The Dish: Miley Cyrus On Visibility As A Gender-Fluid Pansexual Pop Star, Lesbian Schoolgirls Aren’t Really a Thing

Hey there, baes and bois! Please tell me I’ll be seeing you at Hot Rabbit’s Los Angeles debut tonight.

“Being anything other than straight was viewed largely as taboo [by students] in the first few years,” Bryant says. “[There were] lots of rumors about various unpopular students being gay/bi as a way of slandering them.”Well, I’m glad I forgot to keep watching “Empire,” because the show seemed to remember Tiana’s bisexuality–and then gave her a threesome with Rumer Willis and Hakeem. In a hot tub. For a show that started out so strong and with positive queer visibility, it’s gotten super cliche and at every queer women character’s expense. It’s continually surprising to me that a show created by an out gay man (Lee Daniels) and run by Ilene Chaiken (creator of “The L Word”) would let these things happen, but everyone keeps casting straight-identified Rumer Willis in lesbian roles for some reason, too, so clearly Hollywood is still a little confused about community representation.

A segment on “The Graham Norton Show” called “Red Chair Story” gives regular people like you and me a chance to tell a tale on national television. This week, a primary school teacher shares a story of a student from her classroom who confused lesbians with cannibals.

“As Good As You” is a comedy (?) about a sad lesbian whose girlfriend died, and her wanting to have the baby they’d planned using her late partner’s brother’s sperm. It appears she sleeps with a man (not the brother!) and that the soundtrack is very ’90s folk lez, so if that’s your bag, you’ll love this movie!

A new novel, “Ramona Blue,” is upsetting some readers because of its protagonist identifying as a lesbian and then later finding love with a man. A bisexual reviewer argues that this kind of story is just as necessary as one that features “young lesbians who are completely solid in their identities and never like a dude in their lives and end up in [an] adorable relationship with another woman and live happily ever after.” She ends with, “There shouldn’t be a competition between bi, fluid, and lesbian representation. Because we need more of all three,” which is a sentiment that can and should be expressed. Visibility is important for every single identity, and with the growing amount of accessible stories available about our diverse community, we should be able to have a dialogue about how one person’s identity does not devalue another’s. I agree with the author that it is not “lesbophobic” for a character to question her sexual identity later in life; however, when that was the only narrative allowed to exist for years (lesbian meets the right guy; turns straight), that certainly was the case. But it appears that “Ramona Blue” is more nuanced than that, and judging the book by a plot twist alone is a disservice to the work and to women whose sexual fluidity can (and does) go both ways.

“Edges of the Rainbow” is a new photo book exploring Japan’s queer culture, including Chiga, the owner and manager of Gold Finger, Japan’s long-time lesbian bar. (You may remember her from an episode of “Gaycation,” where Ellen Page spent the night with the gay gals of Tokyo.

It appears a lesbian couple in India (25-year-old Reena Singh and 22-year-old Soniya) have been missing since February 17, the same day they reported their parents’ violent homophobic threats to the police, who ultimately decided it was a “family matter.” Those families have not filed any official missing persons reports with authorities, so therefore no one is actively investigating this, which is an outrage.

If you file for asylum as an LGBTQ person in Canada, you may be asked some really bizarre and graphic questions pertaining to your sexual identity. Thankfully, a new policy is changing that, as The Immigration and Refugee Board have released an official “12-page document cover[ing] terminology, appropriate language, challenges faced by individuals with diverse sexual and gender identities, the importance of protecting sensitive information, principles for assessing credibility and avoiding stereotyping.” Sad to say but some people really need to be told that asking a lesbian how two women “do it” is not appropriate, like, ever.

One of the most popular tropes of all time seems to be the naughty lesbian school girl, but researchers (including those with lived all-girls-boarding-school experience) say that young women don’t turn gayer just because they’re surrounded only by other women. In fact, most of these institutions are very heteronormative, and one researcher notes, “The context of an all-girls school could certainly make this type of homosexual experimentation more likely, but if it can be provoked so easily, it must be part of [one’s] nature.” And, still, studies have shown that this kind of Sapphic activity isn’t widely accepted on school grounds, as another researcher said that  “[There were] lots of rumors about various unpopular students being gay/bi as a way of slandering them.” So basically “Lost and Delirious” was based on a true story.

Angela Dimayuga, aka the queer Filipina chef whose refusal to be interviewed for Ivanka Trump’s website went viral, talked with Otherhood about wanting the narrative to shift to how “immigrants have enriched US culture and brightened its future.” Immigrants like her parents who “worked corporate jobs to send their six kids to private school.” SIX!

A jury is now deciding if Jane Meyer, former athletics administrator at the University of Iowa, was discriminated against when she was let go for, as she alleges, being a lesbian and supporting other gay women at the school, including her partner, field hockey coach Tracey Griesbaum, who was also fired. The jury (five women, three men) are deliberating after 13 days of testimony that included the athletic director who fired her and male coaches who said Meyer was difficult to work with and that things have changed for the better since she left. DEAR JURY, CONSIDER THE SOURCE.

Learn the lyrics to Lady Gaga‘s “The Cure” so you can sing your lover to sleep.

Jamillah James is the queer, Black curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and LA Weekly is singing her praises. A real life Bette Porter! (I hope she doesn’t hate that.)

I’m nervous! NBC’s streaming service Seeso is apparently on the chopping block. What does that mean for Season 2 of “Take My Wife,” which is currently in production?!

Miley Cyrus talks about her varying gender and sexual identities in a new interview with Billboard. “I’m a little bit boyish,” she said. “But I can also be super femme and dress as a bunny rabbit. Who I’m with has nothing to do with sex — I’m super open, pansexual, that’s just me.” And this is queering pop culture because Miley is a judge on “The Voice,” one of America’s most-watched reality shows. “By sitting there after the election in head-to-toe pink, while on the inside being a gender-neutral, ­sexually fluid person, hopefully that was saying ­something,” Cyrus said. “I needed some sparkle in my life, to make me able to deal. Radiating love is ­something that is important to me — ­hopefully, that is being political.” It is, Miley. I’ll always appreciate that your lesbian sex anthem was 100 percent free of being a *wink wink* maybe I did, maybe I didn’t scenario like some other pop stars I know (COUGH DEMI LOVATO KATY PERRY COUGH).

Speaking of visible queer women, Cara Delevingne isn’t here for conventional beauty standards.

 

Its exhausting to be told what beauty should look like. I am tired of society defining beauty for us. Strip away the clothes, Wipe Off the make up, cut off the hair. Remove all the material possessions. Who are we? How are we defining beauty? What do we see as beautiful?

A post shared by Cara Delevingne (@caradelevingne) on May 3, 2017 at 8:45am PDT

You heard her: Let’s all get bald and naked! See you at the feminist utopia! (It’s a potluck, right?)