Sarah Paulson and Tig Notaro’s Lesbian Party Bus, Explained
On Sunday morning, I awoke to a brand new world — a world that had one less hour in it than I’d hoped but also a world in which a video from a party bus, chock full of my favorite lesbian and lesbian-adjacent human beings, were singing my favorite song, the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.” Every new gay face that appeared in this short clip on Stephanie Allynne’s instagram was like a revelation, a vision from G-d herself. Tig Notaro?! Holland Taylor! Abby Wambach?!! Glennon Doyle?? Lee Rose??? And then also Allison Janney! Sherri Saum! Amanda Kloots! Carla Gallo! What in the name of Emily Saliers was going on here?
But the joy did not stop with that one video. Additional videos have since surfaced, such as this one of all of my best friends singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” on the same party bus and then another featuring Lizzo’s “Juice.” And another to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”!
This has led the Lesbian Community to wonder: how did this happen? How did this group of souls unite in such a triumphant manner? And why were we all not personally as individuals invited to partake?
Where Is the Lesbian Party Bus Going?
Our friends were taking a party bus to Tig Notaro’s March 11th comedy show in Long Beach.
Whomst and Whyst Are These People on the Same Bus?
The passengers of the Lesbian Party Bus were as follows:
- Allison Janney
- Glennon Doyle
- Abby Wambach
- Sarah Paulson
- Holland Taylor
- Tig Notaro
- Stephanie Allynne
- Sherri Saum
- Lee Rose
- Phelan Dante Fitzpatrick
- Amanda Kloots
- Carla Gallo
- Bradley Bredeweg
Get out your whiteboard and your thumbtacks and your yarn, it’s time to connect the dots!
Actress Sarah Paulson, a legend in these waters, is on the bus with her girlfriend, noted actress and similarly revered lesbian Holland Taylor. Sarah is friends with comic and Army of the Dead star Tig Notaro, as indicated by their delightful and comfortable rapport on this clip from Tig’s podcast and this 2017 appearance on Jimmy Fallon, in which Tig would like Sarah to affirm that they enjoy partying together.
Tig Notaro and her wife Stephanie Allynne (another writer/actor/comic we all know and love around here) also both appeared recently on Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle‘s podcast, We Can Do Hard Things. When Glennon Doyle appeared on Tig Notaro’s podcast in 2020 it seems they’d recently connected for the first time, after Stephanie turned Tig onto Glennon’s book Untamed and her entire cannon of content.
Sarah Paulson, meanwhile, is slated to star as Glennon Doyle in the TV adaptation of Untamed. Doyle and Paulson met as participants in the Share the Mic movement in 2020.
Queen Allison Janney is a lead character on this party bus. Like Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor, she has been of the Hollywood universe as well as the Broadway universe. Her friendship with Sarah Paulson appears to go back well over a decade — they absolutely were already friends by the time these pics were taken in 2012, but possibly also in this picture from 2005 at the Tony Awards, at which Sarah Paulson’s then-girlfriend Cherry Jones won a Tony for Doubt and Janney was a “participating artist.” Allison also guest-starred on an episode of Sarah Paulson’s show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip in 2007. Meanwhile, Holland Taylor and Allison Janney were photographed together at a (lesbian non-profit) Power Up event for Melissa Etheridge in 2002. Holland and Allison were also both in the 2019 film Bombshell.
In fact, Sarah Paulson, Holland Taylor and Allison Janney appear to all be close friends — they had dinner together last month with legendary character actress Margo Martindale and Lee Rose, another Party Bus passenger and a lesbian director/producer/writer, who identified this February 2023 dinner as the result of “years of friendship”:
Lee Rose also began in the theater universe, like Sarah and Holland. She recently directed five episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, which featured Tig Notaro. She also worked on The Fosters, which of course starred the one and only Sherri Saum. It appears that Lee’s dinners with Allison Janey, Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor occur at regular intervals, and that she is close pals with Allison Janney. She worked with Janney on A Girl Thing in 2001.
Lee Rose is also best friends with Party Bus Passenger Bradley Bredeweg, creator/EP of The Fosters and Good Trouble (which also features Sherri Saum). Bradley also spent the holidays with Tig Notaro, Stephanie Allynne, Lee Rose, Sherri Saum, Teri Polo and Allison Janney.
via Bradley’s instagram (Click through to see all the photos)
Before we move on from Sherri Saum, there is also a photograph of Sherri, Holland Taylor and Sarah Paulson having a microphoned conversation in nice outfits, dating back to July 17, 2016. After extensive detective work, we have concluded that this photograph was taken at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in Sherman Oaks.
Now, onto the passengers of the lesbian party bus that might not have been immediately recognizable to the lesbian community. We will begin with another woman from the Broadway universe: Amanda Kloots.
(Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Currently, Amanda Kloots identifies as a co-host of The Talk, a fitness person, a dancer and The New York Times bestselling author of Live Your Life. Previously she was part of the ensemble of several Broadway musicals, including Bullets Over Broadway. I don’t know how to share this next bit of truly devastating information in a post of this nature but: her husband was also a Broadway actor and he tragically passed away in 2020 at the age of 41 from complications related to COVID-19.
As for Kloots’ direct connection to other Party Bus Passengers, it does seem she and her late husband have a personal connection with Sarah Paulson, although the exact nature of that relationship is unclear. Furthermore, Kloots’ book was climbing the bestseller lists for Non-Fiction around the same time as Glennon Doyle‘s Untamed, and both books are in a similar space of self-help/memoir, so it’s possible their paths crossed at some point due to that collision of thematic enterprises. For example, Amanda and Glennon were both part of a group of panels for International Women’s Day sponsored by Little Market.
Kloots was also amongst many celebrities who appeared on the red carpet at the opening night celebration for Netflix’s Your Place or Mine, a movie which featured Tig Notaro as a lesbian Mom who drinks a lot of coffee — and this, we now know (as revealed in the comments on this very article) is in fact where Amanda Kloots and Phelan Dante Fitzpatrick (who we will discuss momentarily) met Tig Notaro, who invited them to the show in Long Beach!
Kloots recently starred in Fit For Christmas, which she co-wrote with queer TV writer Anna S. White after they were connected to each other via a queer mutual friend, Jacklyn Collier, which I am only mentioning because it suggests that Kloots simply knows a lot of lesbians in Hollywood! She is followed on instagram by Sarah Paulson, Stephanie Allynne and Holland Taylor as well as numerous other queers-about-town (e.g., Rosie O’Donnell, Phoebe Dahl, Dot-Marie Jones, Nicolette Mason and Ariana DeBose).
Kloots is best friends with Phelan Dante Fitzpatrick, another Party Bus passenger. He identifies as a proud gay Dad and a former candidate for New York City City Council District 3. He is followed by Stephanie Allyne on instagram. He has served as a red carpet date for Kloots on several occasions. He also posted one (1) video from the party bus on his own instagram of him and Kloots having a very nice time.
Then we have actress Carla Gallo.
(Photo by Rob Latour/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Gallo is the veteran of so many TV shows and movies and is perhaps best recognized for her turn on Bones. She’s also credited as an “Angry Homeowner Lady” in the lesbian Christmas film Happiest Season. She was in one episode of Key & Peele with Stephanie Allynne in 2012.
But Gallo’s primary connection to this crew is through Sarah Paulson — she has been friends with Sarah Paulson SINCE CHILDHOOD, and there are numerous red carpet photographs of Paulson and Gallo throughout the years, starting in 2005 and stretching into the 2010s. Gallo is also friends with Paulson’s friend Amanda Peet.
that roanoke one 😭💀 pic.twitter.com/0yqTqzUeWl
— sarah paulson's pr (@sarahpaulsbean) June 24, 2021
This, my friends, concludes today’s episode of Sherlock Homo, aka Dyketective. I would like to thank my research assistants at the Autostraddle.com Office Slack channel as well as all of you for tuning in. If you have any tips, feel free to share, and stay safe out there!!!
Glennon Doyle’s “Untamed”: A Gay Love Story About a Grown-Ass Woman Who Does What the F*ck She Wants
I wasn’t out to myself, hadn’t even really considered the possibility that I was a lesbian, when Ellen came out on her sitcom in 1997. I knew, of course I knew — the intimate, tempestuous friendships. The way that picture of naked Teri Hatcher wrapped in Superman’s cape made me feel like throwing up. The baseball hat collection. The Indigo Girls CDs. Scream-singing, “Now you just turn away and say ‘Romeo, I think I used to have a scene with him!!!!” out the window of my pick-up truck. But my subconscious mind was — somewhat inexplicably — shielding my consciousness from it. I was a 16-year-old kid in a deeply dysfunctional family in rural Georgia. Surviving was already hard enough.
What I remember about the night of Ellen’s “The Puppy Episode” is: everything. Spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner, windows wide open in the muggy springtime evening, a cacophony of tree frogs and crickets, jasmine and magnolia, University of Tennessee Lady Vols orange basketball shorts and a too-big t-shirt, my sister on the small couch and my dad on the big couch and me sprawled out on the floor not looking at either of them.
I don’t know now if I can recall every plot detail, guest appearance (Oprah! k.d. lang! Laura Dern!), and line of dialogue because I remember it from then, or because I’ve watched it a hundred times since then, because I’ve been a professional lesbian TV critic for 13 years. Probably the second thing because I wasn’t really listening to what Ellen said on TV that night; I was listening to the way my family reacted to what she said. They laughed, a lot — with her, not at her. “I always thought Ellen might be gay,” her best friend Spence said. “I mean she could always run faster than I could, throw a ball farther, climb a tree faster…” My dad cackled. I did too. “Ha ha ha! How hilarious in a completely unrelatable way!”
Ten years later, at the age of 26, I found myself sitting again on the floor of a living room, intensely observing the reactions of the other people to what was on TV. The house was in my Baptist church’s backyard and had been converted into Sunday School classrooms. Our women’s Bible study group crowded in on a Wednesday evening to watch the next installment of Beth Moore’s “Breaking Free” Bible study, a deep dive into the 61st chapter of the book of Isaiah that promised to teach us how to find freedom from personal captivity. Moore is one of the most well-know, most prolific women evangelicals in the world. She’s written dozens of books, sold out hundreds of arenas, held the attention of millions of women in the palm of her hand. I was as close to worshipping her as I could get without breaking the first Commandment.
The crowds of women Beth Moore spoke to on her Bible study videos didn’t react much outside of occasional chuckles at her anecdotes about being a wife and a mother and this and that Texas thing (big hair, high humidity) — but that night, on that VHS tape, the women Moore had in her audience rose up as one and jeered, boo-ed, growled their outrage and disbelief. She stopped them. She held up her hand and asked them to show compassion. But also, yes, she agreed with them — the sin she’d just mentioned that set them off, the sin of homosexuality, lesbianism especially, was one of Satan’s primary agendas in keeping women captive. The gay rights movement was propaganda, a satanically induced web that was methodically woven around them, and once they were trapped — KABLAM! — a full scale demonic attack on their minds and emotions. Gay relationships, Moore went on to write, “are not love. It may feel like love because it is an overwhelming takeover of the heart, but it is not love.”
The women in my Bible study murmured their agreement and disgust at the TV. “I heard in lesbian relationships, one has to be the man and one has to be the woman, which proves God’s plan for marriage is between a husband and a wife,” one woman said. Another had a lesbian cousin and could confirm the rumor that gay women wanted to disrupt God’s natural order by axe-murdering all men.
I’d been out of church for over a decade by the time Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle announced that they were in a relationship. I knew everything about Abby Wambach, had been following her career my whole adult life, but I’d never heard of Glennon Doyle. I felt an immediate fondness and protectiveness of her, though — first of all, because every headline kept calling her a “Christian Mommy Blogger,” when even a cursory Google search of her name revealed her to be a #1 New York Times best-selling author; and second of all, because I’d also one time been a Christian Blogger who fell in love with another woman. I jokingly wrote a headline about it that made some people mad — Abby Wambach Infiltrates Blonde Christian America — because it tickled me to read the way people were talking about the news, as if someone as huge as Abby Wambach (physically, culturally, athletically) had stealthed into a church and bamboozled a naive woman whose book titles all include the word “warrior” into falling into sin with her.
Anyway, it turns out all Abby Wambach had to do was walk through the door.
There. She. Is. Glennon wrote in her new memoir, Untamed, when she recalled the moment Abby Wambach entered her life by entering a restaurant where she was eating. She’d never met Abby Wambach, had no idea she was going through a huge crisis because she was recently arrested for a DUI, that it was trending on Twitter, all over the news. Glennon got up from her chair and reached out for a hug. Abby Wambach quirked her eyebrow and smiled across the room. Glennon thought Fuck fuck fuck Why am I standing? Why are my arms open? What Am I Doing?
It was a fair question for a lot of reasons, including that Glennon was still married to her husband Craig, the father of her three children, and a central figure in her previous best-selling books, at the time. In fact, she was on a book tour to promote Love Warrior, a memoir she calls “the story of the dramatic destruction and painstaking reconstruction of my family” after her husband’s infidelity when she met Abby.
I assumed that would be the central conflict of Untamed. And in some ways it is — but not the ways I expected. Doyle’s first two memoirs were marketed, in many ways, to the women who crowded into that Beth Moore Bible study with me over a decade ago, straight Christian women with husbands and children who wanted to understand what was keeping them captive and be set free. And so I thought there’d be excruciating inner turmoil, hand-wringing about sin and are gay relationships really love and the axe-murdering misandry. Nope! Glennon worries about hurting her children by divorcing their dad, she worries about physical intimacy which she realizes she’s never really experienced with a man, she worries about her career and her parents and her friends. But she never worries that her desire is sinful, that her blossoming love for Abby is anything other than real; holy, even.
I fell in love with a woman for the first time in my mid-20s; we were co-leaders on a mission trip, in charge of a group of college-age girls who felt called by the Lord to spend their summer building churches, volunteering in schools, visiting the elderly in state-assisted nursing homes, and flirting with the all-boys college groups who came to work for only a week at a time. I wrote in my journal the day I met her that she was going to be trouble for me. I didn’t mean it in a gay way. I meant it in a disciple-y way. Like she was going to distract me, time-wise, from my prayers and Bible study.
I liked her immediately, more immediately than I’d ever liked anyone in my life. She was the kind of person who gave everyone nicknames as soon as she met them; laughed freely and loudly and often; told wild stories about the ways God had engaged with her on a personal level, and listened to other people’s stories with exactly the right amount of awe and “mm-hmms!” Her eyes were the color of the Cornflower crayon from the Crayola 64 box of my youth. Not the wrapper of the Cornflower crayon, but the actual crayon on paper, the hazy days blue of a summertime breeze. I’d never seen eyes that color before.
The first time we held hands, we were in a pool at a hotel on our off-day. Ostensibly, we were measuring the difference in size. My hands are huge. Hers were tiny, which I said was weird for a water polo player. How did she even grip the ball? She didn’t let go of my hand when she answered. She said she’d teach me the freestyle, the backstroke, and how to do the “egg-beater” kick to stay above water. I grew up with a pool in my backyard; I was the best swimmer I knew. I told her she could teach me anything.
When she kissed me, I thought of Isaiah 61. Not Beth Moore. Just Isaiah 61. “Freedom for the captives… release from the darkness for the prisoners… oil of gladness instead of mourning… garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair…” She’d called me Hoagie since she’d met me, which was nothing new. She whispered my name that day. Heather. When I stood with her, in a bridesmaids dress, while she married her fiancé six months later, she read her part of Song of Songs: “I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk.” I looked right at her, right into her Crayola cornflower eyes and read mine: “Eat, friends, and drink; drink your fill of love.”
Glennon Doyle falling in love with Abby Wambach isn’t the whole story of Untamed. It’s the catalyst, really, for Glennon Doyle to relearn her life, to examine the “spark that was always inside me, smoldering.” That spark doesn’t spread a linear fire, from Abby to Happily Ever After. Untamed grapples with body image, racism and the place of white people talking to other white people about it, parenting, sobriety, divorce, forgiveness, jealousy, sex, church, faith, religion (three different things), activism, Knowing, Becoming, and the life of caged cheetahs.
Anecdotes are stitched together with object lessons and wrapped in stream of conscious ruminations. One chapter might explore Glennon’s childhood bulimia, the next a present-day struggle about allowing her daughter to join a soccer team at the behest of her wife (one of the greatest soccer players in the world), the next a story about how a house is a metaphor for something else completely, and the next a confession about not being a good friend. Doyle is deft at self-deprecation but never veers toward self-loathing, disarmingly earnest and vulnerable, and unafraid to own her own contradictions. “I don’t know if I would call myself a Christian,” she writes at one point, a stunning revelation for a person with her built-in audience.
It’s been a long time since I read a book that even nudged up against Christianity, and I confess that Doyle’s blunt, clear-eyed pragmatism about it left me feeling pretty giddy. Here is a woman who has raised $25 million for people in need through Together Rising, her non profit organization; a woman who seems completely free from personal captivity; a woman in a relationship with another woman who knows, unequivocally, that it is love. A woman who isn’t challenging God with her sexuality, but who has come to believe that God was challenging religion inside her. An oak of righteousness, Isaiah might say, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
“I left my husband and I am building a life with Abby because I’m a grown-ass woman and I do what the fuck I want,” she writes, 200 pages after Abby walked into that restaurant.
In the end, Doyle comes to understand that being untamed isn’t about choosing Abby; it’s about choosing herself.
26 Celebrity Gal Pals Who Made Us Swoon In 2017
Click for more 2017 End of the Year Lists
Is love a lie? PROBABLY, but these couples charmed the heck out of us this year anyway.
Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle
The seemingly unlikely pairing of retired soccer star Wambach and noted Christian mommy blogger Glennon Doyle captured our imagination almost immediately. They tied the knot in May, but remained super cute and charmingly supportive of one another all year long.
Ellen Page and Emma Portner
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYeHFuphGH0/?taken-by=ellenpage
Anyone following Ellen Page on social media can tell that she’s obviously got it bad for this adorable dancer. For obvious reasons, my favorite kind of relationship is one that results in copious Instagram collaborations.
Kehlani and Shaina Negron
This has been a huge year for Kehlani, and it’s been particularly refreshing watching her open up in interviews about her sexuality – positive bisexual representation is still all too rare in the current media climate. Kehlani was particularly candid about her relationship with tattoo artist/painter Shania Negron and posted a lot of cute photos of the pair together. As of this writing, they seem to have deleted a lot of social media postings including one another and I’m not 100% sure if they’re still together, but I am including them here because they look(ed?) so damn incredible together.
Maisie Richardson-Sellers and Clay
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc0pzO-nZ5B/
Get you someone who looks at you the way these two BEAM at each other.
Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe
But did she spill a drink all over her shirt or what?
I will be the first one to tell you I don’t know a lot about sports people, but this year basketball superstar Sue Bird not only came out as gay, she also announced her relationship with soccer champ Megan Rapinoe. I imagine that they spend a lot of time gazing into one another’s eyes while doing hundreds upon hundreds of jumping jacks.
Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcKqHBPDp1b/?taken-by=cameronesposito
Perhaps you read Heather Hogan’s thoughtful profile of these two on this very website, or you fell in love with them through their excellent show Take My Wife, or maybe you went to see these two hilarious weirdos on their Back to Back comedy tour! Somehow, despite working together pretty much all the time (my personal relationship nightmare), Cameron and Rhea have emerged from 2017 with a #1 comedy album, excellent haircuts and an adorable social media presence.
Rutina Wesley and Chef Shonda
In the year of our lord 2017 I watched True Blood for the first time and was aghast at all of my friends who spent years telling me to watch this horrible show. Does Tara ever get a fucking break? She does, apparently, because Rutina Wesley came out in possibly the gayest Instagram post of all time – also announcing her engagement!
Gigi Gorgeous and Nats Getty
Riese’s favorite couple of 2017™ have been so adorable lately that news that they were around a baby once threw the internet into an uproar. They did not have a baby together this year but they did take this cute-ass photo on a boat.
Gaby Dunn and Ellen Ford
https://www.instagram.com/p/BY1mkREg4t7/?taken-by=gabyroad
I asked Gaby Dunn if she would like to make a statement about being in an article about the best celebrity couples of 2017 and she offered, “just that I am blessed and everyone should get a soft butch.” She would also like to let you know about Ellen’s Instagram account, where you can look at more pictures of her.
Kristen Stewart and Stella Maxwell
These two creeps have been stalking and glaring around Los Feliz for the better part of 2017 and even went as far as to adopt a (very cute) dog together. I may or may not have made a Google map detailing all the places they have been spotted purchasing green juice, and may or may not have dragged NSFW Editor Carolyn to almost all of those places on my last visit. This was also a notable year for Kristen because she gave us the following gift:
Janelle Monáe and Tessa Thompson
Listen, there’s no ACTUAL proof these two are actually dating but there’s also no proof these two aren’t dating and I believe that if you will something hard enough, you can actually manifest it with your brain. I have high hopes for these two UNCONFIRMED LOVEBIRDS in 2018 (and if for some reason it doesn’t work out, Janelle, Mara Wilson would like for you to call her).
For a thorough glimpse into all the extremely telling evidence that Janelle and Tessa are together, please enjoy this Twitter thread:
ok so it was not an awards show, it was the 2015 MOCA gala, but they a. went as dates and b. wore COMPLIMENTARY OUTFITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/9MRY9rwBkQ
— jaye (@hayejunt) October 9, 2017
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor
Every year forever. No question.
Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli
These two nerds look deliriously happy around each other 100% of the time to the point where it’s actually rude. This was a depressing year on almost every level, but then Lauren and Samira shocked us all with their goddamn Funfetti-themed wedding and somehow, it gave us hope that everything just might turn out OK after all.
These Queer Humans Are Going On Tour To Make Your Autumn Even Gayer
Autumn is just around the corner, which means winter follows on its pumpkin-spiced heels.
I say this not to alarm you — nay, it is to prepare you for the long winter slog ahead. For verily, there is a cornucopia of queer creators hitting the road this fall, and it would be wise to consider attending one of their shows (if not more) to give yourself some music and laughter to get you through to spring.
Check out tour dates and ticket availabilities; there’s a good chance one of these awesome acts is headed to a city near you.
Rhea Butcher and Cameron Esposito
The stars of the hilarious show Take My Wife are on their Back to Back tour from September through the middle of October, giving our queer hearts comfort in the knowledge that on a stage somewhere in autumn, two rad, married women are telling truths and making people cry-laugh (seriously, so funny – check out Cameron hanging out in bed with Kristin Russo for more proof).
The only way it could be better would be watching them live! Visit CameronEsposito.com and/or RheaButcher.com (you don’t have to choose) for tickets and touring dates.
Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin
You’ve watched them figure out life and love and each other on their hit digital series, Just Between Us, and now you, too, can be part of the JBU-esque conversations as Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin prepare to hit the road on a tour called “Gaby and Allison Hate Everyone But You.”
Promoting their book, “I Hate Everyone But You,” which drops on Sept. 5, the two friends will be on stage telling stories, doing some stand-up, showing you some videos, probably vocally disagreeing with each other a lot, and just generally making you glad you left your house.
The shows start up in September, so check out ticket and show availabilities at GabyandAllison.com.
Tegan and Sara
Sorry to throw in this little-known indie band from Canada, but I really think you’d like them.
Autostraddle faves Tegan and Sara, our twinners from another winner, are headed back out on the road to celebrate ten years since releasing their album, “The Con.” The North American tour will include all 14 songs on the album performed in order, along with other favorites.
A portion of the ticket sales will go to the Tegan and Sara Foundation, a very worthy cause “fighting for economic justice, health and representation for LGBTQ girls and women.”
For ticketing and show information, head over to TeganandSara.com.
Mal Blum and Mary Lambert
via www.marylambertsings.com
If you’ve never experienced a Mal Blum show, here’s all I can tell you: Your heart will be squeezed and your tear ducts will be teased and your ears will be pleased.
Mal Blum and the Blums are a feelings experience, and the whole band goes on tour in mid-October to support Jessica Lea Mayfield, and then starting Oct. 21, Mal heads out on their own to support the ever-amazing and talented Mary Lambert through mid-November on their aptly named Everyone is a Babe tour.
Yeah, you heard me: Mal and Mary together. Your heart is going to be so full and love it so much (this song makes me want to dance with and kiss someone).
For ticketing and tour date information, visit MalBlum.com. and/or MaryLambertSings.com.
Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle
via www.people.com
Former USWNT soccer superstar and all-time leading scorer Abby Wambach and her wife, the self-described “Christian mommy blogger” and author Glennon Doyle are going to be on stage in New Orleans talking about love, faith, and equality during the TEDWomen 2017 conference, taking place Nov. 1-3.
These two got married after a whirlwind and public romance, glimpses of which were gifted to us largely via social media. It will be interesting to see if they touch on how life has changed, good and bad, now that they’re married to each other.
Abby and Glennon will join with social justice activist Valerie Kaur, former Fox News commentator Gretchen Carlson, actor and feminist Justin Baldoni, audio documentarian Eve Abrams, advocate and entrepreneur Christy Turlington Burns, CNN political commentator and journalist Sally Kohn (who also happens to be a lesbian!), and artist and poet Cleo Wade for the conference lineup, the theme for which is “Bridges.”
Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle Melton Are Gay Christian Married!
What a weekend for gay weddings, eh? First came the news that Diana Taurasi married former teammate Penny Taylor. And now comes the news that former USWNT superstar Abby Wambach married Glennon Doyle Melton. Wambach is now a Christian Mommy Blogger’s Wife, if you will, and you will because that’s what Glennon Doyle Melton called her on Instagram as a way to announce their marriage. She even bought her a hoodie for the declaration.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUHZbO7lcrb/
After which: wedding photos.
People magazine helpfully describes their wedding attire as “a red velvet suit jacket” and a “silver bejeweled dress.”
Wambach and Melton made headlines in November when the two shared the news that they were dating. The announcement came a few months after Melton, a celebrity writer in the Christian community, announced her divorce from her husband and also a few months after Wambach announced her divorce from former teammate Sarah Huffman, which she detailed in her memoir, Forward, along with candid stories about her struggle with substance abuse and subsequent DUI arrest.
In February Melton and Wambach announced their engagement. And now they’re married!
If social media is any indication, Melton has received an outpouring of support from the Christian community, which is honestly a little surprising, but very welcome. “Christian Mommy Blogger’s Wife” is not a thing I ever expected to read in my entire life when I was growing up gay and closeted in a Southern Baptist Church. It’s a welcome shift on this dark timeline.
Mazel tov, you two crazy kids!
Abby Wambach Is Getting Married Again as Hope Springs Eternal Even on the Darkest Timeline
A couple of months ago, bestselling writer Glennon Doyle Melton declared that she and soccer legend Abby Wambach were in love, and now they would like you to know they’re getting married! “Abby and I have decided to hold hands forever. Love Wins,” is how Glennon Doyle Melton made the announcement on Facebook. “Happy. #iseethemoonnow,” is how Abby Wambach made the announcement on Instagram. This will be the second marriage for both women, who seem to have made peace with the fact that their respective fan bases exist on entirely different social media platforms.
It’s been a whirlwind of a year for Wambach. She played her last professional soccer game at the end of December 2015, released her memoir, Forward — which detailed her struggle with addiction and announced her divorce from longtime partner and USWNT teammate Sarah Huffman — in September 2016, went public with Melton in November 2016, and is now on her way to the altar. (That U-Haul cliche exists for a reason, I’m sorry.)
Nearly every website and magazine on the earth referred to Glennon Doyle Melton as a “Christian mommy blogger” when she and Wambach came out as a couple last fall, which made me pop my eyebrow, but I’ve had the chance to read some of her work in the last few months and it turns out she has been an outspoken advocate for equality in the Christian community for a long, long time, something that put her at odds with the LGBT-scapegoating political power grabbing that has dominated so much of the white evangelical conversation these last few … decades. Glennon Doyle Melton hasn’t shied away from talking about her relationship with Abby Wambach in the context of her faith. She made one explanation to her 645,000 Facebook followers when she came out (in which she said she knows Jesus loves her because Abby is a good cook) and hasn’t apologized or equivocated since then.
The world is a scary place right now, but these two women found love and hope in the darkness and we wish them all the luck and happiness in the world.
Famous Butch Lesbian Abby Wambach Infiltrates Christian America!
Former USWNT soccer star Abby Wambach has raised a lot of eyebrows this year. Her memoir, Forward, shared the details of a battle with addiction that spanned her adult life and ultimately resulted in her arrest for DUI. The release of her book coincided with the announcement that she and her wife, Sarah Huffman, would be divorcing. And today, a whole new thing. A whaaaat in an entirely different direction. It turns out Abby Wambach has infiltrated Christian America! Yesterday, Christian blogger and memoirist Glennon Doyle Melton announced via Twitter and Facebook that she and Wambach are in love.
Feels like the world could use all the love it can get right now. So today, I'm sharing with you my new love. https://t.co/3KuDQ4e0Su pic.twitter.com/6vvxBqNUj4
— Glennon Doyle (@GlennonDoyle) November 14, 2016
It’s a really remarkable and shocking announcement. The white evangelical Christian community has been grappling with their position on gay people for a long time, and this recent election cycle saw the divide grow even wider. Famous writers and speakers like Beth Moore, Jen Hatmaker, and Katelyn Beaty broke with the official positions of their mega churches and spoke out against Trump, with Hatmaker pushing it far enough to offer unconditional support to LGBTQ people. LifeWay Bookstores (the Barnes & Noble of white evangelical Christianity) pulled all of her products from their shelves in response. And while there’s a growing push among younger evangelicals and a growing number of evangelical women to shift the focus of their community to social justice issues, the bigotry and hatred of the Jerry Falwells and James Dobsons of the world still reigns supreme.
Christian musician Jennifer Knapp came out in 2010, but that was seven years after she left the industry to grapple with her sexuality. Glennon Doyle Melton is the first woman in that circle of writers and speakers to go public with a same-sex relationship while remaining an active and beloved part of the community.
I don’t know as much about Glennon Doyle Melton as I do about the Beth Moores of the world because I’d already bolted from church by the time she rose to prominence, but I read a few posts on her blog, Momastery, yesterday and she seems like a warm and open human being who’s just trying to figure out how to love hard and whole in this hard, dark world. In fact, one of her books is called Love Warrior, and it was a New York Times bestseller and also an Oprah’s Book Club selection this year. The world needs more love warriors, that’s a thing I know for sure. Also, apparently, she has a gay pastor and has been outspoken about gay issues for a while now.
This is from her coming out Facebook post:
Now we are entering a new time which calls for a different type of leadership. And now it is my job as a leader not to concern myself too deeply about what you think and feel about me- about the way I live my life. That is what I want to model now, because that is what I want for YOU: I want you to grow so comfortable in your own being, your own skin, your own knowing – that you become more interested in your own joy and freedom and integrity than in what others think about you. That you remember that you only live once, that this is not a dress rehearsal and so you must BE who you are. I want you to refuse to betray yourself. Not just for you. For ALL OF US. Because what the world needs — in order to grow, in order to relax, in order to find peace, in order to become brave — is to watch one woman at a time live her truth without asking for permission or offering explanation.
The most revolutionary thing a woman can do is not explain herself.
The real lesson here, of course, is that it’s time for us to all go out and infiltrate the communities that have historically oppressed us and make the people inside them gay. Those are your new marching orders. Fingers crossed Glennon Doyle Melton’s next book is GAY Love Warrior.
This post has been updated with more information about Glennon Doyle Melton. The title is really, truly just a joke. The idea that gay people could go into a community that has historically oppressed us and make them love us by making them love us.