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Lez Dish It Out! The AfterEllen Weekly Round-Up

Happy FriGay to all my unrepentant Sapphic sisters out there! While the west coast burns and the gulf states flood in the latest wave of climate change-driven apocalypse, find some time for a lil lesbian brain candy. It was an emotional roller coaster this week in Lesboland, but on balance mostly good news. This week we remember lesbian feminist icon Kate Millett, celebrate/mourn the liberation of Cameron Esposito’s right ear from eight years of side-mullet tyranny, resist actual fascism with Staceyann Chin, jam with Jay-Z’s mom and more. Kate Millett, Author of Sexual Politics, Passes at 82

Second Wave icon, sculptor, novelist and lesbian hero Kate Millett died September 6th of a heart attack. Still dedicated to the women’s movement in her 80s, Millet was in Paris, headed to the Simone de Beauvoir conference. Her book Sexual Politics was, like her absurd black spectacles, truly original: it examined pop culture texts by misogynist dickbags DH Lawrence, Henry Miller and Norman Mailer to demonstrate the male sexual fantasy of dominance and dehumanization underpins not only patriarchal culture, but the so-called sexual revolution, the counter-culture. Analyzing Jean Genet’s v gay fiction provided a counterpoint — and she wrote all this before she was out as a lesbian. Her engagement with these popular texts in the 1970s paved the way for political analysis through pop culture, changing the lives of so many English majors and AfterEllen writers.

Let us all strive to express ourselves in a way similar to how one of her advisors described reading the dissertation which would eventually become Sexual Politics. It was like “sitting with your testicles in a nutcracker.”

  Cameron Esposito Cut Off Her Side Mullet With no warning to her fans, Cameron Esposito buried her gay-ass side mullet.

serious wow

Staceyann Chin Supports DREAMers Poet and playwright Staceyann Chin expressed support for DACA on her Instagram.

staceyannchin If you have a problem with undocumented immigrants getting rights in The USA, fuck off. I entered the US with a tourist visa. It was the only way a poor young black lesbian running from homophobic violence, with no money to speak of, no immediate relatives willing or able to sponsor me, could enter the lands of the great Uncle Sam. I felt I had to flee from Jamaica. I had nowhere else to go. That tourist visa was a lifeline, which means, I was one of the lucky ones- some people have no way to leave the place that could or is killing them. Sometimes it’s war. Sometimes it’s the kind of poverty that makes average Americans weep, protest and rage against the powers that allow people to be treated in this way. Sometimes it’s sexual violence. And sometimes your parent or guardian makes the decision to pick up and go with you. I want to emphasize here that that is a good thing- to have a person who takes a risk to give you better life. Americans celebrate that in almost every aspect of their lives. Look how many white cultures hold that narrative of American pride in their histories! Italians braving the seas to come, the Irish who escaped the terrible poverty of their time, the British who gave the ultimate finger to the crown to chart a new life for themselves here. And though we hear little of the way in which they pillaged the Native Americans to secure that future for themselves we cannot allow the narrative to be re-crafted to erase that brutal truth. But here we are. Centuries later- speaking of the descendants of the very brown bodies who were dragged here against their will, to build the hallowed halls of government, to build the places where legislators sit to deliberate law, to work the very land upon which we erect houses and monuments and farm for sustenance, everything that denotes the heart of American pride, was built by or stolen from the ancestors of those we want to deny citizenship now. Whether you admit it or not, all that is still true. We all have a right to safety and food and a life we can be proud of. All of us. My daughter and I are an American immigrant family. We have undocumented family members. We are not ashamed. #WeStandWithDACA
So Far Season 7 of AHS Is Every American Lesbian’s Election Catharsis

Read AfterEllen’s recap here. Jay-Z and His Mom Collaborated on “Smile” Jay-Z wrote a track in tribute to his lesbian mother on his new album, 4:44. “Smile,” tells us a little more about Jay’s oft-tributed mother and how she came out to her family after many years in the closet. The track features an original poem read by Gloria Carter:

Living in the shadow / Can you imagine what kind of life it is to live? / In the shadows people see you as happy and free / Because that’s what you want them to see / The world is changing and they say it’s time to be free / But you live with the fear of just being me… Living in the shadow feels like the safe place to be / No harm for them, no harm for me / But life is short, and it’s time to be free / Love who you love, because life isn’t guaranteed.

Gloria Carter was interviewed on the D’USSE Friday podcast.

Season Two of One Mississippi Airs Today

The Amazon streaming show returns today. Themes of family and love are explored alongside commentary on contemporary culture and politics. So far it’s getting great reviews! Syd Releases Always Never Home

Syd Tha Kyd released her latest project, Always Never Home, yesterday on UK’s Beat 1. Now available to stream on all the usual channels. Please use caution when listening: true-to-form these three tracks will melt your panties.

St. Vincent Announces Her New Album

You’ve been hearing rumors about it for a minute and the new album Masseduction, is finally on the way with the first single released “Los Ageless.” The album drops October 13.

Listen now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8jxAKmojxY Ellen DeGeneres’ 15th Season Premiered OG celesbian Ellen DeGeneres, who recently announced the peak-lesbian cat-focused addition to her line of pet toys, is also celebrating the premier of her 15th season.

Alison Bechdel Featured on the New Yorker Radio Hour

This news is actually two weeks old, but Alison Bechdel is eternally relevant. The three-minute piece about her shortest job is streaming here.

That’s a wrap! See you next week!

 

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