Thirty years ago this fall, singer-songwriter Paula Cole released This Fire, the album that would change everything for her as a defining record of the era.

Lead single “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?”—a Western-inflected critique of gender roles—became her first Billboard Top 10 hit, and the album’s breakthrough success led to a whopping seven Grammy nominations, including a win for Best New Artist, plus a headlining slot on the first-ever Lilith Fair, founded by her friend & tour mate Sarah McLachlan.

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And perhaps you’ve heard of a little song called “I Don’t Want To Wait”? When This Fire‘s second single was tapped to be the theme song of The WB’s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, Cole was happy to oblige, not realizing what a sensation the show would become. What started as a very personal track about familial trauma now belonged to the world, synonymous with teenaged angst and melodrama.

“It eclipsed me,” Cole admits, sharing how frustrating that was for her at the time. But now, all these years later, she’s able to appreciate it for the gift that it was—and still is: “It’s the song of my life.”

She’s been doing a lot of reflecting lately. This month, she unveiled Sonic Memoir: Demos 1989 – 1998, a double-volume collection of archives, demos, and other memories from the earlier days of her career. She’s also just embarked on the This Fire: 30 tour, playing the landmark album in full in celebration of the special anniversary. Three decades on, Cole remains in awe of her younger self, and is able to see much her past work through a new lens, especially after publicly embracing her identity as a bisexual woman, which she struggled to understand for so long.

So it felt like the perfect time to invite Cole to be the latest guest in our long-running Q&A series, Dishin’ It. In our conversation, the artist opens up about the “intuitive accident” that led to her Sonic Memoir project, the way she wrote “in code” to address her queerness before she could fully accept it, and how Lilith Fair’s legacy led directly to Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival—which she hopes to be a part of in the coming years!

Is there a piece of media—whether a movie, TV series, book, album, theater, video game, etc…—that has played an important role in your understanding of queerness and the queer community, or your own identity? Why does it stand out to you?

I think touring with Melissa Etheridge in ’95—I mean, I’d already been kind of immersed in different scenes, different LGBTQ+ scenes, and from the Russian River in California, to Clubstitute in San Francisco, to a lot of my sister’s friends, to landing with Melissa Etheridge. And it’s hard to pinpoint for me because I think, as a bisexual woman, I struggled with acceptance and understanding, so it flowed under the surface for me, and I didn’t know how to identify. I ended up in a lot of straight relationships, I’m married to a man, so it felt like a denial of who I was, in a way. This is a more recent thing for me, to kind of come out and say that, because it feels that’s the truth of who I am. It doesn’t reflect my current commitment, but it reflects my truth and my past.

So I would say Melissa Etheridge’s Yes I Am and being on that tour, specifically, and her singing that song. It was so fascinating—culturally and anthropologically—to be looking out at the audience when she would sing yes I am, and to to see half of the audience totally understanding and feeling vindicated and singing along with her, and the other [half] looking kind of confused. That was really interesting!

Congratulations on the amazingly expansive Sonic Memoir endeavor. You’ve been working pretty consistently on new music since the ‘90s, so why did now feel like the time to dive into this career retrospective? What inspired it?

It was an intuitive accident. I was spending a lot of time at home because my mom passed away this [past] March, so I was quieter stage in my career. Through all of my moves, I had managed to keep all these shoeboxes full of cassette tapes, DAT tapes, ADAT tapes—these obsolescent formats of work. And my friend Mark Hutchins—who was my partner in the ’90s—he had passed away, and I wanted to digitize so that his family could hear the work he made when he was in his 20s.

So I was running cassettes up to a mastering lab in Maine, and I realized, oh my gosh, I had a mountain of my own demos from this period of my life. It was a really colorful, eccentric, prolific part of my life. I was writing every day, I was demoing every day because that’s what you had to do in the in the ’80s & ’90s. I had probably over 100 songs. So I decided I’m going to digitize these, and I’m just going to keep listening. And when I realized the 30th anniversary of This Fire was coming up, it just felt timely.

And it’s been an enormous pain in the *ss. [Laughs.] It’s been so time consuming, such a heavy lift. I mean, to start from 100 songs and cull down to 63? It’s a very expensive undertaking. I was talking to a record label, thinking about collaborating at one point, but they wanted to change and edit, and I didn’t want to do that anymore! I want to be free and have my own label, even if it means less success. I want to be creatively free, I want to deliver this to the real fans who are interested in hearing the earlier incarnations of the songs they know, and then to find the archives of songs that they haven’t heard. There’s some really interesting sh*t in there! So this is a love letter to my fans.

It’s me telling my story, owning my narrative, telling some of the stories I haven’t told—because you were at the mercy of what the record company pressured you to be back then. So I’m showing, warts and all, the process of an artist finding herself from being a student to a rebel making mistakes in the demos, keeping the mistakes, finding herself. It’s a process. It’s a nine-year process, and it’s also a process that led me to becoming a producer. So I’m grateful for it all.

Despite all of the hard work, what was the most fun or surprising part of the process of going through your archives?

I guess some of the surprises were that I was such an eccentric. [Laughs.] And I love that! I want to embrace and lean even harder into my eccentricity. So it was it good to visit her. There there was a lack of self-consciousness in a lot of the work prior to fame, catching up with This Fire.

And also I can’t believe just how damn prolific I was! But that was me being in pain and having traumas from childhood, which found its way through the healing force of music. It helped me to understand my whole circle of life. Like, no wonder I’ve been so prolific: I’ve been in so much screaming pain—you know, quietly here, beneath my skin, without anyone knowing—that I had to do something with it, and that is create. I’m not happy unless I’m working and busy. So it makes me prolific, for better or for worse.

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It’s your more recent song, “Wildflower,” where you sing more openly about navigating your identity and embracing your bisexuality, but I’m curious if, in the process of revisiting your past work, demos, etc… do you feel there are specifics songs where you were maybe trying to tell this to the world before you were ready to openly share?

Oh, sure! I was singing in code a lot. Singing in code in poetry. Like, everything from “Carmen”—which is an androgynous name! I was using poetic license; I substituted someone’s name. I was in love with a woman, and I didn’t tell her until 2023 that the song was for her, because I knew she didn’t reciprocate my feelings. Or writing in a male perspective, like the song “Yes”—which is a is part of Sonic Memoir—or even “Black Boots.” Just feeling very “other.” Alone. It comes out as poetry; it’s in code.

A code which, whether we were always conscious of it or not, I think your queer fans have been able to understand. We were finding ourselves in this music, too, even if it wasn’t so literal—

You’re going to make me cry, because that really did help me. I can tell you, with some of my fans—and even some of the interviews like this—I’ve realized, “Oh wow, a lot of the queer community is paying attention. This is so interesting: I’m being seen, and I am seeing myself!” But this is what happens: I’m very slow to understand my own feelings—that’s why I need music so so badly. And I’ve been a perfectionist trying to please my parents; I’m kind of perpetually caught in that childhood dysfunctional persona of walking on eggshells and trying to be perfectionistic with myself, which is prison.

So it’s been difficult for me to understand my own feelings. But seeing the freedom in other people—and seeing their seeing of me—was like shining a bright spotlight into my soul. And it felt scary sometimes! Actually, it’s funny: It’s still very vulnerable for me to talk about.

And also, with the 30th anniversary of This Fire, there’s a song that’s been really special to the LGBTQ+ community, and that’s “Hush, Hush, Hush.” It was written for a friend who died prematurely. He got AIDS when I was living in San Francisco, and I was part of the queer community there. It was just really shocking what was going on; we still didn’t have solutions, and it was terribly frightening. My sister—god bless her—she was a hospice nurse and helping a lot of AIDS patients. So, when it was Gay Pride in San Francisco in those times, when the hospice nurses would march, you just couldn’t even believe the applause and the tears.

But that song is, with some poetic license, about his journey passing to the other side, and Peter Gabriel makes an appearance personifying his father. So, I put my feelings to music. When things get difficult or complicated, and I have nowhere to go, I go to the music, and it it heals me and it helps me. And I hope that it’s done that for other people, too.

Speaking of This Fire, thinking back to that Paula of 30 years ago, the one who was preparing to share that project with the world, what would you want her to know? Or what advice would you give her?

You know, when I think back to her—when I was gestating all those thoughts and feelings that would become This Fire—I think she actually has it pretty well together because she is listening herself, and that’s so powerful. I was liberating myself from the confines and the constructs of what my parents wanted me to be. Less polite, less beautiful, less sexy, but owning my sexuality.

That naked photo of me on the cover was me and my girlfriend Jodie [Olsen] outside in the backyard, and it’s me owning that. Because how many times I’d been put in that horrible situation, of being with some photographer who wants to get you half naked—it was so abusive! But that record cover, it was me and my friend and nobody else, and I was gonna claim the purity of my body, you know? It wasn’t sexual; it was just free, and that’s what it represented: freedom.

So there was a lot about my 20-something-year-old self that was dialed into my wisdom and listening to myself. I think I was a lot to handle. I needed therapy badly, probably, at that time. I had gone to therapy at the end of college, which is what helped me start writing in the first place. And I’m in therapy now, but there was a lot in the middle that really would have helped. I think I didn’t understand the burden of the gift I had—now I can say that at 58; that would’ve sound pompous to say [then.] But looking back, all through Berklee College of Music and being given awards and praise and seeing where I land, I realize now, “Oh, I really do have a gift.” I had a gift, and I was kind of ashamed to own that, or allow it and feel confident about myself.

So the plague I’ve been fighting my whole life is diffidence, which is a lack of self-confidence, and I wish I could have told myself to find more emotional support. And to not say yes to anything that didn’t feel right, to feel good about saying no, to not marry that man that was my first marriage, you know? My body was telling me not to do that, and I did it because I thought my Yankee, puritanical self needed to please my parents and the neighbors and the culture—because I was a single mom with his child, and I thought I had to. That was a trap.

My body is old and wise; I wish I had listened to her. That’s true for anybody: listen to your body. What is it telling you? Are you comfortable around this person? Do you feel comfortable with that decision or that thought? Your mind can trick you a million ways, but your body is wise. Listen to your body.

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Of course, This Fire includes “I Don’t Want To Wait,” which has become a timeless piece of the culture in its own right thanks in part to Dawson’s Creek. What has it meant for you to become synonymous with that show, a series that has meant to much to many of us for SO many reasons, not least of which because it featured one of TV’s earliest positive gay teen relationships?

What a ride it’s been! That started as my song, for my grandfather, my grandparents—the whole concept of generational trauma. My grandfather fought in the Battle of Okinawa in WWII, he came home bombed in the legs. He already had his own childhood traumas, but then he passed on even more trauma—PTSD from the war—to my family, my father, to me, and it made me think about all that generational cyclical pain, and how I didn’t want to be repeating it. I don’t want to do what his father and his father and his father did. I want to be here now. It’s like me wanting to be awake and alert as to who I am.

And so it started as being my song. Then I was asked by Kevin Williamson for it to be used for a pilot—I had been asked a whole bunch of times for my songs to be in pilots of TV shows. Usually they lasted a season, if that, and no one thinks of it ever again. But this? This was unstoppable. This was special. And it coincided with me taking my hiatus and stepping away for eight years from the music business and having my daughter, getting married, getting divorced, relocating—all that. And it just eclipsed me.

It was so enormous and so loved that, for a while, I was kind of shocked and frustrated? Like, “Wait a minute, I’m a career artist. I want to be known for the entirety of my catalog, and not as a television theme show song.” So I was mad, but that only works for you briefly because, one, it’s such a waste of life energy to hold anger, and it’s unhealthy. Two, it’s beautiful! C’mon, get over it, Paula! It’s joyful—everyone wants to sing. It has this nostalgic, uplifting quality. It unifies a room. I’m blown away. Now I bow to what it has become. It’s not even mine anymore; it’s the people’s song.

It’s incredible! How lucky is that? Even if you just have one of those ever in your lifetime? Oh my god. It’s the song of my life.

I recently had the pleasure of attending Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival, and I don’t think that would exist without Lilith Fair, which you were a part of from the beginning. Looking back, what did it mean for you to be a part of that, and what do you make of Daisy Chain Fields as a potential signifier of where the industry is heading?

Gen X and Gen Z! [Laughs.] These are our daughters! I’m so proud of Olivia Rodrigo. I’m so happy because Sarah McLachlan has been saying for years it served its purpose, but if it happens again, it shouldn’t be Lilith fair with the same people, it should be then next generation. So I know that she’s deeply gratified that the torch is being passed. It took a while!

But Lilith Fair was born out of my touring with Sarah in the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy 1995 era, when two women wouldn’t even be played in the same hour of a radio station’s airtime. We were actively discouraged to have two women on a bill—yet she had me. She heard Harbinger, she was supporting me, and had me open for her, loyally, all across the United States. And I would just say, every night to the audience, “Let’s give a hand to Sarah McLachlan for having me, a woman, open for her because this is not done. You don’t understand: We are actively discouraged; we’re told we don’t sell tickets!” And the audience would rise to their feet and erupt with the zeitgeist of applause—clearly we struck a nerve. Audiences knew it was f*cked up. They knew change was needed.

So then we had the test pilot shows for Lilith Fair in ’96 with Suzanne Vega and Lisa Loeb, and then Sarah and her incredible team created the first Lilith Fair in ’97, and it was just a runaway success that ran for three years. I’m so honored to have been part of its formation and part of its ideation. I love Sarah; I think she’s an incredible human being—not just a beautiful singer and songwriter, but a really incredible person. It’s only someone like that who is just extroverted enough, friendly enough, gregarious enough who can unite all these people and make it go. She can take a blow on the chin and stay good natured, [which is] really special, because there’s a whole lot of sensitive introverts like myself who would be hiding in the tour bus. She was just an incredible leader, and she made that happen.

So now I’m I’m moved, and I’m proud of Olivia Rodrigo. It’s perfect. God, I hope I can be on it one year! That would be amazing. I want to meet these Gen Z folks. That’s that’s my daughter’s age; she’s a Olivia Rodrigo fan, so we’ve been listening to her in the car!

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In closing: Who is an LGBTQ+ artist/performer/creator that you think is doing really cool work right now? Why are they someone we should all be paying attention to?

Well, I don’t think Sophie B. Hawkins gets enough dues. She really was a boundary breaker. In her lyrics of her first single, she was being open about her queerness and has been a champion, but doesn’t get her flowers.

And there’s an artist, Deni Hlavinka, who—along with Hadley Kennary—I actually recommended to be Tori Amos’s background singers. She’s been on tour and has brought out three singers called the Angel Witches, but two of them were my people, and I’m so happy that it all worked out because I knew they would be great. But Deni goes by Fire Swimmer, and you can find her on Spotify—her version of “Cowboy Take Me Away” is so cool.

Paula Cole’s two-volume archival collections Sonic Memoir: Demos 1989-1998 is available now. Catch her this fall on the This Fire: 30 nationwide tour—tickets & more information here.

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If D*n*ld Tr*mp Jr. thought his Russian-funded wedding scandal was going to be a flash in the pan, he’d better think again.

Last week, after ProPublica’s bombshell report exposing Don Jr. and Bettina Tr*mp’s ties to Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, readers were shocked to learn how large a role Kremlev played in financing part of the 3-day nuptial celebration.

Apparently, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Over the weekend, we learned that Kremlev has heavy ties to a Russian organization accused of kidnapping Ukrainian children and escorting them across the Russian border… all in the name of rehabilitation, of course.

That was awkward enough, especially considering Melania Tr*mp’s stated commitment to bringing an estimated 1,200 missing children home to Ukraine. This week, Don Jr’s problems—and potentially Melania’s—have only gotten worse. Now, a Republican senator is demanding that Congress investigate Don Jr.’s ties to Kremlev, and he’s not the only one.

Politics, but make it gay!

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John Curtis of Utah sent an official letter to his fellow GOP senators yesterday demanding that they take a closer look at Don Jr.’s potential use of his father’s office for monetary gain.

“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president,” Curtis stated, explaining the need to investigate whether or not Don Jr.’s first son status “was invoked or understood to provide value” to foreign figures of influence.

The kicker is, we already know exactly how much value the Tr*mps place on the presidency. Over the summer, the New York Times released a bombshell report detailing the over $1 billion in crypto funds and other sales Tr*mp has made during his second term, much of it under the heading of Don Jr. and Eric Tr*mp’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial.

In a different timeline, the GOP would be fine letting all of it slide. But in the lead-up to the midterms, as Republicans brace themselves to be “crushed” at the polls, Tr*mp’s brand has become anathema to the party.

This week, Florida GOP candidate Byron Donalds scrubbed all mentions of Tr*mp—including his endorsement—from his official campaign site. Earlier this month, another Republican in the deep red state, rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, also pushed back against Tr*mp’s hold on the party, saying that his aggressive ICE patrols have betrayed Hispanic voters for the last time. Even Iowa rep. Ashley Hinson, formerly a Tr*mp fangirl, recently broke with the president over the Iran war. As the race heats up and Tr*mp’s name turns to poison in the mouths of broke, disenfranchised voters, the same old tricks aren’t working. Even Texas, arguably the reddest of red states, is looking more like a toss-up with each new poll.

The Tr*mp family has gotten away with plenty this term, but it’s looking like their Marie Antoinette antics are finally coming to a definitive end. All it took was a huge Russian-banked scandal in the Bahamas to get them to finally call the for-profit presidency to account.

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Organizers of the MTV Video Music Awards have announced that this Sunday’s ceremony will feature a tribute to the late George Michael.

It’s almost ten years since Michael died on Christmas Day in 2016. It’s also 40 years since he released his career-defining debut solo album, Faith.

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This November, George Michael: The Faith Tour live album will be released, followed by a feature-length film, George Michael: The Faith Tour, in December.

Organizers revealed that performers taking part in this Sunday’s tribute at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles will be RAYE, Sombr and Teddy Swims. Both RAYE and Sombr are nominated for awards at this year’s VMAs, while Swims is a previous nominee.

Michael is a much-missed figure in the music world, beloved by straight and queer fans alike. No one is complaining about the VMAs wanting to honor him. However, the announcement has still sparked backlash online… mainly because of the acts chosen.

Sam Smith, Adam Lambert, Troye Sivan

Many feel that MTV should have selected some out, queer artists to celebrate one of the most famous gay men in pop. Sam Smith, Adam Lambert, Troye Sivan, Orville Peck, Khalid, Durand Bernarr, MNEK and Chappell Roan are among names suggested.

Sam smith, Adam Lambert, Durand Bernarr, Troye Sivan literally any gay guy girl get chappel roan LITERALLY ANY GAY PEOPLE https://t.co/PqXlMNyuT7

— 𝕊𝕙𝕠𝕨ℙ𝕠𝕟𝕚𝕚 (@Poniiboi) September 22, 2026

Last thing about this, I promise!!!

Adam Lambert + Janelle Monae – “I Knew You Were Waiting For Me”
Sam Smith – “One More Try” OR “Father Figure”
Orville Peck – “Kissing A Fool”
MNEK – “Fastlove”
Christine and The Queens – “Freedom 90”
Jake shears/scissor sisters – “Faith” https://t.co/RJmFcKrfeK

— ZEE MACHINE (@ZeeMachineMusic) September 22, 2026

Adam lambert and sam smith would have freaking nailed this, but you choose the safe route..

— My Dutch Freakshow (@Dutch_Freakshow) September 22, 2026

Even Frankie grande would’ve been a better choice

— Taycha (@taychaaa) September 22, 2026

sombr? they couldn’t find anyone else? pic.twitter.com/hJoFGogj46

— ꕤ (@noellewes123) September 22, 2026

If I were booking talent for a George Michael tribute I’d find a gay guy that can sing down. But maybe that’s just me!

— just jack (@luxurytrash_) September 22, 2026

George keeps getting these botched tributes…….. Grammys,Brits, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, VMAs I can't take this anymore. He deserves better

— A.⚢ 2.0 s worded fb (@yogslesbian) September 22, 2026

To prove their point, some people reshared a clip of Adam Lambert paying tribute to George Michael for Project Angel Food a few years back.

Others pointed out that at least RAYE, like Michael, is a British artist and an amazing singer. Although best known for “Where Is My Husband”, her track “Suzanne”, with Mark Ronson, also has rather queer lyrics. That said, she has not, as far as we are aware, ever labeled her sexuality.

We always watch the VMAs, and were already particularly looking forward to seeing Madonna open this year’s show. A George Michael tribute is one more reason to tune in. Here’s hoping the chosen artists give it their all… and that maybe there might be one or two queer surprises on the night?

Check out the trailer for the new concert movie, George Michael: The Faith Tour, below.

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Homoerotic baseball moments always leave our dugout flooded. But the biggest boner ever displayed on a baseball diamond is nothing to fantasize over.

On September 23, 1908, a rookie named Fred Merkle who played for the New York Giants cost his team a chance at the World Series with a base-running blunder. In today’s parlance, we would call Merkle’s misstep a “gaffe” or a “mistake.”

But 118 years ago, it was called a “boner.”

Legendary sportswriter Bob Ryan, who’s covered Boston sports for nearly 60 years, reminded his followers of the anniversary on X in colorful fashion.

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“Why is it alleged?” somebody asked.

Oh, do we have a story for you!

The “boner” in question

The biggest reason why Merkle’s boner is alleged, and not confirmed, is because it happened in 1908. Back then, MLB games weren’t broadcast on TV.

We can only rely on dubious eyewitness accounts from those who were there.

This much is known for sure: The Giants and Chicago Cubs were tied at 1 in the bottom of the ninth inning of a crucial late-season game. Merkle, a rookie who seldom played, was standing on first.

With two outs in the inning, runners were moving on contact. Giants shortstop Al Bidwell came up to the plate and drilled the ball into the outfield. The runner on third, Moose McCormick (we love these names), scored easily. Giants fans, thinking the game was over, began to charge the field.

Merkle, who was 19 at the time, got caught up in the excitement and joined them.

That’s where the stories divert…

The (somewhat) official tale

Per the incident’s very in-depth Wiki page, Merkle may have violated rule 5.08. It states that “a run is not scored if the runner advances to home base during a play in which the third out is made […] by any runner being forced out.”

Standing on first base, Merkle was forced to run to second. But since he never touched the base, Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers saw an opening.

According to a Giants’ pitcher named Joe McGinnity, the ball was thrown into the stands. But Evers somehow retrieved it. After Evers stepped on second, the umpires consulted with each other, and ruled that Merkle was out. The Giants’ run was nullified, prompting fans to race towards the umps.

Amid the chaos, the game was called a tie. Separated by one game in the standings, the Cubs and Giants faced off again for a spot in the World Series.

The Cubs wound up winning that affair.

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Differing accounts

It remains in dispute how the baseball in question was obtained–or if it was even the real ball at all. A New York Times writeup says the Cubs’ first baseman was actually the one who noticed Merkle and stepped on second.

In 1944, Evers told his side of the story. He says a Chicago pitcher who wasn’t playing retrieved the ball and threw it back into play. An article from the Chicago Tribune supports his version.

But as the Wiki notes, Evers previously said he received the ball from a Cubs outfielder.

One of the umpires, Hank O’Day, says something different. He says he called the third out after McGinnity, who was coaching first base, interfered with the throw from the outfield.

And if that’s not confusing enough, Merkle said five years after the play that he only left the baseline after O’Day had assured him the run had counted.

But even so, some say that Merkle never needed to touch second. Bill Klem, who’s considered the greatest umpire ever, called Merkle’s boner the “rottenest decision” in the history of the game.

He insisted the force rule was only supposed to apply to infield hits–not balls in the outfield.

When did they stop calling mistakes “boners?”

Derived from the phrase “bonehead play,” the word boner was widely used in baseball throughout the 1920s and ’30s.

But as the word took on a more, ahem, phallic definition, sportswriters and broadcasters shifted away from the slang.

By the 1960s, “boner” was no longer part of the regular sports lexicon. That is, except Merkle’s boner.

That lives forever.

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It’s now officially fall, which means we can finally start celebrating our favorite time of the year: awards season!

Sure, the Oscars are still an entire six months away, but with many of the year’s major film festivals behind us—Venice, Telluride, Toronto—cinephiles and prognosticators are starting to piece together which titles are seriously in contention at the Academy Awards and beyond.

And the good news? It’s shaping up to be a very gay season!

With plenty of buzz for queer-themed films featuring out talent in front of and behind the camera, there’s so much to be excited about, so we’ve gone ahead and assembled a guide to the LGBTQ+ films that seem poised to be a part of the awards conversation this year.

So check out the titles below, update your predictions accordingly, and find out when you can see these movies for yourself:

La Bola Negra

Exes Javier Ambrossi & Javier Calvo (the minds behind Veneno) worked through their breakup to craft this century-spanning epic inspired by the life and work of out poet & playwright Federico García Lorca, a casualty of the Spanish Civil War. Told across three stories set in 1932, 1937 & 2017, it tackles romance, repression, and the preservation of our queer history, with a cast that includes musician Guitarricadelafuente’s screen acting debut, Elite‘s Miguel Bernardeau, comedian Julio Torres, and even icons Penélope Cruz & Glenn Close in supporting roles.

After a rapturous reception for its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival—where Los Javis were jointly awarded the Best Director prize—momentum has continued to build at the fall festivals, thanks especially to its People’s Choice Award win in Toronto, long looked at as an indicator of Oscar potential. How far can it go? At this point, it’s seen as the primary challenger to The Odyssey for the Best Picture prize, and could be a real player in most major categories, from Production Design to Score to Supporting Actress for Cruz’s show-stopping handful of scenes.

Opening in theaters on October 16; streaming on Netflix beginning December 2.

Elsinore

Elsinore is a biopic of the late Ian Charleson, the British thespian known for his work in films like Chariots Of Fire & Gandhi, who sadly died of AIDS in 1990. In the final year of his life, while seriously ill, he bravely stepped onto the London stage in the famously demanding lead role of Hamlet, a period which is the focus of director Simon Stone’s film written by Stephen Beresford (Pride).

Oh, right, and how could we forget? Charleson happens to be played by the one and only Andrew Scott in what’s being called the performance of a lifetime. After many felt he was snubbed for All Of Us Strangers, the actor’s been primed for the “overdue” Oscar narrative, and early reports indicate he’s found a project worthy of his talents, one that let’s him showcase the full range of human pain and triumph. If the hype holds, he could become the first openly gay man to win Best Actor—for playing a gay role, no less! Word is the always fabulous Olivia Colman has a plum supporting role, and it might just crack the Best Picture field, too, if the positive buzz continues to build.

Opening in theaters on November 20, courtesy of Focus Features.

Club Kid

Jordan Firstman, awards darling? It’s more likely than you think! In a past year that’s seem him embodying the chaotic “gay best friend” role in I Love LA and cause a gay internet meltdown for critiquing Heated Rivarly‘s sex scene, the provocateur has wowed festival-goers by showing off his sweet, tender side in Club Kid, his feature filmmaking debut.

He stars as Peter, a washed up NYC party promoter who gets the surprise of a lifetime when he learns he’s a father and suddenly has an adorable 10-year-old on his doorstep (newcomer Reggie Absolom). Somebody’s going to have to grow up fast—and it’s not the kid. With an intriguing cast that includes Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Miss Benny, and Clue icon Colleen Camp, Club Kid‘s already proven its ability to connect with all kinds of audiences, and just might be the wild, queer crowd-pleaser to melt the hearts of even the Academy’s stodgier older voters. Look for it to make headwinds in the Best Original Screenplay category, among others, and it’ll hopefully be a contender at the Independent Spirit Awards and Golden Globes’ comedy categories, too!

Opening in theaters on November 6, courtesy of A24.

The Invite

Okay, so first off, is The Invite a “queer movie”? Not technically, no. But actor/director Olivia Wilde’s farce about neighboring couples who get together for a dinner party that devolves into marital quibbles and the possibility of some group play does at least show that the straights are “queering their minds” when it comes to relationships and intimacy, so that’s a win in our book!

And, hey, Penélope Cruz’s character Peña does identify as bisexual, so there’s that. Since the film’s debut, the fabulous star has been singled out as a Best Supporting Actress contender here, and given the aforementioned momentum for her work in La Bola Negra, she could well be a double nominee this year—the first actor to be nominated twice in the same category in nearly 100 years. Wilde’s also in conversation for Actress and Director (one of the few female filmmakers this year, unfortunately), and we have a good feeling the indie’s solid box office success & word-of-mouth means it’ll earn a spot in the Adapted Screenplay category.

Now available on digital/VOD courtesy of A24, and streaming on HBO Max beginning October 23.

Clarissa

Virginia Woolf’s seminal 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway has long been discussed as a queer text, with some reading it as a story about a lesbian or bisexual woman trapped in a passionless heterosexual marriage because of the conventions of her time. This feels most clear in the ways the titular character expresses her feelings for Sally, a childhood friend, though indications of romantic yearning are mostly in the subtext.

In their gorgeous update of the story—set in modern-day Lagos, Nigeria—twin filmmakers Arie & Chuko Esiri explore this connection more overtly, as Clarissa (played by Sophie Okonedo, and by India Amarteifio in her youth) grapples with her lingering attraction to Sally (Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Ayo Edebiri in flashbacks). The film’s been highly praised during its festival run, with many championing the long-overdue Okonedo for Best Actress as well as Edebiri’s best-yet screen work, and others hailing it as an award-worthy work of adaptation.

Opening in theaters on December 11, courtesy of NEON.

Teenage Sex & Death At Camp Miasma

Though its proven more divisive on the internet since hitting theaters this summer, Jane Schoebrun’s bloody & gutsy horror satire/psychosexual romance should not be overlooked this awards season. After all, it beat out some stiff competition at the Cannes Film Festival (including other titles on this very list!) for the prestigious Queer Palm award, and still boasts an impressive 94% “Fresh” rating on RottenTomatoes, so it’s clearly connecting with viewers.

The great Gillian Anderson is certainly giving a flashy performance—something like Norma Desmond meets Dolly Parton—but for our money it’s Hannah Einbinder who really deserves some recognition, proving her star potential in a post-Hacks world. And surely Schoebrun’s ability to bring their surreal vision to the screen is worthy, making the “Camp Miasma” slasher franchise feel so real. Keep an eye out for the more genre-friendly Independent Spirit Awards to give this one some love, but how cool would it be if this were a player in the Golden Globes’ comedy categories, too?

Now available on digital/VOD, and streaming on Mubi beginning October 2.

Rose

Quite possibly the only person have a better year on screen than Cruz? German actress Sandra Hǔller, who’s impressed in past work like Anatomy Of A Fall, and just keeps on delivering fantastic performances. She was a great foil to Ryan Gosling in this spring’s sci-fi blockbuster Project Hail Mary, and will soon be seen going toe-to-toe with Tom Cruise in Digger. She also earned praise at Cannes for leading Paweł Pawlikowski’s post-war Polish drama Fatherland, yet it’s Rose that’s looking like her strongest shot at a nomination.

From Markus Schleinzer, the film is set in 17th century Germany, where Hǔller plays a woman who disguises herself as a fallen male solider, arriving to the village he once called home to lay claim to his property. In order to keep up the ruse, Rose even takes up a wife, though its not long before she and the rest of town become suspicious. In a Best Actress field still coming into focus, Rose could be what gets Hǔller to the Oscars, while the film itself has been selected as Austria’s contender for Best International Feature Film.

Opening in theaters on December 10, courtesy of Mubi.

International Feature Film Contenders

Speaking of the International Feature Film category, there’s quite an array of LGBTQ+ films from around the world looking to make their way into the field. According to Academy rules, each country is invited to submit one film for consideration (titles that win top jury prizes at major film festivals are also in consideration), so it’s a tough one to break into, especially with Spain selecting La Bola Negra, which already feels like a lock this year.

Elsewhere, Belgium is backing gay WWI tale Coward from Lukas Dhont (a previous nominee in ’22 for Close), Poland picked the aforementioned Fatherland (director Pawel Pawlikowski won for Ida in ’14), Brazil has queer coming-of-age tale Gugu’s World, Colombia has nightlife fable Rains Over Babel, and Mexico’s got sex worker road movie En El Camino, which has been getting a lot of attention online for its explicit sex scenes. And there could still be more announced in what’s quickly becoming one of the fiercest categories of the year!

Animated Feature Film Contenders

After the overblown “controversy” for minor moments of queerness in movies like Lightyear and Strange World, it would appear that mainstream animated fare has shied away from LGBTQ+ representation, depressingly. Thankfully, there’s still amazing indie animated work being made, like the fantasy Julián, about a young Dominican-American boy in Brooklyn who dreams of becoming a mermaid—a dream no doubt familiar to many of us when we were baby gays.

Then there’s Tangles, which had audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in tears earlier this year. Told in stunning black-and-white, its the story of a young queer woman (voiced by Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson) returning to her conservative small town to care for her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). It’s got a star-studded voice cast that also includes Samira Wiley, Bowen Yang, Beanie Feldstein & Wanda Sykes, which only helps bolster its chances to compete against giants of the field like Toy Story 5.

D*n*ld Tr*mp is fed up with the media. Incensed by reporters actually doing their jobs, he, like so many despots before him, has launched a counter-offensive: a state-run propaganda media channel called Tr*mp TV.

The decision to launch a 24-hour, CSPAN-style White House channel came hot on the heels of Tr*mp’s press ban, and it’s already managed to make the president look like a doddering fool. Because not only is the press fighting back: Tr*mp TV is, unsurprisingly, a resounding flop.

This week, Tr*mp’s team announced—in a convenient bypassing of the First Amendment—that “White House Access is a privilege — not a right.” That message ironically caused yesterday’s Tr*mp speech to go not only unreported on by standard outlets, but completely unheard. As Tr*mp addresses the crowd, literally not a sound can be heard thanks to the absence of press pool microphones and reporters.

Politics, but make it gay!

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Oops! And it gets worse, because the triumphant launch ofTr*mp TV resulted in basically no viewers whatsoever.

“The channel launched at 7 p.m. with around 8,000 viewers,” the Daily Beast reports, “but the audience had dropped below 4,000 just 90 minutes later.”

By 9PM, a measly 3,000 people were still watching.

Wow! Even Kid Rock can manage to drum up more interest than that! The self-described “king of ratings” might have gotten over 3 million subscribers to the channel, but he’s proving that he can’t hold viewers’ interest without the press covering his every move.

Like much else the president puts his stamp on these days, the stunt was an unmitigated failure. The timing also couldn’t be worse: with the midterms less than two months away, now is not the time for Tr*mp to be experimenting with state media.

All of this is weird enough, but somehow, there’s an even more surprising twist hidden in the headlines.

When Tr*mp stripped CNN, MSNOW, and Politico of their White House credentials, other top outlets followed suit—including Tr*mp’s own favorite, Fox News. One LGBTQ+ outlet, however, has doggedly stayed the course: the stalwart Washington Blade.

Unfortunately, because of the press ban, they now have to share a pool with conservative outlet The Daily Caller. It’s a decidedly uncomfy turn of events, not mention unprecedented—not since Nixon has there been such a sweeping attack on Washington reporters coming directly from the White House.

It was a risky move to begin with, especially since the Tr*mp family likes to be sure they can fudge the numbers on something before committing to it (we haven’t forgotten the great Melania movie ratings debacle!).

Tr*mp’s failure has gotta hurt, especially considering that his arch nemesis, gay icon Rosie O’Donnell, recently had a ratings bonanza after taking over Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a week in August.

The 80-year-old president may have been able to monopolize the attention economy successfully during his first and second terms in office, but that moment is drawing to an obvious close. People are sick of Tr*mp’s games, and by keeping the press away, he’s only hurting himself.

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Hi Jake,

My boyfriend and I have been together for about four years, and six months ago, we decided to open up our relationship. Before doing so, we had an honest talk about rules, expectations, safer sex, and what we wanted. We ultimately decided that outside hookups were allowed as long as we were transparent about them.

A few weeks ago, a group of friends and I ended up back at someone’s house after a night out. Long story short, I hooked up with a woman. My boyfriend wasn’t there, but I told him about it the next day because that’s what we’d agreed to do.

I expected him to laugh or maybe be surprised. Instead, he got really upset.

How about we take this to the next level?

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He said it felt different than if I’d hooked up with a guy. He started asking if I was secretly bisexual and whether I’d eventually want to be with a woman instead. But I’ve always been open about being sexually fluid, and he knew that.

I don’t understand why gender suddenly matters. Open is open, right? If he hooked up with someone within the boundaries we’d agreed on, I wouldn’t care who it was.

Now he’s accusing me of being insensitive to his feelings, but I feel like I’m being blamed for breaking a rule that was never discussed.

Bi-Curious George

Dear Bi-Curious George,

When navigating open relationships, it’s almost impossible to anticipate every situation you might encounter, no matter how many conversations you have up front. You can discuss boundaries, safety, rules around communication, and every scenario you can think of, but eventually, life throws you a curveball that nobody saw coming.

It sounds like that’s what happened, and the only thing that’s really “missing” is a conversation about what this experience revealed—and whether anything changes going forward. Because clearly, this wasn’t on your boyfriend’s bingo card (and maybe not on yours either).

Up until now, your sexual fluidity was mostly theoretical. It was something the two of you knew about, but it hadn’t really shown up in the relationship. Then one night, it did.

There’s nothing unusual about that. Attraction doesn’t always fit neatly into a box. Plenty of people are primarily attracted to one gender while still experiencing attraction, curiosity, or connection with others. Hooking up with a woman doesn’t automatically mean you’re secretly straight, confused, or halfway out the door.

For you, this hookup wasn’t a big deal. You met someone, had some fun, and afterward told your boyfriend exactly as you’d agreed. The fact that it was a woman might even feel completely irrelevant to you.

For your boyfriend, however, it activated something very different.

Maybe he’s worried you’re more bisexual than he realized. Maybe he’s wondering whether a woman offers something he never could. Maybe he’s questioning what your sexual fluidity means for the two of you. Sometimes those fears can shake our assumptions about who a partner is and what we thought we knew about them.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear that this experience landed in a different emotional category than two men hooking up.

That’s why I don’t think this is about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s about understanding what this experience brought to the surface.

I’d just be careful about trying to explain away your boyfriend’s feelings because they don’t make sense to you. “Open is open” may be true from your perspective, but emotional reactions don’t always follow the same logic as relationship agreements. If you focus on proving that gender shouldn’t matter, you may miss an opportunity to understand why it suddenly does.

At the same time, having a feeling and having a boundary are not the same thing. Your boyfriend is allowed to feel surprised, threatened, confused, or insecure. That doesn’t automatically mean you violated the agreement.

So instead of debating who’s right, get curious. Ask what specifically felt different about this. Ask what fears came up for him. Ask what story he started telling himself. And share what appealed to you about this experience and why it felt worth exploring.

You may find that neither of you is actually disagreeing about a woman at all. You’re uncovering fears, assumptions, and questions about what this experience means for the future.

One of the realities of non-monogamy is that it gives people the freedom to explore parts of themselves they might otherwise never discover. And when that happens, new information emerges. What matters most isn’t whether that information is comfortable—it’s what the two of you choose to do with it.

Want Ask Jake delivered straight to your inbox each week, along with bonus content, deeper dives, and the opportunity to have your own questions answered directly? Subscribe at askjaketherapy.com.

Have a question? Email Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist Jake Myers at jake@askjaketherapy.com or send a DM on Instagram. Questions may be answered anonymously.

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JK Rowling has been slightly less vocal about her anti-trans views this year, a surprising turnabout that no one could have predicted just two years ago. Back then, Rowling—the subject of a hilarious meme that tried to use a black mold conspiracy theory to explain her transphobic pivot—was loudly proclaiming that Olympic boxer Imane Khelif was not a woman, despite her cisgender status.

The fact is, even if Rowling spends the rest of her days keeping her anti-trans views quiet (something we’re all hoping for) her legacy is forever stained by the amount of time, effort, and funds she’s given up to the dubious cause of anti-trans “activism.” So much so that a new section of her author website is devoted to dealing with the many controversies Rowling has placed herself at the center of in the past few years.

Last week, queer and trans folks noticed a change to Rowling’s website in the form of a Frequently Asked Questions section. Obviously it’s not unheard of for prominent figures to have a FAQ page: the questions Rowling’s staff highlighted, however, tell their own story.

The first question on the “rumors and misinformation” section of the FAQ list is “is JK Rowling transphobic?” The site claims that she is not, despite Rowling’s well-documented history of supporting anti-trans legislation in the UK and personally donating money to anti-trans efforts, including her own JK Rowling’s Women’s Fund, devoted to maintaining “single-sex spaces.”

How about we take this to the next level?

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Imagine being an author and being reduced to having a FAQ section entirely dedicated to litigating whether or not you're a racist or any other kind of bigot. That is functionally the position JK Rowling is now in. I think it might be unique among billionaire novelists of our time. Congrats!

[image or embed]

— Tristan Gray (@eidyngray.scot) September 13, 2026 at 11:20 AM

Moving down the list, we find questions 6 and 7: “Why is JK Rowling in the Epstein files?” and “Does JK Rowling have mold in her house?” If you’ll recall, Epstein was invited (Rowling claims falsely invited) to the 2018 premiere of the the play Harry Potter and The Cursed Child.

The mold claims, as the website states, started as a good faith theory due to the background of one of Rowling’s 2024 Twitter profile photos. The claims were soon debunked, but took on a life of their own in meme form.

Now, the same exact thing is happening with the FAQ section. “Maybe the mold wrote her FAQ,” one BlueSky poster joked.

The mold allegations—much like the JD Vance couch allegations—have moved from an extremely online joke to a pitch-perfect encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with powerful figures using their voices to campaign against vulnerable marginalized communities.

Nobody wants to be seen as out of touch, silly, and incapable of having a normal opinion on current events. Sadly, this is the trajectory we’re seeing more and more with formerly respected figures who have let outworn their welcome on the public stage. Rowling’s attempt to rewrite her legacy with this FAQ section didn’t just backfire: it ended up becoming one of the most karmic examples of the Streisand effect this century.

Like Rowling’s creation, Lord Voldemort, the black mold rumors are proving hard to kill: the more you conjure up its name, the more power it has.

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The Boston Tea Party helped spark the Revolutionary War, but those colonists had NOTHING on the tea that was just spilled about a (now infamous) Massachusetts lesbian bar.

Last month, Greenfield’s own Last Ditch Bar and Arts Venue, which bills itself as a hang out for “dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends” and required all visitors to wear KN-95 masks, announced a minor update to its door policies.

“It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional,” the post read.

And with that small sentence, the town’s entire LGBTQ+ community freaked out.

How about we take this to the next level?

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A post shared by Last Ditch (@lastditchbar)

The August 31 post inspired intense backlash in the comments, with users accusing the venue (which is currently struggling to financially stay afloat) of “being complicit in a mass disabling event” and “[killing] disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience.”

One particularly fired up commenter wrote, “I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from [ablists].” Oop!

And naturally, when Last Ditch posted an apology just two days later, the sh*t storm only got worse — due in part to their failure to make the image “an accessible post.”

If the whole thing sounds more like a LGBTQ+ community parody or an episode of Portlandia to you, you’re not alone; the policy change and ensuing events were recently covered by The Boston Globe, whose matter-of-fact reporting has left Gay Twitter X stressed and obsessed.

According to the paper, while the Greenfield space was originally launched by three housemates and friends, only current owner Jackie Matellian remains. (Hilariously, one founder apparently exited the venture to join clown school.)

At a September 11 community meeting, Matellian hoped to find common ground with Last Ditch’s most vocal critics, including Soe Noire, a performer and artist who heads up a “queer COVID-conscious collective in West Massachusetts” and joined via Zoom.

Instead, Noire and the Zoom attendees criticized the meeting’s mediator for “center[ing] the feelings of a majority white and white adjacent staff,” and later speculated that her presence was “wildly unsafe.” LOL.

And when Matellian broke down discussing the $50,000 loan she was on the hook for after opening the business, Noire later remarked on Instagram Stories that she was crying “WHITE THEY THEM TEARS.”

Which is a new one, even for us.

Unfortunately, The Boston Globe‘s article ended with a rather grim picture: the second weekly mask-optional night at Last Ditch was scarcely attended.

(Well, apart from a woman who suggested hosting a Lady Gaga-themed night, only to learn from the bartender that Mother Monster “is canceled.”)

And as for Matellian, she told the outlet that she plans to co-operatize the bar — and doesn’t expect the masking discourse to end anytime soon.

Obviously, we sympathize with her cause and devotion to saving the space, especially considering the dwindling number of lesbian bars across the country.

“There’s conflict, but we just hope that there’s more repair than conflict,” she said. “That’s the price you pay to be in community.”

Of course, that was all before anyone could actually read the article… and read they sure did.

According to a note sent to The Boston Globe staff, the story generated 1000 subscriptions, was “by far [the] best performing story of the year,” and is “on pace to shatter all sorts of Globe records.”

And based on the sheer volume of tweets from the girls, gays, and straight dudes alike, we feel comfortable declaring it the first certified meme of the autumnal season.

Now, only time will tell if that’s enough to quiet the divide currently plaguing the Greenfield lesbian community.

But one thing’s for certain, we’re sure this is not the last we’ve heard about Last Ditch.

Below, check out some of the best tweets about the lesbian bar drama.

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