My Weekend Crush

You don’t often see media about older queer women that isn’t cloaked in tragedy. Granted, there aren’t enough non-tragic stories about queer women of any age – period. Bury Your Gays is real, and relentlessly hard to kick. But for older women-loving-women, so many stories revolve around the lack of acceptance, or death of a partner, or generational miscommunication. Or, you know, falling off a ladder while trying to fix a birdhouse. (Yes, I am still traumatized by “If These Walls Could Talk 2,” why do you ask?)

So imagine my delight when I stumbled on this little short, about an older woman who seeks the advice of her younger queer coworker on how to flirt with women. It’s just 10 minutes, but feels like a little gem. As a single woman getting older herself (oh, time, and its relentlessness), I can deeply relate. But mostly, I appreciate this story for bringing back those little gay butterflies, when a queer story simply lets its subjects find joy in each other. We all deserve that, no matter what age. Happy weekend, all.

Gender Fuck Thursday: Stephanie Hsu

Since we’re talking about Broadway babes this week, let’s not forget our new Janet. As in “Dammit, Janet, we love you!” Not only is out queer actress Stephanie Hsu the new Janet in Broadway’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” she is half way to her nominations EGOT. She got an Oscar nom for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and now a Tony nom for “Rocky.” She just needs to record an album and then get herself some AppleTV+ series for that Emmy nom. Piece of cake. Oh, and thanks for the suit – and the ladyspreading. Ahem.

Girls Like Movies About Girls Liking Girls

What can’t Lesbian Jesus do? Sing a song about girls liking girls. Make a video for your song about girls liking girls. Write a book about your video for your song about girls liking girls. Write and direct a movie about your book based on your video for your song about girls liking girls. And then cast a little doppelganger for yourself in the movie about your book based on your video for your song about girls liking girls. Truly, what can't Hayley Kiyoko do? I know I’m not really in the age bracket for this movie anymore, but I appreciate the get-up-and-make-it-gay-yourself of it all. Way to get it done, Lesbian Jesus.

Broadway, Baby

Leave it to the theater kids to say what needs to be said about the state of our world. While I’m not necessarily a musical theater person, I started watching the Tonys a few years ago and have not been disappointed – in fact quite the opposite. Heck, the Tonys have even made me root for the Knicks. (Kidding, I will always pick New York over Texas.) Anyway, Pink was pretty amazing as host, knockout as a performer and more than ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille. Like lifting Neil Patrick Harris with her thighs while hitting the Elphaba high note? Ben Platt could never! Leading lady marmalade, always!

Anyway, what I loved the most – besides the world’s most talented theater kids showing why their name should be in lights – is their unabashed going there when it comes to our political moments. Fuck Trump. Protect the dolls. Immigrants make America great. Diversity is our strength. Bagging on AI. And jokes about lesbianism. Thanks, Broadway babes. You sure made my night. (I mean, the SEAmen joke alone, and Pink/lesbian kicker, deserves its own Tony.)

Music Monday: Let's Get Ready to Fightmaster

Um, are Towa and E.R. Fightmaster having a sexy masc-off just in time for Pride Month? And both in tank tops, no less. See, mascs are good for you! Look, I had stopped watching “Grey’s Anatomy” before the E.R. Fightmaster era. So I had no idea they also made music. May I commend them for their commitment to making a “Drive” for the year 2026, with a little sprinkle of Fiona Apple ennui circa “Criminal.” As I was saying, enjoy. Happy Monday, kittens.

My Weekend Crush

Finally, a movie that teases possible sapphic content that I’m fairly confident won’t disappoint me with just a bunch of queerbaiting. Thanks for kinda nothing, “Mother Mary,” Verity,” “Her Private Hell” et al. But “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” from everything I’ve read since its premiere at Cannes, is the real deal. And the final trailer and poster seem to emphasize that point. Also, and this is not a spoiler, just a wild guess and hopeful projection, don’t Gillian and Hannah look like the ultimate sapphic Final Girls in that poster? Make it so, Jane Schoenbrun! I loved their “I Saw the TV Glow” with such an unexpected passion, I can’t help but have the highest of hopes for Miasma. And, as all you kittens already know, I don’t even like horror movies. But between this cast who I feel equally confident in saying have both kissed women in real life and storyteller’s singularly universal use of trans allegories, yeah, bring on all the Little Deaths, whichever kind they may be. Ahem. Happy weekend, all.

Gender Fuck Thursday: Jodie

My goal is to bring you a stunning queer woman in a suit every Thursday this month. Why? It’s been a hard year and we’re not even half way through yet. You deserve this. We all do. Like, did you know there are a set of black-and-white shots from photographer Thalia Gochez’s Wall Street Journal shoot with Jodie Foster? And did you know Thalia called Jodie, “sweet.” Now, isn’t that a lovely thing to see and hear on a Thursday?

Sitting Courtside

Speaking of the WNBGAY, two of the league’s out stars have signed on to a new sapphic sports film “Courtside,” which has some other very familiar faces the camera as well. Abbot Elementary writer/producer Brittani Nichols and Autostraddle-alum Carly Usdin are writing and directing the film which “follows an injury-plagued women’s hoops superstar whose championship ambitions are upended when she falls for her teammate.”

Real-life out WNBA stars Gabby Williams of the Golden State Valkyries and Sydney Colson of the Indiana Fever and recent WNBA player Theresa Plaisance (last with the Seattle Storm in 2023) have all signed on to play, and I’m wildly guessing here, fellow WNBA stars.

But Colson isn’t just appearing, she’s also an executive producer. And guess what new production company is behind all this love and lesbian basketball? Run-A-Muck which was co-founded by, drum roll please, Ilene Chaiken and Jennifer Beals. Yes, that Ilene Chaiken and that Jennifer Beals of “The L Word” fame and infamy.

It’s actually heartening that two of the women behind the seminal lesbian TV series are still making stories for queer women. And, with the pedigree behind it, I have outrageously high hoops, I mean hopes. (I had too, apologies.).

As Brittani told Deadline:

“It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this kind of excitement to surround women’s basketball, and I’m excited to blend my love of sports, lesbian tension, and comedy into one project,”

Add this to the happily growing list of upcoming sapphic sports stories vying to become queer women’s “Heated Rivalry," including the “Slo Pitch” and “Ripe!” and (maybe) “Cleat Cute.” I say, why have one “Heated Rivalry” when we could have at least one for each sport – softball, soccer and now basketball. Who’s got next? Looking at you, women’s rugby stories.

Tank Top Tuesday: WNBGAY Rookies

Welcome to the WNBGAY, rookies! In honor of the start of the WNBA season last month, here is a roundup of all the women loving women who were drafted and playing their inaugural years. How someone hasn’t optioned the story of last year’s No. 1 pick and this year’s No. 1 pick drafted to the same team while being in love into the next “Heated Rivalry” already is beyond me. But then maybe Paige and Azzi are being smart and waiting for a really, really, reallyreally good offer. Get that bag, ladies. And that ball. But, you know, in sapphic way.

p.s. Look at all those jersey tank tops. Ah, Tuesdays during Pride.

All the WNBGAY rookies this season:

Azzi Fudd: No. 1 Pick to Dallas Wings

Olivia Miles: No. 2 Pick to Minnesota Lynx

Lauren Betts: No. 4 Pick to Washington Mystics*

*Autostraddle lists her, but Outsports does not. So, apologies if this is just wishful-gay-thinking.

Taina Mar: No. 14 Pick to Seattle Storm

Rori Harmon: No. 34 Pick to Washington Mystics

Music Monday: I'm Your Dog Edition

Happy Pride Month! Let’s get (even more) gay as fuck up in here. This video is giving me crazy “Secretary” (all the crawling) meets “All Over Me” (being someone’s dog) meets “Love Lies Bleeding” (hello, Katy O’Brian) meets you probably shouldn’t watch this at work vibes. Anyway, for as terrible as the world is and this administration is in particular, it’s still quite something to be alive in a time when queer kids have so many different queer artists to swoon over. I honestly don’t know if Renee Rapp and Towa Bird are still a thing, but regardless, excellent job casting Katy here. Just good luck to everyone trying to stay focused at work today. Though, honestly, it’s homophobic to make us work at all this month. Especially after watching this. Happy first Monday of Pride, kittens.

My Weekend Crush (Fascism, Again, Always)

Since we’re feeling the Woody spirit this week, here’s another good reminder. This land is your land, this land is my land. This land was made for you and me. Period. It’s something the billionaires and tech oligarchs and warmongers and Great Replacement racists and Christian nationalists and all the other entrenched powers also know. That’s why they work so hard to divide us. To make us think we’re the enemy, and not their boundless greed and resource hoarding. It’s not the Epstein Class’s fault your life isn’t what you dreamed! It’s the immigrant seeking a better life. Or a trans person seeking their authentic life. Or the queer person seeking a legally recognized love life. Couldn’t be them and their water and electricity guzzling data centers, their megayachts that fit inside even larger megayachts, and their penis rockets to Mars. Anyway, where are the guillotines when we need them? (For legal purposes, metaphorically…) Our land. Not theirs alone. Happy weekend, all.

Maximum Tatiana

Anyone watch this yet? It debuted a week ago on Apple TV, and, I am curious. I’m always rooting for Tatiana Maslany to find another great series. But so far, since “Orphan Black,” most of her projects have fumbled her extraordinary talents. Like “She-Hulk” was fun and all, but nah. So who knows, maybe “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” will be the one to remind the world that Tatiana can and should do it all. Also, love seeing her Helena hair back. Here’s a free idea, Hollywood, cast Tatiana and Jodie Comer together in a spy thriller where they both have to use a lot of accents and disguises. And kiss. What? Manifest your dreams, kittens. MANIFEST! (If you got what “Somebody Somewhere” reference, let’s hang out.)

Historically Stupid Men, Always Men

Everything is so stupid (and, of course, scary) all the time these days. But can we all just have a deep, endless belly laugh about the World’s Richest Man crashing out so spectacularly about a 3,000-year-old epic poem? He can’t shut the fuck up about how the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy in “The Odyssey” is “ahistorical.” My dude, it’s a mythological story. There’s also a cyclops, a six-headed serpent and vessel-devouring whirlpool monster. Are you also gonna complain that the vessel-devouring whirlpool monster is anatomically inaccurate?

But then, why would we expect anything less from the World’s Most Racist Serial Killer (I mean, he killed USAID, which is killing…*stares in ebola crisis*). He’s mad about Elliot Page being cast as (maybe Achilles, maybe not Achilles, really anything) in the movie as well because why just be a Nazi when you can also be a transphobic piece of shit? Anyway, I’m going to see Christopher Nolan’s next opus, not because I’m a homer for Homer. But because it will make Elon crash out even more if it does well at the box office. And these days, it’s the little things that get you through.

p.s. Like how attractive is this female cast? All their faces could launch a thousand ships – and more. So Stay mad, Musky! Stay mad.

Tank Top Tuesday: Feeling Ripe

Sports bras, as we all know, count as tank tops. Also, did we know Kelley O’Hara was also developing a sapphic soccer story for the big screen based a little on her own life/famous World Cup winning smooch? Like I knew about “Cleat Cute,” though I’m not sure where that project is now since the end of Megan and Sue. But “Ripe!”? Yeah, somehow I missed it. Maybe because the name is, how do I put this, terrible. I mean, I get it. But also kinda hmmm. But teasers about the film featuring its star, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” lead Lola Tung are certainly leaning into the whole ripeness of it all. According to Them, the movie, based on a Spanish short film, will follow an American exchange who falls for another female soccer player while playing overseas. But all I know is things are about to get sweaty.

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