Valerie Anne

Entertainment Journalism

I've written for Autostraddle for almost nine 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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'Gen V' Episode 205 Recap: Sister, Sister

This recap will have spoilers for Prime Video’s Gen V Season 2 Episode 5, “The Kids Are Not All Right.” Welcome to another recap of Gen V, a show that has me holding my breath at every turn because goodness knows they are not afraid to kill anyone at any moment in the most horrific ways possible. This episode officially pushes us past the halfway point in the season so let’s waste no time and jump right into it. Previously on Gen V, Cate and Jordan found out that Cipher was keeping a man in a hy...
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Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig Are Back at Dinah Shore

Twenty-one years after the Dinah Shore episode of The L Word aired, stars Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig are on The Dinah’s red carpet and answering questions about the queer community. They say that while it’s easy to worry about “aging out” of relevance after being successful, they’re grateful and find it such a compliment that they’re still able to be part of the community by way of their podcast, PANTS, and their book So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, and the Show That Started It All...
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'Gen V' Episode 204 Recap: Lovers and Fighters

This recap will contain spoilers for Prime Video’s Gen V, Season 2 Episode 4, “Bags”. Hello and welcome back to our Gen V recaps, where I’m here to break down all the supe-r happenings on the GodU campus. Previously on Gen V: Emma found herself a little group of Starlighter buddies in Harper and Ally; Jordan blasted Cate into a wall, which crushed part of her skull and put her powers on the fritz; Starlight told Marie to look into Project Odessa, which turned out to be related to her own birth...
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Chappell Roan Forgot About Her Butt

feature image photo by Joseph Okpako / Contributor via Getty Images A lot of fun news came out of this weekend that has to do with lesbian icon Chappell Roan. First up, Chappell Roan officially kicked off her latest tour, called the “Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things” tour in New York City. At one of the shows, before doing a cover of “Barracuda”, as she’s been doing at her shows for quite a while ago, she did something she hasn’t done yet. She brought out Heart’s Nancy Wilson to perfo...
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'Gen V' Returns With Queer Kisses, New Mysteries, and Utter Chaos

This recap will have spoilers for Gen V Season 2, including episodes 201 (“New Year, New U”), 202 (“Justice Never Forgets”), and 203 (“H is for Human”), Prime’s spinoff of The Boys. School is OFFICIALLY back in session and Gen V Season 2 is off to a dramatic and gay start. I’m going to be recapping this season for you here on Autostraddle dot com, where we can break down all the queer shenanigans our favorite young adult supes get up to. This one will be a little more condensed because we’re cov...
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Here’s What Was Good and Gay About the 2025 Emmy Awards

feature image photo by Gilbert Flores / Contributor via Getty Images The 2025 Emmy Awards were last night, and so let’s talk about all the gay goings-on! First up, some winners I think you’ll all appreciate. While queer faves like The Last of Us and Ayo Edebiri may not have taken home any awards, there were some winners to celebrate. Like bisexual comedian Hannah Einbinder winning for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and using her acceptance speech to say “Go Birds, fuck ICE, and free...
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The 2025 VMAs Were for the Gays

feature image photo by Mike Coppola / Staff via Getty Images As I’m sure you know if you’ve been on literally any website today, the VMAs were this weekend. What you might not know if you didn’t catch it live is that it was a pretty gay affair. And I’m going to highlight some of the gay goings-on for you, in case you don’t feel like watching the whole dang thing. First up, some queer people who took home a coveted Moonman: Lady Gaga won Artist of the Year, Best Direction, and Best Art Direction...
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Bisexual Badass Sophie Turner Will Be Our Next Lara Croft

feature image photo by Marc Piasecki / Contributor via Getty Images It’s official: Sophie Turner is going to be our next Lara Croft. Following the bisexual footsteps of Angelina Jolie (and the straight-I-think-but-played-gay-in-Irma-Vep Alicia Vikander), Game of Thrones alum and Do Revenge scene stealer Sophie Turner will be taking on the role of the iconic archaeologist and all-around badass in the upcoming Prime Video Tomb Raider series, helmed by Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Waller-Bridge...
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Tessa Thompson Plays Gay (Again) in Upcoming Nia DaCosta Film

Gays, rejoice! Queer actress Tessa Thompson is playing queer again, but this time MUCH more obviously! While I, like any queer nerd, love Tessa Thompson’s portrayal of King Valkryie in the MCU, her queerness is not as…overt as it could be. Cut scenes and lines try to bury her obvious (to us) queerness under all that swagger and charm, but we couldn’t be fooled. Well, there is no hiding Tessa Thompson’s new role under a bushel; even just in the teaser trailer, it’s obvious that her character, the...
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Non-Binary Actor Alyson Stoner Hopes Their Memoir Is the Last of Its Kind

feature image photo of Alyson Stoner by Maarten De Boer / Contributor via Getty Images My fellow millennials have been seeing non-binary actor Alyson Stoner’s face on our televisions for decades. From Missy Elliott’s “Work It” video to Cheaper By the Dozen, their face became a familiar one. Hell, even their voice was familiar as they voiced Isabella in Phineas and Ferb, a role they’re still playing in the new 2025 season. But while they were often seen smiling on Mike’s Super Short Show or happi...
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I Have Good Gay News and Bad Gay News About Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’

I’ll start with the bad news so we can end on a good note. The bad news is, despite the shippers’ desires, Wednesday and Enid (or “Wenclair”) are just friends, and the creators seem keen on keeping them that way. That said, they are not opposed to the shipping, saying, “people can read into whatever they want, which is great,” while doubling down on “they’re very much friends.” Which, frankly, is better than how some showrunners have treated wlw shippers in the past so, I’ll take it. We’ll alway...
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Help I Can't Stop Watching Clips of Cynthia Erivo as Black Lesbian Jesus

feature image via Playbill on YouTube This weekend, Cynthia Erivo starred as Black lesbian Jesus in the Hollywood Bowl performance of Jesus Christ Superstar alongside Adam Lambert, Phillipa Soo, and more. It was a gay-ass rock opera adventure, and I personally can’t stop watching clips of it. I was curious about what they would do, if Cynthia would be in drag, or if they would change the lyrics…but they did neither! Cynthia Erivo was in a dress for most of the show, and none of the lyrics were c...
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Lilly Wachowski Is Producing a Take on 'The Stepford Wives' With a Cast of Trans Women

feature image photo by Momodu Mansaray / Staff via Getty Images Lilly Wachowski, whose impressive list of previous work includes The Matrix, Sense8, and Work in Progress, is creating a new sci-fi thriller short film. While she often works with her sister, this seems to be a solo project, where she will serve as executive producer, and it will be the directorial debut of Geena Rocero, a trans filmmaker who also wrote the film and will star in it. In fact, the entire cast of this short film, calle...
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Star Trek Should Be Even Gayer

Season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds dropped its first two episodes of the season, and while the season doesn’t seem to have any queer romances brewing, the franchise’s queer actors are hoping for a gayer future. Jess Bush, who plays nurse Christine Chapel, said to Out Magazine: “I would love for our show to represent queer love on screen…I think that that would be wonderful!” Her character has hinted at dating women in the past, and Bush did tease that it’s possible LGBTQ+ fans will be rep...
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All Aboard, Gays! Gabby Windey Will Host a Reality Dating Show Set on a Yacht

Queer reality star, podcast host, and former ‘Traitors’ champ Gabby Windey is going to host a new reality show called Love Overboard. (Formerly called Overboard for Love; maybe they were waiting to secure the rights for the Gladys Knight & The Pips song but either way Love Overboard is a MUCH better title.) The show will take place on a yacht, because why not I guess, and will be produced by Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper’s company Unwell Productions. We don’t have a lot of information about this...
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'Ironheart' Brings Another Queer Witch to the MCU

If you’re a queer Marvel fan like me and you’ve already devoured all of Ironheart (and read Nic’s amazing piece about the show), you are probably also geeking about how queer it is, especially compared to other Marvel properties. With Runaways scrubbed from the face of the internet (:sob:), Agatha All Along currently stands as the queerest entry in the MCU canon, but Ironheart almost gave it a run for its money with the very queer “be gay, do crime” crew we met in the first batch of three episod...
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Alexandra Shipp Plays Reneé Rapp’s Girlfriend in Music Video

Reneé Rapp has dropped another single from her upcoming album Bite Me and with it, a music video in which Barbie Movie’s Alexandra Shipp plays her girlfriend who is the embodiment of the song title: mad. In the music video, Reneé is dressed like an Old Hollywood diva in furs, a scarf, and sunglasses, while her girlfriend (played by Shipp, who is dressed in a very fashionable suit) brushes off her attention, obviously pissed off at her gal pal. Reneé seems more annoyed at her girlfriend’s anger t...
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My Favorite Deviant Queers From Television

When I learned Autostraddle’s Pride theme this year would be Deviant Behavior, it immediately evoked images of all my favorite fictional deviants. From classic high school mean girls to literal cartoon villains, we have been gifted with some deliciously complicated queer characters over the years. Now, this isn’t to be confused with Hollywood’s long, sordid history with purposefully queer coded villains like Ursula, Scar, and Captain Hook, intended to vilify these traits. Nor should it be confus...
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Actually, Freida Pinto Is Playing a Lesbian in "My Mother's Wedding"

In case you, like me, glossed over the news of the new Scarlett Johansson movie trailer dropping today, because it’s called My Mother’s Wedding and looks like every other straight person family wedding dramedy that has ever existed, please allow me to alert you to this fact I originally overlooked: there are lesbians. The story revolves around three sisters (Scarlett Johansson as Katherine, Sienna Miller as Victoria, and Emily Beecham as Georgina) who are gathered for their mother’s third weddin...
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Queer Books To Read if You Miss ‘The Last of Us’

Do you miss The Last of Us as much as I miss The Last of Us? I miss the show, I miss writing overly detailed recap discussions with Nic, I miss being punched in the feelings week after week. And we have to wait SO LONG for the next season. So, to tide us over, I have some queer books to recommend to you that will scratch some of the same itches. I admittedly haven’t read that many actual zombie apocalypse books, as it turns out, and I am ashamed and will be changing that as soon as possible. How...
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