At this point, JoJo Siwa’s appearance at the annual MLB All-Star game should frankly be a national gay holiday—it makes that much news every year.
Because, yes, Siwa returned to the field and brought even more swagger in 2022. Her latest baseball blast is just one of the big things to happened this week in queer and trans pop culture, though, and thankfully we here at Xtra have this. “The Buzz” is here to help you keep track of it all.
From Siwa sports to straight Sims and they/them rappers, here’s what you missed this week in queer and trans pop culture.
→ After breaking hearts and the internet last year with her butch swagger, JoJo Siwa was back again at the MLB All-Star Celebrity Softball Game in Los Angeles. And she managed to level up this time around.
Siwa’s appearance at the 2021 game—which features a friendly softball game between celebrities ahead of the actual MLB All-Star game—went viral, largely thanks to a TikTok from the official MLB account featuring Siwa swinging a bat in a very hot and dykey way.
The original TikTok has over eight million views and was frankly a defining moment of the year for me, personally. But this year, Siwa managed to top it. Ahead of the 2022 game on Sunday, Siwa said she came prepared with cleats and actual baseball pants because she wasn’t messing around. And obviously they paid off—she hit an inside-the-park home run and hustled around the bases to score herself, which is a genuinely difficult thing to do in the sports world!
We stan a sports queen. The triumph was made all the more special by it happening at Dodger Stadium, as Siwa is a longtime Dodgers fan and even was a special guest of the team at their annual Pride night earlier this summer.
And of course, ahead of this year’s game, Siwa duetted the original MLB video, continuing to prove that she knows she’s giving the gays exactly what we want.
→ Hetero win! Your Sims can officially be straight now. With a new update to theThe Sims 4, users will be able to define their Sims’ sexualities, making them gay, bi, pan, ace and yes, even straight.
Notably, Sims previously were not strictly defined as heterosexual and could openly date among genders, making them, as one Twitter user pointed out, essentially pansexual.
But with the new update, players will be able to give their Sim a defined sexual and romantic preference when building the character, in addition to defining how open their Sim is to exploration.
However, the preference is still defined in relation to the binary genders of man/woman, something developers acknowledged will change when the game is able to support non-binary identities in Sim development. Currently, Sims can use they/them pronouns and wear any clothes, but players must select either a “male” or “female” base to start.
“Mechanically, non-binary Sims don’t yet exist,” the set’s developers wrote in a blog post. “While we made great progress in representing non-binary Sims with the pronouns update, we acknowledge that pronouns are not the same thing as gender identities. We recognize that we still have a ways to go in this regard.”
→ The rapper Lil Uzi Vert has changed their pronouns on social media to they/them. While they’ve yet to officially publicly come out as non-binary, fans are still celebrating the move. But an attempt to update the performer’s Wikipedia page led to some hilarious accidental new words—strap on your theylmets everyone!
→ Lizzo said it: everybody’s gay. The singer’s latest album, Special, dropped on Friday, bringing with it the effervescent disco-meets-“Thriller” track, “Everybody’s Gay,” which is certain to become a Pride parade staple for years to come.
Seriously, try not to dance along.
→ Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner, has spoken out about how proud he is of his trans daughter after she came out.
“I love my daughter. She is beautiful, wise, brilliant. I will be by her side every step of the way. Our family stands behind her,” he said.
→ Whatever happened to Carl Nassib? The first openly gay active NFL player still isn’t on a roster after being cut from the Las Vegas Raiders earlier this year. With training camp starting later this week, OutSports’ Cyd Seigler looked into where the defensive back could end up.
→ Non-binary Australian musician G Flip (who if you recall is dating Chrishell from Selling Sunset) has released a new song and music video featuring an all non-binary cast.
In an interview with Them, G Flip said they hope the track connects with non-binary listeners.
“I just hope this song makes them feel strong and bold about themselves, and that people like them are out there and we’ve gone through the same stuff, but we’re here and we’ve arrived,” they said.
→ Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp says that his character Will is gay.
→ Season 2 of Secret Celebrity Drag Race is coming, and it looks like it’s going to have a The Masked Singer-like twist.
→ The band Sub-Radio released a hilarious gay take on the pop-punk classic “Stacy’s Mom” with “Stacy’s Dad” on TikTok and it’s perfect.
→ Billy Eichner’s gay rom-com Bros will make its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
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