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The goal stated plainly by some, merely implied by others, is to eradicate trans people completely. Whether through death or detransition, they want to return to an imagined time when men were men and women were women. This won’t work. Of course it won’t work. Because that time never existed and trans people have survived through periods even harsher than our own. But I’ve grown frustrated with this fixation on survival. I don’t want to talk to a collective “trans youth” like they’re hanging off a balcony and need to be coaxed back inside. Of course, it’s imperative that we continue to live. Of course, I want trans people impacted by this decision to know there is a future beyond this moment. But there’s something condescending about this focus on suicidality and merely living. 100,000 people lost their healthcare today. Even if every single one of those people live, these laws are still cruel and discriminatory. They still make life harder for people who already have to navigate a hostile world.

Drew Gregory, Most of Us Will Survive

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My queerness always came second to basketball. I thought of myself as a basketball player who happened to be queer. It was only when I graduated and lost high-level basketball that the order reversed and I started considering myself a queer person who once played basketball. Graduating and retiring from the game, the yearning felt a lot like the yearning of my closeted queer youth — the wanting and wanting for something that seems it cannot ever be. I felt at odds with myself. My queerness had always been so wrapped up in my playing. Without basketball, I had no framework for that part of my life either, no understanding of how to engage with or perform desire, no context for how to date or relate to others who weren’t athletes. I’d only ever dated basketball players except for the NARP (non-athletic regular person — yes, this was unfortunately a real term we used) who called me Number 12. She was an artist, which helped me tap into the writerly part of me I typically hid, but it would be many years before I settled into that identity. I’d have to convince myself basketball wasn’t the center of my world anymore. And in order to do that, I had to admit to myself, and then accept, that my playing days were over; there would be no professional overseas career for me thanks to my body, my arthritic, ruined, four-ACL-tears-deep body. If basketball has been my most profound love, then losing it has been my most profound grief. A grief made easier only because I don’t have to face it alone.

Mac Crane, The Sex of the Game

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I used to joke, when I was single, that it was meaningless to tell the people I dated that I’m a poet, because every lesbian is a poet. The same way “every” lesbian owns cats, doesn’t know how to flirt, and drinks iced oat milk lattes even in winter (unfortunately, all of these are also true of me). I’ll admit part of that refusal came from a sense of pretension: sure, everyone could write poetry, but I was a real poet, because I was getting a master’s in it and publishing and going to — *sexy, serious gasp* — conferences. I wasn’t like some of these Target aisle poetry books; I was working on real stuff. I’m not above admitting that this superiority complex of mine is one I’m still working on. Now that I’m older, though, I recognize why I had that much bite when it came to the genre: I was protective of it. For me, poetry is not just a way of stacking words on a page; it’s a vocation, nearly religious. I’m Benedetta having visions (and kissing girls) in the nunnery. It is, genuinely, the most important thing in my life. It’s the reason I’m still here to live that life.

Gabrielle Grace Hogan via Without Poetry or Queerness, I Do Not Exist

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"Whether leaving the U.S. or trying to get back, terrified or resigned, everyone I spoke to says they feel less at ease to travel. It’s fun to make jokes about lesbians U-Hauling and queer people falling in love through phone screens, but the truth is we often find friendship, community, and romance from afar out of necessity. Even in the most progressive city, we’re still a minority, and it’s even more necessary for people in small towns. Queer people have always found each other and we always will. But tighter borders and increased horror from ICE make this more difficult."

Drew Gregory via Queer Love Knows No Borders but Tell That To The U.S. Government

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llegally Female

"One question plagues fascist movements the world over: What makes a woman? The Supreme Court today decided that woman refers to “the ordinary meaning of [that] plain and unambiguous” word — a meaning so ordinary they did not define it themselves. Is a woman chromosomal, hormonal, or genital? Which is the plain and unambiguous defining characteristic in a human world that includes not only trans women but intersex people, women with PCOS, and natural variation in nearly every aspect of our physiology from height to hair distribution to genital size and shape? Much as US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart argued about pornography in the 1960s, apparently the UK Supreme Court will know women when they see them.

No longer being legally women, we un-women are left to wonder: Will we face arrest for using public toilets? Is there any purpose left at all to legally changing one’s gender via the Gender Recognition Act if it has no effect on any aspect of how we are treated in law, in prisons, or even in which hospital ward we are placed in? What will life be like for those who now exist outside the law — who will we become and how will we live?"

Morgan M Page, Illegally Female

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My final ever comic for the Reine series on Autostraddle went up this weekend :') end of an era

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I talked to Vic about their time at Dropout TV vs. my time at Buzzfeed, their queerness and gender identity, and how exactly the show is made. The interview took place on Zoom while they sat in a basement in Hungary, because they’re there for work and that’s the only place they get wifi at night. Please enjoy. - Autostraddle, Gabe Dunn

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Van Palmer + Autostraddle is the ideal combo for my queer little heart. I found my queer community through Autostraddle over 10 years ago. It was a lifeline for a little gay farm kid like myself.

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deeply loved resonated felt seen and moved by this one - as a queer biracial person who wishes more folks wore masks in public & wants to be in collective freaky community with active care and protection for all people

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couldn't find this posted elsewhere so wanted to highlight this excellent article about Coretta Scott King's work & legacy, especially in loving Black queer people & working for queer liberation

image description: two screenshots from the Autostraddle article "How Coretta Scott King Leveraged MLK's Legacy to Fight for Gay Rights." the text reads:

In the mid-1980s, when President Ronald Reagan wouldn’t even acknowledge the disease, Scott King – with the help of her assistant Lynn Cothren, an openly gay man — used the King Center to create a welcoming environment for the LGBT community, especially queer black people who were suffering in the middle of a generational genocide from HIV/AIDS. After the death of a close gay friend, she hosted a day of memorial at the Center and encouraged participants to sew stitches on a panel that would become part of the AIDS memorial quilt.

On March 31st 1998, at the 25th Anniversary luncheon for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, King spoke out against strands of conservatism in black communities that had kept some members reluctant to join the gay rights movement. She stated, “I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice… but I hasten to remind that Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.”

end image description.

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My thing is — not just what I love and hate about fight films, but rather just films that portray female athletes. It seems as though young women can’t really escape sensationalism even when they’re just the best at what they do. There always has to be some kind of side situation that makes them hypersexualized or sensationalized or at the mercy of something that just takes away from the work and the sport. And for me, when I look at men portrayed as athletes in film, there is this side of sensationalism, but it’s not the same as women in sports and film, in my opinion. And men get the better roles, the better characters, the better films, not just even when it comes to how it’s shot is better and more visceral, in my opinion. And for me, when I look at maybe Million Dollar Baby — that's one that is like, oh, okay, good. But still a little bit of sensationalism. There’s other men’s stories that are just straight up what they are: sports films. So when I look at the future of women’s sports as portrayed in film, I just want more of the sport and more of the personal journey as it pertains to becoming the best. Not at the expense of a guy or whatever. - Quintessa Swindell via Quintessa Swindell Can Punch You In the Face