Lesbian Visibility Week 2022: Where We Look For Lesbianspiration

Graphic: Autostraddle // Photo of Cheryl Dunye by Michael Tran/Getty Images and Audre Lorde by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images

Well friends, Lesbian Visibility Week is once again upon us. And we spent a lot of time thinking about — just how stop and can we celebrate the lesbians in our lives, you know? Now obviously we celebrate lesbians every day at Autostraddle, but also that background hum of “let’s go lesbians” can always stand to be turned up a notch. Or a hundred notches. Why not do it big?

Our managing editor Kayla, master of puns, thought of it first: Lesbianspiration! Who have we looked up, been inspired by, or admired? Who are the lesbians, either in our daily lives or far away — or, be real, don’t even know us — that we want to just take a moment and say thanks. Thank you for making our day brighter or thank you for changing how we think about things. Thank you for being a lighthouse that we can model the lives after, even just a little bit. We decided that you did not have to be a lesbian to join in on this celebration of visible lesbians, just wiling to share the love. Everyone hopped in to respond and our editor-in-chief Carmen made the graphics (so please be kind!). That’s how this roundtable was born.

If you’re a lesbian reading this roundtable we hope you had a chocolate bar today! Or that you get to have a really relaxing night under a blanket with a book. Lesbians. F*** yes.

“And Just Like That” TV Team Roundtable: On Che’s Comedy Concert, Miranda’s Queer Awakening, LTW’s Jumpsuit and More!

Believe it or not, the Autostraddle TV Team has a LOT to say about “And Just Like That” — about the characters we loved and hated, the Sex and the City reboot’s attempt to integrate more POC and LGBTQ+ characters and so much more. In fact we have SO much to say that I am going to stop the intro right here so we can get into it!

Q: First things first: what is your relationship to the original Sex and the City and what were you anticipating for the reboot?

Riese: I started watching it on DVD while living in the NYU dorms in the summer of 2001, and then, back in college in Michigan in the ensuing years, wrecked with anxiety over my boyfriend’s latest activities, I’d curl up in my room, watch Sex and the City on DVD and I’d write in my journal: ONE DAY YOUR LIFE WILL BE FAR MORE FABULOUS THAN THIS. It was my blueprint for an adulthood of creative fulfillment, enriching female friendships, nightmare heterosexuality, sexual liberation and brunch. I watched the fifth season as it aired with my Macaroni Grill friends, and then the final season on DVD in the summer of 2004, which is the summer I actually moved to New York City for good! Then I asked my ex-boyfriend to apologize to my friends and ask for their blessing if he really wanted me back, like Big had done for Carrie in the finale. (He did, but he obtained no blessings lol)

There are lines and plots from Sex and the City that had a fundamental impact on my understanding of relationships and still do, even though I have grown and changed and my perspective on the overall messages of SATC has shall we say, shifted radically. It also taught me that bisexuality was a lie and lesbianism was tedious! So for the reboot I was eager for a more LGBTQ+ representation, I think, but beyond that I mostly just hoped it wouldn’t be completely unwatchable. I remember we had a convo in the TV Channel about whether or not we were expecting it to be good, and I was like “I think it’s gonna be bad.”

Heather: I watched the original Sex and the City with my college best friend who I was deeply in love with. She is the straightest person on the face of the earth, which was fine because I was still pretending that there’s no way I’m a lesbian, so she got to watch a bunch of heterosexual romances and sex so she could build her little fairy tales, and I got to watch her watching them so I could learn how straight people behave and mimic it for another five years. A win-win! I never identified with any of the characters in the original series because I was just a flannel-wearing girl from rural Georgia who barely had enough money to get by and absolutely no interest in men — but dang, I loved their friendships. Their deep, seemingly unbreakable bonds that found them back in each other’s company, day and night, always and always, no matter what else was going on in their lives. I expected this series to be exactly like that series, to be honest, except for I thought Miranda would come out and Che Diaz would be more dynamic and less — well, I’ll get into that below.

HBO

Shelli: It came out when I was in middle school but I didn’t really find it until high school, and because I was obsessed with NYC, fashion, writing and anything that had to do with being a cool single girl in a big city — I loved it. I wouldn’t say I lived through Carrie and the girls but I absolutely escaped into the world as I did with other shows and movies about city girls who dressed well and had lotsa sex. I used to imagine that my life would be just as glamorous, sexy and cool when I was a grown-up — my favorite character was (and still is and will forever be) Carrie’s apartment.

I didn’t really know what to expect for the reboot. I know that I didn’t think it was necessary, but I also love nostalgia, so the thought of learning where these characters were now was kind of dope and I could understand why big fans of the show would wanna revisit a world they were so deeply invested in for such a long time. I did however worry that the wrong folks would have too much to say about it. Meaning that yes, while I did watch and dig the original series — it was never meant for me to find myself in. I was a teenage girl watching it, not the 30-something women whose lives it was meant to mimic/see themselves in. The reboot was meant to reflect their lives now as 50-something year old women and the lives of those same women it was originally intended to draw in — so I was wary that the “wrong” pop culture critics/fans and their takes would go to the top of the twitter file and make for much harsher judgement of the reboot than was maybe warranted.

Riese: That’s a really good point, Shelli.

Drew: The first summer after I came out I watched The L Word. The second summer after I came out I watched Sex and the City. I joked that it was because I identified more with being a lesbian than being a woman. But it did feel like an essential part of my The L Word/Buffy/Glee/Drag Race journey of catching up on TV I missed while attempting to be a straight boy.

I’d seen an episode here and there, but watching the show straight through was a totally illuminating experience. Mainly, it made me understand my sister so much better. Sex and the City is her bible — she still references the show in regard to her life — and so many of her choices — for better or worse or worser — made more sense.

Like any of the shows from 10-20 years ago, there were things about it that made me cringe but mostly I really enjoyed the experience. The world of Sex and the City was so different than my own that its errors didn’t feel personal in the way some of the other shows did — even when it was being homophobic or transphobic. Of course, I knew the reboot would be more personal in its attempt to be queer, but also Miranda always felt so queer to me anyway that I was excited to see them try. Losing Samantha — the one character on the show who actually liked sex — was a real loss but I was still on board for queer Miranda.

Carmen: Sex and the City aired while I was in middle and high school, but I didnt start watching it until my freshman year of college, when it was already off the air. My friend and I would go to the video store (yes) to rent DVDs (yes) and watch them while we drank fake cosmos (Ocean Spray cranberry juice and vodka, we’d pretend) in our dorm rooms. It felt really common with all the gays and girls in my college, so much so that when the movie finally came out a few weeks after my graduation it felt like everyone I knew was in the theatre with me opening night?

I moved to New York that fall, and the first thing I did was buy the SATC hot pink DVD set. My first roommate and I watched the whole series from beginning to end as a sort of goodnight routine? It was sweet and fun, and I loved having a bit of Carrie’s city with me as I explored the city on my own.

I don’t know what I expected of the reboot, honestly. I was dreading it when I first heard about it!! I could not imagine a show less in need of a reboot!! And then after they cast Sara Ramirez, I begrudgingly started paying attention. Mostly I think I wanted the same feelings and vibe of the original, but a little less white and a little more gay. Low bar. When the first trailer dropped, I remember thinking — “Oh my God, they are really going to pull this off!!!”

I was… wrong about that.

Q: I’m not sure we can get too deep into this conversation without addressing the name on everybody’s lips: the weed enthusiast, comedy concert legend, queer lothario of Brooklyn, the one and only Che Diaz. Let me ask you this: Che Diaz???

Riese: From their first press of the “woke moment” button I found myself in distress. Sara Ramirez is so great and hot, but everything they do and say is insufferable? There is no comedy at the concert? They show up uninvited to their employee’s hip surgery aftermath and fuck her friend in the kitchen? They are very one-note and the note they are is the note in which God-Des and She performed the eating pussy rap at Shane’s bachelorette party.

Drew: Riese, that is the best description of Che Diaz I’ve ever read in the weeks or decades — unclear — that they’ve been in my life.

Riese: tysm

Heather: It has absolutely BLOWN MY MIND-GRAPES how many people have insisted that Che Diazes don’t exist.

Shelli: THAT PART.

Riese: Have they??? Insisted that Che Diazes don’t exist?

Carmen: Oh absolutely.

Riese: I absolutely think people like Che Diaz exist, for sure, but that doesn’t mean the way Che Diaz is written is objectively good. I mean their podcast is bananas bad and their motivational speeches in random rainbow-laden public squares feel like they were produced by a straight person putting a bunch of motivational jargon into a queer word bot. The problem isn’t Che, it’s that everybody around Che is written as though they think Che is a demi-god full of wisdom and charisma. I buy that those two heteros at the auction watched their comedy concert ten times, but I don’t buy that Gen Z is creaming all over their podcast.

Heather: Straight viewers: yes, obviously, and I don’t care about that. But so many gay viewers! So many people in our tweets and comments! And I’m just like, “But how? How have you never met a Che Diaz? They’re EVERYWHERE.” I could list, off the top of my head, two handfuls of Che Diazes I know in real life, with their confidence and their swagger and their pep talks and that very “strike first with whatever’s making you feel awkward about me before you can strike me” mentality. And while I do completely agree with you, Riese, that Che is written very one-note, I think Sara Ramirez has brought as much charm and vulnerability to the character as they can.

Because the thing about Che Diazes is that they can certainly drive you nuts, but they’re also always the people who are there with the perfectly-timed monogrammed handkerchief, the deeply inappropriate laugh that was just what you needed on your darkest day, the way that they are a beacon of courage to people who don’t yet have the ability to be so out and so proud, the suits, the drive, the competence. I think the problem with Che is the problem with every other character of color on the new series: They are all under-written. They’re not there to serve as fully realized characters who volley with the main trio; they’re there to be the backdrop against which the white characters work out whatever thing they need to work out for their own character arcs. I keep saying in my recaps that it’s like Che, Seema, Nya, and LTW exist on a different show, and even now, having watched the season finale, I still feel like that. The show invested more in Samantha’s memory, and her off-screen presence, than it did in any of these characters of color.

Shelli: I — just don’t fucking know. On one side, I dig what Che was supposed to represent and understand why they bought them in. They were to be the millennial representation of a show that would be filled with Gen X’rs right.

Carmen: I do think that’s what they were going for! But that also does not make sense to me, as Sara Ramirez is firmly Gen X in age. Which is great! Sara’s actually an excellent representation of how a queer, person of color Gen X icon exists and is admired by many generations coming up after them. I just don’t think Che as a Millennial/Gen Z icon was ever going to fly.

Riese: Yes, totally! I didn’t really think of it in those terms but you’re right, Carmen. There are so many QPOC Gen X icons bringing the house down on Olivia Cruises and similar spaces (I say this with full-bodied appreciation!) and still earning admiration from younger generations. It makes more sense to position Che in that way than as a Gen X-er intended to be read as a millennial? There’s a whole generation of queer comics in their 40s and 50s that Che could’ve easily fit into, and it would’ve been cool to see that yes, 46-year-olds can also have these identities and approach relationships in these ways that are often ahistorically portrayed as more popular with younger generations.

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Shelli: I think it’s hard to pull off. I get that there were only so many ways to bring that in that they could do that would make sense. They couldn’t go the route of giving Carrie a millennial assistant (already did it in the movie), none of the characters kids fit the age bracket, It would take up far too much script time to give one of them a younger neighbor in the way it would make sense, and da da da — so why not a love interest. I GET how they landed on the idea of Che, but the actual portrayal is where I’m stuck. Stuck in the way where yes I cringe at them lots of the time they are on screen but… don’t hate it? I love the idea of writing queer characters who are kind of jerky? Because so often we are used in film & TV to teach, console or make viewers laugh. What didn’t land for me was some of the way the character was written, which felt like it was from another generation’s viewpoint.

Drew: I agree with you, Heather and Shelli, that Che isn’t an unrealistic character. My problem is I don’t think the writers think Che is annoying for the same reasons we do. I get the feeling that they’re like oh these queer millennials with their pronouns and their polyamory it’s all so complicated! And I’m like… no Che isn’t obnoxious because they’re non-binary and non-monogamous — it’s everything else! And OF COURSE there are people like this. Some of my best friends are comedians, but God there are few people more insufferable than an insufferable comedian. In fact, I resent my comedian friends for introducing me to so many other comedians. Any trans comedian who would host a podcast with Carrie Bradshaw and some misogynist dude was going to be terrible. I just don’t think the writers really understand what makes them terrible — are we even supposed to think they’re terrible??

Che feels like someone who is written by people who have never met a non-binary person and have never met a comedian but have heard a lot of gossipy stories about both.

Carmen: Where’s my Che Diaz “woke moment” button! Because now is a GREAT time to point out that even though the writers’ room for And Just Like That included queer, Black, and South Asian writers (along with straight white writers) — there was NOT A SINGLE Latine or trans writer. No one! And I think, more than anything, that shows up in how Che is written and how they were received. No one has spent the last 9 or 10 weeks popping off about Seema or Lisa Todd Wexley (LTW forever!), and I truly believe that’s why. Sara Ramirez deserved better than this role and these writers. They just did.

Riese: Right. And I don’t want to generalize even though I am about to, but going back to Drew’s point but they are simply such a bad comedian. There are so many trans comics doing compelling, subversive and often very dark stuff (which I love of course because I’m dark). And AJLT is giving us Change Your Life Change Your Pronouns Suck My Dick??? A non-binary comic saying “suck my dick”? REALLY?! Like come on?! I don’t think the writers find Che annoying. I think they think they wrote a character that is a successful queer lothario and that they want us to laugh at their jokes and cheer at their speeches.

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Q: How has Miranda’s queer awakening landed for you?

Riese: I was very excited about it but I have found myself pulling my hood over my eyes and sliding off the couch onto the floor during all of their scenes together! I feel such intense second-hand embarrassment, I truly have not stared directly at the television with my eyeballs unobscured and focused for the entirety of any Che/Miranda scenes. Her breakup convo with Steve was so unsettling? I feel really bad for Steve? I guess I am still waiting for Che to tell Miranda they’re spending the summer living in a van on a comedy concert tour with a $3-a-day food budget and visiting ex-lovers on farms across the hinterlands and see if that is the kind of thing Miranda has the physical energy to enjoy or the emotional energy to endure.

Heather: I think Miranda’s queer awakening made perfect sense for her character, and I think it played out in a way that was realistic.

Carmen: I agree!!

Heather: Again, the idea that Mirandas don’t exist is SO WEIRD. I wish everyone who is out here yelling about THERE IS NO WAY Miranda would act like this could read our You Need Help inbox! There are so many women who have realized they’re queer, or realized they want to be in a queer relationship, after being married to men for a very long time! And there’s very rarely some neat and tidy way for the queer person to make that happen! It makes sense to me that Miranda would treat Steve the way she did, even though it made me bummed out for Steve. Falling in love, falling in lust, falling down the queer rabbit hole for the first time, it really does kind of make people go a little bit crazy.

Riese: I didn’t say it didn’t make sense for her character or that Mirandas don’t exist. I just said I did not enjoy watching it!!

Shelli: I fucking dug it to bits. Because it was like, damn this is a reality for so many women right? And I hate to talk so much about age/generations, but it’s an even bigger reality for women of that generation, so I think it’s great that they showed it. Because it’s probably the story of some fan who watched the show originally and gets to see their story represented with these people they have followed over the years who feel like friends — because that’s what envelopes us into these shows right? Like, that’s what gives them this longevity is because we feel so connected to them that they feel like part of our lives, and isn’t that the beauty of TV & Film? Like, isn’t that the point — to be able to search and connect outside of your real life and sometimes find that solace or sameness that you’re in search of?

Drew: Nothing about this journey for Miranda strikes me as false. But I think people need to learn the difference between “this isn’t realistic” and “I don’t like this” or “this isn’t being done well.” I do think the main problem with the storyline is Steve.

I hate that I’m defending him because with the original series I was extremely anti-Steve. But it’s gross what they’ve done with him AND undercuts Miranda’s storyline. Imagine how much more interesting it would be if Steve was fingerblasting Miranda bi-weekly and yet she still felt drawn to explore her queerness. Maybe some straight couples really do go years without having sex but I don’t buy that for addicted-to-her-vibrator Miranda or owns-a-bar Steve.

Heather: Yes, and let me tell you what I hated about this storyline: The way the writers gave Steve a disability to make him seem older, more bumbling, and more pitiful.

Shelli: I fucking hated how they made Steve look!! I think there could have been a way to show him moving through this storyline without kinda erasing the Steve we know so well. The way they basically made him out to be some geriatric bozo was rude as shit.

Carmen: Also? Ableist as fuck.

Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn / HBO Max

Carmen: I found out from the Sex and the City podcats that listen to (Every Outfit on Sex and the City, and yes I’m that person, but it’s so good and funny and surpriginly gay as fuck) that they wrote in Steve’s hearing loss because the actor who plays him, David Eigenberg, has experienced real life hearing loss and uses hearing aids. The fact that the writers turned it into a recurring punchline? Made me absolutely sick to my stomach.

Riese: (I’ve also been listening to that podcast!!!)

Heather: When Miranda yelled at Steve to put in his hearing aid, which he found in the couch cushions, so she could ask him for a divorce, I was as grossed out as I ever have been with this whole fictional universe.

Roundtable: Is There Anything Hot About the Holidays?

See All Holigays 2021 Content

The winter holiday season can be rough, especially for LGBTQ+ folks. Many of us associate the holiday season with visiting homophobic relatives, draining our bank accounts, loneliness, delayed flights, being away from partners, being away from family members who don’t want to see us and other Very Unsexy Things. So I’ve been wondering: is there anything hot about the holidays? And if not, is there anything we can or should do to make the holidays feel a little…sexier? Here’s what some Autostraddle writers and editors have to say:

Do You Know Where Your Straight People Are?: Interviews With Allies (Including Two Cats)

Today is Straight People Day — a holiday that happens whenever we say it happens, OKAY! Okay! (Especially if it’s during a fundraiser!)

On this special day, we encourage our community of queers to reach out to the straight people in their lives who could use to shoulder a little bit of the weight of keeping queer media around! Because what is one thing straight people can do to be an ally to the LGBTQ community? It’s supporting us having our own spaces, with their own dollars.

Don’t have straight people in your life who would support? Sounds like you might be interested in signing up for A+ (if you’re not already a member) so you can read an excerpt from our Slack channel where many of us realize the same thing!

First up, if you’re here because you want to know how to be an LGBTQ ally, then we can tell you that one of the best ways to do that is by converting your straight dollars to gay dollars and investing them right here in queer media and community. If you’re gay (something we think is very likely if you’re here) and just wanted peek in on what everyone’s saying, there is some good stuff in here!

So, in honor of Straight People Day, we present a series of short interviews we conducted with some noted allies in our lives. Because, as we all know, being an ally is a verb and is not the same as calling yourself one. Are the people we interviewed friends, but also maybe cats or our past selves? Yes, the answer is yes.

Support Queer Media!

What’s The First Gay Thing You Saw on the Internet?

In honor of the fact that we have some truly precious perks (that you can get right here as a way to get something cute with your donation to Autostraddle) the Autostraddle team got together and recalled the very first gay things we saw within the electric void in which we do our daily work — the internet. Every one of our perks counts toward our fundraiser goal, too! It’s a win, win, win! (You, us and the people who get to be in your glorious be-perked presence.) So while we celebrate just how darn gay the internet has been since its birth, we hope you’ll help us keep it gay by supporting our fundraiser. We’re fundraising to make it through January 2022, and it’s true, Autostraddle would not still be here without the support of readers like you.

That sticker is holographic! Like our hearts!

Explore Fundraiser Perks!

Explore Fundraiser Perks! — UK

‘We Are the Baby-Sitters Club’ Succeeds in Both Praising and Critiquing the Books of Our Childhoods

When we first found out about We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Essays and Artwork from Grown-Up Readers, I knew we’d do a roundtable review of the anthology because this is the most perfect pairing. It’s no secret that many Autostraddle staff members are lifelong BSC fans, and I’ve always felt in some ways Autostraddle resembles the club/group of friends at the center of our favorite childhood series: fun, hardworking, reliable, loving, complicated.

We assembled a group of enthusiastic readers and dove into the expansive anthology, which features an introduction from Mara Wilson and contributions from Kristen Arnett, Myriam Gurba, Jamie Broadnax, Frankie Thomas, Sue Ding, and anthology editors Marisa Crawford and Megan Milks, to name just a few. Much more than just a one-note love letter, the essays in this book critically and carefully explore everything about the Baby-Sitters Club, from the way the series addressed friendship, race, sexuality, fashion, disability, class, and chosen family to the way the ghost writers committed to introducing each character in repetitive detail at the beginning of each installment. The essays and artwork in the book are just as interesting in form and style as they are in content, with more than a few graphics and comic contributions, many personal essays and cultural critiques, a piece that examines the handwriting of each of the characters, and an entire piece analyzing words used in the series as a dataset! No topic is off limits in this guide about the young adult book series that shaped the way so many of us interacted with our worlds as children, and the way some of us still interact with our worlds today.

Here are four Autostraddle staff members with their thoughts on We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Essays and Artwork from Grown-Up Readers, out today July 6, 2021. — Vanessa

Love (and Leather) Wins: A Kink at Pride Roundtable

Feature Image by Bromberger Hoover Photography/via Getty Images

In some ways it feels like we have a ‘does kink belong at pride’ debate every year – in other ways, though, it feels like this year was something unique. Was it the tension of quarantine making people feel like the stakes were higher than usual? Was it the wave of moral panic sweeping through both our communities and Congress? Vox thinks it’s an inevitable battleground of our community’s concern over respectability politics; it’s also become interwoven with more topical community conversations around consent and interpersonal harm and what constitutes a “safe space,” if one even exists.

Our stance on this at Autostraddle is (hopefully) not hard to parse – KaeLyn has already written beautifully about why she feels kink- and body-positive Pride spaces are safer for her kids than ones that depict bodies and adult sexuality as shameful; the series we’re beginning today explores everything that kink has to offer people who practice it and their communities, including and also beyond sex. Kink has never been separate from Pride or any other part of anti-assimilationist queer community – Brenda Howard, mother of Pride, was a leatherwoman!

To explore more of these connections and layers of meaning in a mediated space defined by community and good faith, and away from the knee-jerk reactivity of the larger internet, we invited some of our team members and our favorite writers on kink and BDSM to share their personal connections between kink and pride, whether that’s the event or the community value. We’d love to hear yours in the comments!

A Gender by Any Other Name: What Does the Term Genderqueer Mean to Us in 2021?

Genderqueer was my entry point into understanding my body, my gender and my sexuality. Becoming genderqueer felt like coming home inside my body. Years later, nonbinary would become a word placed upon me as my comics and writing became more public. I didn’t fight it, but it also never felt quite right.

Last week, I talked to four people, Aden, Sy, Naveen and Rad, about why they’re genderqueer and how being genderqueer changed how they relate to themselves and the world at large.

Aden is a genderqueer musician and songwriter living in Nashville TN, and has been exploring the genderqueer identity since they met their “masc” side during a mushroom trip in 2014. They love their pug Eloise and dancing to disco in stunning outfits whenever they get the chance. You can find their music on any streaming platform under the name Bare Bones and the Full Body.

Sy is a Black genderqueer + transmasculine virgo with a love of cooking and wandering around bookstores.

Naveen is a South Asian genderqueer trans person who currently lives in Austin TX. They’re a writer and digital creator with a passion for first-person storytelling as a means of education, and they can usually be found oversharing on the internet @naveen_thebean. They also spent too much money getting an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from NYU.

Rad is a theatre artist and playwright based in Chicago.

Archie: Can you all talk about the first time you heard the term “genderqueer” or how you were introduced to genderqueer as an idea? 

Sy: I came out as genderqueer in 2008, which is a really long time to think about, as far as time goes, particularly around identities. I think I had always had these feelings of, “Well, I’m not a man, and I’m definitely not a woman… So I don’t really know what it is, but I’m somewhere between two pools moment in the middle.” There was, I think, a YouTube channel or whatever, where someone was talking about being genderqueer. And I was like, “Oh, that’s the one. That’s the space.” But I think it wasn’t until I was in queer spaces on campus, to where I was like, “Yeah, genderqueer is it.” And I think once that became the words that I was using for it, people were like, “We don’t really know what genderqueer means.” And I was like, “Well… Both, and, neither, sometimes maybe.” And even now, I think that’s still where I land, as far as what genderqueer is for me.

Rad: I literally feel that. I did come out as trans in 2015, and I consistently feel this barrier between myself and my people that come out post that. And I think it’s because in 2015, Laverne Cox was on the front of Time magazine. And that, to me, was a very important marker. It was the first time talking about trans as a thing–but very much like, “Trans… What is it?” I didn’t know that being a trans person who was not of a binary was a thing at the time. So my genderqueer identity came later. I’ve come back into being genderqueer after being a binary trans person. My genderqueer identity works because these other things don’t work.

Folks who know me from online, I think will know that I’m very outspokenly, critical of the non-binary existence. Even though it’s perfectly valid, and has its beauty in its own way. But I’m just like, “What are we doing? What are we really saying with this? Where are we really going?” And [nonbinary] doesn’t encapsulate my experience. Genderqueer, it’s got a very homey sense. It’s indescribable, but it’s like a homey working class, blue jeans, butch-ass shit. In general, I feel my queerness and my genderqueerness is very effervescent. It’s very non-describable, but I do appreciate the way that genderqueer is literally about the clearing of gender. So I’ll say that.

Naveen: So much of that resonates. After I came out as queer, I came out as genderqueer. I went to a Dad-themed party and went in Dad drag. And I think that was around the same time that Snapchat beards were a thing. And I shit you not, but Snapchat made me trans. I didn’t realize I was interested in looking different, or that it was exciting in any way until augmented reality filters. I was like, “Wait, hold on. I think this just unlocked something that I didn’t know I wanted or needed.

I really liked the word genderqueer at first because I was really vibing with queerness to describe my sexuality. Also, it felt like a really good fit because I don’t have answers yet, but I don’t know that I necessarily want or need answers. And then non-binary really took off as a word in the Zeitgeist, that everyone loved and wanted. And I really, really liked it for a long time. But then I feel like the kids ruined it. Not to put it all on the kids, but I feel like society at large got a hold of it, and bastardized it, and made it a thing when it shouldn’t be a thing. I feel like people started enacting these borders around it and categorizing it, and that felt so bad and wrong, and the antithesis of everything that it should be. Then, some people also really conflated it with the idea of being genderless or agender, and I’m like, “No…” I feel a lot of gender feelings! I don’t know what they are, or what they mean, but they’re there.

Sy: It was almost like people made non-binary its own binary point. And I was like, “Fundamentally, by definition, why are we still trying to point something?” I think something about non binary became more easy to accept by (cis and straight) people who were struggling to understand the rejection of the bon in the wrong body narrative.

Naveen:  Yeah, I feel that 1000%. I think the other thing that started really making me bristle a lot about having the word non-binary attached to me was that people started using the word Enby as a noun. E-N-B-Y. And it literally makes me want to vomit. There’s some people that love it, and use it, and wear it like a badge of honor, and I am so happy for them. It could not make me feel worse. It feels really reductive and really infantilizing. So I’ve come back to genderqueer, and it is so much better of a place for me. And I’m so happy because I don’t feel like I have to battle other people about, “Oh… Well, this doesn’t mean that for me.” Because this is borderless, and I love that. And it’s open to possibility.

Aden: I love that description so much, open to possibility. I was so excited to answer this question when I read the questions. Because, Archie, you’re the first person I ever met that used the word genderqueer to describe themselves. You were a starting point for me because I grew up super-conservative Christian in New Mexico. I moved to Nashville as a young adult. And the community here at the time was very binary. Bisexuality wasn’t even an okay thing. Within that lesbian community, it was very butch/femme, and there weren’t a lot of visibly trans people. And I also am in recovery from a really long-running eating disorder, so I was very disconnected from my body. Very disconnected, therefore, also from my sexuality. So I performed femininity because it’s how I was programmed.

And then I took my ex to Oregon, and we tripped mushrooms right before I dropped her off. And I had a vision of my more masculine, or androgynous, or just another aspect of myself I had felt locked from. And I met myself under the stars. It was so romantic. And then later that year I went to camp and met Archie, and met also just a ton of other amazing people doing gender in ways like I had never seen represented before. And that really started a journey. And I think I relate to genderqueer so much because it is a journey.

And I think Archie, you were talking about the reason you use genderqueer and queer is because it’s also a social and political thing as well. It really is about fucking up the system, and I love the intersections of those two things, of gender queerness and sexuality queerness. And I’ve just held onto that now. Genderfluid’s the other label that I really like besides genderqueer.

Archie: For me, genderqueer’s very active. Genderqueer is very much connected to my body. And I think that’s just from how I was introduced to the term, which was through an old 2002 anthology called Genderqueer: Voices Beyond The Binary.  That book was written by working class parents, theologists, sex workers, and writers, and people who were unemployed. And I loved what, Rad, you were saying about it, being connected to history. Because to me, I think that’s why it’s something I still really hold onto. I feel like non-binary is a label that’s been put upon me as my work has become more public. It’s an easy term for, I think, folks to understand. It also doesn’t have the word queer in it, so nonbinary feels safer for consumerism and capitalism.

Sy: I think there was this really interesting moment of time of where non-binary as a term got popularized. I noticed who started using non-binary versus Enby, and how it started to get used and I started to recognize where and how folks were taking up their place in this term. I definitely felt the loss of, “Oh no, I’m genderqueer. Do not call me non-binary.” I will fight people if they call me non-binary. Which, as someone who was doing LGBT center work, it was very awkward. So I need us to think about the ways that people place terms for themself, versus if we’re thinking to strategize around larger movements. There was such a move toward folks who weren’t classifying themselves as binary trans people-or rather, folks who were wanting to access certain, what we might call, touch points of transition. Whatever that looks like. And not wanting to have to jump through the same narrative hoops. There was a need for a term to speak to this experience.

And so, it’s to your point, Archie, around historical context, I’m like, “Oh, I remember when this happened as a movement” and also the way that trans histories have shaped current language patterns. It was a big move, and it also left other folks, other experiences, outside to fit. I will also say, and I will go here, that it was a very White thing. Non-binary is a very White term for me. And I think that’s where some of my personal resistance comes from, particularly around the term Enby. I’m like, “Okay, you can keep that.”

Naveen: Yeah, keep it.

Sy: I don’t want it! When I think about trans-ness and taking up space around genderqueer, as a Black trans person… It very much has been for me, my Blackness is always seen as queer, full stop, whenever. And so, regardless of where I fell on the trans/gender spectrum, I was always going to be seen as Black first and never anything else. Which I’m like, all right. Do it, love that.

I’m intrigued by the fact that this conversation is happening on Autostraddle. Autostraddle has had such a history of being a queer women’s lady magazine. And I’m going to be honest, I had to walk away from following Autostraddle content for years. The more out as genderqueer I was…the more I negotiated desires in different ways… And then of course, we can talk about race and how overwhelmingly white the website was… I was just like, “Oh, I don’t actually think I can be here anymore because I’m moving away from you, but you’re also not even letting me into the conversation.”

Archie: Yup. I recognize that. That basically starts to touch on my next question. In what ways has genderqueerness intersected with race, and/or class, and/or your work?

Aden: Growing up extremely religious, being the right thing and enacting gender correctly, is such a big deal to religious people. For me, part of my existence now is just reclaiming myself and my body from that. Part of being genderqueer means to fuck it all up. I can do whatever I want. I can perform femininity in my body, or I can reverse it, or do some mixture of the two, and combine that with being pansexual, and being sex positive, and pro-slut. Because that was so restrictive in my growing up. I was born and raised only to be one thing, that was a good Christian wife and mother. Anything else was completely secondary to that.

Looking back on my queer child self who developed an eating disorder at 10 because of the pressures and the trauma, I used to pretend to be every kind of gender in different scenarios. I just think about the different scenarios where that child could have felt like seen and recognized if they had more options. And just the years that could be reclaimed. All this time I spent in one tiny box trying to fit so hard.

Naveen: I feel like growing up, I didn’t quite understand it, but I was never really good at being a girl or the kind of girl/young adult woman that my mom wanted me to be. I tried really, really hard, and sometimes made possible attempts at it that fooled myself, fooled everyone else. Because I think I just got really good at acting. Since coming out as genderqueer, I don’t know that my mom will ever really admit this, or even necessarily thinks of this on a conscious level, but I feel like her expectations of me are less gendered, are less rooted in femininity. I think for so long, both she and I were trying to get me to fit in this box that I was supposed to fit into. And I just awkwardly stuck out. And once I said, “Actually, no. That box is incorrect”, I feel like there is less pressure for gendered performance, or ideals, or how I just carry myself when I’m around my family and stuff.

Rad: I’m thinking a lot about class right now. I grew up middle class, and I’ve been very, very fortunate. I’m very grateful for what my parents were able to give me. I consider myself to be very lucky and very privileged. But in the past 10 years of being out, I had to gain my independence from them in a big way in order to access what I needed to transition into myself. Part of that was entering into a working class status. That’s been almost half my life now. I derive a lot of influence from my class

I’m in the service industry, and those are extremely gendered spaces. And it’s really crazy, honestly, how you have to exist in them. [In the service industry] you really have to push and pull, and mold yourself, and constantly edit, and do so many gymnastics when you’re in a working class scenario.

But because of that, this adaptability quality… Which again, is so contextualized through history…I think of how many butches before me were in labored unions, and worked in factories, and were working until 4:00 AM doing whatever fucking weird, odd-ass job. I don’t know, like dairy-ing cows. That’s not a real thing, but whatever they were doing. And I just think about how much of themselves they not only sacrificed, but also gained access to because of how they had to mold and shape-check themselves into whatever spaces they were in. And then who they became when they were at the bar, or in the park, at the club, or shooting pool with their friends. And so, I don’t know. I just think about that shit all the time in terms of my gender.

I really appreciate, Sy, what you said, about non-binary being very white. Because I’m a white person, so for me, I can only see it through a white lens. And I view it as very assimilationist. I watch all these people who are assimilating into what cis people like and expect and desire from trans people and it feels so dishonest, and it feels so selling short, in a sense.

And yeah, we have so much to expand upon that, except that I just also feel very adverse to a lot of labels in general. Because I do understand, and yet I don’t also at the same time. I wonder why we’re so obsessed with categorizing everyone else around us, when I would so much rather be able to come as I am and have everyone else do the same. And just learn everyone. Talk to people. Find out what you’re into, and what you love, and what gives you joy, and what you want to play with. And I think certain labels like Enby have encompassed so much assimilationist shit.  It’s like a box, and I’m like, “I don’t care about this.”

Sy: Rad, I think there’s something to what you were saying about working a service industry job, and dealing with the repeated daily interactions with strangers. I had the best service industry job in that I worked at IKEA. And that was probably one of the best jobs I’ve ever had in my life because I learned how to be genderqueer in public in a way that was like, “how can I be legible to the other queers? And yet also, not have someone call me a fag when I’m trying to sell them a light with my purple mohawk.

So I think there was this really interesting balance navigating trying to be recognized in my own community–which is it’s own hiccup as a Black person, now as a trans person, who’s on T, and had top surgery and who people sometimes read as cis (which I think is disgusting, but that happens). How am I trying to take up space and queer the lens? So this service industry balance of having the people who I want to get to know me, see me, while at the same time, be at a job where I’m literally just like, “Yeah, the bathroom’s that way. Keep moving”, all with minimal interference from violence, harm or just confrontations that I don’t particularly want to have with people.

So, there’s this moment of, “Yeah, whatever. Call me the wrong pronoun.” It’s going to bother the fuck out of me. And then I’m going to go to a bar with my friends. I want to be in spaces with other queer and trans people who see me. I’m going to get called a faggot in a good way, and then it’ll be fine. Because I know those are the people who see me, and at the end of the day that’s where my frame ends.

Aden: Hearing Rad and Sy talk about that really resonates with me, because I’ve spent a lot of time in the service industry too. Sometimes non-binary, it does feel like a thing that especially white, thin, middle class and up people have more access to. Then people in other situations feel they can’t access it. When you’re working in the service industry, you can’t usually choose how you dress. If you don’t have a super-thin body, people are going to assign gender to your body no matter what.

Rad: I just want to jump in real quick because for me personally, I think part of my issue is I don’t want to be recognized. Sy, you said the word legibility, and I do not want to be legible. And legibility is a caveat to androgyny. Androgyny has become a bastardized statement. Because when I think androgyny, I think Grace Jones. I don’t ever want someone to look at me and be like, “That’s a non-binary person.” I want someone to look at me and be like, “Ew! I don’t want to talk to you.” Good. Don’t talk to me. You shouldn’t. You should not want to talk to me. And that’s what genderqueerness means to me! Fuck you, don’t talk to me.

Naveen: I love that. I only hope to be able to capture that energy, but I am sometimes too nice. And I’m happy to answer people’s questions and let them ask questions because I have always found that my skillset is in teaching, and sharing, and getting people to understand these things. But there are so many times that I’m really just like, “I just want to be unapproachable.” I do not want to be the nice person who helps you get up to speed.

Archie: What about the queer in genderqueer? How does sexuality relates to genderqueer? 

Naveen: The term queer has always been so wonderful for me, precisely because everyone always wants to ask the follow-up question, “Well, what does that mean? Give me more information.” And I’m like, “No, you don’t get more information. There is no more information to be given! It’s queer!” I get to decide what that means whenever I want, in whatever situation I want.

Genderqueer pairs really, really well with queerness because my gender and sexuality feed off of each other. I’m sometimes a dyke, but I’m sometimes a fag. And most of the time I’m somewhere, both at the same time.

Aden: I really love that you brought that up. I love that I stopped being a lesbian in 2014 and opened myself to all kinds of people, all kinds of presentations. Because it’s the most fun thing, to be able to feel and learn things about myself based on the different people that I interact with.

And it’s also a good litmus test because sometimes a person will bring a certain aspect of my gender out, and that’s cool. But some people only want one thing for me, and they only want me to be that. If you’re not going to be cool with me showing up in a different presentation because of how that makes you look–this happens with dudes, but also with even butch people or other masculine identities–they’re uncomfortable if I’m not showing up femme. So yeah, I love that my genderqueerness helps me get rid of them and focus on the people that can feel the full spectrum of my self and enjoy it.

Naveen: I ditched the term non-binary because it culminated in feeling restrictive, and that was precisely what I didn’t want out of it. And I came back to genderqueer because it felt expansive, and it didn’t have finite edges. Originally, I loved non-binary because I was like, “Oh, it says it in its name. It’s not just binary, so it must be open to everything else, right?” Eventually, it no longer felt that way. It felt really alienating. And then genderqueer, old faithful, old reliable, has welcomed me back with open arms that do not make me feel boxed in at all. And yeah, allow me that freedom and space to play.

Archie: Any advice for folks coming into this space? 

Aden: You can just do what feels right to you, and you don’t even have to have a reason. You can change your name just because you want to. And you don’t have to explain to people, and you don’t have to have a reason that people can understand. For me, someone called me my name accidentally and it stuck in my brain, and I had dreams about it, and it felt good. So I kept it, and it still feels that way. And if at some point doesn’t, I’ll do something else. And that goes for anything about my gender. So that’s what I would want young people, or for people that are coming to this for the first time, to know.

Sy: The notion of play is really good. Find what feels good, and then do it. Try it once, find out if you like it. Try it twice, find out if it’s good. I think for me, leaning into whatever that voice is, and not necessarily making it fixed. Think about how we can continuously think about arriving, and departing, and arriving at gender again. And then departing and arriving again.

Rad: I don’t really like advice. But I guess if I could say anything: try to have fun. Try to take everything less seriously. Play is fucking awesome. It has to do with being a child. It has to do with just being free, and it’s so fucking hard to do that in the way that we live now. But if you can access that… Dig deep, lean in… Hell yeah! Have fun! Have fucking fun. And that’s what I try to lean into the most when it comes to queerness.

Sy: I’m constantly trying to play, and write, and figure out what legibility is. Not for anyone else other than myself. If I can’t wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, and be like, “This is who I am today,” something is wrong. And that was the promise that I made to myself when I started hormones. That was a promise that I made to myself with top surgery. All of these things were things that I knew I needed to be able to do, because at the end of the day, I have my community, but also I make up part of my community. I need to be right with myself, so I could be right with my people.

“Master of None” Roundtable: Sparks of Queer Black Brilliance in an Unsatisfying Story

Dani Janae, Natalie, and Shelli Nicole linked up to chat about Netflix’s Master of None: Moments of Love. The latest season stars Lena Waithe and Naomi Ackie, and is the first to feature a story that focuses entirely on the relationship of a Black Lesbian couple. Let’s get into it!

Shelli Nicole: I kinda just wanna jump into it and ask — How did you feel about the show? When Episode five was done and you were left sitting on your couch or laying in bed as the credits rolled, how did you feel about what you just watched?

Dani Janae: I watched all five episodes in one sitting. At the end of it, I felt… satisfied but also kind of pissed. What unfolds in the episodes is very simple in that we are all flawed and I think the story hit a nerve due to some personal things going on in my life. I wanted more of some things and less of others. I was happy I watched but also felt a way about what I had seen.

Shelli Nicole: I too watched it all in one sitting. I felt like I had to, I wanted to take it all in at once for some reason. Maybe because I knew there would be some trauma at some point just due to Lena’s history as a storyteller or producer, so I wanted to just get to it and get it over with.

Natalie: I finished it all in one sitting as well. I had mixed feelings about it, to be honest. I go into every Lena Waithe project wanting to love it — this has been true for The Chi, Boomerang, and Twenties — then I end up loving some things about it, but not really connecting with the rest of it. Like, I thought episode four was one of the best things Lena’s probably ever written, maybe even better than “Thanksgiving,” but then episode five came along and I was just like 🤷🏾.

Shelli Nicole: Damn that’s high praise because so far, “Thanksgiving” is still at the top of my list of anything she’s ever created. Why did episode four make you feel like that though? For me, it was the one that hurt the most, as it probably should have given the content.

Natalie: Oh, it absolutely did hurt. It felt like the writing and the performances just aligned beautifully in that episode. I thought that the story of navigating the fertility process is something that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough, especially when it comes to queer people and particularly single queer people.

Dani Janae: Yeah, I’ve never seen a queer woman trying to conceive a child on her own on a show before. Alicia’s story kept me coming back even when it hurt, I wanted resolution for her.

Natalie: Episode 4 really worked because it had an arc, in the same way that “Thanksgiving” did. It was really building towards something in a way the other episodes didn’t.

Shelli Nicole: That’s true, It’s something in the next few years that I might be looking into and I know it’s going to wildly difficult. So seeing that on-screen was an interesting call but I still feel like it was — so much pain? Like, at a certain point I was just like “Damn, I get it.” I understand the difficulty of this process, but I wanted a point in the story where she could have a break.

I am not negating the nuance of that storyline nor the importance of it needing to be told but, I was waiting so long for a break for her that the one we finally got didn’t feel like enough to make up for all the pain I just saw. It was layers and layers of just — pain. Giving up a dream, worrying about finances, physical trauma, being away from her mother, losing eggs, and I was just like WHEW.

Natalie: I would’ve definitely preferred that she wasn’t so isolated the entire time… it was hard to watch her deal with this all alone and with the nurse being her only real source of comfort. I’m genuinely curious to know if that was the original vision for the story or if COVID dictated that story choice?

Shelli Nicole: I don’t know. I feel like I wanted something sweeter. I understand that we are to use Film & TV to tell Black Queer stories — things that happen to us, things that affect us, things that go on in our communities, and more — in order to bring awareness to these things.  But perhaps it’s because I (we) actually live it that sometimes, just fucking sometimes, I wanna escape into a world where that stuff isn’t.

Dani Janae: Totally get that, it was very painful to watch. I thought they used the relationship with the nurse to assuage some of that pain but it was still very hard. I agree with Shelli in wanting something sweeter. All around I wanted something sweeter. We so rarely see two BLACK women loving each other I was hoping it would be triumphant. I get that love and relationships are complicated but I feel like you can portray that in more interesting ways.

Shelli Nicole: Did y’all have a favorite moment?

Dani Janae: I really liked the “bad bitch” moment Alicia had with her doctor. Like that resolve and strength to just do it alone and continue after the first attempt was so affirming for me. I don’t want kids but I feel like that attitude of “I’m a bad bitch and I will succeed” is so translatable to various life endeavors.

Shelli Nicole: Mine was the sweet scene in the laundry room when they were folding clothes. Doing the partner shit and connecting with each other through their love of music. Everything about it was beautiful. The way they were openly silly with one another — which is something I think you only really do with a great friend or someone you love like, romantically. There wasn’t any murky space between them and they were just living, loving, and laughing.

Natalie: I was going to say the same thing, Dani. That and the moment where Alicia found out her eggs were viable felt relatable. That viability moment felt like one of the few moments of pure joy in this season.

Dani Janae: I think as a start to finish project, I didn’t mind watching it. Like I wouldn’t say I regret those hours. I will say I thought it could have been executed better. I wanted more powerful love and happiness for all but the way it ended…Really derailed it for me. I don’t want to be too hard on Waithe, there were some great scenes that I enjoyed. Would I recommend it to a friend? Not really. But I would talk about it with a friend if they already watched it — Maybe that’s the end goal to get people talking.

Shelli Nicole: I am proud that there is a piece of work in the world that has hours worth of focus on two Black lesbians that also present in different ways. I am happy that some young dyke 10 years from now will use scenes from this to inspire them in their own work, and that there is even something around like this for them to be inspired by. I wish there was more romance, less pain, and copious spoonfuls of gentleness — but I am a secret hopeless romantic, an eternal optimist, and have always moved thru the world wanting more sweetness so… this is very on-brand for me to feel this way — I’m not watching it again though.

Natalie: Moments in Love feels like a missed opportunity… Episode four was incredible and showed the potential for what this could have been. I see the sparks of brilliance there but they never connect for me in a way that felt satisfying — and I say that as a committed member of Team Love is a Lie.

Shelli Nicole: Also — so much of this felt like a love letter to cheating.

Dani Janae: !! I think portraying a couple that disagrees on having kids or not would be a dope examination of conflict in relationships, but then the cheating storyline came in and I was like oh no.

Shelli Nicole: From the MINUTE her friend showed up I was like “I know EGGZAKLEE where this is about to go.”

Natalie: I definitely wished they’d done more to deal with the emotional fallout from the miscarriage but then the friend showed up and like Shelli, I was like, “oh, I see where this is going.”

Can I ask did you guys connect with Denise and Alicia as a couple from the beginning?

Shelli Nicole: Not in any way, shape, or form.

Dani Janae: I wanted to as a Black woman that loves other Black women. I thought they were a cute couple but I didn’t really connect with either of them in that way.

Shelli Nicole: They felt like two separate people, living separate lives but just in the same space. Like friends who mistook their deep friendship connection as a sign to create a romantic one.

Dani Janae: I feel like that feeling was heightened by the lack of physical intimacy between them.

Natalie: That was the big stumbling block for me, right from the start. Despite the cute interactions between them, there wasn’t enough to make me really care about the fate of the relationship. The fact that they were in this house that, I guess, they called cozy but just felt suffocating to me… I just wanted to get out of that space.

Shelli Nicole: I love that you bought up the house because it def felt like it was this major glue that was holding the relationship together. Like they thought if they filled it with enough things that they both loved, then they could be comfortable enough to live there while they just moved through the relationship.

Dani Janae: I feel like I came to this wanting to see some blooming love but what it felt like was what Shelli said, two friends who mistook the relationship for more. The most in touch they felt in the five episodes was when they were both cheating on their respective wives.

Shelli Nicole: Absolutely Dani!!!!

Natalie: That’s absolutely right. Also, I would’ve taken that stained glass out of that damn window before I sold it.

Shelli Nicole: Lol I thought they were going to low-key! When they were in that tub in the final episode, It was the most connected and the most honest they had ever been. It was also the most, in-love moment during the show.

How did y’all feel about Aziz’s quick presence in the show?

Dani Janae: It felt unnecessary. Like that could have been another cute lesbian couple that appeared in that scene. I get it’s his show technically but I was like, meh I could go without seeing him.

Natalie: I mean, there’s a conversation to be had about Aziz and his history and whether he should have appeared in front of the camera…. but I think they needed something to ground Denise. Dev comes in and they drop back into this easy rapport and it just highlights how strained things really are between Denise and Alicia. I would’ve rather seen Denise’s mom come through or maybe her aunt — but I appreciated that juxtaposition.

Shelli Nicole: It just felt out of place for me. Like, they needed to ground her but I could have done without it being through him.

Natalie: Had either of you watched the first two seasons?

Dani Janae: I did watch the first season I believe.

Shelli Nicole: I totally did. I liked them and was a fan. It was my first intro to Lena actually. I was like “A Black Lesbian? On Netflix? Show me and give it to me now — NOW!”

Natalie: I think the other thing that’s interesting about Dev’s appearance is in the second season he seems like he’s on the cusp of breaking through but things falls apart. Obviously, by Moments in Love, he’s at a low point and it kind of foreshadows where Denise is going.

Shelli Nicole: This just wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted Black Lesbian romance. I wanted sweetness and kisses. Do you know what I wanted? A full five episodes of that scene in episode five when they were dancing to Back II Life. I understand relationships are hard and that difficulties will arise, moreso with us given our identities. But I also deserve moments in film & television where there is a couple who looks like me that isn’t bombarded with trauma, breakups, or sadness. I wanna see that and I don’t think I’m a fool for asking for it.

Natalie: They called it Moments in Love so that wasn’t an unrealistic expectation.

Dani Janae: I feel like they could have gotten away with it if the final action wasn’t both of them reveling in being cheaters. Like I would have loved to just see Alicia move on as a mother, find a partner, and be happy.

Shelli Nicole: AND BE HAPPY. And have Denise beautifully partnered, grounded in her life living as a creative on her own terms (or non-creative), and them in each others’ lives as the true friends they seemed to actually be.

Natalie: I’m curious about what you guys thought about the first instances of cheating. Denise hooks up with her friend and then gets into the accident and Alicia, who’s supposed to be in Baltimore, rushes back but we find out really she was out cheating. Did that strike either of you as odd?

Dani Janae: Very odd!

Shelli Nicole: lol yes! They were like, let’s have both of them be somewhat terrible people.

Dani Janae: We as viewers also didn’t get to see Alicia cheat so it was like… what??

Natalie: Which is fine… birds of a feather and all that… but like she was really upset about it and I just didn’t get it.

Dani Janae: I wanna say I think there are far bigger betrayals in a relationship than cheating, but it just felt so forced and unreal.

Natalie: One of the things that struck me about this (and Twenties as well) was how the story parallels Lena’s own life. Obviously, this was written before her marriage ended so I won’t dig into the personal, but I was curious about how you feel about the pressure that Denise felt as a queer creative… because, at least, that part felt true to Lena’s life.

Do you feel that pressure as a queer creative, especially as a queer creative of color? Did that portrayal resonate for you? It’s been something that’s been rattling around in my head since I watched the show.

Dani Janae: That’s a really interesting question. As a poet, I think there is a pressure to create art that is about your deepest darkest pains and secrets. Like everyone wants a piece of you on that level, for everything to be raw and guttural. So I definitely feel that pressure for sure. I think Denise’s character really grappled with that even being a fiction writer. Publishers and readers kinda want you to bleed on the page. And when you have a first big success as she did, the pressure is even higher for a second release.

Shelli Nicole: I think I felt like that at the very start of my creative career, I had success very quickly and was writing at publications that I’d only dreamed of. So many places only wanted me to only write from a traumatic view – which I did for a while because I thought it was the only way to have success as a Black Queer writer. But I had to stop writing things I didn’t want to out of fear that the opportunities would stop. It was hard but when I did, I found better success than I ever could have — and I’m not fucking traumatizing myself and others for some coin and a few followers.

Natalie: Denise carries the weight of trying to live up to the first thing she wrote… and that becomes so consuming, it blocks her from writing. I think Lena does as well. Thanksgiving is one of her first big solo swings and she knocks it out of the park, winning that historic Emmy. Now everyone’s kind of expecting that from her.

Shelli Nicole: I don’t think I am expecting Lena to live up to that — what I am expecting her to do is have some reasoning behind her work and to keep in mind the very folks she says she is creating it for. To find her own happy blend of writing things for herself and for the folks who will be watching it.

What a Long Strange Year It’s Been: A One-Year Quarantine Reflection Roundtable

A year and six days ago, we published a roundtable about how we were all coping with the new and confusing onset of a quarantine in response to a global pandemic: “It’s a weird time, friends and loved ones; we’re all feeling disconnected and scared.” Some things have changed a lot since then; some have disconcertingly not changed much at all! Many of us have lost a great deal over the past year, whether that was loved ones, a job, our health, connection with community, and more. Few of us were prepared to still be in the place we are now a year in. It’s hard to know how to feel in the midst of so much grief and at the advent of what many tentatively hope is a milestone in terms of vaccination access. We were hoping not to have occasion to revisit this conversation as a one-year anniversary, but we do, so here we are, exploring the question: What do you feel like you’ve taken away from this past year of pandemic life?

Happy Birthday to Us! Here’s What We’d Say to Our Tween Selves

Have you heard? It’s our birthday! Happy 12 years to us; we’re excited to be here another year and to have reached that confusing in-between stage where you aren’t quite a kid anymore but still so far from grown up, and where your mom still won’t let you wear eyeshadow to school. We’re only going to keep growing up; that’s why we’re having this fundraiser to become ever more sustainable and independent! For today, though, we wanted to do something to honor how special and full of potential this time is; here’s our team with what we’d most like to say to ourselves at this age.

What would you like to say to tween you? Let us know in the comments!

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How to Honestly Tell When It’s Time to Break Up

We’re revisiting this classic Autostraddle piece on queer dating as we get back to dating basics in partnership with HER’s Queer Dating 101, a series of live edutainment events that brings in concrete how-tos, insights, experts and some of your favorite Autostraddle personalities to help you find love (or whatever you’re looking for) in the time of corona. Check out the event on Sex and Relationships During COVID, TONIGHT,1/21/2021 at 6pm PT | 9pm ET!

It can feel impossibly difficult to tell whether something is really over or just a rough patch, even though it often seems CRYSTAL clear when it’s your friend, or your partner’s other partner, or the couple having a fight at the brunch spot. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective and an objective read on what’s going on to tell whether it’s healthiest to separate — which is why our team is here to tell you from experience when it’s time to go.

What We’ve Learned About Dating & Relationships During the Pandemic

We’re revisiting this Autostraddle piece on queer dating as we get back to dating basics in partnership with HER’s Queer Dating 101, a series of live edutainment events that brings in concrete how-tos, insights, experts and some of your favorite Autostraddle personalities to help you find love (or whatever you’re looking for) in the time of corona. Check out the event on Sex and Relationships During COVID TONIGHT,1/21/2021 at 6pm PT | 9pm ET!

Some of us entered quarantine single; some of us entered it with partners we’re living with; some are in long-distance relationships, and some were just starting new connections that could have been anything — and then a pandemic happened. Although everyone’s situation has been different and had different challenges (isn’t that the truth, love life or not) it feels safe to say that all of us have been forced to have some ~personal growth experiences~ in this area, whether we wanted to or not. Here’s what we feel like we’ve taken away from the pandemic so far in terms of dating, sex and partnership, even if begrudgingly — what insights do you have to share? Tell us in the comments!

Tell Me Something Good Please I’m Begging You: A 2020 Roundtable

Well, this year has been an absolute shit show, so we want to tell you something good! The Autostraddle team racked our brains and came up with our personal 2020 highlights. This year, even the smallest wins count.

Did you take some major steps in your personal growth this year? Did you learn how to knit or get a puppy or finally sign up for online therapy? Drop your 2020 highlights in the comments! We’d love to hear ‘em.

Netflix’s “The Prom” Review: Broadway’s Favorite Teen Lesbians Warmed Our Unruly Hearts

One January evening, almost two years ago, I got dressed up and went to see The Prom on Broadway with a full theatre row of my queer found family. As Emma opened her laptop and found her people, I got to look to my left and see the people I found that very same way. I wasn’t sure if the Netflix’s The Prom would hold a candle to that experience, so I was so happy when the credits started to roll and I realized I had a GREAT TIME. Is it cheesy and campy? Yes. Are all of their problems glossed over with a perfect sheen and solved with a glittery dance number? Yes. Did I love every single note? ALSO YES.

I thought for sure I was going to be alone in my love for this movie, so imagine my EXTREME DELIGHT when the Autostraddle Slack lit up with Drew and Carmen also singing its praises. That’s when I knew I had to invite these two to be my Prom dates and do a little roundtable so we could shout about our feelings together.

Alright, friends, it’s time to dance.

Extreme spoilers for Netflix’s The Prom ahead. Only walk on stage if you’re ready for the curtain to go up.

Valerie Anne: How much did you know about The Prom going into watching this movie? What were your expectations, and did the movie meet them?

Drew: All I knew about The Prom was the basic logline. It opened on Broadway right before I left New York, so I didn’t get a chance to see it and honestly I’d heard from some people that it was very, um, what’s the word… made for straight people? But the thing is I love musicals and — God help my soul — I love Ryan Murphy so I found myself getting more and more excited about this movie as its release approached. That said, my expectations were still VERY measured. But then — wow yeah they were completely and wildly surpassed.

Carmen: I also missed The Prom on Broadway, and to be honest I hadn’t paid it much attention because campier musicals aren’t usually my preference. In fact, I think the first time I seriously paid attention to Prom-mania was when they had that famous same-sex kiss at the 2018 Thanksgiving Day Parade and all those conservative “family values” groups protested.

Of course once I found out what all the commotion was about, I fell in love immediately. That said, if Drew considers herself a Ryan Murphy faithful, I’m definitely Ryan agonistic. I was holding my breath, believing in the power of Meryl, and diving into this movie against my better instincts.

Valerie Anne: Gods, if I run with this metaphor, I think I’m a born again Ryan Murphy fan. I loved him then I hated him but I’m really coming around again, and this movie had a big hand in that. As I mentioned, I saw the show on Broadway loved it, but I wasn’t sure I could trust a movie adaptation with so many big non-Broadway names so I was cautiously optimistic. I know I’m a sucker for movie musicals but it still exceeded my expectations.

Valerie Anne: What characters or scenes resonated with you the most?

Drew: I hated high school. I was closeted to the point of being closeted to myself, but I look back and view my high school experience as very much that of a queer teen. I mean, I got into college with a social justice scholarship for queer activism and was bullied for being gay all my life and TRULY THE MIND BOGGLES THAT I DIDN’T PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER FOR MYSELF.

Carmen: Oh my God Drew, huge same for me! I spent all of high school very convinced I was straight, and that my boyfriend who painted his nails in black sparkles and took me on date nights to Rocky Horror Picture Show and the touring production of RENT — not once, but twice — was also straight. (Spoiler alert: Neither of us was straight.)

Valerie Anne: I was also trying very hard to be straight in high school but also got into fights with my religion teachers about how Jesus would have loved gay people and they were being hypocrites. So, same.

Drew: We were all so, so gay. Anyway, I deeply loved Emma and felt so strongly her desire to get the fuck out of Indiana and her general disconnect from her school population. And at the same time I really understood Alyssa and her desire to put forward this perfect front. It was so easy to project so much onto these characters and root for them from beginning to end. When Emma breaks up with Alyssa I felt so sad for Alyssa and also so proud of Emma and it was just so many FEELINGS because in my own skewed trans way I identify with both of them at different points in my life — and sometimes at the same time at the same point.

Carmen: Oh for me it was no contest that I was Alyssa Greene. Constantly burying my queerness, constantly in a quest for perfection. Perfect grades, perfect hair, always hiding beneath a mask. Never letting anyone know how much I was hurting as long as I kept smiling. Her autobiographical number “Alyssa Greene” completely took me out. And then when you get to the relationship with her mother? And how terrified Alyssa is of disappointing her?

There were not enough buckets in the world for all my tears.

Valerie Anne: Yeah I’m with Drew, I was definitely a mix of both Emma and Alyssa. The little miss perfect to try to please my mother while also the internal desperate need to get the hell out of my hometown, and even the looking to the internet for community even before I knew exactly what community I was looking for.

Valerie Anne: This cast is jam-packed with legends, literal Broadway stars, and adorable newbies. What were your favorite or least favorite casting choices?

Carmen: Hands down it’s Jo Ellen Pellman as Emma. I don’t remember I saw a newcomer who just — I mean, you are on stage with Meryl Streep and you are eating her up for breakfast? In your first major role? Who does that! It’s unbelievable how wonderful she is — awkward and shy and charismatic, but also fully sure of herself, and that voice?? Sheesh.

I’ll say it like this, I didn’t love Netflix’s The Prom’s opening number — which gives you Nicole Kidman, and Meryl Streep, and James Corden, and Andrew Rannels — in fact, I was more than half-ready to take it off. But then Jo Ellen Pellman debuts with “Just Breathe” and my entire world stopped.

(Don’t get me wrong, Meryl was great, too! In a chewing scenery kind of way. But to be fair this will still rank as only my third favorite Meryl Streep musical role — behind both Mama Mia and Into the Woods.)

Drew: Wow hot pro-Meryl in Into the Woods take! I’m going to start with the negative. I think we were all concerned about James Corden from the beginning… and I have to admit he surprised me. It’s the most I’ve liked him since I saw him on stage in One Man, Two Governors. But I still think that character could’ve been a real stand out and point of connection for me in another actor’s hands and he was not. Better than I expected, but still not as good as he could be.

Carmen: Agreed!

Valerie Anne: Seconded, my bar was low but he grand jeté’d over it.

Drew: I pretty much loved everyone else though! It helps that I am a total Nicole Kidman stan, always am happy to see Andrew Rannels, and love Kerry Washington enough to get on board with her very quick moral turnaround. I also think one of the wildest things about this movie is the casting of Meryl Streep and Keegan-Michael Key as love interests. Dare I say that is the queerest thing about the movie?? I kid, I kid. But truly… what?? Just a wild choice.

Carmen: I loved their odd-pairing a lot!! I didn’t expect Keegan-Michael Key to pull off the kind of humble sweetness that could take a Patti LuPone-style Diva of Meryl Streep’s making and bring her back down to earth in a very rooted way, but damn — it worked.

Valerie Anne: I’ll admit that dynamic didn’t work for me in the stage version, the principal and the Broadway legend, but Keegan-Michael Key and Meryl Streep sold me on it.

Drew: There’s also one thing that DELIGHTED ME. I want to celebrate Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana DeBose not just for being great — but for being QUEER. I guess it’s fine when straight actors play queer characters, but God feel the difference? It’s really such a difference!

Valerie Anne: YES. Yes yes yes. Also I fell in love with Ariana DeBose when I saw her in Bring it On the Musical on Broadway many moons ago (a highly underrated musical; one of the most amazing feats of athleticism and skill I’ve ever seen on stage, plus also it’s got some BOPS) and am always excited to see her name in various credits so I was thrilled she got her time to shine here. And shine she did. And I agree about Jo Ellen Pellman; she said in the press interview that Ryan gave her the note to play Emma with an underlying thread of hope and optimism, you can tell she really took that to heart.

Valerie Anne: Do you have any real life prom experiences you want to share? Was same-sex prom dates a thing in your high school or would that have been taboo? Did a team of clueless Broadway actors come help you throw an inclusive prom for you and your girlfriend?

Carmen: I skipped prom entirely and spent the night at home. I would’ve killed for a team of clueless Broadway actors to come help throw me a party — imagine Audra McDonald serenading me from a taffeta covered stage? That’s the dream.

Valerie Anne: I went to Catholic school so same-sex dates weren’t allowed and frankly neither would a girl earring a tux be permitted. I took a friend to my senior prom, and the dance itself was FINE… my ex-best friend was at our table because we had to pick our seating arrangement in like September but a lot can change in a school year, and one of the “popular” girls told me she didn’t recognize me because I “actually look really pretty” so that was confusing. But mostly what I remember is hanging out at my friend Katie’s house in full hair and makeup but our PJs, watching Ghost Ship to scare ourselves and then Shrek in Spanish so we could get some sleep.

Drew: I have major prom trauma. Prauma? Is that a word? It should be.

Anyway, my high school did Junior/Senior Prom and, since all my friends were older, junior year was when I would’ve gone. I’d spent the couple months leading up to promposals starting a thing with someone and then it was cut short because her friend had a crush on me and she said she couldn’t betray her friend and it was so annoying because I didn’t like her friend and the friend needed to just get over herself but whatever. I was producing a production of All My Sons and I started becoming closer with our choreographer (yes, our production of All My Sons had dance numbers) and found myself getting over the first girl and getting a crush on this choreographer. She was sort of halfway between theatre kid and popular girl, but she didn’t have a date and high school cliques are stupid so I thought what the hell I should ask her.

She loved fairy tales so I wrote her a personalized two page fairy tale and at the bottom it said “P.S. do you want to go with me to the closest thing our school has to a royal ball? If yes, come outside the band room.” And I was standing outside the band room with flowers. And she said yes!! She was so excited. She was like overwhelmed by the fairy tale and rushed us into the choir room next door where the cast was rehearsing and was like WE’RE GOING TO PROM TOGETHER. I did not experience a lot of wins in high school and it was just a really cute and nice moment.

But. Then. Her popular girl friends told her that if she went to prom with me she couldn’t come in their limo because I wasn’t cool enough. So instead they set her up with some asshole and she called me and canceled. The problem was she’d announced we were going together to all of my social circle so I couldn’t ask anyone else because I didn’t want anyone to feel like a second choice. So I did not go to prom and a month later that girl started dating some new guy (not the prom date) and now they’re married! So I guess it’s for the best that we didn’t go together because what if we had the best time and started dating and then she never got to date the guy she eventually married?? Really sucked for me though. *Siri, play “Barry is Going to Prom”*

Valerie Anne: If she can be so cruel to someone who wrote her a personalized fairy tale I have to assume she also has bodies in her basement. That’s COLD.

Valerie Anne: What was your favorite song/number?

Drew: Oh baby okay. So I think the Broadway star songs are fun and while watching the movie they really delighted me. But as I have been listening to the soundtrack on repeat I’ve been listening to my own very teen heavy edit of the soundtrack with “Just Breathe” and “Alyssa Greene” specifically on repeat.

I think one thing Netflix’s The Prom does very well is give us two teen lesbians who feel grounded in themselves and their romance.

Carmen: Yes! Without a doubt, yes. Teen lesbians are everything about what makes The Prom work, despite any of the rest of its flaws.

Drew: I love an “I want” song about being stuck somewhere you don’t want to be and I love any song about feeling pressure to live up to expectations. (“Breathe” from In the Heights is maybe my favorite musical theatre song ever?)

Carmen: Drew, we might be the same person, “Breathe” from In the Heights is easily one of my favorite musical theatre song ever. The pressures of living up to the dreams of your family? Hell, living up to the dreams of your own? Instant tears, every time.

Valerie Anne: BREATHE FROM IN THE HEIGHTS IS ALSO ONE OF MY FAVORITE MUSICAL THEATRE SONGS EVER. And agree re: “Just Breathe” and “Alyssa Greene.” Basically this whole roundtable is just me agreeing with you both excitedly.

Drew: I also love how “Unruly Heart” isn’t just about being queer but is about being a queer person who is incapable of hiding. Obviously some queer people have to stay closeted (especially teenagers) and I think the movie does a great job with Alyssa showing that experience — but I also think there’s something to celebrating queer people who have something in them that makes them loud.

And, okay, besides Emma and Alyssa, I also really loved “We Look to You.” Theatre means a lot to me and I think this song is such a lovely tribute to what theatre means to so many of us. Is it possible to write about any of this without sounding so corny? Guess not! And I don’t care!

Carmen: For me it’s a straight slate of the teen numbers, no chaser. If Emma or Alyssa sing it, I’m all over it. “Unruly Heart” — which is the double tear dropper of Emma singing to other queer and trans teens! About how hard it is to be a queer teen! Then also, “Just Breathe” and “Alyssa Greene,” both of which I’ve already mentioned but cannot stop playing on repeat.

Valerie Anne: “Unruly Heart” is my favorite song in the show because of the reasons you mentioned – I’m 33 and I feel like I’m still learning to give myself space to love what and who I love fully without worrying about what other people think. And then linking it to other queers finding her on the internet? That’s how I found my family, through the internet, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without them. And also I was sitting with some of them in the theatre when I heard the song for the first time. MY EMOTIONS. And I think the movie brought that to life really well. It captured the sweetness of Emma reaching out, and the pain/relief combo of other lonely queer kids watching her video.

Carmen: I actually think the finale number, “Time to Dance” is actually the best piece in the show? Especially as an ensemble. In a lot of musicals the finale is ironically an afterthought, so I think it’s refreshing to have a show that actually builds to something!

Valerie Anne: I do love a big group sing.

Valerie Anne: Any closing/overall thoughts about the movie?

Drew: I’m pretty sure the community is going to have vastly different feelings about this movie, because it’s not just a queer movie, it’s a musical, and it’s not just a musical, it’s this kind of musical. Some people will be enthralled watching Nicole Kidman do a Fosse-esque dance number where she is grinding on a mostly likely very horny teenage lesbian and some people will think it is absurd and stupid! I am in Camp One.

Sure, the politics of this movie are not complex and it’s a very easy view of queer acceptance and queerness in general, but I also think it’s based in high school and feels adolescent in a way I kind of appreciate. I don’t know! Maybe I’m just a corny Broadway gay. No, I’m definitely a corny Broadway gay. And I loved The Prom.

Carmen: I am very easily a corny Broadway gay, and I wear that flag proudly. I love musicals. I love being gay. If you also love musicals and being gay — I think it’s going to be very hard not to love The Prom.

Did I love all the campiness? Depending on the scene, I could take it or leave it (Nicole Kidman doing bad Fosse did little for me, but Meryl Streep killing her Patti LuPone impression certainly did much more). I could have done with 100% less of the Ryan Murphy focus on cis gay white men who “save the world” — for instance, I found myself wondering if I would have come around on the Andrew Rannels’ character more quickly if he had been played by say, Billy Porter, just off the top of my head. But in the end, none of it mattered. Because it’s not their story, it is not the story of any of the adults.

This is a love story about Emma and Alyssa. Two queer teens in a small midwestern town and if you don’t want those little dweebs to go to sparkle filled prom and kiss at midnight and slay their demons and sing and dance — then I’m sorry, but you may not have a heart. (I don’t make the rules!)

Valerie Anne: Yeah I could have done with more of the teen lesbians and less of the adults (I would at least like the stolen verse of You Happened back.) And this goes for the stage and movie versions but I could have done without the whole Love Thy Neighbor subplot entirely, THAT SAID, I think Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana DeBose (and Nicole Kidman and Kerry Washington) did so much with what they DID have that when the movie was over, all I was left with was a happy, joy-filled, unruly heart.

“Happiest Season” Roundtable: Yikes, Harper! Wooowwww, Aubrey Plaza!

The time has come for a few of us to give our thoughts on Happiest Season, Clea DuVall’s Christmas romantic comedy now streaming on Hulu. Since the movie’s release a few days ago, we sat down and gave it a watch (some of us more than twice) and then jumped together to hear each other’s feelings on it. We talk about what it’s like to bring someone home, the white universe the film takes place in, and, obviously, Aubrey Plaza in those suits.

There are some spoilers ahead!

First things first: What were your thoughts when you first found out about the film?

Drew: Despite being a fan of Clea DuVall as a performer, I really loathed The Intervention, her first film as a writer/director. So when this was announced and I saw people getting excited about it I just sort of felt… well, honestly, I felt happy for the cis white lesbians in my life and then went about my day. But the thing is I love Christmas movies! Like last year I gave Let It Snow a glowing review. I don’t think Christmas movies have to be masterpieces and sometimes it’s just nice to have a simple seasonal movie to enjoy. So I was excited for it! This was not The Lesbian Cinema Event of my year, but I’ve absolutely been looking forward to it.

Vanessa: I am really not a movie person — I usually see like, one movie a year. That said, I love Kristen Stewart, so when I found out about this movie I was pretty excited and figured I’d make it my “One Movie of 2020.” A lesbian holiday rom-com with one of my favorite actors, what could go wrong!

Shelli Nicole: When I first heard about it I am sure I tweeted and was quite judgmental, but I also recall saying I was of course, still going to watch it. Like, why wouldn’t I want to watch a lesbian Christmas rom-com? I want to live in my own version one holiday season. The big names were a little bit of a draw. I’ve never fawned over KStew but I have wanted to kiss Clea DuVall since seeing her in The Faculty, so there was that.

Christina: There are few things I love more than romantic comedies, especially ones that are supposed to be cheesy and over the top and a little wacky. I also have a fondness for general WASPy mess (I blame the fact that I lived in Boston for ten years) so I was pretty pumped for this! Also, tall bottom representation!

After watching it, did it live up to your queer expectations?

Rachel Charlene Lewis: I… didn’t love it? It had moments I loved. I wanted to finish it and feel so whole and so seen, but I just felt really sad. Will I watch it again? Yes. I’ve already watched it over and over. But I think some of the coming out arc felt way too close to my own experiences with dating and my girlfriends’ parents and families, and I felt a little tricked by the trailer, which made it seem like it would be made up of more fun and shenanigans, and less CRUSHING HEARTBREAK. The acting was great. Kristen Stewart is an angel and getting to watch her be gay and happy made my heart happy. Aubrey Plaza saved the day. The outfits and the makeup and the vibes were just so wonderfully queer. But I think it needed more time to really pull off everything it wanted to and to balance straight audiences who wanted one thing (aka coming out stories) and queer audiences who wanted another (happy nonsense lesbian rom-com).

Valerie Anne: I don’t generally like rom-coms OR Christmas movies but the idea of one made by queer people for queer people made me happy. Especially for those people who DO love Christmas rom-coms and have had to watch thousands of very straight movies just to get their fill. And I bet the people who love those movies will love this movie very much. I enjoyed it quite a bit but it was still a Christmas rom-com so my capacity to love it was somewhat limited, which honestly means it succeeded in being exactly what it was meant to be.

I thought the acting was stellar and the writing was great, and it made me feel happy in my heart to know how many queer people were involved on both sides of the camera. For me, I would have enjoyed it ending like the kinds of movies I watch. For example, it would have ended with Abby and Riley together and running into Harper at pride a few years later. Finally out and happy and with a girlfriend she was ready to be with. But I understand why it had to end the way it did for the genre. I agree with Rachel that Kristen Stewart being gay and happy and Aubrey Plaza’s whole, everything, were absolutely the best parts of the movie. And Dan Levy.

Malic: This rom-com definitely had its funny moments. I adored Aubrey Plaza’s classic deadpan and Dan Levy’s delivery of hilarious one-liners. I knew that the film would be very, very white and very, very homonormative, but I had no idea that the storyline would fill me with so much rage! I didn’t get enough time to buy into Abby and Harper’s relationship before Harper brought them into an impossibly difficult situation. I spent the whole time being pissed instead of rooting for them to stay together. I’m with Rachel — I was unprepared for the crushing heartbreak! Also, I’m bored with coming out narratives and want to see queer people doing other things.

Stef: I am very, very not a Christmas movie person, but I do love a Lifetime movie now and again so I gave this a shot. I had really mixed feelings because while I had a pretty good time watching the movie, everything Harper did made me so anxious I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. Abby was supernaturally patient with her and understanding of everything she went through, but Harper just… kept… dropping the ball? Even when it was a simple little thing like her parents putting Abby in a separate room, it would have been so easy to ask your MOM to let your FRIEND sleep in your room. When Harper didn’t even tell Connor there had been a reason she broke up with him, she slipped into irredeemable territory for me and I was deeply upset on Abby’s behalf during the resolution of this movie.

Sometimes it’s possible for someone to love you without respecting or particularly liking you, and that was something I felt very strongly about Harper’s feelings towards Abby. I do love Valerie’s idea for an ending much more than what actually happened; it seemed like a WASPy way of sweeping the issues under the table and deciding everything will be fine if we just will it to be so — and NEVER DEAL WITH ANY OF OUR ISSUES AGAIN. In conclusion, Aubrey Plaza is a precious gem and I would die for her.

Shelli Nicole: Well, I’m just going to say it and welcome any draggings — I really, really loved it. It was hella cute, very queer from the wardrobe to the writing and also just felt quite real? There was a sideswipe of heartbreak but I just knew that Clea and crew were not going to make these girls have a traumatic ending the first time around. The straights watching simply wouldn’t know how to handle it but the queers watching it would be like “saw that coming”. I thought it was funny, sweet, well acted and told a whole story and didn’t leave many gaps.

What super stood out to me was the wardrobe: I agree with Rachel completely so when she said it was “wonderfully queer.” I too would have changed the ending and wanted Abby and Riley at a bare minimum hook up and become friends, but that doesn’t mean that I wanted Harper to be sad and heartbroken. I think she had some things that she needed to work out, and maybe she needed to do that alone. I don’t enjoy the queer girl narrative that it’s always helpful to work through your personal issues while you’re with someone, because that’s hard and not all of us are trained to do it that way. All in all though, I really dug it and I’ve watched it a few times. I sent it to my dad to watch and he texted me telling me he’s starting it — just waiting for that text that says “LESBIANS?! On MY Christmas?!?”

Drew: I knew the basic premise going into the film, but I think I was a bit surprised by the tone. There are farcical moments for sure, but it felt more slice of life than comedy. Which is fine! It just wasn’t quite as charming and funny as I would’ve hoped. But mostly? Yeah it totally met my expectations. I don’t think it was a masterpiece, but Kristen Stewart looked hot and I’d die for Aubrey Plaza and it hit the story beats I was expecting and I mostly enjoyed the experience.

Vanessa: Haha okay, I’m kind of laughing at everyone else’s reactions considering I’m the asshole here who doesn’t even like movies, so what the hell does my opinion matter, but wow, y’all are so much more generous than I feel! Perhaps it’s because I was told it was a rom-com (I literally did not even watch the trailer, I truly know nothing “about movies,” I just felt excited to watch a cute gay funny romance on my laptop screen ya know?), perhaps it’s because a friend texted me before I watched it complaining about how much they hated it, perhaps I’m just too harsh but… I truly hated it.

It made me SAD. It was not funny, it was deeply painful and very, very difficult to watch! I know from twitter dot com that reactions to this film are very polarizing — I’ve actually seen a lot of people share my reaction, but I’ve definitely also seen tons of people who loved it and of course there has also been backlash to the backlash… I guess it wouldn’t be a queer movie if there wasn’t a ton of semi-stressful queer discourse, right? ;) I just did not see where in the narrative arc the writers gave me any reason to understand why Abby and Harper’s relationship was GOOD, you know?

The opening montage, chronicling the first year of their relationship, was my favorite part, because it felt HAPPY and like at least I understood in a vague way why they wanted to be together. The rest of the film was honestly so bleak; I watched with my housemate who was equally horrified and they put it this way: “Where was the sparkle?” And I want to know that! The only time I felt a sparkle of holiday rom-com energy in the film was the scene with Riley and Abby singing with the drag queens. That was beautiful. I’d watch a whole movie that took place within that scene tbh.

Christina: It was a little disappointing for me—I had seen the discourse flying all over the TL, so I was prepared for it to be a little less charming than the trailer made it seem. It was frustrating, because with a few tweaks I really could have gotten on board, even though the “ooops hahaha sorry I didn’t actually come out despite telling you I did!!” plot was not my favorite thing. If they had given us more time with Abby and Harper up top, so we got to know them and their relationship, I probably wouldn’t have spent the whole time wondering why Abby thought Harper was worth all this. And like, honestly, if the story ended up with Riley and Abby together….I mean is there anything gayer than breaking up with your girlfriend for her ex??

Shelli Nicole: update on my fathers review:

I’m gonna get that nigga to go to pride with me one day or at least wear rainbow cuff links during pride month.

How did you feel about the whiteness of the film, both in front of and behind the camera?

Rachel Charlene Lewis: God, it was so fucking white. I’ve come to expect that from queer films, like, the only thing that can be “wrong” with them is that they’re gay, so otherwise they’re rich/white/etc. In general, I wasn’t shocked by how white it was, but I really didn’t like the way it portrayed the two mixed kids in the family. I also wish the characters themselves had been willing to say, on screen, that their family was super white and clearly using these babies to look ~diverse~ for the dad’s campaign.

Malic: I knew from the trailer and from my experience watching Christmas movies that this film would be oh-so-very white, but I had no idea how aggressive that whiteness would be. This film is nearly all white faces. It’s like the creators went out of their way to make sure that white people and white culture were at the forefront.

Stef: Yeah, the treatment of the kids made me uncomfortable, but something about this did seem like what an authentic Terrible White Family™ would do?

Shelli Nicole: Same Malic, I knew that this film was going to be so very white, it’s not something that they tried to hide. They casted KStew in the lead role for fucks sake, what did y’all think we was going to get? When it came to them sprinkling in diversity…..just no. Also, were the kids supposed to be like a mulatto Wednesday and Pugsley? Because I think they were trying to do that and it just came off weird. It was quite white and I think it became even more so when the political element sort of snuck it’s way in. Having Clea behind it just was the caucasian cherry on top but with her at the helm, I was ready for what was coming. I’m basically saying that they never tried to hide it, it was overt and present from trailer to release and that’s honestly all I ask of white people — just be upfront with what you’re doing and I’ll have more respect.

Drew: This was one of my issues with The Intervention. That movie has an ensemble cast of all white people and it’s about them spending the weekend at a big house in Savannah, Georgia… Not great! So to say I wasn’t surprised by the cast list of this is an understatement. I think it’s clear based on these two movies this is what Clea DuVall’s world looks like so I don’t trust her to write characters that aren’t white. But she’s the one getting to make the big budget lesbian Christmas movie. So that’s a bummer, you know?

Vanessa: I agree with everything everyone has already said, but I will add — while attempting not to spoil anything — that I really hated the choice to make the mixed kids do the thing they did at the mall. That just seemed like a really unnecessary plot point in a slew of shitty choices the writers made for those two characters in particular.

Shelli Nicole: Yeah, I think they were trying to add to the weirdo factor of them and also at the same time trying to make it a “Those darn kids!!” Kinda thing but — nah. It does make me wonder if they had any black writers or interns in the room who maybe would have spoken up and been like “Hey um — maybe let’s not make it them.”

Christina: For the most part I am fine with white people writing the white reality they live in—I’d much rather let people of color write and direct their own stories than have to sit through mistreated characters of color via white writers. I think the portrayal of the twins proves my point! I kind of liked that they were… creepy evil twins instead of the angelic kind of mixed kids that white people seem to feel like will “fix” racism, but they felt just… tossed in a way that didn’t really make sense for me?

What would you have liked to see more of or even less of through the film?

Rachel Charlene Lewis: More: Aubrey Plaza, laughing, cuddling, smiling, time with the resolution. Less: weird shitty moments between the love interests that made their power dynamic seem deeply trash.

Valerie Anne: More Aubrey Plaza, yes! More Jane!! I loved Jane!!! Also I love watching Allison Brie body slam people, turns out. More Harper having to work to rebuild Abby’s trust. She fucked up so much so hard and I don’t think 1.5 speeches was really enough to fix it.

Malic: More humor. More affection. Also I think that Abby and Harper should have broken up.

Stef: So much more Aubrey Plaza in a blazer and so much less Connor. I wasn’t expecting a LOT by way of character development, but I thought it was weird how they just gave Abby and Harper these careers and then never mentioned them again? We saw a lot about the patient and loving way Abby cared for Harper, but never really got a clear understanding of really why, or much about what Harper felt for Abby. The reconciliation just was not enough for me.

Shelli Nicole: More Aubrey Plaza. More Aubrey Plaza in blazers. More Aubrey Plaza giving smoldering nervous dykey looks while in said blazers. She stole every scene and she looks beautiful. MALIC, I know you are used to me screaming at you in all caps by now but YESSSSSSSS!!! Again, I wanted them to break up. I thought it was going to happen too, it’s not me saying I wanted a sad ending because them breaking up doesn’t necessarily mean it would call for one. I could have done without so many references to closets both in the script and with the physical acting. I get it — Dykes, Closets, fumbly experiences, secrets, like…I get it. I also loved the Josh Hartnett shoutout — I see you Clea.

Drew: Yes, in agreement with everyone. More Aubrey Plaza. Obviously. And then I just wish the film had committed to being a more serious dramedy about the dynamics on display and with that not had the “in a bow” happy ending. OR committed to being a holiday romcom and then had more humor and a lighter tone.

Vanessa: Yeah I guess I wanted this movie to be… different? If it was a rom-com, I would have liked a different plot. Just something fun and silly and slapstick, shenanigans ensue, etc. Like my housemate said, something with a holiday sparkle. If, like Drew said, it had leaned into being a dramedy, I would’ve liked a more convincing first act to make me understand why Harper and Abby work together and how they both care for each other, and I would’ve liked a longer climax/resolution to try to work through the honestly very traumatic subject matter of the film! Other things I wanted less of: the weird obsession with calling Abby an orphan, Connor, the bar named Frattys. Things I wanted more of: Aubrey Plaza duhhhhhh, Dan Levy, the fish subplot, A BREAK UP BETWEEN HARPER AND ABBY.

Christina: More Dan Levy in incredible coats, more time to get to know why Harper was worth all of this pain and suffering, A BETTER WIG FOR HARPER MY ACTUAL GOD.

Shelli Nicole: Christina, I don’t know why I didn’t bring that up before but it just was — sitting there? At the big party it looked like someone finally combed it but before that — my goodness.

Have you ever taken someone home for the Holidays (or been bought home)? How did it go? Did you find any similarities to your experience in the film?

Rachel Charlene Lewis: I have! It’s been… fine? But I’ve never dated anyone who brought me home where I could be GAY and In Love With Them. I’ve always had to tone it down, and it’s lowkey a traumatizing experience. I wish Happiest Season had had more time to really sit with how it’s not just a single event; it’s this weird lifelong issue you have to deal with that doesn’t get easier just because time has passed or because the family has decided not to hate you.

Malic: I have a few times, and it’s been fine. I’m grateful to have parents who are fine with most aspects of my queer identity (my mom even got matching Christmas pajamas for my ex and me). I like having partners around my family members, even the ones who are less comfortable with queer stuff. I think it’s important to show my younger relatives that cousin Malic is very queer and very happy with their life.

I’ve never dealt with anything like what I saw in Happiest Season, at least not around the holidays. I have dated people who were closeted, so maybe that’s why this movie brought up so much for me.

Stef: During my first deeply messy relationship with a woman, I was brought along on a family trip without said family being aware of the whole situation. I was very young and in love and confused and heartbroken and deeply upset, and I dealt with it very poorly, as one might expect! I got blackout drunk and ended up having a full-on panic attack, crying and screaming on a boardwalk in the rain. Ultimately I made things very awkward with some cousins who had definitely figured out what was up. Probably in this particular situation, the right thing to do would have been to not bring me on this trip in the first place.

In general, I have a pretty good track record with my partners’ parents, because I am polite and offer to help with dishes. Moms love me. I only recently introduced my parents to someone I’d been dating for the first time, and it went medium OK? Nobody really asked too many questions or had too great a time; I think it will be a while before I try that particular move again.

Shelli Nicole: Never. I have never even introduced my parents to anyone I have dated, even when I was still in the closet. But just like with KStew in the film, other people’s parents love me. I razzle dazzle them out of their socks and they ask about me for years to come because I am charming, pretty and have manners to make you melt. HOWEVER, those are the parents of my friends, not someone I’m dating. I was forcibly (literally) bought home in my first relationship with a woman. Not just for the holiday but every weekend for the entirety of our relationship. This was also the same woman who threatened me in a bunch of ways until I came out to my mother, I did but I didn’t tell her I had a girlfriend.

When my mom came to visit I told her we were going to have dinner with my “friend” at her place — and when we showed up my ex invited her whole family without telling me. It was so horrible and I escaped to the bathroom where I was told this was all my fault. Her family cared for me and I had a better relationship with her sisters than I did with her but yeah, that shit is hard. Family is wild you know, so it’s best to not bring anyone home without giving them as much info and heads up as possible about what your family dynamic is. That way, when you get a moment to yourselves you can both talk about how wild it is and make your connection that much sweeter.

Drew: I’ve brought two partners home and also met their families. But when that first happened I was supposedly a cis straight guy so that’s a very different dynamic. Honestly, as a trans woman, I’ve had experiences where it’s clear someone I’m on a date with does not want their roommates or friends to know I’m there as a date. That’s what I thought of way more. So maybe it’ll be like that but worse next time I meet someone’s family! Who knows what the future holds!

Vanessa: You know what, I just started writing this deeply personal thing about my family, and then I got freaked out and deleted the whole thing. I will say I think “bringing someone home for the holidays” is very intense and can be really awful for the person not part of the nuclear family, especially if you and your family have unresolved issues, and perhaps that is why I reacted so strongly to this movie. I think Harper’s choice to remain closeted around her family — while my therapist would definitely call it “a betrayal of self” — was absolutely her choice to make for as long as she needed to. Family shit and parental expectations are COMPLICATED. But I think it’s irresponsible and downright cruel to bring a partner into a dynamic like that if you aren’t going to be able to protect her from your family’s shit (which is why I think Harper is awful — not because she’s closeted, that is a neutral fact).

Uhhh, but back to the question… My very first girlfriend brought me home to her parents’ house a lot and I got to know them pretty well and they loved me. One Hanukkah I was visiting and we were getting ready for their Hanukkah party, and my girlfriend and I hopped in the shower together. Why was her family cool with this? I don’t know. Why were we cool with this? TRULY DO NOT KNOW. Anyhow, we were really just showering, no sexy stuff, because we were at her parents’ house and also in a rush to get ready, when suddenly I hear the door open and HER MOM ENTERS AND SUDDENLY THERE IS FREEZING COLD WATER ALL OVER ME BECAUSE HER MOTHER HAS HURLED A BUCKET FULL OF ICE WATER OVER THE SHOWER CURTAIN IN AN EFFORT TO GET US TO HURRY UP. And my girlfriend acted like it was totally normal and like I was the jerk because I was mad and couldn’t “get over it” in time for the party!!! Anyway the moral of the story is never go home with your girlfriend for the holidays, I think. That’s gotta be the moral of my story and also of Happiest Season.

Christina: I have brought a girlfriend home for a weekend, not the Holidays, but I have never done the whole meet the parents thing for the Holidays. I am deeply single! I give great parent! Someone bring me home to charm them!!!!

That’s gonna be it for us but let us know how you felt about the film in the comments below!

Period Pain, A Roundtable: On Cramps, Endometriosis, and Everything In Between

This is a conversation about period pain, and everything that goes along with that.

One day in the Autostraddle Slack “office” we were casually chatting about tracking our periods and our partner’s periods; soon our banter turned into a rousing discussion about period pain, uterus pain, the medical establishment being incompetent at best and harmful/dangerous at worst (often both!), PMDD, and how we as individuals manage the pain that people are so often told is simply “part of having a period / uterus / body!” You know, just a regular day at the office.

We decided to collect our thoughts, feelings, and experiences about period pain into a roundtable for you. Here it is!

Covering Our Butts: Let’s Talk About Underwear

Welcome to Butt Week, friends! An entire week dedicated to butts and butt-adjacent stuff: how-tos, thoughtful essays, original art, pop culture critiques, music and more! You are absolutely not ready for this and yet it is happening to you, right now.Let’s talk about underwear!

Read all of Butt Week

Did you hear it’s Butt Week?! It’s true, it is! So we’re gonna talk about what covers (or doesn’t cover!) our butts.

How and Why We Like to Be Scared by TV and Movies

Halloween is almost upon us, and this year, more than any other year, there’s so much spooky queer TV to watch! So this week our TV Team is talking about how and why we like to be scared by TV and movies, and what’s the scariest teevee episode of film we’ve ever seen.

Drew

Horror has always been my favorite genre. I’m a very anxious person and something about having that anxiety externalized in a way that’s fun or cathartic has always really appealed to me. I like roller coasters too. How often is our fear so wonderfully contained? What a joy to be afraid of ghosts on a screen instead of ghosts from our past!

I love all types of horror. I love goofy slashers, I love psychological thrillers, I love haunted houses and gay vampires and movies that are smart in a stupid way and stupid in a smart way. The possibilities of the horror genre are vast and while those powers can certainly be used to other marginalized communities, they can also act as our greatest revenge.

Best and scariest are very different questions to me, because so few horror movies truly scare me. No one unsettles me like David Lynch and there are episodes of Twin Peaks that scare me more than any of my horror faves. But what really scares me most is true crime TV and I mostly avoid that — dwelling in the unfiltered cruelties of our world doesn’t satisfy what I’m really looking for from horror. But some of my horror faves that scare me in a good way? Unfortunately due to Roman Polanski being a rapist, I do sort of think Rosemary’s Baby is the pinnacle of the genre. But I also LOVE the Slumber Party Massacre trilogy (especially the second one), Good Manners, Raw, Get Out, Bunny Lake is Missing, Tom at the Farm, Ganja and Hess, Black Christmas, and the original Cat People.

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Like Drew, I really do love all kinds of horror. Like Drew, I think I use horror as an escape mechanism. We’re all doing great!!!!!!!

While I do love all subgenres of horror (minus plotless torture shit), I most enjoy being emotionally devastated by horror. Like just take an axe to my heart! Jumpscares work for me in the sense that I WILL ABSOLUTELY JUMP AND PROBABLY SCREAM but they don’t work for me in terms of actually sticking with me. I suppose that’s the entire point of a jumpscare—a quick and ultimately fleeting fright. But I love the frights that sink into me, that stay with me long after I’ve watched them. And that tends to be the sad-horror stuff. The hauntings. The monstrous allegories for grief, loss, trauma, longing. The Haunting Of Hill House does this all perfectly in episode five, “The Bent-Neck Lady.” Other things I think do it well are: The Others, The Babadook, Stoker, Annihilation, Persona. Also, I definitely second Drew about the original Cat People.

So psychological thrillers and deeply unsettling stories with a female lead especially do it for me. But I also love The Classics that play all over television during October. And I love horror-camp and watch all of the Scream movies every year. I love Insidious despite its truly boring mythology. I love a haunted house narrative!!!! I love monster movies, too, especially vampires, doppelgangers, and zombies. I like sci-fi-horror, too.

It took me a while to figure out that I actually really enjoy horror, because I was for some reason scarred by the movie E.T. as a young child, which I was convinced was a scary movie and which prevented me from seeking out frights for A WHILE. But finally around the time of high school, I was like wait I actually love horror and especially love if I go to see a scary movie and one of the girls I’m friends with is so scared that she has to hold my hand ha ha ha!!

Carmen

This is a really fun time for me to come in here, after two people who not only love horror but also are capable of writing such detailed love letters to the genre, for me to say: I HATE BEING SCARED BY MY MEDIA!

I don’t like to jump into a bowl of popcorn, I don’t like blood, I don’t like heart thumping music that plays or suspenseful thrillers that leave my heart in my throat. I don’t understand why anyone would intentionally sit down and then… scare themselves?? For what? No. Life is too short.

I think, just speaking for myself, a lot that probably has to do with the fact that I’m already an incredibly anxious person and where most people’s day-to-day lives are somewhere around a Level 3, my anxiety and nervous system just lives at a 7. The idea of taking that and intentionally subjecting it to even more of a rollercoaster is just so upsetting for me (my heart has increased pounding since I started writing this, in fact!)

There are some exceptions to this very hard fast rule: I love The Craft — as long as I watch it during the daytime! — and in general do better with the kind of violence that’s the bloody skull-crushing kind as long as it’s women doing the fantasy violence against men (this applies more to an action genre than a horror one, but lol I like what I like). I also loved Get Out, which I think is a brilliant script and piece of art, as well as social commentary, though I can’t bring myself more than the one time and have watched other zero Jordan Peele horror creations. When I was a tween, the new hot thing were the teen slasher movies of the late ‘90s (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, etc) and all my friends would want to rent them during sleepovers, which of course I could not handle. But bless my mother’s heart, she would call the other moms ahead of time to find out what the movie selection would be, so that she could get it from Blockbuster and watch it with me on the couch — during the daytime, with all the lights on in the house. This allowed me to go to the sleepovers and not be scared, because I already knew all the jumpy or violent parts ahead of time. So I also love all those movies as well; they remind me of this moment in my life when I was really loved and cared for, despite all of my overwhelming anxieties.

Valerie Anne

I’m with Drew and Kayla on this one. I love the horror genre in so many forms, and I do think it’s because I’m high anxiety and it’s a nice controlled and safe way to get a rush of adrenaline without the negative panic that would normally come with it – for example, I love scary movies and have a high threshold and don’t find much truly terrifying, but I do not perform well in a walk-through haunted house scenario with real people as the players. I joke that I like the serial killer genre because me and my anxiety love to know a good worst case scenario so it’s like research for the inevitable moment I find myself hunted by a ripper. But I think in reality probably why I like the genre as a whole is because it taps into my empathy and anxiety in a way that just lets me stretch those muscles without overdoing it. A teen romance between star-crossed lovers and one of them is dying of an incurable disease? Get that away from me. It’s too real and too sad and too possible and I get inundated with enough real life horror every day on social media. Give me a very unrealistic or unlikely scenario, please. Or, if you’re going to give me something scary in a more real way, give me a woman who puts up a good fight (Hush) instead of just pretty girls in pajamas running poorly and screaming about it.

I’m not bothered by blood or guts or gore, and in fact find the concept of the early Saw movies (what would you do in this lose-lose situation) really fascinating (before the ‘traps’ became unwinnable and it was just torture porn) and I love a cheesy slasher with dramatic deaths. I love supernatural horror (Sinister, the Conjuring universe…technically Final Destination 2), I love straight slashers (Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer were my introductions to the genre, when I was 9/10…), I love horror comedy combos that lovingly mock the genre (The Babysitter, Cabin in the Woods, Happy Death Day). I love when women win, I love when queers appear. (I finally watched Bit last week and it was amazing.) Sometimes jump scares will get me (though more often than not, at this point, I can recognize the set-up from a mile away…I see how you’re framing that refrigerator door!) but I agree that it’s not what sticks with me. I also hate when a very good supernatural horror ruins the fun by either over-explaining or under-explaining the spooky, or by ‘revealing’ the shadowy figure to be a devil mask that belongs in Halloweentown. For example, Get Out balances the creepy and the lore perfectly, but Hereditary ruined their whole vibe for me in the last 10 minutes of the movie. Us did a lot of worldbuilding but it left enough questions to be interesting, Midsommar made little to no sense.

I’ve already sneakily mentioned some of my favorites above and this is getting very long but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite thing to come out of this genre in my lifetime: The Haunting of Hill House. It was a brilliant story and it was spooky as hell. The ghosts weren’t random and they had stories of their own, there were metaphors of deep sadness but also moments of levity and laughter. I loved parts of the story of Bly Manor so much, but Hill House was something entirely unique and I don’t think anything will ever compare.

Natalie

When I read the question, “How and why do you like to be scared by TV and movies?,” my first instinct was simply to come in here and say, “not at all” and keep it moving. But, after giving the prompt more thought and thinking it in tandem with the second question — “What is, in your opinion, the scariest TV episode or movie you’ve ever seen?” — I realized that the real answer was a bit more complicated than that.

I don’t mind being scared, as it turns out, but the medium in which I am scared matters

When I think about the scariest things I’ve ever seen on television and “enjoyed”* — Jamie Dornan’s horrifying turn in The Fall, for example — I realize that I don’t mind being scared by a thriller. Unlike Valerie, I take comfort in the realism. There’s something outlandish about it still — things that strain credulity — but thrillers exist in a world I understand, a world I inhabit. Horror and scary movies, on the other hand, are different. Horror upends conventional storytelling, reimagines a world that rejects normal conventions. You’re unsettled by both the villain and the environment…and that’s just too much for me. I think, on some level, the reasons that I avoid horror are the same as why I avoid fantasy and science-fiction: I just don’t appreciate that supernatural element.

[*Even with the thrillers I’ve enjoyed, my reaction to them is almost always: watch once, rave about it and then promise myself to never, ever watch it again.]

Heather

I do not like to be scared, at all, by anything, ever. I think I was just born terrified. My dad’s a big chicken and while my sister isn’t really afraid of everything like he and I are, she still doesn’t seek out fear. No one in my family was queuing up to go to a haunted house, or to see a midnight screening of some bloody movie when I was growing up. (We did, however, go to Judgment Houses put on by local Baptist churches — did anyone else experience that particular trauma?) In fact, I have spent most of my life going to great lengths to NOT watch anything frightening or bloody, which has been quite a challenge due to being a professional writer about TV and movies.

I am fascinated by people who like to be scared, and I’m always asking them a zillion questions about it, trying to figure out what it is about them that makes them love it and what it is about me that makes me hate it. For a long time, I thought I didn’t like it because I’m deeply empathetic, but Valerie Anne is a bigger empath than me, and nothing delights her like getting her socks scared off! And she loves blood stuff too! I read this study one time that said people like to be scared because: their fight or flight kicks in; but then they realize they’re not going to die, so they relax; but they already got that dose of serotonin and oxycontin and dopamine, so it’s like a natural high without any real fight-or-flight stakes; and while they’re getting scared, it’s the main thing on their mind because of evolutionary biology; so they’re not worrying about bills or heartbreak or deadlines or whatever, just what’s freaking them out that’s also not going to kill them. Maybe my brain just never can get to the place where it thinks I’m not going to die? That’s a pretty chill thing to realize about myself.

Anyway, the scariest thing I have ever seen is the original Unsolved Mysteries, which my parents used to watch, and so sometimes I would watch it too. The problem with that was that I was too young to actually understand TV — like I believed the cartoon characters in Roger Rabbit actually were interacting with the humans — so I thought I was watching actual footage of actual crimes and then going to bed knowing that all of those crimes were UNSOLVED. I lived in constant terror that all the bank robbers and kidnappers an home invaders and aliens from that show were going to target my family next. To this day, the sound of Robert Stack’s voice makes me panic!

Although, I must confess, the thing that haunts me most in the history of TV is that Pretty Little Liars’ writers knew what they were doing, and they went ahead and did it anyway.

The Straight TV Couples We Won’t Apologize For Loving

We are, of course, a bunch of queers writing for a queer website, so even when we’re doing roundtables where we don’t have to choose queer shows and characters, we almost always do anyway. But this week, we decided to share those rarer than unicorn straight couples that we won’t apologize for loving. It turns out that even those of us who thump our chests and proclaim loudly that we’re Team Love Is a Lie are a bunch of dang softies!

Will you tell us yours, too?

Rebecca and Greg, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Drew

Okay, so my actual answer is Moe and Noah on Trinkets but I just talked about that. And my possibly less controversial answer is Jane and Rafael on Jane the Virgin but I also talked about that plenty last year. So instead I am going to say something that is probably objectively wrong: oh my god I think I like Rebecca Bunch and Greg Serrano??

Greg is introduced as the guy Rebecca probably should be with instead of his friend/her crush Josh. They actually have chemistry, they actually have things to talk about, they actually seem to get to know each other. But both characters have too much shit to work through and actor Santino Fontana inexplicably wanted to leave one of the greatest television shows of all time to go star in Tootsie on Broadway so in season two it was goodbye Greg. He returned in season four, now played by Skylar Astin, and it shouldn’t have worked, but for me it just did. Now sober, Greg had definitely grown a lot during his absence, but he was still a sarcastic dick and the exact kind of guy I usually wouldn’t want my friends to date! And this is a show that ends with Rebecca choosing herself and musical theatre over any of her love interests! So why the hell am I still stuck on Greg??

Here’s my answer: musical theatre. It’s my only explanation. It’s my only explanation for tolerating Jamie in The Last Five Years and it’s my only explanation for shipping Rebecca and Greg. Musical theatre has the power to let me inside the brain of a straight woman who wants to date a man like Greg. Suddenly I understand falling in love with someone that arrogant, that negative, that insufferable. I see his charm! I see his appeal! I see their love! In fact, I actually liked Rebecca with all three guys?? What a powerful artform.

Davia & Dennis and Malika & Isaac, Good Trouble

Natalie

When Good Trouble debuted last year, I knew I’d care about the straight relationships…after all, I’d watched Callie and Mariana Adams Foster grow up over five seasons of The Fosters so, of course, I’d be invested in their relationships in this new spin-off, right? But, much to my surprise, Good Trouble introduced an expansive ensemble cast that I grew to adore and, somehow, I started to care about their straight relationships more than the characters I’d always known.

The thing that binds my love of Davia’s relationship with Dennis and Malika’s relationship with Isaac is how, through each of them, you get a window into the trauma that they’re carrying. For years, Davia’s had to endure her mother’s abuse about her weight and she carries that shame into her relationships. No matter what image she showcases on Instagram, she’s scared that her mother’s warnings — that no one would love her because she was fat — are true and that being someone’s mistress ought to be enough. You can see her falling slowly for Dennis but never being able to commit to the possibility until Dennis says it aloud. She needs his voice, his love to drown out the echoes of her mother. But, of course, Dennis is reluctant to do that because he comes to the table with his own trauma. He carries so much pain over the loss of his son and so much guilt for having failed his family in such a profound way that he feels unworthy of whatever kindness is offered to him. He’s at the Coterie to hide, not to be seen… and Davia makes him feel so exposed. I grew so invested in them and hoping they’d find their way past their pain and to each other.

Similarly, with Malika: she’s who Callie might have been if Stef and Lena hadn’t welcomed her into their home. Years in the foster system have left her fearful of trusting that the ground beneath her feet will still be there tomorrow. When she meets Isaac, he confirms all her skepticism but then, after she rejects him, Isaac does a thing that Malika doesn’t expect: he keeps trying. Malika is a dark-skinned black woman who grew up in the foster system and was homeless before she ended up at the Coterie…people don’t keep trying to win the affection of people like her. The more Isaac shows up, the more Malika can let go of her past trauma and fully embrace the love that’s being offered…. and watching her learn to love Isaac and learning to let him love her feels like a profound triumph and I cheer it on every week.

Khadijah and Scooter, Living Single

Carmen

If you’re a lover of the specific subgenre that is Iconic Black Sitcoms of the 90s (and there are many of us, I salute you!) — then you probably knew I’d have a Living Single couple on this list, and you’re probably surprised that the couple is not Maxine and Kyle. Maxine Shaw Attorney at Law (Ride the Maverick!) and Kyle Barker, exquisite dresser and stockbroker, are the lead Will-They-Won’t-They couple of the series. Their hot, sexy enemies-to-lovers dynamic SPARKED from the high heavens and there’s no denying that, least of all by me. So then why would my heart settle on another love story instead?

Because I never want to be enemies with the love of my life, that’s why. The complicated drama of hating each other — but being drawn together nonetheless — makes for captivating television, but who the hell wants that mess in their actual lives? My heart is far too sensitive for such volatility. Khadijah and Scooter (excuse me, he’s grown now so we call him Terrence) have been best friends since diapers. The first time they have sex? The next morning they laugh together about how it was the first time they’d seen each other naked since they were five years old and sharing a bathtub. I love love that is warm and lived in, like wrapping your softest, warmest throw blanket up to your neck on a cold winter’s night, sipping hot cocoa. I want a love story that feels like home.

If Queen Latifah did one thing as Khadijah James, it was keep a NBA roster of fine men on her arm, but we always knew that it would come back to Scooter. In the show’s finale, on New Year’s Eve, when he returns to finally sweep her off her feet… to be new and in love with your best friend? There’s nothing like it.

Dwayne and Whitley, A Different World

Carmen

When this roundtable was first suggested, I complained that I haven’t loved a straight couple in 25 years, which is true, and so may I please present you with the other 90s Black sitcom couple that has my heart.

Here’s the deal with Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert. They are college sweethearts, but not at first. No, at first Dwayne is a skinny math nerd, a bonafide geek who no girl will seriously date. And Whitley is a pampered, bougie Southern princess who thinks everyone is beneath her. To be honest, in the early years they are both… well, annoying.

But the beauty of Dwayne and Whitley not that opposites attract, it’s that in a true coming-of-age, they grow up together. In Whitley, Dwayne not only grows into his own versionof cool, he ultimately learns patience and how to care for someone other than himself. In Dwayne, Whitley learns that there is so much more to the world than money; she also learns how to stand on her own two feet and outside of the princess shadow cast by her bougie and overbearing parents. It takes them four years of college (well, five for Whitley) but when they graduate they aren’t just getting a piece of paper degree — they’ve become better people. Love did that for them. They grew up in love. And really, what’s a better love story than that?

In conclusion, this summer I once explained that I loved this couple so much by describing myself as a “Whitley Gilbert, looking for a queer Dwayne Wayne with flip-up glasses ❤️” and Natalie pointed out that since I am myself a Black nerd with a PhD, then aren’t I also my own Dwayne Wayne? And to be honest, she wasn’t wrong.

Coach and Tami, Friday Night Lights

Heather Hogan

My favorite scene between any married couple on TV, ever, happens in the fourth season of Friday Night Lights, “The Lights in Carroll Park,” two episodes after Glenn, a teacher at Tami Taylor’s school, gets drunk and kisses her in the parking lot of a karaoke bar. She jumps away from him, of course, and according to the rules of TV, it’s going to cause big problems in her marriage. When she doesn’t mention it to Coach in the next episode, that seems like a sure bet. But in “Carroll Park,” somewhere in the middle of the episode, Coach and Tami wake up in bed and he mumbles, “Guess who came to see me the other day? Glenn.” And Tami says, “Oh? And what did Glenn have to say?” They get into a sleepy, silly, groggy, foggy, early morning mumble-jumble talk-off about Glenn kissing her. She says, “Oh honey, he was so drunk; you didn’t hit him, did you?” And he says, “You just get kissed by so many people over at the school you forget to even talk about it?” He’s not mad because he’s not threatened and she’s not embarrassed because she knows that he knows what he means to her, what they mean to each other. Coach jokes about it throughout the episode, says she’s going to have Glenn over when he goes out of town, and “Don’t let him drink all my scotch.” But the episode ends with them in the car, down by the lake where they had their first date, kissing and pressing their foreheads into each other. Coach says, “Damn, I love you.” And Tami says, “Damn, I love you too, babe.”

That’s the kind of love I never knew existed when I was growing up. Not that kind where you run through the streets in the snow to stop an airplane from taking off, or chase somebody to the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day for a sweeping, soppy kiss. That was all fine and good and everywhere. The kind of love I never saw modeled for me in real life and also never saw on TV or in movies was steady and sure and gentle and firm and unwavering, the kind of love that challenges you to be a better version of yourself and gives you the space and empowers you to actually do it; the kind of love that’s refuge from the storm, not the storm itself; the kind of love that is so self-assured — not haughty, or cocky, but quietly and completely confident — that getting kissed by drunken Glenn in the parking lot will become just another in a lifelong series of inside jokes between you.

Coach and Tami are their own characters, with their own hopes and dreams and flaws and fears, and their marriage is its own character too, this whole other living and breathing thing that, as Coach says, needs to be nurtured.

When I met my wife, ten years ago, I asked her on our first date how she handled conflict. And I told her how I handled it (anxious-avoidant) too. And then I told her the most important thing to me, in the entire world, was to create the kind of relationships that are built on so much consistent goodness and grace that all conflict will become me and that person against the world, and not me and that person against each other. The first time I saw that in action was the first time we watched Friday Night Lights together. And now I have the great good fortune to see it in my own life, too.

Jim and Pam, The Office

Riese

Sorry for being basic but it’s true! They make each other laugh. They have great running bits. They have a very cute love story. My only complaint is how they seem to hold each other back a little bit from whatever their respective dreams are, sometimes. But G-d, they find the other person just so delightful! I love them. Remember THE TEAPOT

Tami + Coach Taylor, Friday Night Lights

Riese

Best marriage I’ve ever seen on television! There were no broad strokes here, just real, flawed, ambitious, impressive people navigating assorted ups and downs with a relationship rooted in mutual respect and a desire to see the other succeed. It’s too bad the child produced from this union was a total bitch!!!

April & Andy, Parks & Recreation and Veronica & Kevin, Shameless

Riese

I think I like both of these couples for the same reason — hot bossy women in relationships with men who are a little um, less smart, but also very charming and funny! Bonus points to K&V for when they had a throuple in Svetlana, justice for Svetlana.