of what has led to the increase in violence? There is an immense over-saturation of discussions by cis people about trans people — including by politicians using our lives for fear-mongering — and personally I’m just not sure awareness is the thing we need to be encouraging.

The question for me became: During the week where cis people are centering us even more, what can a publication do that tries to center trans people all-year-round?

I started thinking about when the week was first created and what gaps in awareness still exist. I started thinking about the 2000s and recent trans history. Sure, cis people are talking a lot about us in the most boring ways, but one conservative talking point is that we’re new. On the liberal side, there is an acknowledgment of our history, but sometimes in a way that lifts a handful of figures (Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Stormé DeLarverie) to a sort of icon status that’s dehumanizing in its own way. That’s how I landed on the in-between. What does recent trans history look like from after Stonewall (1970) to pre-Tipping Point (2013)?

I worked with both team writers and external freelancers, and I feel really proud of the package itself. Stef did a deep-dive on the complicated legacy of Reed Erickson, For Them Social Media and Comms Lead Motti compared trans actors in cis roles of the past and present, Daven McQueen wrote about the history of the word genderqueer, and Eva Reign looked at trans characters in video games during the 80’s and 90’s. I also did a very meta look at Autostraddle’s own pre-Tipping Point coverage. That’s such a range of work! With so much fascinating history!

I’d never worked with outside freelancers before, so the biggest challenges for me were just logistical. Like, oh right, I need to get this new author to write a bio! Simple stuff like that. Thankfully, the writers were all patient with me. It is really interesting being on the other side after half a decade of working for Autostraddle as a writer. There are a lot of little things that go into publishing a piece and, especially, a package beyond just the writing and editing.

One thing, for sure, is next time I’ll start planning further in advance. I would’ve loved to have a more consistent visual aesthetic for the package but due to limited time I just kind of went with… desaturated. I mean, it made sense to me. If black and white or sepia communicate distant history, lightly desaturated images felt fitting for recent history. Then again, vibrant colors are maybe more attractive when it comes to getting people to read articles so while it made sense intellectually, I’m not sure it was the best move. Something to consider for next time!

There was also one other piece that just didn’t get finished in time, because it started to expand into something bigger. This is where planning earlier would’ve helped, but I also don’t mind the piece publishing later. As I told the writer, the great thing about working for Autostraddle is our trans writers aren’t limited to one special week. Any one of these pieces could’ve published at any time of the year.

I hope you enjoyed reading these pieces and learned something about trans history. (I know I did!) And thank you so much for being A+ members. Going back through the Autostraddle archive really emphasized how rare it is in the modern media landscape to have that kind of publication history. I love Autostraddle’s history and I love our present even more. Here’s to getting even more trans in the future!

This piece is part of our 2023 Trans Awareness Week coverage. Our Senior Editor, Drew Burnett Gregory, felt like cis people were plenty aware of trans people in 2023 thank you very much, so this week trans writers will be taking us back into recent history — specially post-Stonewall (1970) to pre-Tipping Point (2013).

Editor’s Notes: Horror Is So Gay 2

This edition of Editor’s Notes, where I give you a behind-the-scenes look at the helming of a themed package, is going to be a little more chaotic than my usual missives, which feels right, because putting together Horror Is So Gay 2: The Sequel (sequeer?) was admittedly a little chaotic. In a good way! So let’s delve into a little horror scrapbook of sorts documenting the past month of putting together this series celebrating queer and trans perspectives on horror for the second year. I can’t wait to make this an annual tradition! Hopefully the third version next year is better than third movies in horror franchises tend to be!

The Vibe

Here’s what I wrote in my notes for what I wanted the vibe of Horror Is So Gay 2 to be in terms of a visual aesthetic:

1980s slashercore mixed with nostalgic late-night sleepover vibes. Delivery pizza boxes, two liters of Dr. Pepper, stacks of VHS tapes, and maybe you’re in a basement with wood paneled walls. Someone suggests playing Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board and things get homoerotic.

Now, what did this word salad lead to in terms of actual aesthetics? Here were some of the Canva stickers I played around with I felt captured this, even though they didn’t all necessarily end up in the final visuals for the package:

Carmen made a color palette for us and also experimented with using a Stranger Things-inspired font for the header, which I then decided to animate.

I also played with a bunch of filters that evoked a retro camcorder look or staticky television look. That, along with the play/rewind/record stamps that made it into a lot of the final visuals, suggested I was subconsciously drawn to voyeurism while working on this project. A lot of the feature images evoke a sense of watching or being watched. That feels fitting for a series all about looking closer at horror.

Teamwork Makes the Scream Work

This year, Horror Is So Gay was a truly collaborative project between every single full-time member of editorial, which was cool! While I still ran point on things, everyone chipped in in some way, and every single editor wrote at least one piece for the package, which is especially fun since we don’t all necessarily identify as Horror Queers (though Drew, Nico, and I pretty solidly fall in that camp of horror-obsessed freaks).

Riese used her impeccable research skills to put together a version of her deep-dive column Obsessed going behind-the-scenes of the very queer Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Many months ago when Carmen and I were working on content for Undeadstraddle (our April Fool’s Day takeover), we had a casual conversation about Black zombies, and I made her promise we’d revisit this idea for HISG. She stayed true to her word, and even while balancing all of her Editor-in-Chiefly duties still managed to crank out an impressively researched and detailed breakdown of Blackness and zombie stories. Nico always has brilliant ideas for horror essays and this year did a comprehensive analysis of the class politics of The Haunting of Bly Manor and how the show fails to really reckon with its implications about class, power, and caretaking.

Our newest editor Drew and I updated our Scariest Queer Horror Movie Moments list we debuted last year, adding five more movies, and Drew also wrote about the work of queer filmmaker Jennifer Reeder. As sometimes happens at a small magazine though, everything didn’t always go perfectly as planned. Drew and I both got sick at different points of this month, and it unfortunately meant I made the executive decision to temporarily table a massively ambitious project the two of us wanted to collaborate on: Two Dykes Rank Every Stephen King Film Adaptation. Fear not! We genuinely decided to delay and not to kill the project entirely, and because we’ll now have more time to work with it, we’ll also likely expand beyond what our original constraints were going to be (our original rules were going to be no series, TV movies, or sequels).

The Soundtrack

Idk if this is interesting to anyone, but the music I listened to while doing a lot of the work for Horror Is So Gay 2 mainly came from this Spotify playlist called Autumnal Jazz:

But I also became obsessed with this mashup of “Pony” x “The Monster Mash” this month:

The Watchlist

As the lead editor of Horror Is So Gay 2, here’s every horror movie I watched over the course of working on the package (* indicates it was my first time watching the movie):

1. Scream 4
2. What Lies Beneath
3. Jurassic Park
4. The Shining
5. Doctor Sleep*
6. A Good Marriage*
7. Gerald’s Game
8. You’re Next
9. The Cabin in the Woods
10. Ready or Not*
11. The Babysitter
12. Bodies Bodies Bodies
13. Sissy*
14. Sleepy Hollow
15. Beetlejuice
16. A Nightmare on Elm Street
17. A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge
18. House on Haunted Hill (1999)
19. The Haunting (1999)*
20. The Haunting (1963)
21. Train to Busan*
22. Prom Night
23. Prey (1977)*
24. The Faculty
25. Friday the 13th
26. Cujo
27. Halloween (2018)*
28. Rose Red
29. All My Friends Hate Me*
30. Midnight Kiss* (watched this one twice!)
31. No Exit*
32. Scream
33. Shudder’s 101 Scariest Movie Moments (all eight parts)
34. Get Out
35. The Conjuring

On any nights when I was not watching horror movies, it was because I was watching/rewatching The Fall of the House of Usher and The Haunting of Hill House.

And then today, on Halloween, my plans are to watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (not horror lol), Hellbent, Halloween (1978), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Trick ‘r Treat, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Halloween episodes.

Even though I usually focus on editing rather than writing things myself when it comes to HISG, some of the films I watched this month gave me ideas for things I might take on next year.

Thank YOU, and Happy Halloween!

As always, thank you to our A+ members, without whom we would not be able to do creative projects like Horror Is So Gay. Y’all make it possible for us to get freaky every October, and I am so grateful. I hope you’re having a very gay and spooktacular Halloween, and I hope you enjoyed Horror Is So Gay 2. See you for Horror Is So Gay 3: Queer We Go Again.

Horror Is So Gay is an annual Autostraddle series of queer and trans reflections on horror.

Editor’s Notes: Bubble Trouble

Bubble Trouble // Header by Viv Le

This is the fifth Editor’s Notes I’ve written for Autostraddle since becoming the Managing Editor. I previously wrote them for Time Zones Week, for the 2022 Pride package, for Diner Week, and for Horror Is So Gay. They’re always a joy to write; it’s incredible to know our members care enough about the creative work we produce to want to glimpse behind the curtain a bit, learn about the editorial process, and see how the soda gets made. They’re also tricky to write. It feels navel-gazing to examine my own editorial process. It feels vulnerable, too. This job is hard! It’s also the best job I’ve ever had. As a lot of the essays and pieces in Bubble Trouble explore, many things can be true at once.

This is the work I most wanted to do when I stepped into this editor role, over a year ago now — wtf is time! Well, this and expanding our literature vertical. But publishing strong and strange works of creative nonfiction is absolutely tied to the goal of expanding our literary coverage. Working at Autostraddle means seeing how everything’s connected — in both the figurative sense of finding queerness in so many crevices and corners but also in the literal sense of seeing that every category and subcategory of this website, every department, touches all the time. We’re not a monolith of a magazine but, as Nico has been putting it so eloquently lately, a quilt. It’s patchwork, and sometimes you can see the seams, and sometimes not every patch is specifically for you, but then sometimes you’ll find a patch that feels as if it’s peering into your soul because it’s so for you.

Bubble Trouble is just one microcosm of that queer patchwork. In this weeklong series, we had stories of sobriety, a Willy Wonka-inspired satire, canned wine ratings, contemplations of individual identity, interpersonal relationships, grief, grind culture, youth, failure, and folly. Every piece had a different point entirely, a different vibe. And yet when I looked at them all together in the weeks leading up to the series’ launch, I felt like I had a coherent spread. A lovely quilt.

I say it every time, but it bears repeating: I can only do these “weird” themed packages because of the support from our A+ members. This is not work that sells ads or gets what I like to call “crossover clicks” (straights — perhaps accidentally — ending up on Autostraddle dot com). It’s work we do from a place of passion, curiosity, and playfulness. Broad prompts like “diner week,” “time zones week,” and “bubble trouble” (which started as “soda week” before I decided to spice it up) allow for experimentation, expansion, and exploration on the page. It’s so fucking fun to edit this shit.

And yet, every single time, there’s at least one writer who worries what they’ve written isn’t “gay enough.” It doesn’t matter how many times I say that isn’t really a thing; it’s an easy insecurity to have. As queer writers, we’re so often trapped in the double bind of feeling like we have to suppress our queerness in certain contexts or package our queerness into tight, pretty, digestible narratives. But at a publication like Autostraddle where the writers are queer and our intended audience is also queer, we can and should be queer on the page in the exact way we want to be. Loudly, at times. With more subtlety at others. We don’t have to over-explain certain language the way a mainstream publication requires, but we also don’t have to over-explain more abstract things. When a queer writer writes of struggling to differentiate between what she wants and what she believes other people think she wants, a queer reader intuits that THAT’S GAY — without it needing to be explicitly said. The queerness found in a lot of these Bubble Trouble essays isn’t necessarily surface-level fizz but something deeper in the gut.

I wanna keep making some weird patches for this quilt. Thank you for your support in helping me do so.

Bubble Trouble is a series helmed by Autostraddle Managing Editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya about the nostalgia, effervescence, and never-ending appeal of carbonated beverages.

13 Days of A+ 2022: The Editor’s Notes are Screaming Internally

See all our 13 Days of A+ Content!

This is one of a storied line of entries into the Editor’s Notes series we have for A+. In this series, the Autostraddle Editor’s Notes let you, our dear members, into the behind-the-scenes of how series come together.

Currently, I am writing this late Friday afternoon in the midst of this winter storm, my solar-powered lantern charging in the last shreds of sunlight at my window, waiting for what is sure to be a long night because it is like -2 degrees Fahrenheit here and the power keeps flickering on and off, but hey, it wouldn’t be a holiday in Pittsburgh without a major power outage!

So, originally, on this this celebration of Saturnalia, this return-of-longer-days festival, this important pagan holigay, I was going to gift you with the launch of the A+ Personals section but ahahahaha we (Autostraddle senior staff) are all drowning and it is still cooking and is not quiiite ready and oh shoot the power just went out again. I. Can’t. Even. Print. Labels. To. Mail. Fundraiser. Perks. Because.The. Power. Keeps. Going. Out.

Okay, but truth be told, I am very excited about this (the personals column, not the extremely trying and dangerous weather). Naturally, we are tweaking and vetting this project and making sure that we dot our I’s and cross our T’s before putting it out into the world, so it is not launching as I hoped it would on December the 25th, but I expect it will in the next several weeks. We’re going to COLLECT submissions throughout January and officially PUBLISH the first iteration in February, because, apparently, we have all collectively decided the most miserable month of the year is also the Month of Romance. Listen, I don’t make the rules.

Everything about this situation relates to something that I think you know already, but is also one of the most vulnerable details I can reveal about the behind-the-scenes of Autostraddle. This job moves so fast for all of us that it is a lot like running on a treadmill. While I have done my fair share of long distance running, I find running on treadmills to be so much more precarious. They keep GOING even if you stop. They are too short. They will rip your skin off if you fall or slam you into walls. They are frightening machines, okay? I have like, Stephen King’s fear of cars or laundry equipment, but for treadmills. And working here can feel like constantly trying to navigate one of them, to keep running forward, unsure whether you’re getting anywhere even though it’s clearly a lot of work — you’re sweating and panting and the days go by, and you are trying to do it even if the lights are flashing on and off like you have a poltergeist but it is actually just a rust belt power grid. But what are you doing, really, besides working super fucking hard to maintain something that is actually very difficult to sustain?

But, at the end of the day, I wouldn’t trade being here, and spending time with you for any other job. I seriously love you all and you make my day every fuckin’ day. So, the A+ Discord is open today and through tomorrow when it will close at 12pm PST. I hope that we can hang out there, and that if you haven’t hopped on, that you’ll take a moment to meet some of your fellow members. And we are gonna update you on the personals situation as soon as it’s done cooking.

Take care and take care of someone else, too, if you can. Sending you so much love, wherever you are in the world, and especially if you’re weathering some serious WEATHER right now.

Day 13!!! (Also, when you see it, you can’t unsee it.)

Editor’s Notes: On Horror Is So Gay

Horror Is So Gay // Header by Viv Le

Before I tell you about all the things that were done right with Horror Is So Gay, let me tell you about the things I did wrong. Well, just one thing, really. Sure, there are always a bunch of different challenges that go into planning, helming, and rolling out a month-long content package, especially when it includes a mixture of pieces from lists to longread essays. It’s never seamless, always a little jagged at the edges, even if the final products glisten and gleam. But there’s one thing that fell completely through the cracks with this one. I was supposed to write an essay I never even started.

Of course, it’s not about me. These themed packages never are, nor do I want them to be. They’re about the brilliant lagoon of writers who bring their wild ideas to the table I’ve set. They’re the real scream queens here. But I was planning to write a piece and then never did, and even though I’M the editor here, I feel like I ghosted an editor. The fact of the matter is that I simply ran out of time. Editing some of these pieces took more time than I planned for, and of course it did. Horror is a complex genre, and the pieces in this package attacked their themes, ideas, and points of view from sharp, multifold angles. This wasn’t just one week of essays like Diner Week; it was a whole month. I worked with writers on the Autostraddle team and outside of it. I lost track of the number of horror movies I watched and rewatched for the list I collaborated with Drew on. (Drew probably watched/rewatched at least double what I did and also did a better job tracking them on her Letterboxd.)

I’m proud of the work these writers did; I’m proud of the work I did. But I can’t stop thinking about the essay I didn’t write.

One of the most significant changes to my work life — and tbh also my LIFE life — since becoming Managing Editor (I celebrated my official one-year anniversary in the midst of Horror Is So Gay! How cool is that!) is that I don’t have as much time to write myself. I’m not talking about the creative work I do outside of this job (though, that’s certainly taken a hit, too); I’m talking the essays and longer work I used to be able to do right here at Autostraddle during my six-ish years as a team writer. Writing is still a part of my job here. In fact, my actual job duties include writing two to three pieces a week. But I’d say the job is about 80% editing, 20% writing the majority of the time. And that breakdown makes sense; “editor” is in my title, and “writer” is not.

At the risk of sounding mechanical, a lot of the writing I end up doing here these days is more functional than it is experimental or creative. I’m filling holes in our calendar. I’m filling gaps in our coverage. I’m helping out when we’re stuck in a traffic rut. I still get to do a lot of the writing I want to do. I want to write thousands of words every week about Yellowjackets when it’s airing. But I also don’t get to write a lot of the things I want to write, because I’m too busy doing the other parts of this job.

I might not, for example, get to write the essay I want to write about how Jennifer’s Body was, according to my memory, the first time I ever saw two girls kissing on screen and how that led not to an immediate appreciation of horror but rather to me deciding to never watch another “scary” movie again. And how I kept that personal ban intact for years — until I came out. And how the exact moment in my life when I embraced my queerness for real was also the exact moment I became a horror fan. I’ve been wanting to write this essay for years, and it’ll have to keep waiting.

Don’t feel bad for me, because I don’t even feel bad for me. Horror Is So Gay is in no way lacking just because I didn’t have the time or mental capacity to write this Jennifer’s Body essay. Every. Single. Piece. In. This. Series. Is. HAUNTING. And if you know me, you know that’s one of the highest compliments I can give. And I mean, we already published a preview of an exceptional Jennifer’s Body essay this month anyway! And I did get to write about Jennifer’s Body briefly in the list with Drew! Really, my point here is one I feel like we’re always making here at Autostraddle when we offer a peek behind the curtain into what it’s like to work here and edit packages like this: There’s never enough time. When I interviewed for this position, I asked the ~hiring committee~ — a.k.a. Laneia and Carmen — what the hardest part of working here is, and Carmen immediately said, “there aren’t enough hours in the day.” Like a gentle ghost, her words stayed with me.

It has been a very fucking busy month at Autostraddle. We had our annual virtual retreat for all our full-time employees to smash our heads together and plan for the future a little over a week ago. Then we immediately dove into our first fundraiser in a year. Both of these things were firsts for me in this job. Horror Is So Gay was a huge project of my October, but it was just one of several huge projects churning here at Autostraddle in October. Viv came up with the gorgeous, retro creature feature poster look for the Horror Is So Gay visuals and then had to pivot sharply to working on the fundraiser branding. (Viv also dealt with some very hilarious challenges, including finding femme-y monster images that were actually vicious/scary looking and not like beautified/softened.) Nico — for the first time ever — took on a writing project in the midst of planning a fundraiser, resulting in their out-of-this-world alien essay. How they found the time to do that, I do not know!!!!! But we’re all just doing what we can — and then doing more. All the time.

And you’re able to read this post, because you’re already invested in the work we’re doing as an A+ member. For that, I’m eternally grateful. If you can and want to extend the same access to someone who might not be able to afford it, consider donating to the A+ membership pool.

I may have killed my Horror Is So Gay essay, but much like Jennifer Check, that doesn’t mean it’s dead forever. I’ll write it one day, I’m certain. Probably for the sequel, Horror Is So Gay 2. I do love a sequel.

Horror Is So Gay is a series on queer and trans horror edited by Autostraddle Managing Editor Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya running throughout October.

Editor’s Notes: On Diner Week

Diner Week – All Artwork by Viv Le

In the latest entry in our A+ Editor’s Notes series, I’m taking you into the kitchen of Diner Week to see how the sausage (or bacon or ham or vegan breakfast patty) was made.

I’m not sure what prompted it, but on Friday, June 10 2022, just after noon Eastern time, Autostraddle’s Director of Operations Laneia Jones popped into the main social channel of our Slack with a prompt:

So, Diner Week didn’t exactly start with diners. But Laneia opened up something with this simple request. People started sharing the places they’ve eaten at, sharing little pieces of themselves. We talked about salad bars for a long time. You might be thinking to yourself: How much is there to possibly say about salad bars? A lot. I probably could have planned Salad Bar Week and had a dozen different emotions-packed essays about fucking salad bars.

(For the record, Steak & Sea is definitely how I identify.)

Eventually, hometown grill/grille/buffet led us to hometown diners. Of course it did. We walked about chain diners, mountain diners, one-of-a-kind rural diners, the diners we wished we could hop in a car and go to right the fuck now but couldn’t because we lived in areas surging with Covid cases, but maybe we could get takeout, yeah, doesn’t that sound nice?

I threw the idea of Diner Week out as a joke (which, to be fair, is how most of my editorial ideas begin). It was met with great enthusiasm.

I started scheming.

Almost exactly a year ago, before I became a full-time editor here at Autostraddle, I curated a series of micro essays as a guest editor. The series was called Dinner Party, and I tapped four writers I admire to write about any food dish of their choice in 750 words or less. I love to read writing on food — because it’s never just about food, is it? Food touches so many things: place, bodies, relationships. Later, after I did go full-time here, I did a package of essays on time zones. While I loved helming Autostraddle’s Pride package a few months after that, Dinner Party and Time Zones Week and Diner Week are the editorial projects that best exemplify the kind of creative work I want to do and support here. There’s nothing obviously queer about dinner parties, time zones, diners. And yet, isn’t there?

Sometimes writers come to me saying they have an essay they want to pitch but can’t figure out the queer angle. I always reply with something along the lines of this: well, you’re queer and you care about it, right?

For Time Zones Week, I solicited work from writers on Autostraddle’s team and outside of it. For Diner Week, I knew I wanted to keep things in-house. We recently hired 14 new writers, and I wanted to give them a chance to contribute to a themed editorial package a little more abstract than the Pride package. By this point, I’d worked with all of these writers in some capacity but not on more creative-nonfiction-leaning essays. I saw this as an opportunity not only to work on a project I was excited about but to deepen my editor-writer relationships with some of our newbies as well as any veteran team writers who wanted to participate. I have a very hands-on approach to editing, and I often individually tailor the editing experience to fit the hopes, dreams, needs, and experience of whatever writer I’m working with. It makes for a special but intense relationship and process sometimes, but it’s worth it to me to go deep in revision and really help the writer get to where they wanna go.

I posted a call for pitches from our team. In it, I pointed them in the direction of some other food nonfiction I felt fit the scope of the series: my own Wild Cravings series, the Half Recipes series at Catapult, To All The Coffeeshops I’ve Called Home, Why I Take All My First Dates to Olive Garden, A Reemergence So Fragile a Restaurant Closure Can Undo Me, and To All the Pirate Bars Ayye’ve Loved Before. I thought maybe I’d get five or six pitches, and that was more than enough to fashion a themed week out of.

I got 12 pitches.

I got 12 pitches that excited, delighted, and surprised me. I got 12 pitches I knew immediately I’d take. My new challenge became figuring out how to pack 12 excellent sprawling essays into a single week, which is why we ran two pieces a day for most of Diner Week.

Shortly after the call went out, Nicole asked if I’d ever seen the Denny’s tumblr. I’m someone who has written extensively about the second life I lived on tumblr for most of my teens and early twenties, but I missed this particular internet moment somehow. If you don’t know, the official Denny’s tumblr is full of truly bizarre and occasionally disturbing gifs and images I’d describe as “diner surrealism.” The images recontextualize diner imagery in unexpected and intentionally incongruous ways like, for example, this image of a “masked” potato or this gif of fried eggs blinking like eyes. When I met with our Art Director Viv to talk visuals for Diner Week, I put forth the Denny’s tumblr as a mood board. They took it and fucking ran to the moon with it, transforming “diner surrealism” into something that feels distinctly them. The art Viv created is retro, strange, and immersive. Like, well, a diner.

Diners seem effortless, don’t they? When you’re the customer, they’re easy places to go to without the fuss of a reservation or much of a plan at all. You know what you’re getting. But to work at a diner is a different experience, of course. And I was so thrilled when Autostraddle’s A+ and Fundraising Director Nicole pitched an essay about their experience as a line cook in a touristy riverside joint. And when Yashwina made the workers at her go-to diner an indelible part of the story. When others wrote with affection for the servers who called them honey when refilling their coffees.

Nothing was casual or thoughtless about the making of Diner Week. Writers put so much intention and meaning behind every dish they described, every booth they slid into, every observation they made about the timelessness and comfort of diners that could have run the risk of coming off as cliche but didn’t, because these 12 writers wrote with specificity, heart, and flavor. Like coursing a meal, I was intentional about the order of these essays, the ways some were paired.

And I didn’t go into things with this plan per se, but I ended up having a very method actor approach to the editing process. I went with Yashwina to Stepping Stone twice on back-to-back weekends during a trip to Portland, got to see just how loved she is and how much love she gives there for myself. After a few failed attempts, I also finally got to go to Flanigan’s with Stef and their girlfriend. We had to wait literally an hour, which is wild for a South Florida seafood grill chain if you ask me! But was it worth it? Absolutely. I’m now the proud owner of a shamrock green Flanigan’s take-home cup, and I experienced an important Florida first when our pitcher of light beer was delivered to our booth with an accompanying knotted plastic bag of ice. I didn’t understand until Stef plopped it in the pitcher after pouring our first cups. It’s to keep it cold. Duh.

The details of all of these diners are amazing, aren’t they? Doesn’t a bag of ice plopped in a pitcher of beer say so much in and of itself about place? I’ve only been to a couple of the diners written about this week, but I still feel like all the writers invited me into someplace and some time in their lives, and for that, I’m lucky. Katie made me see New Jersey through her eyes, and Lily made me feel seen, and Darcy made me time travel, and Ro made me nostalgic for my past life in Chicago, and Sa’iyda made me call my grandma, and Dani made me think about the friends who saw me through so much, and Nicole taught me what Loganberry tastes like, and I met Stef at Flanigan’s for real, and A.Tony unlocked my own memories of Silver Diner, and Niko made it so I’ll never look at pineapple the same way again, and shea made my mouth water for prime rib, and Yash showed me a new way to order a bloody mary extra spicy the way I like it.

None of this would have been possible without our A+ members. Hell, I wouldn’t even have this job without you, our members who support us in all of our wildest, weirdest pursuits. Thank you for being here, and I hope you get to have your favorite meal at your favorite diner sometime soon.

If I’m being honest, I wish Diner Week had never ended. I want Diner Week to be 24/7 the way my favorite diner used to be.

But while Diner Week might be over, diners are forever.

Editor’s Notes: On Pride 2022

feature art: Autostraddle // tweet: Kayla Kumari

See All Pride Content

Doing a Pride package at a place like Autostraddle — where we are not only queer all year but also indie all year, which significantly impacts our access to resources — is a tricky task. This was my first time helming our Pride package as managing editor, and my initial thought was we could maybe do about seven Pride pieces and call it a day. After all, every mainstream media company every year trots out their handful of LGBTQ articles — a lot of them blatant SEO grabs — in June and calls it a day. Why should we work harder when we’re the ones who are, again, queer all damn year! When we are the ones covering queer and trans issues with a variety of angles and scopes and paying queer and trans folks to do so in July, in August, in January, February, March, every day of every month. Not just when it’s hot to do so. Not just when violently transphobic legislation is nationwide news. All the time, we’re here. All the time, we’re proud, or at least, fucking trying to be! As Pride increasingly becomes co-opted, soured by capitalism, and diluted from its original organizing and protest roots, it’s easy to become exhausted every June. Who is Pride even for anymore?

Us. The answer should be us. The answer must be us.

We decided on a theme for our Pride package: Step Up + Support. The theme was meant just as a North star for our writers. It doesn’t appear on any of the visual branding for the series, which was executed by our wonderful new Art Director. The unofficial theme the senior team discussed during our first Pride brainstorm was Shut Up + Get Fucked, which we saw as a playful double-meaning turn of phrase. We want the politicians trying to erase and punish the most vulnerable members of our communities to get absolutely fucked in the metaphysical sense for being the demons they are. But we also want to, like, get fucked, you know? The merging of the erotic with the political has a long history in queer art and activism movements (something touched on throughout this brilliant interview with Phyllis Christopher in the Pride package!!!!). We deserve pleasure and to act on our desires all the time. We deserve full lives. We deserve Pride beyond rainbow merch and performative social media posts from brands.

Shut Up + Get Fucked became Step Up + Support, but that same general energy of LET’S KISS and also FIGHT was there, perfectly embodied by the (A+ discounted) Jenifer Prince print imo. We wanted a Pride package that made space for joy and celebration but also anger, hurt, and ambivalence. We wanted fun shit smashed up against history smashed up against personal narratives. Step Up + Support was meant to be a guiding theme pushing our writers to think of the ways they are showing up for themselves, for their communities, for queer and trans youth. And what I realized when putting out our call for pitches was that corporations can try as hard as they want to co-opt Pride, but we don’t have to let them steal it from us. Pride still matters. Pride still means something, and it still is for us if we make it so.

The influx of brilliant ideas from everyone on the Autostraddle team proved that. I was hoping for seven strong pieces to publish, and I ended up with OVER TWO DOZEN. One for almost every day of Pride month. We had a playlist for being trans and horny, a heartbreaking letter to an ex friend, a smart and funny analysis of reality television, a thoughtful essay on INvisibility, poetry recs, more poetry recs, a conversation with queer youth (spoiler alert: the best way to step up + support queer and trans youth is to LISTEN TO THEM), personal narratives about what it feels like to be excluded from Pride events due to disability and tips for how planners can do better, style guides, makeup guides, musings on queer temporality, a guide to hosting a restorative queer dinner party with chosen family, AND SO MUCH MORE. Seriously, just dive on in.

There are 30 days in June, but no one tell Carmen! Let’s pretend Pride month is an extra day long!!!!!

For me, helming this Pride package came at a time when I had begun to reconsider the role of Pride in my life. When I lived in New York, I always attended the Dyke March, and every year I’ve been away from it, I feel a deep sadness. But in New York, I often skipped official big Pride events, rolling my eyes at the capitalism of it all. And there certainly are a plethora of legitimate critiques to be made of mainstream Pride events, especially ones that are cost prohibitive and especially especially ones that include — or, worse, celebrate — cops. But of course it was easy for me to roll my eyes at Pride when in my bubble of privilege in New York. Make no mistake: Homophobia and transphobia breed everywhere, and liberals writing off the South as some backwards place does nothing to serve queer liberation in any part of the country (oh, hey, there’s an entire essay about this in our Pride package!). But I’d be lying if I said I don’t experience being queer and being in large queer gatherings like Pride parties differently since moving to Florida.

For the first time in a long time, I regularly monitor my own behavior and appearance when out and about in my daily life. In my life in Brooklyn, I didn’t think twice before wearing my beloved Dyke Drama shirt. Now, I don’t even wear it in my own building. I realize how much various privileges played into my relative safety as a queer person in my life before, and I still benefit from a lot of those privileges here. There are times when I forget where I am, what the “rules” are here — not rules I ever agreed to, but ones I have to abide by nonetheless. I have to be aware of when and where I choose to touch my girlfriend or kiss her or call her “baby.” When booking a place for us to stay on a weekend vacation, I have to consider whether I should write partner or girlfriend or just…friend. And yes, I live in Miami, where people outside the state might think it’s perfectly fine to be visibly queer, but it isn’t. While Miami Beach — and South Beach in particular — are known for gay party scenes, there are very few actual queer spaces in Miami. There are no lesbian bars in South Florida.

So, instead, we make our own queer spaces. When I’m with my friends at the happy hour, it’s all of a sudden a queer happy hour. When I’m with my friends at the book store, it’s a gay book store. And at the few official Pride events I’ve been to since moving to Florida — including Orlando’s, which is actually held in October — I feel a genuine sense of relief, brief as it may be, laced with complications as it may be. To be surrounded by other queer folks in a place that tries over and over to keep us apart feels nothing short of magical. I feel almost like a baby gay at her first Pride again.

Since before I even came out to myself, I have always been surrounded by close queer and trans friends. My queer community outside of Florida still matters so, so much to me, of course. They always will. But there are limits that come with the geographical distance between us. My queer Florida family — Kristen, Stef, Stacey, Bobuq, Chris, Kristopher — are vital parts of my life here, and being in their presence buoys me in a way that’s difficult to describe. That’s what I cared the most about this Pride, seeing those people and continuing to nurture those friendships, which do feel essential for survival here. I cared about being a part of creating online community with you all, with Autostraddle members and readers. I cared deeply about this Pride package because even if Autostraddle is a queer space all year, it’s still our Pride. So, yes, we’ll step up and support each other year-round, but I also hope we all had some fucking fun this month — IRL, on the site, on the discord — because what’s the goddamn point if we can’t have a little joy?

Editor’s Notes: On the Fat Femme Fashion Series

An inside look, just for A+ members, from Autostraddle’s editors on the process, struggles, and surprises of working on what you’re reading on the site. We learn so much from this work before it ever even makes it to your eyes; now you can, too! In this special version of our Editor’s Notes, Culture Editor Shelli Nicole interviews Dani Janae, who curated The Fat Femme Fashion Series.

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Dani Janae, so when she came to me with a pitch about a roundtable conversation on fat fashion the answer was of course a large and resounding YES! I wanted to take great care of this series as the editor, doing all that I could to get as many eyes on it as possible and making sure it didn’t get lost on the site. It’s always nice to get a peek behind the curtain so I asked Dani a few questions about her curation of this dope series. – Shelli Nicole,Culture Editor

Shelli Nicole: I know this started off as just one piece and then evolved into a fuller conversation, what made you say yes to turning this into a series instead of just one standalone?

Dani Janae: I think this is a big conversation that I’m hoping will get a lot of attention. The questions I came up with cover a wide spectrum of topics under the umbrella of fat fashion, so it made sense to me that this would be several pieces.

Shelli Nicole: Everything in the chats are obvs V V necessary and important but what are you most excited to chat about and get everyone’s views on?

Dani Janae: I’m most excited to maybe find plus size fashion outlets I haven’t heard of and maybe even expand my own closet? I am getting rid of lots of clothes that don’t fit me anymore so I’m always excited to hear what other fat babes are wearing.

Shelli Nicole: Are you ever nervous to talk about fatness in your work, or have those feelings surrounding it dissipated as you’ve grown as a writer? It’s very much so in your “brand” but does it get tiresome?

Dani Janae: It doesn’t get tiresome for me. I think there is so much that needs to be talked about regarding fatness and fashion is just one category I’m passionate about. I’ve written stuff for other audiences and had to mute conversations and block people, and that can be exhausting but I love being fat so I don’t think I’ll ever shut up about it.

Shelli Nicole: How did the imagery, created by the ever incredible Demetria, play part in the series? What were some of the vibes you wanted readers to pick up just by looking at the visuals alone?

Dani Janae: When I envision positive images of fatness I think of cherubs and this idea of the rubenesque woman, a body type that is angelic and almost exalted. I wanted that imagery to come across in the images that Demetria made and I think she did a great job.

Shelli Nicole: Last Question! You’ve had other very successful series here on the site are there any others you would like to curate in the future?

Dani Janae: I would love to curate a series on mental health and queerness. I’ve written a little about my own struggles but I’d love to do more in that arena. I’d also love to do more sex and dating focused stuff but that’s been slow for me as I prepare for a big move and other life changes.

Editor’s Notes: On Time Zones Week

I think about time zones a lot.

Because the majority of my most formative friendships began on tumblr, all of us flung across the globe, all of us online at strange hours just so we could catch each other.

Because I’ve shuffled between Eastern, Central, and Pacific throughout my 29 years of living in nine different cities.

Because every relationship I’ve ever been in has, for a significant stretch, been long distance.

Because of that summer I wasn’t sleeping and kept a mental catalog of which friends I could text when it was 2, 3, 4, 5 o’clock in the morning my time without worrying about it being a bad time for them.

Because my dad was overseas a lot when I was growing up and once lived in a place with a half-hour time zone, and no one ever believed me about it!!!!

Because someone in my pandemic game night group started saying “6/8/9 damn so fine” when confirming what time we would be meeting within our respective time zones.

Because I just started working full time here at Autostraddle, where the senior team is spread across two (and sometimes three, thanks to Laneia living in Arizona which likes to make up its own temporal rules) different time zones, so it seems like we’re all counting out hours on our fingers before agreeing to meeting times.

It really is that last one that led to me creating Time Zones Week tbh. Starting this job placed time zones front and center in my day-to-day brain in a way that hasn’t been the case since I lived in Chicago (I feel like living in Central time is just, like, endless time-math for some reason??? Like even worse than Pacific somehow???).

So I threw this out there to the rest of the senior team:

you will note that these messages were sent before I learned “time zones” is two words, not one

And then this:

Thankfully, people did have interesting things to say about time zones. I anticipated a lot of pitches about how Time Zones Suck. I was technically open to essays of that nature, bc yeah! Time zones do indeed suck! But ultimately, the six pieces I moved forward with (HAVE YOU READ THEM? GO READ THEM.) were more about bending time zones. They were about finding ways to transcend physical and emotional distance. They were even, sometimes, about time zones being Good. Like how time zones meant I almost always had people to text when I couldn’t sleep that summer, others found strange and surprising upsides of temporal dissonance.

I wasn’t ready for how much these pieces would teach me about time zones, a thing I thought I knew so well. Grief has its own time zone. Relationships are their own time zones. Kitchens have their own time zones. Time can be bent, and it can jump, and it can hurt, and it can heal.

When I met with artist and designer Vivienne Le, who did all of the outstanding illustrations for the series, they said they promised they wouldn’t draw any clocks. We laughed. We were on the same page: NO CLOCKS ALLOWED. (We also both admitted it was hard not to think of clocks when reading the pieces, be they literal or abstract.) Viv had another rule in mind: no straight lines. These illustrations would be curvy, swirly things unrestricted by the confines of straight lines, of time.

Vivienne nailed the vibe and scope of these essays, all distinct and yet bound by some unintentional overlaps, like the fact that they all more or less deal with a relationship between two people (in the case of Dani’s, I see that relationship being between two of her selves). As with the words on the page, the artwork time travels. It’s playful and a little haunting.

And WITH THAT, I will leave you with these VERY COOL behind-the-scenes process videos Vivienne surprised me with that provide a little glimpse into the magic behind Time Zone Week’s otherworldly art.

Editor’s Notes: On 2021’s 13 Days of A+

The 13 Days of A+ came from all of us, last year, wanting to show you our gratitude for literally keeping the lights on at Autostraddle HQ. (In this case, HQ is a group of queers who all agree to log onto the internet and work toward the same goals, and the “lights” you are keeping on are our computer screens.) Why 13? Riese came up with that because it’s Christmas plus the Devil, so there you go!

As it’s only the second year round of a totally made up but super fun concept, we decided to try something a little different. Same gratitude for you all making sure this indie queer website can keep doing our work, slightly different content. Sally pitched this outrageous time-jumping puzzle series and we built most of the 13 Days this year around that!

Back to the Queer Future

This series was so rewarding thanks to Sally’s hard work and vision, but it was also more complicated to put together than it might seem!

Every day really brings new challenges with it at Autostraddle, and preparation for the 13 Days meant that I was suddenly testing out these logic puzzles when, my friends, I do not normally ever do these for fun. Every few days, Sally would drop a few new ones, each one a DIFFERENT kind of puzzle, and there I would be, trying the puzzles, two, three or four times to see if I could get them, getting up, getting more coffee, finding more scrap paper, typing furiously to Sally whenever I solved one. The Lisa Ben one absolutely stumped me for the record. I have never solved it!

These were a real labor of love, and such a fun addition to our A+ offerings, and I hope you’ll let Sally know if you enjoyed them in the comments!

Adding to the complexity of these pieces were the historical photos. Luckily, we can pay for access to Getty Images, now, which is new and awesome and one of the things that we’ve been able to invest in because of our fundraisers and A+ members like you! That took care of some of the photos, but others were trickier. For one, I had to reach out to the San Francisco Public Library about the photo in puzzle number 5. It’s from the Grace Miller Papers — and at first they thought I was asking if I could print a physical jigsaw puzzle using the photo. That was not the case, though this is a free idea you all can have, in case anyone wants to make a queer history jigsaw puzzle series. That would be neat! This forced me to have to explain my extremely silly situation in the plainest terms (we are a queer publication and we’re making logic games during the holidays for fun?), and then we got the okay to use the photo of Tommy’s Bar in this post featuring, again, the bartender/owner of Tommy’s Bar, Grace Miller.

But why Grace Miller? Why not Rose Bamberger, the person mentioned in the post, the founder of the Daughters of Bilitis? Mainly, it is that there aren’t any photos of her that are accessible to us. However, Sally took care to note that Rose, a young Filipina woman, was the actual founder of The Daughters of Bilitis. The daughters were a social club for gay women created to provide a safe space where they could socialize and dance with one another without fear of police raids. At the time, same-sex dancing in public was forbidden by law. Police frequently raided gay clubs in San Francisco and the Bay Area (and elsewhere, obvs) in the 1950s, and you could be arrested for dancing with a person of the same sex. I have Sally to thank for linking me to these, and so in the spirit of doing Rose Bamberger as much justice as we can, I am going to re-link to this blog post by Malinda Lo: “The Women of Color Behind the Daughters of Bilitis” where you can learn a little more about Rose Bamberger, though our historic knowledge of her is painfully thin — and we can all do our part to resist the oversimplification of our collective history. I also recommend, also a blog post by Malinda Lo, “The True Story of the Raid on Tommy’s Bar.” Lastly, if this era in queer history interests you, then you’re in luck because you can check out Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo which has just won a National Book Award, too! Finally, if you’re ever in San Francisco, you can inquire about the Grace Miller Papers themselves, which are an archive from the life of this bartender and owner of not one, but TWO gay bars. Wow! If anyone does this, do you want to tell us about it? I would be intrigued. Shoot me an email or send an A+ priority box message!

So, yes, this was about getting pictures sorted. I want to point you toward another archive that we link to in the Back to the Queer Future series (puzzle 4). The One Archives in San Francisco house the Lisa Ben papers, or the archive of Edyth Eyde’s life! The photo we used actually came from a trip that Riese took to the archives a few years ago. From the website, “The collection includes Ben’s photographs, short stories, correspondence, and musical instruments; as well as sound recordings and sheet music for her folk songs, including “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write My Butch a Letter” and “The Vice Squad Keeps Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine.” The collection illuminates Lisa Ben’s unapologetic enthusiasm and her lifelong pursuit of connecting with others through words and music.” If anyone ever retrieves the sheet music for “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write My Butch a Letter,” you’ll tell me, right? Please? (My butch LOVES letters. A couple of times over the course of the pandemic, even though we live together, I’ve sent her sweet notes in the mail because she’s the one who gets the mail. Hot tip.)

Thank you all for being queer history nerds with us!

And a Couple More Things

We kicked off the 13 Days of A+ on December 13th with a look at the 8 Dykiest Things on Kayla’s Shelves, and I tell you, I felt seen by the Stephen King shelf. Kayla also describes king as “famously not a dyke” which is true. This was an excellent entry into the series and I have to emphasize again that I hope you will give it a read. The series came about because some of you all were in the comments on a different post of Riese’s asking about her bookshelf! And so we decided to make it a thing. (You see how the process goes sometimes. Never be afraid to speak up!) I called this series Our Hobbies, Our Shelves both because I cannot resist a pun and because, as originally conceived, it is intended to be expansive and to allow for people to show us what’s on their shelves whether that be books or something else. Each person is invited to make their entry into this series their own. Though Riese and Carmen both presented us with incredible spreadsheets, that is not everyone’s style, and we respect that we are all individual and different humans around here. So don’t be surprised if this series starts going to some different places in the future! Honestly, that just makes me more excited about it!

For December 23rd latest entry into the A+ erotica series S L I C K, we were THRILLED to work with Jenifer Prince on the illustration. The story “Take Me to Church” — by Shelli Nicole, edited by Ro White — will light your Christmas tree right up!

On December 25th, we brought you the ADORABLE pets of Autostraddle because we know that, for many people, this can be a day where you could use some internal warm fuzzies — and if we can do a little something to give that to you, we will try to do it! 💗

AND THAT concludes a mish-mash of editor’s notes for the 13 Days of A+! Thank you for being with us this year. Thank you for being a huge part of making our little queer home on the internet possible. We hope you’ll stick around for 2022 and for everything we hope to achieve together. In the meantime, go forth and check out your local archives! Hug your local pets! Dig up a recipe from The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook! Be sure to let us know what you thought of this year’s installment of the 13 Days of A+ in the comments! Don’t forget to make sure you’re opening up your weekly Saturday A+ e-news to get the latest, well, A+ news and other insider info. And don’t forget about that A+ Priority Contact Box. We love to hear from you!

I’m wishing you as many good things as are possible for the New Year (plus a few extras), sending you tons of love wherever you are in the world, and looking forward to seeing you all in 2022!

Editor’s Note: On ‘How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World’

An inside look, just for A+ members, from Autostraddle’s editors on the process, struggles, and surprises of working on what you’re reading on the site. We learn so much from this work before it ever even makes it to your eyes; now you can, too!

We do not live in a “post-COVID” world.

While some parts of the world resume normal activities, the virus remains alive and mutuating. As you read this, India’s COVID death toll has climbed past 300,000. South America has lost over one million. COVID variants, which are more easily transmissible, have spread across the globe. The wealthiest nations are still hoarding vaccines. In the US, more than half of residents are still noxt fully vaccinated, some of them by choice, and AAPI communities are facing a heightened level of violence and discrimination in the name of COVID-blame. And regardless of how “post”-COVID our individual worlds might feel as restrictions lift, we are all still living through the trauma of a global pandemic.

We are grieving those we lost to COVID. We’re facing ongoing health complications after surviving the virus. We’re unemployed and in debt. We’re readjusting to in-person work and school. We’re recognizing the failings of leaders who did not and will not protect our most vulnerable communities from the pandemic’s wrath. This series serves as a reminder that we’re not alone.

“How To Survive A Post(?)-COVID World” came from my own fears and frustrations. My family members live in a state where only 36% of the population has been fully vaccinated. I live in Chicago, where our mayor spent $281.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief money on the police. I’m watching my city and my loved ones continue to suffer from the mental, physical and financial impact of the pandemic, and I’m trudging through my own ongoing pandemic-related struggles. Still, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but for so many people, that light won’t be visible for a very long time.

The writers featured in this series share their pain, their coping skills and their practical knowledge to help Autostraddle readers work towards stability in a COVID-stricken (and perhaps, someday, a truly post-COVID) world. I’m grateful for their vulnerability and guidance, and I hope that you’ll find some help and healing in their stories.

Editor’s Notes: On AAPI Heritage Month 2021

An inside look, just for A+ members, from Autostraddle’s editors on the process, struggles, and surprises of working on what you’re reading on the site. We learn so much from this work before it ever even makes it to your eyes; now you can, too!

The last time I did anything remotely like this was fifteen years ago, when I edited my high school’s literary journal. And then I graduated, set my sights on other pursuits and stopped writing.

But, now, I’ve found my way back.

Fifteen years ago, I had deeply disconnected myself from being Asian. By that point, I had long stopped watching Bollywood movies, hated eating Indian food and never told anyone I was obsessed with anime. The notion that I might actually be queer was beyond anything I could possibly imagine. So, I can’t help but smile, albeit a little sadly, that what’s pulled me back into this world of writing and editing is my desire to make sure that the stories of queer and trans Asians and Pacific Islanders are told in ways that feel true to us. It took me fifteen years to bring all these threads together, but I suppose — at least, I made it?

I haven’t been on the queer part of my journey for very long, but when my relationship ended two years ago, the first thing I did was look for queer Asian stories. I wanted to know that I wasn’t alone, that the things that felt impossible to me were things others could relate to as well. I found some of what I was looking for, but what quickly became clear was the scarcity of API perspectives in queer and trans discourse. API identity is, for better or for worse, a massive umbrella covering large swathes of the world, and yet the breadth of it barely registers in a cursory search for queer/trans Asian/Pacific Islander content.

When I started thinking about the theme for this year’s AAPI Heritage Month Series, I was reminded of words Karen Lee had shared with me in an interview about the pandemic last year. Karen is one of the co-chairs of Q-Wave, a NYC-based community organization for queer Asians who identify as women, nonbinary and/or trans. Reflecting on what it means to be queer and API she said:

“Often times, you think of queerness as a white thing, and then when you think of Asian-ness you don’t see any room for queerness in that.”

Her words resonated deeply with me, and I’ve held that thought for well over a year now. As I watched anti-Asian violence come to the forefront in the wake of the pandemic and saw Asian communities contend with their relationship to policing after last summer’s protests, I witnessed both the vulnerability and the strength of being queer/trans and Asian/Pacific Islander. Some of the most marginalized members of the API community, facing the dual or triple threats of racism, homophobia and transphobia, were also the ones trying to move their communities to find new ways to protect themselves from violence without relying on increased law enforcement. What does it mean to exist in that liminal space, constantly pushed to the margins on both sides, told that you are neither Asian enough nor queer enough, and yet to be the one propelling both of these communities forward?

As we discussed the theme for this year’s AAPI Heritage Month Series, Autostraddle’s trans subject editor and co-editor for the AAPI Heritage Month Series, Xoài Pham gently nudged me to move past mere reconciliation. She said:

“We are always reconciling our identities as queer Asians. What happens when we move beyond that and begin taking up space as our whole selves?”

And I realized, this was Karen’s point as well. That to exist as a queer/trans Asian/Pacific Islander means to put your stakes in the ground and to say, “I am all of these identities, and I exist, so therefore these identities are me. They must be.”

From start to finish, this year’s AAPI Heritage Month has been about queer/trans Asian/Pacific Islanders laying their claims to all of themselves. Over the course of the last month, over a dozen queer and trans writers and artists from all over the API diaspora have shared what it means to them to hold all their identities in all the pain, pleasure and power that entails.

It’s truly been an honor to have been trusted with these stories, and the stories of dozens upon dozens of others who pitched to be part of the series as well. There is so much richness and so much nuance and so much depth to being queer/trans and Asian/Pacific Islander. In this year’s AAPI Heritage Month, we’ve been able to hold space for a small sliver of it in the hopes that through sharing this work, queer/trans Asian/Pacific Islanders from all over the world feel a little less alone in taking up their own space, as well.

Editor’s Notes: On Black History Month 2021

An inside look, just for A+ members, from Autostraddle’s editors on the process, struggles, and surprises of working on what you’re reading on the site. We learn so much from this work before it ever even makes it to your eyes; now you can, too!

This is my third year editing Autostraddle’s Black History Month series. I began planning my first one just a few weeks after I started full-time as an Associate Editor. I was looking back on that time this morning, hoping to be “inspired” about what to say today, and found this:

“It’s my favorite holiday. Maybe it sounds strange to you to call Black History Month a holiday. After all, there’s no Santa Claus coming down the tree or an Easter Bunny bringing baskets. No ‘day after’ sale on candy. No rainbow colored balloon arches like the kind that adorn gayborhoods every June. In fact, Black History Month is probably thought of as stodgy – tired black and white photographs of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jackie Robinson.

Here’s the secret about Black History Month: few people know how to celebrate the way Black people know how to celebrate. And we celebrate this month FOR US. We don’t look towards white eyes or ask for white approval. The morning of February 1st social media streams are filled with gifs and memes, well-timed quotes and inside jokes, words of affirmation. Black churches host banquets. Community centers put up billboards draped in red, black, and green. There are talent shows and pageants where little black girls are forced on stage in itchy thick white cotton tights to recite Maya Angelou’s ‘Phenomenal Woman’ and ‘Still I Rise.’ Our littlest ones fumble through the words of the Black national anthem, ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing.’ There are dozens of these traditions happening all across the country this month, and I love each and every one of them. At the 2017 Emmys, Issa Rae told a reporter, ‘I’m Rooting For Everybody Black’ and even though it wasn’t technically Black History Month when she said it – nothing better captures the attitude.”

It’s still true, you know. I am unapologetically, over the moon, absolutely just cheesy cornball, would probably make you roll your eyes levels, proud of being Black, especially during this — the 28 Blackest days of the year. And still, I found this year’s Black History Month hard to plan. Hard to even be excited for.

I’m sure part of that is pandemic exhaustion. Pandemic exhaustion wears more heavily when your Black. When your people are in every way bearing the brunt of the virus — between two and three as likely to contract it, overrepresented in the essential work industries that put them in daily direct contact with it and in the resulting unemployment caused by its economic effects, conversely underrepresented by nearly every measure of who has access to a vaccine.

I went into lockdown on March 11th, 2020. My father called on Sunday March 22nd to tell me that he was being hospitalized with difficulty breathing. He was put on a ventilator the next day. He stayed on that ventilator for nearly two months. It was 102 days — July 2nd — before he walked back out of that hospital. There’s an entire Spring he won’t remember ever again, vanished from his life. An entire Spring that I spent traumatized. A Spring of learning medical terms and keeping haphazard notes in a small yellow notebook, of waking up nauseous every day and unsure how to steady my next steps, of doctor’s phone calls on top of doctors phone calls and memorizing the name of every single nurse — just hoping that if they remembered my name in return then maybe, just maybe they would treat my father like he belonged to somebody. The surgeries when I couldn’t be there.

I don’t know why I’m sharing that now. I never have before.

I think it’s because recently a (white) friend of mine was talking about the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer and how she felt “reinvigorated, like a world of change and ‘people power’ was finally really possible” and all I felt was worn out and exhausted. I’ve loved Black people since before I knew the words or how to spell them. I’ve been in the streets for our lives long before last summer. Where others feel inspired, I’m left wondering what took so damn long. I’m left frustrated knowing that this, too, won’t be change.

Maybe I needed you to know all this so you could understand what drew me to this year’s Black History Month theme. When I first read Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham’s Black Futures in December, I was spent out of possibility. I also didn’t have the energy to keep circling the past. But within their gorgeous multimedia art book (which you should absolutely cop if you haven’t yet, consider it my Official Editor’s Recommendation) was a simple premise: “What does it mean to be Black and alive?” Starting from that inquiry, they assembled an archive of the digital landscape and communities built and the art found in the living life and breath of Black people right now. It was small, just asking us to look around and see the magic in our every day — and that was my restoration.

I wrote out a prompt. I sent Sarah (the graphics genius and design director behind all the beauty you’ve witnessed this month) an embarrassingly rough looking mood board. Then miraculously, carved deep into the late nights around the ongoing Autostraddle fundraiser that’s eating our days, the two of us got to work.

My first attempt at a mood board. Ever.

Sarah turned my mood board into this gorgeous collection of calls for work.

I’ve loved every essay we’ve published this month. They easily represent my best editing work at Autostraddle, and one of the truest distillations of a vision I’ve had go from concept to completion.

It’s a small party of sorts, carefully curated, and I’m ecstatically proud (what did I tell you about being a cornball) of each and every one. I’m so grateful to Lazarus Letcher and shea martin for the meditations they provided on gender, of politics, of finding yourself in the past — or letting go of what’s there once you do. Without knowing each other, their pieces find a harmony, each picking up where the other let off. And if that’s the case, then Khalisa Rae Thompson turned up the heat! Once you read the line “When I was twelve or thirteen my mother caught me and a female friend dangling our vaginas” — you really can’t come back from that, in the best kind of ways. And today here I am, rounding out our group with some memories of my Aunt Lorna, who taught me everything about telling Black stories that I know.

There’s two days left in Black History Month. Make the most of it. Tell Black Stories. Encourage Black Storytellers. Don’t stop in February. Tell them every other day of the year, too.

Addendum

Thank You to Sarah Sarwar for being a friend, and for putting up with my terrible graphic design skills with a smile, patience, and flourish. Everything she makes is a treasure — and here’s some behind the scenes of what that looks like in practice:

Carmen’s Notes:

“I love how she looks with the starry night, I love the richness of the purple flowers. I love how it looks like a collage and multi-media art. I just LOVE  it. I can’t stop gushing… I’m also wondering what it looks like with the purple pushed back to the edges more so it is crowding her less? I made a very terrible mock up of what I mean.”

Sarah’s Final Version:

“I can DEF try this!!! great idea!”

Carmen’s Notes:

“shea (the author) has a lot of really great photos of themself on social media, I’m wondering if incorporating one or two of them will help fill the space and also take the singular focus off of Kamala? Don’t laugh at my ‘art’ LMAO but — does this make sense to you?”

Sarah’s Final Version:

“It does!!! Also I think we could add in images of Sojourner Truth? Also what if the pearls cover Kamala’s eyes? seems more aligned with what the essay conveys.”

✨

Editor’s Notes: On Butt Week

An inside look, just for A+ members, from Autostraddle’s editors on the process, struggles, and surprises of working on what you’re reading on the site. We learn so much from this work before it ever even makes it to your eyes; now you can, too!

I was sitting at my little desk in my little living room, staring out my little window and thinking about this one girl’s extremely good ass: in blue cotton underwear; in a black swimsuit floating across a pool; in the kitchen while coffee is brewing; in my hands. And the thing about asses is that “good” is subjective and yet already true of all asses, so really the winner here and henceforth is whomsoever is perceiving or has perceived the ass or asses. That is a truth that’s true no matter what else is happening in this godforsaken world, this busy rotten place, this wonderful home to asses and kittens and peach jam and biscuits and books you’ll never read. It’s an always true truth. Asses are so good.

And it was with this energy and armed with this truth that I wandered into our editorial channel in Slack and said:

And because it came from such a pure and true place, the effect of it then sitting there, quite naked and without reply for several minutes, was similar to what I imagine grows in the protracted and unexpected silence after one says, “I love you!” in a moment that might later be described as heady or indeed even a bad idea, which is: panic. I felt self-conscious and began to doubt my own genius (how sad!), so I did what I always do when I need validation!

https://twitter.com/grrreen/status/1311399289558495233?s=20

Once the people of Twitter had spoken out in support of my very good idea, I marched back into our little Slack office — this time taking it directly to the team — and set this thing in motion.

Working at Autostraddle means being just absolutely surrounded on all sides by brilliance and creativity, and this wild contagious energy that invites everyone to get involved, so that’s what happened. In less than an hour the entirety of Butt Week had been mapped out. As for the publishing schedule, I knew I wanted this out before the holidays took over our lives, and I wanted to kick it off with something from Archie — originally expecting a Grease Bats installment, which eventually transitioned to a post filled with coloring pages — because if you know Archie, you know how Archie feels about butt stuff. It was meant to be. It also worked out that Archie was able to do all of the original artwork for the entire week! The header graphic and all the feature images came from their peachy bum-loving heart. Bless!

Vanessa showed you how to take the best butt selfies, Malic made a playlist for you and your butt and even took the time to make the case for farting in front of your partner, Carolyn rounded up the best butt toys, Valerie Anne gathered a variety of television butts of note, Drew casually drummed up a devastating personal essay on poppers, and we republished our classic review of the Njoy Pure Plug, and we’re only getting started!

Is this the best idea I’ve had since these cashews? Honey, it might be. I hope you’ve enjoyed everything so far, and I hope you’re ready for even more, because wow there is so much coming your way this week!

Editor’s Notes: On Bi+ Week 2020

An inside look, just for A+ members, from Autostraddle’s editors on the process, struggles, and surprises of working on what you’re reading on the site. We learn so much from this work before it ever even makes it to your eyes; now you can, too!

I was already in the midst of planning the first outlines of this week of content when a spate of very silly and very tired bisexual takes rolled through the discourse — whether it was the ~validity~ of bisexual women (what does that even mean? I’ve always wondered!) or what we’re like to date, it felt like we were in an unforgiving spotlight just as I was trying to think about how to best celebrate us. It didn’t feel great, and specifically felt weirdly anachronistic; after a summer defined by new horizons I hadn’t dared to imagine possible, it was so bizarre to somehow be sitting through the same conversations I felt like we were having back in 2010.

Another way of looking at it, though, I guess is that another thing we were reminded of this summer is how progress always moves in cycles, and some of them aren’t even that long; we’re always working on the same things we were working on five, ten, 20, 50 years ago; they’ve just been shifted up and into a different place, but they don’t go away. Which I guess is also what I’ve been thinking about for bi week of this year; I know we don’t ever get to stop thinking entirely about the annoying issues we have to keep re-litigating over and over, but I do want us to get to move the conversation forward. And I want us to be able to have it on our terms – not as a reaction, not as a defense or a justification, but a conversation amongst ourselves about ourselves that lets us connect with and affirm each other.

Sometimes I feel insecure or unsure about the role of these discussions – what are the conversations we want or need to be having in this community? What does ~community~ actually even mean for us? Am I like the only person who still calls themselves bisexual, or has the next generation moved on to different ways to talk about themselves and their experiences, like how there are all these new drugs I don’t know anything about? What kind of vocabulary do we have as a community to talk about everything that’s urgently on the table right now for us all? I wasn’t sure! And I’m still not, which is fine; the point is the questions, not insisting on having answers. But the submissions that rolled in for this week have made me feel so grateful and excited about what we’re already thinking and doing as a community and what we’re capable of doing. We have pieces on trying to stay in touch with the huge possibilities of how sexuality can shift with new awareness of gender, the interplay of a sexuality people find tough to parse with a disability that people find illegible; the power of community and Dungeons & Dragons, what it’s like to be literally at the cutting edge of new representations of bi women by writing your own webseries, and complex, multilayered conversations I’m truly thrilled to get to share with you. Thank you for being here and for being part of them, and being part of this week!