Gayjoy Digest #11

Author

Nicole Ripka
April 20, 2022

Good morning and welcome to another edition of the Gayjoy Digest. 

We’re back with your weekly dose of queer content, events, and nonsense to keep your calendar and brain booked with gay things all through Spring. 

And as a reminder: add this email to your favorites (and mark it as “not spam”) so it continues to hit your inbox. 

Stuff we’re nerding out about 

  • The metaverse is GAY. Dragverse, the $Drag metaverse - won “Best Community Hack” at ETH GLOBAL. We absolutely stan their mission "to use the art and spirit of drag to allow you to become however you want to be and use that power for good."

  • Kiki for the Future, a new platform addressing the gap in sex ed. Kiki covers topics from STIs to how to prep for anal sex to exploring gender and breaking down pleasure barriers. Led by founder Krista White, the team is building an app that will curate sex ed information tailored to the LGBTQIA+ community. We're obsessed with their sex-positive, queer-centric merch store with t-shirts, stickers, mugs, and totes. Shop now to support their mission and follow @kikitheapp

  • The Fire Ensemble, an intergenerational choir community dedicated to using song and ritual as tools for collective liberation centering BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ folx. This ensemble is for shower singers, professional vocalists, and anyone in between - whether you are interested in coming to a single rehearsal or singing for the entire season. Rehearsals will begin April 25, and will be held most Monday evenings afterward from 6 – 8 pm at The Shed.

  • Queerspace, a new co-working space in BK for the gays! 

Opps for Days Gays

  • Dorm Room Fund Prism Investor Track - Dorm Room Fund’s Prism Investor Track is 6-week masterclass supporting the next generation of queer venture investors! We’re bringing together a select cohort of talented LGBTQ+ students to gain a new community and learn from the best startup investors in the business. Anyone can apply.

  • Queer|Art Will Award $10,000 to a Black Trans Femme Artist (Apps close June 12) Queer|Arts is an initiative of grants, prizes, and residencies that includes a spectrum of support—monetary and otherwise—for LGBTQ+ artists.

In Queer Media & Culture

Upcoming Events  (NYC):

Outside NYC:

  • Doc Marie’s Portland’s only self-defined lesbian bar will arrive this spring as will The Sports Bra, Portland’s first bar dedicated to Women’s sports. 

Interesting Reads (Misc.)

  • How the Internet Became Straight - Alexander Monea, author of "The Digital Closet," argues that the internet became straight by suppressing everything that is not, forcing LGBTQIA+ content into increasingly narrow channels.

  • Algospeak’ and Automated Moderation - some TikTok users worry about using the word “lesbian”, and have begun saying “le dollar bean”, as a textual write-out of “le$bian” that users believe will evade content moderation. Similarly, women’s health advocates replace words like “sex” or “period” or “vagina” with substitutes or symbols; some now use “nip nops” in place of “nipples.” 

  • A piece by Fabrice Houdart suggesting the LGBTQ+ community in the US is suffering from a serious leadership crisis as it is again being used as a political pawn in the midterm election

  • A cool read on queer sincerity in country music

Til next time bbs...X,GAYJOY

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