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Last December, comedian Rhea Butcher tweeted at the 17-year-old lesbian pop culture website AfterEllen: “You don’t represent me or my friends and your website is a sham.” Butcher, who identifies as both nonbinary and lesbian, continued: “You’re not a lesbian/bisexual website, you’re a TERF website.”

That week marked a peak in the controversy long swirling around the site, pitting communities of queer women against each other over gender inclusivity. In one camp stood transgender-inclusive queers for whom “lesbian” or “dyke” can be claimed by trans women and nonbinary people, as well as trans men who feel a strong connection to the lesbian community. The other, increasingly vocal camp are “gender critical” biology essentialists who believe that only cisgender women can identify as lesbian, and that trans people are in some way trying to “trick” those women. Members of this latter camp are often referred to as Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs), which some people claim is a slur used to discredit them.

AfterEllen was once a behemoth in the queer media space, focusing on lesbian and bisexual women’s representation in film and television, but it has recently moved into a new sphere. These days, the site runs articles about the vagaries of “girl dick” (in other words, the genitals of some trans women), claims that young cisgender lesbians are being bullied online for not wanting to have sex with trans women, and makes calls to separate the “L” from the larger LGBTQ+ initialism out of a desire to no longer be associated with trans people. The new AfterEllen has made its stance crystal clear: Trans people are not welcome.

Read.

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Guest edited by Janet Mock in honor of Womens History Month, our March issue marks the first time in almost three decades of publishing that Out features, is written by, photographed by, and styled by only women and nonbinary femmes.

Meet The Mothers and Daughters of the Movement, our cover story featuring the queer and trans women leading us towards our liberation on the frontlines of race, class, gender, and sexuality—from the ’60s until now.

“To sit at Miss Major Griffin-Gracy’s feet is a gift,” writes Janet Mock. “I’ve experience it firsthand.” Our March cover star—one of our fearless leaders—never stopped fighting for her girls.

Tourmaline isn’t just telling the stories of the women who came before her—she’s getting them placed in museums. Meet the artist-as-activist, profiled by Out Executive Editor Raquel Willis.

Barbara Smith’s life “has been a testament to radical Black love and sisterhood,” writes Janet Mock. “And I, along with millions of Black women, have been deeply affected by her contributions.” Get to know Smith, one of the movement’s first proud, out Black lesbians.

Alicia Garza is best known for gifting us the rallying cry #BlackLivesMatter, but her story is only just beginning. “It is undeniable that Alicia continues to set the tone for a more intersectional movement for Black Lives,” writes Raquel Willis.

“Fighting, for me, basically means demanding my humanity in the face of so many systems, institutions, and even individuals telling me I don’t deserve it,” says March cover star Charlene Carruthers. Now, the freedom fighter is amplifying her message.

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Advertisers Are Fleeing Tucker Carlson's Trash-Ass Fox News Show

By Michelle Garcia

At least nine companies say they plan to pull ads from Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show after anti-immigrant comments he’s made in recent weeks.

Carlson, a homophobe and enabler of white nationalist rhetoric, interviewed a politician from Tijuana to talk about the migrant caravan that has been traveling on foot from South America to the U.S. border in hopes of seeking asylum in America. Carlson warned that allowing mass-immigration was a poor economic move, doubling down to say that it “makes our country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided,” according to CNN.

Viewers quickly took to social media to urge advertisers to pull their spots from Carlson's show. Sophie Weiner at Splinter News reports several people tweeted to advertisers, imploring them to pull ads from the show due to Carlson's views. Of course, Carlson has long demonstrated his show to be a haven for white nationalist conspiracy theories, homophobic statements, and other drag-worthy reasons.

After three advertisers pulled their spots following those remarks, he returned to the air on Monday to defend what he said, citing images of garbage left at the US-Mexico border and claiming “huge swaths of the region are covered with garbage and waste … that degrade the soil and kill wildlife,” brought on by members of the caravan.

Since then, several more advertisers have announced they would not be affiliated with Carlson’s show. 

Read. 💅🏼

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By Julia Fawal

Growing up in a small, conservative pocket of  Pittsburgh, Mandy Seiner saw how women’s sexuality — especially queer women’s sexuality — would be ignored or considered all-out shameful. As she began exploring her sexuality throughout high school, she turned to Tumblr.

“Tumblr was my entry point into the queer community,” Seiner, now 22, says. “Prior to that, I had only ever seen queer intimacy in movies or in other random explicit content I found online, which was highly catered to the male gaze — a lot of phallic-centric threesomes and unrealistic scenes. Tumblr made me realize that queer intimacy could be soft, non-performative and diverse.”

But for Seiner and other young women who have used Tumblr to learn about themselves and others, that’s coming to an end.

Tumblr announced Monday that it will remove  all “adult content” from the site on December 17. In this case, “adult content” means photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples (we could not roll our eyes harder), and any content — including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations — that depicts sex acts. But that’s precisely the content that draws many women to Tumblr. "It's just such a hub of so many different kinds of art and expression that it was the perfect place for me to safely explore [my sexuality]," says 27-year-old Samantha.

Generally, Tumblr allows users to create blogs, share content they like (typically images or text posts), and build communities around subjects that matter most to them — from fandoms to health and fitness to sexual preferences. The ease at which users can anonymously collect, curate, and experience the things that turn them on has led Tumblr to become a safe place for queer women to explore their sexuality, often for the very first time. Searching tags like “softcore” or “fingering” would yield  pages of porn GIFs, sensual black and white images, videos, erotic fiction, fanart, and more. And while there’s plenty of porn on the internet, the adult content on Tumblr was often sensual and intimate, focused more on desire — a radical shift from what’s typically available on explicit porn sites like PornHub. Though made-for-women porn sites exist and are growing in number, many are membership-based or have inhibiting pay walls. Tumblr quickly became the place where women could easily explore what turns them on and discover sexual content that didn’t feel alienating or degrading.

“Tumblr introduced me to female erotic film directors like Erika Lust, whose productions focus on the pleasure of the parties involved onscreen, not the unnamed viewer,” says Mandy. “That was monumental for me as a young woman who thought, consciously or not, that all sexual acts were something to be done to you rather than for you.”

When 20-year-old Jamie from Ontario began questioning her sexuality a couple years ago, she turned to Tumblr because it was anonymous and allowed her to follow NSFW content by women for women, which helped her understand and validate her bisexuality.

“Without the experience I had on Tumblr, I wouldn’t have been able to learn so much about how I was feeling and eventually come out to my friends and family,” she says. “I wouldn’t have been looking up LGBTQ content on Instagram and Twitter for fear of outing myself or being outed.”

Read.

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“If you would’ve asked me, ‘Will you make another album?’, I don’t think I would have been able to answer,” says our October cover artist, Robyn. “Everything was kind of disintegrating for me.”

Loss, depression, and a lack of fan-worthy material kept her hidden from the spotlight for eight years. Now, the seasoned alt-hitmaker is back. 🍯

Robyn: Back on the Floor With Pop’s Swedish Phoenix (Cover Exclusive)

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California Is the First State to Condemn Surgery On Intersex Children

By Rose Dommu | Photo: Toby Talbot/AP

This week, the California State Legislature passed a resolution denouncing "corrective" surgeries for intersex children, affirming the work of advocates who have argued for years that children are too young to consent to these procedures. This makes California the first U.S. state to pass such a resolution.

"It’s the very first time that a US legislative body has recognized that intersex children deserve bodily autonomy and the right to make decisions about their own bodies just like everyone else," Kimberly Zieselman, executive director of intersex youth advocacy group interACT, told Buzzfeed. "We’re hoping it’s just the beginning of more to come." The legislation passed in California was authored by interACT.

According to Buzzfeed, 1 in every 2000 children are born intersex. Since 1995, surgeons have performed "corrective" surgeries to align these children's genitalia with socially accepted ideas of male and female genitals. In recent years, organizations like interACT have fervently opposed these surgeries, with a U.N. group decrying them as a human rights violation with potential complications including "scarring, chronic pain, urinary incontinence, loss of sexual sensation or function, psychological damage, and incorrect gender assignment." Equally important is the fact that these children are unable to consent to surgeries that aim to "fix" something that isn't broken.

The new legislation, SCR110, doesn't prevent doctors from performing these potentially harmful surgeries, but intersex advocates are hopeful it will discourage the practice.

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Love is love.

Bario Neal & Xavier Schipani Know Love Comes In All Forms 

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Category is: season two, darling. 

Read our latest cover featuring Mj Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson, and Indya Moore in conversation with Pose writer, director, and producer Janet Mock.

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❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤

No renunciaremos.

Glorious Photos of Mexico City’s 40th Pride March

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Picture this: Hugh Skinner, Jeremy Irvine, and Josh Dylan island-bound with Christine Baranski, Meryl Streep, and Cher.

"I think the film is a 90-minute vacation," Irvine says. "It’s a nice little break from reality."

Three Studs Get Ready For the Mamma Mia! Sequel

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“This industry likes to segregate people. If you’re, for example, a black person and not shooting queer black men, it’s invalid. … In my work, I try to be a little bit more subversive in the way I do activism. I try to tell a more authentic story of what’s going on around me rather than me sitting at home creating a casting so I can shoot the top fifteen queer black men in New York just to call it something.” -Mitch Zachary 

Documenting Beauty from New York to Paris

[saltwort]

had to paint Janelle Monae’s Met gala look this year (on twitter).

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“Let us overwhelm the world with LGBTQ images of love and pride … not only will we be here to see you, to love you, to validate you but I promise you that your pride will give someone else the courage to be themselves too. Together, let’s welcome some people to our community.” –Samira Wiley

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This High-Heeled Gay Veteran Is Now A Texas Mayor

As Into reported, Bruno ‘Ralphy’ Lozano, who has served as a security forces patrolman in the US military, was elected mayor of the small Texas border town, Del Rio. The openly-gay man (who frequently wears heels), captured 62 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent Robert Garza, the Del Rio News-Herald reports.

Lozano, who is well-known in the town for his efforts to clean up local waterways, said Del Rio has the potential to be a positive example for America’s Latino population under the Trump presidency.

He is also a champion for the LGBTQ community—and isn’t afraid to be himself. In fact, when he marched in last year’s veterans' parade, he did so in a pair of heels (which he wears often when he travels).

Read more.

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Dear White People’s out creator Justin Simien on Tr*mp, the undying relevance of history, and queering up the writer’s room. (x)

[theadvocatemag]

The historically black college is set to begin admitting trans students.

Someone at Spelman College is writing hateful messages and slipping them under doors in the dorms, and the university president is speaking out strongly against whoever it is.

“Keep your tran out of our bathrooms,” reads one note, signed only “Thanks!” Spelman is a historically black college for women in Atlanta, and it announced last year that transgender women will be admitted beginning with the fall 2019 semester.

All the notes claim to speak for a large group of people, according to reports by CNN and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ”We don’t want you … freaks! No queers!“ Perhaps the most threatening of all: ”#DIE … We don’t want you here.”

Spelman president Mary Schmidt Campbell wrote an open letter Tuesday in which she addressed “the perpetrator.”

“Here’s a message for the perpetrator: You are not Spelman College,” wrote Campbell.

Read more.

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🌸 Bloom | Troye Sivan 🌸