The Drama of it All

Unfortunately, we have internet discourse to report. Last week, The New York Times published a review of the new film Bodies Bodies Bodies in which the writer, Lena Wilson, described the film as a “95-minute advertisement for cleavage.” Amandla Stenberg then DMed Lena on Twitter, saying “ur review was great, maybe if you had gotten your eyes off my tits you could’ve watched the movie.” Lena, who is a lesbian, immediately got up in arms about Amandla’s DM, screenshotted and posted it to Twitter, and claimed Amandla was being homophobic. (Amandla, by the way, is also gay.) 

Amandla, as a young gay person on the internet with a sense of humor, remained unbothered but took to Instagram to explain that she thought it was a funny joke that she thought Lena, a fellow gay person, would understand. Lena became very defensive about the situation, posting a Tik Tok claiming Amandla had “used her social power” against her (despite the fact that it was a private DM) and then posting another Tik Tok listing her accolades and the fact that she was in the New York Times at age 24 but failing to disclose the fact that her dad is an editor at the New York Times. Unfortunately, this drama lasted for several days, when it could’ve…not been drama at all! In other news, we’d highly recommend you go see Bodies Bodies Bodies (which has barely any cleavage in it).

Young love has been foiled again. We’re saddened to report that JoJo Siwa and Kylie Prew have broken up (for the second time) after reuniting a few months ago. Some internet sleuths think she’s now together with Tik Toker Avery Cyrus because they did a mukbang video together. The reason we first discovered this was because of this viral Tik Tok in which Kendall Payne explains how the Fletcher/Shannon/Becky drama triggered a wave of lesbian breakups including Jojo and Kylie. King Princess (who used to date Amandla Stenberg, funnily enough) made a duet video of her own. 

Local man finds out about gay sex. In an interview with IndieWire, Harry Styles spoke about his new film My Policeman and claimed that “So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it.” Many queers on Twitter had a laugh about this quote because so much of Harry’s persona is modeled off a kind of aesthetic idea of queerness that has little to nothing to do with sexual attraction. In a recent interview in Rolling Stone, Harry continued to avoid questions about his sexuality. To be fair, this ambiguity is a totally valid response to such questions, but we’re getting the sense people are starting to tire of Harry’s queer-adjacent style, especially since he apparently has so much to say about how gay sex should be portrayed on screen.

Other dispatches from the little gay people inside the internet: 

• Tegan and Sara got in on the new meme format because people were confused about which one of them just had a baby. 

• Ellia Green just became the first Olympian to come out as a trans man. 

• Dan Levy will be in the next season of Sex Education. 

• Watch D’arcy Carden being informed that “a hoard of lesbians” are now thirsting after her online. 

• Speaking of A League of Their Own, please check out this iconic fit from Kelly McCormack (aka Jess).

• A fight started at a Kehlani concert while she was performing “Honey” and Kehlani’s response was “are y’all fighting over who’s gayer?” 

• Chelse Manning was DJing at a club wearing cat ears and she played “Immaterial Girl.” 

• French lesbian Adèle Haenel, who has recently left the film industry, is now inexplicably reading Marx on the radio. Legend behavior only.  

• Juliana Margulies will be returning to The Morning Show next season, where she will theoretically continue to make out with Reese Witherspoon. 

• Two-time MVP Candace Parker led the Chicago Sky to victory.

Queer in the City:

If you are queer in NYC this week we may have seen you at Tuesdays night's Liberty Game, Kate Berlant's show (an absolute genius, hysterical, must-see production which we can't recommend enough running through 10/8) or Sunday's upcoming Gotham vs. Angel City match. Although our beloved Liberty took a season-ending loss last night, there is still hope for icons Candace Parker and Sue Bird to make it to the finals. For keeping up on all things WNBA, we can't recommend The Gist enough. It's a free newsletter that covers the biggest headlines in women's sports and it's a must-have for the duration of the WNBA playoffs, US women's soccer and beyond.

Last but not least, if you were some of the queers we picked up at Tuesday night's game ((Fish, Taylor, Naomi, Cari...))  by saying "Hey you guys are cute queers!" Thank you for embracing us, letting us snap your pic and get to see you smile.

We fucking love this city.   

ps. I haven't really introduced myself here, I'm Nicole, the founder of GayJoy. This last pic is of me and my wonderful, adorable, supportive, women's sports loving partner Ariel Gordon.

Until next time, 

The one-time team captain of a gay intramural softball team in Walla Walla, Washington 

This newsletter was written by Kira Deshler with Queer in the City segment by GayJoy founder Nicole Ripka