Valerie Anne

Autostraddle Work

I've written for Autostraddle for almost three years now, writing anything and everything from TV recaps to movie reviews and a few random things in between. Here's a selection of pieces I published over the past few years.

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All The Queer 2025 Golden Globes Winners: Baby Reindeer, Hacks, Wicked, Emilia Pérez and More

Welcome to the first Pop Culture Fix of 2025, where I will be telling you some of the queer highlights of this year’s Golden Globes! First, I’ll be honest with you: I don’t watch awards shows anymore. No one I want to win ever actually wins, the host is usually cringe, and I have second-hand embarrassment when people have teleprompter foibles or get played off stage because their speech is too long. And I inevitably get angry about things like why horror doesn’t have its own category, or why mus...
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Your Gay Aunties Elphaba and Glinda Enjoy Train Snacks, Plan Oz Itinerary, Take Cat Nap in Deleted “Wicked” Scene

It’s hard to imagine that the Wicked movie could possibly be a) longer, or b) gayer, but according to some deleted scenes, it could have been both. With the the digital, DVD, and Blu-ray releases of the movie right around the corner, it has been announced that all versions of the film will come with extras such as deleted scenes. Some of them have already landed on the internet, including a montage of Elphaba and Glinda (the a freshly dropped from her name) taking the train to the Emerald City....
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Nahnatchka Khan’s Next TV Project Is About Big City Lesbians Inheriting a 500-Acre Dairy Farm

Lesbian writer/producer Nahnatchka Khan’s production company Fierce Baby is creating more queer content for us to devour. Aside from Stephanie Hsu’s Laid, which debuted on Peacock last week, Khan is also adapting the Fuck This Place comics by Kyle Starks and Artyom Topilin, a story about “big city lesbians” that inherit a dairy farm. Having to move from the city to a 500 acre farm is a nightmare in itself for me, but this couple thinks they’re going to live out their cottagecore dreams and becom...
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On SNL, Jane Wickline Suggests We Start Queer Rumors About Sabrina Carpenter As a Treat

On the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live, newcomer Jane Wickline sings a song from the perspective of Sabrina Carpenter, lamenting that there are never gay rumors about her. She mentions how Taylor Swift gets that treatment, how Harry Styles wearing rainbow pants was the talk of the town, but Sabrina Carpenter made out with Jenna Ortega “passionately” in a music video, and everyone just took her at face value when she said it was a metaphor for an ex-boyfriend. She complains, as Sabrina...
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Queer 2024 Golden Globe Nominees Include Cynthia Erivo, Angelina Jolie, Karla Sofía Gascón and Ayo Edebiri

The Golden Globes nominations have dropped, which means it’s time for me to try to parse out which nuggets are the gayest to share with y’all. I’ve done my best here, but please let me know of any queer women and/or trans actors, writers, ordirectors involved with any of the Golden Globe nominees that I  missed! In the movie realm, Emilia Pérez, about a trans cartel leader, came away with a whole bucketful of nominations, including Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), Best Original Score, Be...
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We’re Closing Out the Year With a Sexy Queer Slasher Movie (Thank You, Hilarie Burton)

Actress Hilarie Burton Morgan and her husband Jefferey Dean Morgan have expanded their Mischief Farm brand into film production with upcoming film Bloody Axe Wound, which features a queer teenager trying to balance her family tradition of murder and her new girlfriend. Hilarie has not, as far as I know, self-identified as queer, BUT is a fierce ally and has played queer roles such as Dr. Lauren on Grey’s Anatomy, and was always a champion of the Peyton/Brooke femslash ship on One Tree Hill, so i...
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'Arcane' Delivers a Steamy Gay Sex Scene and an Epic Finale

This review contains spoilers for the series finale of Netflix’s Arcane, especially as it pertains to its queer characters. Well, Arcane fam, here we are, together at the end. What a wild ride it’s been, three years of fan theories and gay angst and stunning animation and perfect music choices. They packed a lot into this season, and while I wish we had more time with these characters, I loved going on this journey with them, and with you all. And I (Valerie Anne) ESPECIALLY have loved going on...
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Midori Francis Would Be Delighted To Return to Grey’s Anatomy but “For Mika It’d Be Triggering”

Last week’s Grey’s Anatomy was the final episode for queer intern Mika Yasuda, played by incomparable queer actress Midori Francis. Based on all accounts I can find, it seems like a mutual decision, and based on this interview with Deadline, she doesn’t seem to have any resentment about leaving, or the way Mika’s story ended. In fact, when asked directly why she wanted to leave, she kind of skirts the question, reaffirming that it was a dream job for her. The closest she came to answering was sa...
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'Arcane' Continues With Hope, Heartache, and a Goth Era

This review contains spoilers for Netflix’s Arcane season two episodes 203-206, especially as it pertains to its queer characters. Act 2 of Arcane‘s second season is an emotional roller coaster, full of queers with questionable coping skills, surprise reveals, unlikely alliances, and more. Once again, I (Valerie Anne) am here with Nic to break down the three latest episodes and our feelings about them as we barrel toward the series finale. Let’s jump right into it. After a montage about the week...
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Bi Reality Star Francesca Farago and Fiancé Jesse Sullivan Welcome Twins Named Locket and Poetry

We’re here to celebrate Francesca Farago and Jesse Sullivan’s new little ones! Perhaps you know bisexual reality star Francesca Farago from Too Hot to Handle or the time she was on Perfect Match and told everyone she once pulled a woman’s tampon out with her teeth. Or maybe you, like me, found Jesse through his TikToks of his life as a single Dad raising a gender fluid teenager named Arlo. Or maybe you came to know them both at the same time when they started dating and went on an IVF journey to...
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'Arcane' is Back With Gay Angst, Epic Fights, and Stunning Animation

This review contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Netflix’s Arcane season two, especially as it pertains to its queer characters. After three long years, Arcane is back, and season two isn’t pulling any punches. Literal or figurative. The first three episodes dropped on Netflix, and were already deliciously and tragically gay, so I (Valerie Anne) am here with Nic to discuss all of our thoughts and feelings, especially as they relate to Vi (Hailee Steinfeld), Caitlyn (Katie Leung), Ji...
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Sophia Bush Kissed a Girl on Grey’s Anatomy and I Liked It

Now listen, I’m not here to ONLY tell you about last week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy, but I really want to talk about last week’s Grey’s Anatomy. First of all, it was extremely gay. They really brought in all the big gay guns, just to double down by bringing in recently-out Sophia Bush to play a queer woman with an open relationship here to remind everyone that Teddy is, in fact, still bisexual. For the first 90% of this episode, I was in heaven. Helm actually had scenes, some of which were say...
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'Time Cut' Is a Silly Slasher with a Sapphic Subplot

Netflix’s new movie Time Cut has familiar faces, a slasher mystery, humor, time travel, sisterly bonding, enough early 2000s nostalgia to fill a shopping mall, and, the reason I’m here to talk to you today, lesbians! “Time travel slasher comedy?” I hear you asking. “Didn’t I see that movie last year?” Well, friends, remember how in 2011 the movies Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached came out in the same year, and were basically the same movie but one had Justin Timberlake and Mila Kuni...
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'Agatha All Along' Considered a Cottagecore Lesbian Backstory for Agatha and Rio

Agatha All Along is over, but, if you’re anything like my friends and I, you cannot stop thinking or talking about it, so I’m here to share you some things we’ve learned about the sinister sapphics of the show, Agatha and Rio, including plans the writers’ had that didn’t come to fruition, and new slang for queer people. (warning: Agatha All Along spoilers ahead.) While the response to Agatha All Along was largely positive, a lot of queer people just had a tiiiiiny thing they felt was missing: mo...
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With 'Agatha All Along,' the MCU Finally Lets Two Women Kiss

There will be major spoilers for the entirety of the Disney+ series Agatha All Along in this review, especially the gay bits. Proceed with caution. After a very emotional two months, last night the final two episodes of Agatha All Along dropped, and they were DOOZIES. They were emotional, action-packed, and most importantly, so very gay. Episode 8 begins with the answer to one of the questions we’ve been asking for weeks: Where was Rio after Agatha’s trial? Now that we know for sure that Rio is...
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Come On, Ilene! 'The L Word' Creator Co-Founds Queer Media Company With Jennifer Beals

The L Word‘s Ilene Chaiken and Jennifer Beals are reuniting to form a “cross-platform queer media brand.” The company is called Run-A-Muck, and it will produce film, TV, and live events with the intention of connecting queer artists and creators with their target audience. And while they have some things planned already, they aren’t sharing any details yet. Chaiken and Beals will be joined in this endeavor by WME’s director of impact and inclusion Caroline Joyner (who is also Abbott Elementary w...
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'Agatha All Along' Isn't Straight, and Don't You Forget It

Author’s Note: This review contains huge spoilers for Agatha All Along episode seven. Last night’s Agatha All Along involved brilliant storytelling, hilarious gay jokes, and an epic reveal. Let’s talk about it! We haven’t really gotten much more progress on the Agatha and Rio front since their electric exchange(s) in Episode 4, with Agatha’s trial (or whatever that was that happened in the treehouse) and Teen’s flashback episode, and while they didn’t share a scene in last night’s episode either...
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More WayHaught Stories and Other Gay Updates From NYCC

feature image photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Audible This weekend, I attended New York Comic Con and I’m here to report back on all the gay goings-on, including but not limited to some WayHaught updates from the newest addition to the Wynonna Earp universe. This addition is an Audible original series called Tales from Purgatory, and it’s a series of short stories set in the time period between the end of Season 4 and where the Tubi movie Wynonna Earp: Vengeance picks up. It tells tale...
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'The Legend of Vox Machina' Gives Us Some Sweet Sapphic Backstory

This piece contains spoilers for The Legend of Vox Machina season 3 batch 2. One thing about Critical Role is that it’s been getting gayer by the year. Granted, everyone plays their characters a little omnisexual and down for wherever the story takes them, but we’ve still had some really solid sapphic characters over the three campaigns. But before there was Imogen and Laudna, before Beau and Yasha, before we even knew Vex was bisexual (though us Vexleth shippers always suspected), we had Lady A...
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'Heartstopper' Season Three Is About Queer People Surviving and Thriving

In its third season, Heartstopper continues to be such a sweet, comforting display of queer love. And not just queer romantic love — queer platonic love and familial love, too. It’s so refreshing to have a story about young people where the queerness isn’t designated to a background character or a Very Special Episode. Most of the teens on this show are queer and/or trans, and that’s the whole point. This season, almost everyone starts out coupled up. Charlie and Nick, obviously, but also Tao an...
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