The weather may be cooling down, but as we enter the tail end of 2021 queer pop culture continues to heat up.
Queer Christmas movies are on TV, erotic lesbian nuns are in movie theatres and Lil Nas X is still doing the absolute most.
Every week, “The Buzz” catches you up on the hottest queer and trans pop culture you might’ve missed. This week, we’re highlighting the buzz on a trans contestant’s historic Jeopardy performance, a lesbian Real Housewife and the Le Tigre reunion we’ve all been waiting for.
Here’s what you missed this week in pop culture.
→At long last, we’re getting an openly lesbian real housewife. Premiering on Dec. 16, The Real Housewives of Miami will see the debut of Julia Lemigova, who’s married to tennis star Martina Navratilova. While other housewives have come out after their time on the show, Lemigova will be the first Housewife to be both openly gay and in a queer relationship from the onset.
The Housewives franchise has long been embraced by queer men as a vital part of the culture. But it also has well-documented flaws with how it’s handled queerness—and particularly female queerness—amongst its main casts.
Housewives guru Andy Cohen previously hinted that the franchise has considered casting queer folks in the past.
“We almost cast a guy on [The Real Housewives of New Jersey] who was Dina Manzo’s brother and Caroline’s brother as the first gay Housewife,” he said in a podcast appearance last May. “This was like 2008 or 2009 or something like that. But we wound up just not doing it.”
Lemigova will join the openly bisexual Noella Bergener, who will star in the upcoming season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, as part of the current contingent of queer women in the franchise in the upcoming year. Let’s go lesbians, let’s go!
→Trans Jeopardy star Amy Schneider qualified for the Tournament of Champions and is continuing her dominant run! The regular series is on a break for a special professors’ competition; Schneider, who is now the fourth highest-ever prize winner in regular series play after winning 13 games in a row, returns Dec. 20.
→Cardi B is the new—and first-ever—creative director in residence at Playboy, which sounds like a match made in heaven.
→The New York Times profiled multi-hyphenate activist, poet and thinker Alok Vaid-Menon.
→Two NFL players highlighted LGBTQ2S+ causes as part of the “My Cause My Cleats” initiative this week. Las Vegas Raiders player Carl Nassib, the first openly gay active player in the NFL, picked LGBTQ2S+ crisis line The Trevor Project, while Cleveland Browns player Johnny Stanton chose sports advocacy group Athlete Ally.
“I wanted to back a cause that was important to me as an athlete,” Stanton told Outsports. “The fact that some people don’t feel comfortable enough in their own identity to participate in sports breaks my heart. No one should feel unwelcome on the field or the court. If just one person being an ally can help them feel more comfortable, then I’m happy to be that person.”
→Janelle Monáe wrote and curated a collection of short stories based on the world of Dirty Computer that we have to wait until 2022 to read.
“Sci-fi and Afrofuturism have nurtured my imagination for many moons,” Monáe said. “It’s an honor to be working in these genres to create stories that I hope make all the dirty computers around the world feel seen.”
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories from Dirty Computer will feature original works by Monáe alongside other women and non-binary writers.
→Laverne Cox is joining the cast of Netflix’s Uglies, based on the Scott Westerfeld YA book series.
→Riot grrrl legends Le Tigre are reuniting after 12 years!!
→After winning bronze at the Tokyo Summer Olympics, Italian boxer Irma Testa has come out as queer.
“Speaking of sexual orientation in the world of sport has a special value, because champions are expected to be perfect. And for many homosexuality is still an imperfection,” she said. “Many athletes stay silent and hide away for fear of damaging their image. For me, too, it was like that up to a few months ago.”
→A very cute queer recreated a scene from iconic ’90s rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You to propose to her girlfriend.
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