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“I kinda wanna talk about Chappell,” an attendee with gold glitter across their cheekbones told me as we loitered outside the GA entrance of Forest Hills Stadium. Then they thought better of it. “It’s a whole thing,” they added, and Julien Baker was about to take the stage. No one wanted to miss her screaming voice and the way she thrashes.
But Chappell Roan was seemingly everywhere at All Things Go festival in New York City last weekend, even after she’d pulled out of her headlining appearance. In a sea of combat boots, I clocked five, ten, twenty MIDWEST PRINCESS hats before I stopped counting.
Roan has been open about the toll her sudden fame has taken on her health—her rise was seemingly meteoric, from a niche up-and-comer to a superstar with a rabid fan base tracking her every move. And last week, she became embroiled in a somewhat bizarre controversy: She declined to endorse presidential candidate Kamala Harris, later clarifying that she planned to vote for Harris in the November election. (The Harris campaign is selling a camo hat that looks suspiciously like the Midwest Princess merch I saw all over Forest Hills.)
Roan’s politics got the better part of the end-of-week discourse cycle, with pundits, fans, and online gadflies litigating her critique of the Democratic platform. A TikTok garnered the most attention, where in an unvarnished, direct-to-camera post, she said, “There’s no way I can stand behind some of the left’s completely transphobic and completely genocidal views. Fuck Trump, for fucking real, but fuck some of the shit that has gone down in the Democratic Party that has failed people like me and you.” (It was a clarification after receiving backlash to an early September Rolling Stone interview, where she said, “I don’t have a side because I hate both sides, and I’m so embarrassed about everything going on right now.”)
The idea that one would hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils isn’t particularly novel. Still, it didn’t take long for Roan to become a punching bag, and a day before All Things Go, she pulled out of her sets at both the New York City and Washington, D.C. festivals. She was almost immediately pilloried for not using her platform to the satisfaction of some liberal fans. The criticism—which also came from queer people—wasn’t shut up and sing, but sing and say what we want you to say.
At All Things Go, I met plenty of young queer women who were grappling with the same frustrations as Roan. In 2024, with our community more visible than ever and the election looming, there’s a somewhat uncomfortable spotlight on queer people as we navigate our own politics against an increasingly dangerous and unjust world.
Crowds brave the rain to watch Julien Baker’s set at All Things Go festival at Forest Hills Stadium.
I planned my All Things Go weekend around some kind of optimism: I would be surrounded by queers after the longest, most brutal summer of my life. I guess I was looking for a “queer space” or to just look around at other lesbians. I found it. There were gays everywhere; the lineup included artists like Reneé Rapp, Janelle Monáe, MUNA, and Ethel Cain, and the crowd leaned femmes and women. I made giddy small talk with lesbians in line for empanadas, while waiting for the bathroom, and in the pit between acts. It was almost like being at a slumber party complete with hair braiding and gossip and yearning, but nobody had to hide the weird feeling they got when we all changed into our PJs.
Decked out in rainbow face paint, festival goer Nicole Goldbacher made the two-and-a-half hour drive down from Albany, where there’s just one tepid queer space she could name. “I came down to the city to experience Lesbianpalooza. I saw the [lineup] and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be gay as hell. All the lesbians are going to be there. It’s gonna be a good time.’” Being in this deeply gay environment “feels safe,” for a change. “The crowd is very different. It’s very friendly, very accommodating, very considerate. I don’t get to experience that a lot.”
A fan dances in the stands at Forest Hills Stadium.
What struck me this weekend was less the kitschy lesbiana (a Forest Hills bar hosted a Dave’s Lesbian Bar pop up) but the almost imperceptibility of safety. Olivia Johnson, who drove down from Albany with Goldbacher, put it this way: “I don’t feel conscious of being included, but I’m not conscious of being excluded. It’s almost nicer to feel that weight off your shoulders … it’s a rare thing.”
That was what I was looking for: to be in some ways unremarkable. To just be. To have conversations with other queers about what we’re afraid of and what we’re angry about when being queer is the default—conversations we’re not supposed to have in polite company. And in the face of so-called progress, the last few years have seen a tidal wave of regressive legislation for queer people with violent consequences—attendees at All Things Go could feel the shift, too.
“There’s a lot going on with our entire community. Our trans youth—rights are being taken away. The moves that are happening on a local level in a lot of the red states down South are just absolutely terrifying,” Goldbacher said.
Katie Gavin of MUNA performs with Lucy Dacus.
And for those of us for whom queerness is a political ethos and not merely a sexual orientation, the rise of far-right policies and imperialism, domestically and abroad, are a direct hit. And throughout the festival, artists made statements.
“We are staunchly against the American far-right, and we’re terrified of the way that an anti-queer and anti-trans attitude has manifested itself in our current political climate,” MUNA’s lead singer, Katie Gavin, said during their set. Throughout multiple acts, “Free Palestine” was a frequent chant.
In my conversations with attendees, it kept coming back to Roan and her critique of the Democratic ticket. The assumption that queers should by default parrot the party line was a major topic of conversation. The people I spoke to voiced their dissatisfaction with the options—and echoed that they’d vote blue and cringe doing it.
“I have a lot of issues with the Democratic party,” attendee Portia Melita told me between sets. “I personally am a person who wants people to vote, because the other option is really bad, but I understand not wanting to vote. It’s scary. I wish that Democrats would get together and actually be against things instead of just being an opponent of Trump.”
In the moments in between the euphoric sets when everyone briefly lost themselves, I felt the anxiety and fear. I felt the sinking feeling that the backlash against Roan is a harbinger of what’s to come for the next generation of queers: Do not step out of line.
For months before All Things Go, I’ve been seeing everywhere that it’s the Year of the Lesbian. It’s happening on TV, TikTok, and in the food scene. Queer women are setting fashion trends. Music is having a “sapphic girl summer.” We’re—apparently—everywhere. We can be monetized, bought, and sold.
There are unequivocal pros to this level of visibility. Under a hood to shield herself from the downpour, Amber Christy told me about her own joyful story of coming out last year: She hadn’t been closeted; it simply hadn’t occurred to her that she might be gay. “I didn’t have a lot of people in my close vicinity that were queer,” she said, but meeting a queer person and learning about queerness expanded her own sense of self.
But, there’s a downside to visibility, too, which came up in my conversations with attendees. “When we’re in the public eye, there’s a lot of discourse. I kind of want to be less in the public eye,” Melita said.
Reneé Rapp performs for the crowd.
The Chappell Roan backlash feels like a perfect encapsulation of Melita’s point: As Roan grappled with the complex reality of voting—remember that Roan said she’d be voting blue—it became a mainstream talking point. “I was talking to people about Chappell, and a lot of people were like, ‘She should have been gay famous and not everyone famous,’” Melita told me. “Sometimes, things aren’t for everyone. I don’t want straight people talking about lesbians.”
The Year of the Lesbian hasn’t translated to increased safety. To be a commodity isn’t the same as being a person. “I think it’s lovely that a lot more people are talking about [queerness],” Christy said. “But sometimes, it’s okay to be quiet.”
As for the Year of the Lesbian? “I kind of want it to be over,” Melita says.
Janelle Monáe and their dancers take the stage.
The queer people I met at All Things Go expressed frustration and hopelessness around the election, and even betrayal by certain liberals who condemned Roan for saying what so many of us are thinking. I myself have been trying to figure out my own lines with politics and queerness and voting and wincing my way to the ballot box in November. I’ll confess I was relieved to be around people who understood that ambivalence and anger—even if it was just for a weekend.
If Roan ended up becoming the highly visible face of this ambivalence, she’s also the face of its consequences. It was another relief, then, to see an outpouring of support for her throughout the festival. All Things Go organizers slotted in a drag dance party during her set—and the queens led a Roan-themed performance. Artists mentioned her, too. On night one, MUNA offered a stripped-down cover of Roan’s anthem “Good Luck Babe” and showed their solidarity.
Drag performers lead the All Things Go crowd through the “HOT TO GO” dance.
The weather was piss-poor at Forest Hills, and it would’ve been easy to fall into a nihilist haze. But maybe you’ll give me a little grace here to feel some small bit of optimism. Surrounded by cowboy boots and butches and mascs and high femmes and drag queens and keffiyehs and couples holding hands, it was hard not to feel a hint of hope. I’m such a sap, and seeing young queers hits me right in the heart—especially young queers grappling with the complex ethics we’re not supposed to say out loud. It’s been a brutal summer, and it’s going to be a brutal fall. So maybe you’ll understand why I felt sad-happy in that little island of queers hugging and mucking through the rain.
There’s a sense of power in “having that place where you feel like—it sounds corny: I’m not alone,” Johnson told me. “You can be conscious of [the outside world], but being in it, not feeling like you’re wary of everyone around you does so much mentally. … It’s not just like, ‘Oh it would be nice.’ It’s actually happening, and you’re physically there.”
It was nice—just for a weekend—not to have to imagine what that’s like.
Julia Sonenshein is a writer and editor who focuses on power, pleasure, and desire. She has written about dining culture, politics, religion, family life, and art in Food & Wine, ELLE.com, MarieClaire.com, Los Angeles Magazine, Catapult, and more. Her essay, “Starving Toward Deliverance,” was anthologized in Best American Food Writing. She is at work on her debut novel.