Tell me a little bit about yourself.
My name is Jules.
Hi, Jules.
I am a lesbian, transgender lesbian, nonbinary transgender woman, which is a lot of things, but that is the energy that I’m leaning into and I find rewarding. I don’t know, I have some internet presence and apparently enough…
… for virality.
But I don’t take it too seriously. I’m also semi-anonymous.
“Lez Out July.” How did you come up with the phrase? Where did that come from?
Well, there’s a number of answers to this question. I’ll give you the direct and the indirect answer.
Please.
The direct answer to this question was a tweet that I wrote, which went along the lines of “June was just warming up, but July is for lezzing out.” And then I started referring to “Lez Out July” as if it were a thing. Then some of my friends started referring to it as if it were a thing. Then people caught on and they were like, “I hear it’s Lez Out July.”
It was really shocking, because I had been shamelessly name-searching it because I’m so curious about where it’s gone, especially because it started with me and my friends. I’m largely T4T community, and that’s where I’m coming from. And a lot of presumably cis lesbians and cis lesbian communities and butch femme communities all got way in on this, and it kind of…
… spiraled.
I think it was just in the air.
It is just in the air.
I can’t claim credit for it. And as soon as I realized it was a thing, I was like, “I’m letting it go. I can’t claim credit for it. It’s in the air.”
That’s awesome.
But then I did start seeing people being like, “Oh, I’m failing at Lez Out July. I am dating a man.” Or, “Oh, I haven’t been able to talk to women” or whatever. And I began to take it seriously again, because I was like, “No, it’s not about something that you can fail. It’s just an imperative to really be brave and get out there and ask for what you want.”
There’s so much pressure on Pride itself. I feel like that’s been the ongoing conversation. It’s like, “Oh, I didn’t kiss anyone. I didn’t get anyone’s number during Pride.” Lez Out July is so funny and fun, but it’s also a reminder that it’s an ongoing thing to have pride, to be excited about your identity, and to live authentically.
