Four Hot New Queer and Queer-ish Singles From Your Faves to Usher In Summer
This last week was kind of freaking amazing for queer pop music. We’ve got so many new bops!!! It’s prime time for songs of the summer, and it seems like it was decided that the queer girl community will be the judges this year (that is if “Despacito” hasn’t already won the title, but come on, adding Justin Bieber to a song is a guaranteed way to sell it to queer women). Mary Lambert, Halsey and Lauren Jauregui of Fifth Harmony are out here representing queer women by singing explicitly about relationships with women. Hailee Steinfeld and Carly Rae Jepsen are out here representing for all their queer fans. This is what summer is all about.
“Know Your Name” / Mary Lambert
Know Your Name (Official Video) by Mary Lambert on VEVO.
Mary Lambert’s “Know Your Name” is in my opinion her funnest and danciest single yet, and I’m here and I’m queer for it. The video features an amazing girl gang of queer and trans cuties with nicknames like Horror Scope, Hell Vetica, Princess Sleia and Peach Fuzz. I love it. Then a mysterious stranger shows up and guess what! It’s Bisexual Superstar, Ultimate Bombshell, Brilliant Advocate and Actress Sara Ramirez! When Mary sings “I want to take you out, I want to make you shake, I want to drive you wild, but I probably should know your name,” she’s all of us when we see a brand new crush in the club. Also this video is hella nerdy, which makes it even more adorable. Dang, Mary Lambert is a blessing to this earth. This video and song and artist need to settle down and stop being so dang adorable.
“Strangers” / Halsey
Two more queer artists, Halsey and Lauren Jauregui, teamed up to make a killer duet about queer love falling apart. This song has a strong electronic beat and uses “she” pronouns throughout. Damn, this song is real, “She doesn’t kiss me on the mouth anymore, ’cause it’s more intimate than she thinks we should get” and “I miss the thought of a forever, you and me, but all you’re missing is my body.” These lyrics cut deep for any queer lady who’s felt someone they knew and loved become a stranger. I love love love this song and I love love love the precedent it’s setting of queer lady artists teaming up to make queer lady pop songs. Let this be the start of a new genre!
“Cut To The Feeling” / Carly Rae Jepsen
When it comes to gay-ish songs, we were blessed by both Hailee Steinfeld and True Gay Icon Carly Rae Jepsen. Carly Rae’s song is from her upcoming animated film Leap! about a young ballerina in Paris. According to NPR the song was originally intended to be on E•MO•TION: Side B, but was instead saved for the soundtrack to this movie. It’s a classic Carly Gae track, its ridiculously danceable, the hook makes your heart feel like it’s soaring, and the beat is gay as h*ck. Gawd I love this song. I want it played at every dance I ever go to for the rest of my life. “I wanna cut through the clouds, break the ceiling. I wanna dance on the roof, you and me alone. I wanna cut to the feeling, oh yeah” — same, girl, same.
“Most Girls” / Hailee Steinfeld
Hailee Steinfeld has been regularly putting out some of the best gayish pop songs in the past couple years with songs like “Love Myself” and “Starving.” Now she’s back with the girl power anthem Most Girls, which flips the script on “you’re not like most girls” by singing “Most girls are strong and smart and beautiful. Most Girls are Most girls, work hard, go far, we are unstoppable. Most girls, our fight to make every day. No two are the same, I want to be like Most Girls.” I really absolutely love this girl positive message that is body positive, anti-slut-shaming and all about loving girls for who they are. It gets my vote for song of the summer. I’m pretty sure this song was called “All Girls” until Hailee found out that white women voted for Trump.
Queer Women and women with huge queer fanbases are taking over pop music this summer and it’s honestly the best thing to ever happen to me.
Which of these songs is your song of the summer?
Gift Bags For Celebrity Women Who Came Out This Year
Illustration by Sophie Argetsinger
The year 2016 hasn’t been great. Some would say it feels like the end of the world. But there have been shining lights in 2016. Those shining lights came in the form of Lauren Jauregui, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Sara Ramirez, Gigi Gorgeous, Elizabeth Gilbert, Eva Gutowski, Bella Thorne, Stephanie Beatriz, Aubrey Plaza, Mara Wilson, Rebecca Sugar, Elena Delle Donne, Rowan Blanchard, Amandla Stenberg, and Keke Palmer coming out somewhere on the queer spectrum. We are so blessed.
To show our appreciation, I’ve put together a holiday gift bag to welcome them to our world.
Prrrrfect Tote Bag
I once tweeted (“I once tweeted,” – Me at my own funeral) that on the one hand people don’t exist for your consumption, but on the other hand I need to know if you’re gay. That still rings true. And what better way to alert the masses that you’re of a certain inclination than this beautifully designed tote bag of a woman face down cradling a cat.
The Rider Tarot Deck
Just trust me on this, having a tarot deck in your bag is going to work out really well for you, even before you know how to use it, and even if you never learn how to use it!
Double Feature of Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve
This double feature of Gary Marshall’s Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve will at once serve as a cautionary tale of a strictly heterosexual world, and then as a subtle reminder that in this new world you’ve entered, while everyone’s story lines may start out separately, they always become intertwined in the end.
Carmex Keep Carm & Carry Bag Set
Please enjoy these various Carmex chapstick products as you enter this new journey in life.
Gal Pal Athletic Tee
Are you best friends? Are you related? You’re going to keep them guessing in this shirt.
Carve Up the Mountain Soap Set
Okay, so first of all these soaps are fragrance free and vegetable based and so you know somebody queer made them. Secondly, you’re going to be doing a lot more camping, and these are perfect for you and your on-the-go dishware.
Wildfang PDX Beanie
Well you absolutely will need a beanie, one for the ping factor, and two for the growing out phase of the haircut you might be considering. I’ve chosen this PDX Beanie in particular as Portland is sure to be an upcoming travel destination.
‘Woman Planning Her Escape’ Tapestry
You planned it and you did it. Plus, the word “tapestry” alone gets us there.
The Well of Loneliness
Finally, round out this new beginning enjoying a classic fiction story of two women in love.
Lauren Jauregui is Bisexual: “Fifth Harmony” Singer Comes Out Gloriously In A Biting Open Letter To Trump Voters
When Lauren Jauregui landed herself the #1 position on the 2016 AfterEllen Hot 100 this past September, many women from the site’s queer readership were surprised — some hadn’t heard of her, others were just shocked to see a relative newcomer beat out Jennifer Lawrence/Beals. In the comments, Fifth Harmony fans explained that Jauregui was a passionate LGBTQ ally and as deserving of the honor as any of the other straight women regularly voted to top spots on the annual lesbian-curated list. In an interview following the Hot 100 announcement, the 20-year-old singer told AfterEllen that her group embraced their abundant queer female fandom by promoting “girl power,” “acceptance and love.”
Last week, fans came to Jauregui’s “defense” when Perez Hilton posted a photo of Lauren kissing a girl at what appears to be a friends’ wedding. They insisted that the kiss was “playful” and didn’t mean she was a lesbian. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…) Jauregui herself remained silent as the flames lapped furiously at twitter’s fervent shores.
Keep it classy, Perez Hilton
Until today! Because today, Lauren Jauregui published an open letter to Donald Trump Voters in Billboard Magazine, in which she identifies herself as a proud bisexual Cuban-American. Jauregui was, like so many of us, heartbroken when Hillary Clinton lost the presidency to a giant sack of poisonous gas. She was further enraged by voters who claimed that voting for a “racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic asshole” did not make them complicit in those attitudes, and that frustration unfurls gorgeously in her letter:
Your words are worthless, because your actions have led to the single-handed destruction of all the progress we’ve made socially as a nation. You have, with your pure ignorance and refusal to understand the way the government and the world works, allowed a power-hungry business tycoon to take over the United States of America. “The land of the free, the home of the brave, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for ALL.” You are HYPOCRITES.
She argues that “restoring the America that was” is restoring an America where people of color and LGBT folks and women didn’t feel safe, valid, or strong. She references Mein Kampf. She points out that Donald Trump manipulated everybody into voting for him. She discusses the difficulties of not fitting “the cis heterosexual mold.” She points out that G-d and Jesus Christ himself would not be pleased by this behavior and also that she went to Catholic School so she knows her shit. She talks about being a woman of color with light-skinned privilege and how sad it is that so many beautiful women aren’t able to realize their potential. She calls out white women who voted for Trump.
And she also says this:
Our “political correctness” that your champion, Donald Trump, so pointedly disregarded throughout his entire campaign and now with the appointment of his advisors and other government officials, is the language we have worked tirelessly to establish to feel safe in a world that never stops reminding us we are minorities. I am a bisexual Cuban-American woman and I am so proud of it. I am proud to be part of a community that only projects love and education and the support of one another. I am proud to be the granddaughter and daughter of immigrants who were brave enough to leave their homes and come to a whole new world with a different language and culture and immerse themselves fearlessly to start a better life for themselves and their families.
She closes by advising Trump voters to “travel and read a history book.” She does not make any specific recommendations so I hope they don’t read any of the bad ones (most of them).
Lauren is the second star to come out this week, following actress Bex Taylor-Klaus. At a mere 20 years of age, Lauren joins other entertainers like 18-year-old Bella Thorne and 17-year-old Amandla Stenberg in a rising trend of remarkably young ladies being loud and proud about recognizing what all of us here already know: KISSING GIRLS IS THE BEST. Listen when I was 20 years old I was living in a condo with a frat boy, so cheers to all of y’all.
via instagram
Jauregui has been an LGBT ally for a while, posting recently to her twitter about a friends’ art project for queer/trans teens. She’s also posted about National Coming Out Day, various feminist causes, the importance of voting, and the intense nature of her jove for Alicia Keys. She’s also been widely quoted around the internet as saiyng, “I support LGBT rights and reblog things of girls kissing cause it’s cute.” I can’t find the source but it’s everywhere so it must be true.
Also, she sings what our Staff Writer Alaina has referred to as “The Michelle Obama song.”
When reached for comment, Autostraddle Vapid Fluff Editor Stef Schwartz noted, “Maybe she can date Angelina Jolie.”
Although Lauren did not specifically mention this situation in her letter, I’m sure she would want all of you to join A+ so that we can put more funding towards our pipe dream project of flying Kaylah and Erin to my house so that along with Sarah and other dancers TBD we can do a re-make of the “Work From Home” music video.