🌈👟Hot girl walks are in for Fall

Hello, friends!!!

I’m Olivia Messer, the editor-in-chief of The Barbed Wire, and I’m honored to welcome you back  to Big & Bright  🌈⭐👏 — where we hope to delight and inspire you. 

A special thanks to Kind Clinic and Texas Health Action for underwriting our first sponsored vertical and our newsletter. All essays, reporting, and analysis will remain, as always, editorially independent.

This is our very second B&B newsletter, and it’s a fun one. Contributor Kit O’Connell wrote about the burgeoning queer activities in Texas, from hiking to Queer Soup Night. Though we often refer to the term “queer community,” it can be hard to connect with people in our increasingly online, and isolating, world. Particularly in Texas, where attacks on our rights — and a rampant culture war — can make it challenging to remove your faux fur blanket and leave the house. Instead of doomscrolling with your cat, enjoy these magical, creative, sober ways to connect. As one founder said, “Sometimes, a sense of belonging can genuinely be lifesaving.”

Read the piece below!

Steers & Queers 🐂

What we’re writing and reading in Texas. 

👏Meet the lesbian minister whose church clapped back at Texas’ ban on rainbow crosswalks, by our friends at The Advocate. The piece spotlights Rev. Rachel Griffin-Allison at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas, who wanted “to make sure that our neighborhood had a visible, bold statement to say that they are not being erased.”

⚖️A Texas A&M University faculty committee found that the recent firing of English professor Melissa McCoul — after a video of her discussing gender identity in class went viral — violated her academic freedom. (Duh.) McCoul is appealing her termination.

😱Meanwhile, also at A&M, the university system’s board of regents will vote Thursday on whether to prohibit faculty at any of its 12 universities from teaching “race or gender ideology,” which is very spooky nonsense.

Stars & Stripes 🇺🇸

What’s happening in the rest of the gayborhood. 

🎙️Turns out, we just needed a… Miss Piggy film? Jennifer Lawrence appeared on the Las Culturistas podcast and announced that she is co-executive producing a movie on the diva Muppet in collaboration with Emma Stone and Cole Escola. 

💊 “Call Your Girlfriend” because Robyn, of “Dancing on My Own” fame, is dropping a new single called “Dopamine,” which we never even knew we missed.

⚖️The Supreme Court chose not to revisit its landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which legalized same-sex marriage across the country in 2015. The challenge came from infamous Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who has spent the last ten years fighting to repeal the historic ruling and now must pay $360,000 in legal fees. As “Mad Beefs” wrote on X in one of the only non-expletive-filled posts we could find, “The gays and courts finally defeated Kim Davis.” 

🥂In celebration, a ton of beautiful couples posted photographs of their weddings and families.

🥁Chrishell Stause, who is married to nonbinary musician G Flip, is officially done with Netflix's “Selling Sunset.” It’s a glamorously absurd show about Los Angeles real estate in its ninth season that’s mostly a guilty pleasure, but Chrishell was the best part. Please immediately listen to G Flip’s cover of “Cruel Summer” — a true gift to queer Taylor Swift fans — if you haven’t yet.

Shameless Merch Plug 🧢

🏳️‍🌈With a trans pride backdrop and Texas in full rainbow, this flag is made to fly loud from your porch, balcony, or yard. No slogans, no logos — just visibility and rainbows.

Take care, fam. 🌈

XOXO, 

Gossip Girl

Looking For Queer Community Outside the Bar? There’s a Walking (and Hiking and Yoga and Line-Dancing) Club For That.

As one founder said, “Sometimes, a sense of belonging can genuinely be lifesaving.”

By Kit O'Connell

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