It’s that time of year when online & print magazines such as this one are permitted endless portions of reflective self-indulgence. Usually we’d spread this out into numerous posts because apparently that’s the best way to create content for the internet, but I mean, who are we kidding. This isn’t the rest of the internet.

As Riese will explain in her Second Autostraddle State of the Union Address Post in a few days, a number of factors (including you!) inspired us to really get our shit together and restructure a lot of stuff this year. So basically — everyone on the Meet the Team page as of today has worked very hard to still be there.

Therefore, we (Riese, Rachel & Laneia) seek to both share with you our most popular posts of the year and also to individually honor all those special snowflakes for their very special snow-flake-ness. Also now you’ll have like 5,000 things to read should you get bored this weekend.

We wrote 2,020 posts this year! That’s a lot, right? Wow.

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2011 Most Popular Posts (By Pageviews)

1. It’s Not Britney, Bitch

2. The Official 2011 Autostraddle Hot 100

3. How to Have Lesbian Sex Tips From NSFW Sunday

4. The Lesbian Insider’s Guide to 40 LGBT-Friendly College Campuses

5. Photographs: New York City The Night We Won Same Sex Marriage

6. Jessie J Did It Like a Dude And Most Dykes Liked It

7. How to Have Lesbian Sex for the First Time: NSFW Sunday Special

8. The Real L Word Recap: Episode 201 – Fresh Start Body Parts

9. Andrej Pejic, “The Prettiest Boy in the World,” Models Through it

10. 100 Ridiculously Hot Lesbian & Bisexual Women (The “Femmy” Edition)

2011 Most Popular Posts (by comments)

(excluding open threads)

1. I’m Not a Costume: STARS and the Campaign Against Racist Halloween Costumes

2. Glee Episode 207 Recap: I Kissed a Girl, Allegedly

3. “Lez Get Real” Editor Paula Brooks is Actually a 58-Year-Old Man in Ohio

4. Osama bin Laden is Dead

5. Sara Quin Gives a F*ck About Tyler the Creator’s ‘Sickening Rhetoric‘

6. Trans Men and Queer Women: Who’s This Boy to Date?

7. Real L Word‘s Sajdah Golde Gets Real: The Autostraddle Interview

8. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About My Sexual Orientation And Were(n’t) Afraid To Ask

9. The Lesbian Insider’s Guide to 40 LGBT-Friendly College Campuses

10. I Sold My Arms and Legs to Walgreens and All I Got Was This Stupid Hair Serum

Best Posts of 2011, By Writer

Riese, editor-in-chief

Oakland, CA

in addition to doing all of the things, Riese wrote 461 posts in 2011

“I have so many stories, so many little lives, that I can throw together a narrative to prove I’m just about anything in the world.”

Our Favorite 2011 Riese Posts:

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About My Sexuality But Were(n’t) Afraid to Ask: “I didn’t evolve, I changed.”

The PP & Me: Why We All Need Planned Parenthood: “The comfort of knowing that this has always been here, exactly the same every time in every place, and will never go away. Unless, I guess, it does.”

The Last Days of Gay Rutgers Student Tyler Clementi: New Questions, Some Answers: “If you, like me, found the first few weeks of college to be an unfathomably petrifying social experience, then you, like me, will understand a little better what it felt like to be Tyler Clementi.“

Glee Recap 307- I Kissed a Girl, Offstage: “But at least I’ve still got this dumb hat on.”

The L Word Franchise: All I Wanna Say Is That They Don’t Really Care About Us: “See, the only story Ilene Chaiken is really telling at this point is how to opportunistically exploit the lesbian community while cultivating an undeserved title of ‘trailblazer’ and shutting down dissent.”

How to Not Dress For Success: Top Ten Fashions For Being Alone in Your Apartment: “People who work “in offices” have all kinds of rules for how a person should dress for success — rules which involve blazers, uncomfortable shoes, ties, pressed pants and other concepts that ultimately stifle the human soul. Working from home allows you to tap in to your most authentic self — but let’s not confuse that with “being lazy, apathetic and generally aimless/hopeless about life.”

You Need Help: A Lesson Before Dying: “It’s like you’re being followed by a ghost that’s actually a hole.”

It’s Not Britney, Bitch: This made me care about a thing that I didn’t think I cared about at all, which is one of the highest and best things that journalism can do. Riese is hands down the best at it.

LGBT Activist Christina Santiago Was Here: “So many people were really looking forward to the rest of her life — were counting on it. I think there’s been some kind of mistake.”

Ten Things That Taste Good With Peanut Butter: It’s true. These ten things. Ten honest things about peanut butter. : It’s true. These ten things. Ten honest things about peanut butter.

Transportation Review: Amtrak Coast Starlight to Los Angeles: “Christ on a Cracker holy mother of all that is unholy and inhuman GET ME OFF OF THE DEATH TRAIN.”

Lez Get Real Author Paula Brooks is Actually a 58-Year-Old Man in Ohio: I wanted to print this out and carry it with me for when dudes and/or other privileged assholes get uppity, and wave it in their faces and say THIS, THIS, THIS THING RIGHT HERE.

Laneia, executive editor

Arizona

started 03/09 as diy/food editor

Laneia wrote 86 posts, 7,865 emails and 4 billion formspring answers in 2011

“It’s the promise of new, unfucked things that keeps us going. Or our ability to unfuck the fucked things. I mean even your hair gets tangled, you know?”

Our Favorite 2011 Laneia Posts:

How to Live With Kids – Food & Cooking: “The way I see it, you can feed these short people almost anything, as long as you serve it next to some grapes, a spinach salad, carrot sticks, or whatever whathaveyou etc.”

Dear Lizzie Thinks Bisexual Teen Should Just Not Think About That Right Now: “Also, what the hell does she think teenage girls talk about? The stock market? No, they obviously talk about their ‘private’ lives.”

OK Cupid: We Read Your Profile: “Some of you even included us in the list of six things you couldn’t live without! (Now we know how pens and coffee feel!)”

Movie Night: Dazed & Confused: “Step back and evaluate the situation. Think about your life and how you arrived at this moment. Bake the casserole for maybe 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Serve with sour cream and extra salsa, possibly a blindfold.”

You Need Help: I Feel Like We Would Like You If We Met You: “Who do you wanna be Lorna? Do you wanna be the girl who calls herself an idiot every fourth word, or do you want to be the girl who says BIKE SHOP and I LIKE YOUR FACE and DO YOU WANT TO GET A SANDWICH?”

Playlist: Rapping Like a White Girl – Everything good about the world is in this playlist, and no one could have made it but Laneia.

Rachel kincaid, senior editor

Michigan

started 9/09 as intern

This year Rachel joined Riese & Laneia in the world of “upper management,” which pays approximately $1.25 an hour. also: she wrote 258 posts.

“In the movie version of my life, I am something like a cross between Ina Garten and Tank Girl.”

Our Favorite 2011 Rachel Posts:

Book Club #4: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: “Maybe more than anything else, the book is a study of a virtual stranger, a profile of someone who was always just out of reach, assembled from found objects and remembered evidence.”

Top Ten Lesbian Chapsticks for Chapstick Lesbians: “We’re fairly sure that ‘lipstick lesbian’ is a thing because we have seen it on the Internet and on The L Word. But we are less sure about the term ‘chapstick lesbian.'”

Philosopher Unsure if The True Self is Gay: “The question is this: ultimately, is the person we really are about the way we’re born, or the choices we make?”

A Gay Girl’s Guide to the GOP: The 2012 Republican Candidate Cheat Sheet: Rachel is so good at making all the political things seem interesting and also educational!

Reflecting on Extreme Couponing: Is This The End of an Era?: “Why do I feel like I am a completely and in fact hyper-functional adult when watching Hoarders, but feel somehow pathetic for paying full price for frozen broccoli when watching Extreme Couponing?”

Moving 101: On Getting From Point A to Point B With Minimal Crying: “Chances are you don’t have an unreasonable amount of stuff, but unless you’re an actual ascetic, as soon as you start trying to pack it up you will feel like one of the failure stories on Hoarders.”

Makeup 101: A Reluctant Girl’s Guide to Face-Editing: “If you are fresh-faced and glowing with perfect skin like Freja Beha Erichsen or Mulan, then fine, skip this step. For the rest of us, in my experience, you feel less like you are standing naked before a judge-y world of judgers if you put some stuff on your face.”

What Do You Mean You Don’t Know How to Make Suntea: “This is so weird I almost don’t know how to bring it up, but — do you guys not know how to make suntea? You do, right? Because I was pretty sure you did but then I found out sometimes people don’t and was bewildered and upset.”

The “Lesbian Until Graduation” Now a NY Times Most Emailed Article!: “It’s like someone told them Kissing Jessica Stein was a documentary?”

Favorite Muti-Authored Posts:

Read a F-cking Book Club: Bastard Out of Carolina, by Rachel & Laneia

How to Smell Good 101, by Brandy & Julie, G. & M., Kelsey, Jess, Corey, Natalie, Fit for a Femme, Robin, Deanne Smith, Rachel B., Carly, Stef, Vikki, Intern Elizabeth, Crystal, Becky, Michele, Lily, Riese and Alex.

Get Baked: Breakfast Edition, by Laura L, Laneia, Stef, Laura, Rachel K and Sarah Croce

How to Make ‘Zines, by Laneia & Emily Choo

The Jeans Issue, by Riese, Lizz, Bevin, bcw, Crystal, Brandy Howard, Lily, Emily, Katrina and Carolyn

25 TV Shows You Should Watch on DVD: Our Favorite Marathon-Worthy Series, by Stef, Carly, Julie & Brandy, Lizz, Laneia, Taylor, Rachel, Riese, Rose, Laura, Carolyn, Sarah, Lindsay, Crystal, Katrina, Brittani, Sebastian, Chloe, Annika and Deanne Smith

Our (Extra)Ordinary Evening Watching Nightline’s “Transgendered Special,” by Annika and Sebastian

How to Have Lesbian Sex, by the team

Hangover & Out: Queer Girls’ Advice on the Day After Drinking, by Laneia, Rachel, Carly, Sarah Croce, Sarah Palmface, MJ, Katrina, Crystal, Carly, Gabby

Pure Poetry #34: Of All Poets, Stephen Dunn, by Riese, Emily, Laura, Rachel and Natalie

Crystal, music editor

Sydney, Australia

started 3/09 as senior australia correspondent

This sassy tattooed Australian kept music shit/writers in order and also wrote 70 posts for you

Our Favorite 2011 Crystal Posts:

Record Club: Holly Miranda’s “The Magician’s Private Library”: “Holly Miranda and producer David Sitek stock talent and vision in equal parts, and the combined result is dark and exotic and grand.”

Top 10 Lesbian Romance Novels (Currently on My Kindle): “With their dark and mysterious protagonists and their “devil may care” grins, these stories have, for better or worse, replaced films starring Anne Hathaway and movies with dance-offs as my preferred method of escapism.”

Patti Smith’s “Just For Kids” Is Made For Lovers, Artists and Outcasts: “Just Kids is the first book to ever make me cry. Not just shed a little tear, but to leave me sobbing and shaking on a crowded Sydney bus before I even reached the first chapter. The foreword was intense!”

The Top 10 Greatest Movie Soundtracks Ever in the Whole World: “Now I’m no music director, but even though Missy Higgins’ “Steer” is a lovely song I’m not convinced it should be the auto-choice for every scene involving a cute girl driving determinedly off into the sunset.”

Jess, senior entertainment editor

started 5/09 as intern

Jess wrote 110 posts and interviewed 110 Real L Word cast members in 2011, and knew about everything before you did.

“I remember the night I fell in love with Tina Fey — November 11th, 2000. I was sitting in my NYU dorm room watching Calista Flockhart host Saturday Night Live.”

Our Favorite 2011 Jess Posts:

+ Real L World‘s Raquel Castaneda Tells All: The Autostraddle Interview

+ The Gay Bar: Where Hopes and Dreams (and Bathroom Hook-Ups) Come True

+ Chely Wright: The Autostraddle Interview

+ Oprah Celebrates 25 Years of Telling Your Mom About Homogays: Our Favorite Episodes

+ Linda Perry: The Autostraddle Interview

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Carolyn yates, contributing editor

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

started 10/10 as writer

Carolyn has written 112 posts this year and more articles about Canada than anybody else in the history of Autostraddle.

“Beauty and the Beast with lesbians is my absolute favourite.”

Our Favorite 2011 Carolyn Posts:

+ Token Lesbian Friends Are The New Token Gay Friends

+ Top Ten Fantasy Novels That Happen to Have Gay People In Them

+ You Probably Want to Read Some Lesbian Pulp Fiction

+ Remember When Carolyn Team-Picked Bruce Springsteen?

Laura wooley, Contributing Editor

Ohio

started 5/09 as intern

The writer formerly known as “Intern Hot Laura” is now our most Senior Contributing Editor, pitching in 99 perfect posts in 2011.

“All this concern over choosing the right words, striking the perfect balance of radical and moderate, or buying from the right company is just a byproduct of what’s really missing: respect for everyone.”

Our Favorite 2011 Laura Posts:

+ Twentysomethings Living At Home are Destroying the Economy!!!!

+ The Trouble With Counting the Gays

+ The Perks of Being a Wallflower: Playlist & Feelings

+ DIY This: Good Homemade Gifts You Can Make at Home! (with EmChoo)

Lizz rubin, Style editor & contributing editor

Boston, MA

started 4/11 as style writer

In addition to heading up the one-woman style team, Lizz wrote 86 entire posts, most with lots of pictures.

“I have a secret for you: every single day I wake up and pull clothes off the floor. My bedroom looks like an episode of Hoarders. Yet nearly every day this one girl at work tells me how great I look.”

Our Favorite 2011 Lizz Posts:

+ You Still Have Time for a Gay Halloween Costume: Black Swan

+ Occupy Movie Theaters: Breaking Dawn Part One

+ Pretty Little Liars Fashioncap 206: A Stands for Alexander McQueen

+ Top 8 Tim Curry Movies You’ve Probably Forgotten About

Carmen rios, contributing editor

Washington DC

started 1/11 as writer

Carmen has been there for you every single Sunday, written 100 posts and had 1,000 feelings. 998 of those feelings were positive.

“You may have never been told before that you can initiate, desire, and seek out sex as a woman. But you can. And you may have never really envisioned yourself being in the driver’s seat of your sexual experiences. But you are.”

Our Favorite 2011 Carmen Posts:

+ The Museum of Broken Hearts

+ Pure Poetry #2: Eileen Myles

+ On Learning To Be Alone

+ Latina Moms Talk About Their LGBT Kids

Brittani, contributing editor:

Los Angeles, CA

started 03/11 as writer

Brittani wrote 66 posts this year and therefore probably made you laugh 150 times, unless you’re a hipster.

“I don’t pretend to not give a fuck… I actually don’t.”

Our Favorite 2011 Brittani posts:

+ Top 5 Things to Drink When You’re Broke That Aren’t Water

+ His Girl Has a Girlfriend: Bisexuality in Hip-Hop

+ Alternative Lifestyle Haircuts At The World Cup.

+ 2 Broke Girls: A Conundrum Wrapped in An Enigma Wrapped in Boobs

Jamie

New York, NY

started 08/11 as contributing editor

38 times this year, Jamie has volunteered to take the stories that intimidate the rest of us.

“What’s still not clear is whether anyone in power is willing to try to understand what they want and give it to them — or, barring that, what they’re willing to do to make them leave.”

Our Favorite 2011 Jamie Posts:

+ Top Ten Radiolab Episodes to Make You Smarter and Possibly Happier

+ Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Take to the Streets

Whitney, contributing editor

New York

started 9/11 as a writer

Almost immediately upon arrival Whitney wrote our most contentious post of the year and also 16 others. Her spelling is impeccable and she’s the newest member of our team.

“I’m not going to lie — when I was little I used to tape construction paper on my face and pretend I was Leonardo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Our Favorite 2011 Whitney Posts:

+ Stop (Barbara) Hammer Time: ‘Dyketactics,’ The First Lesbian Experimental Film

+ The Nerdiest Holiday Gift Guide

Emily choo, writer

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

started 05/09 as intern

Riese’s daughter, Intern Emily Choo, went to China this year AND wrote 57 posts!

“I was drunk a lot that fall. I was wandering the same street weekend after weekend hoping to run into this girl because I was just so sad and crazy. And it all culminated in this one night, my friend’s birthday, where I could practically hear “Sometime Around Midnight” playing in my head, and I was drunk and infatuated and the world was falling around me and all I could think was “you just have to see her, you know that she’ll break you in two.”

Our Favorite 2011 Emily Posts:

+ 60 Days In China: Where Everything Else Seemed Upside-Down

+ Pure Poetry: Mina Loy & Gertrude Stein+

Katrina C DANGER, writer

Washington DC

started 6/09 as internicaine

When she wasn’t busy having revelations and living in 3-D, KC Dangermouse Casino wrote 25 posts this year

“I used to have this feeling of infinite possibility. It used to run through my head and through my veins and across the synapses between my nerves all day. It’s not that I felt invincible; it’s more that I felt safe. I felt protected, from my decisions, from my mistakes. I took advantage of my youth, of the feeling that there would always be more time. I held on to the absolute, undying belief in second chances, and the assumption that, if I waited long enough, things could (and would) fix themselves.”

Our Favorite 2011 Katrina Posts:

+ Girl on the Run: The Kit

+ This is How We Live: No Fucks to Give

Taylor, writer

Portland, OR

started 12/09 as technostraddle founder/editor

taylor got a Real Tech Writing Job this year at tecca, moved to portland and wrote 26 posts and 3 unfinished drafts.

“If you see Carrie Brownstein at a coffee shop around the corner, you’ll really wish you’d sprung for a bike with cooler handlebars. Then you will hyperventilate for 30 seconds and need your inhaler.”

Our Favorite 2011 Taylor Posts:

+ Pure Poetry #17: Adrienne Rich Came to Explore the Wreck

+ My Drunk Kitchen’s Hannah Hart: The Autostraddle Interview

Gabrielle, writer

Bronx, NY

started 06/10 as writer

Gabrielle wrote 14 articles this year and she actually left the house or talked to a human being on the phone to write almost all of them! That’s how you do it.

“If Kim Wayans doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar, I’m pulling out the “yes, racism still runs rampant in the world” card and stuffing it up his golden ass.”

Our favorite 2011 Gabrielle Posts:

+ A Love Letter to Christina Santiago

+ 18 Murders in 18 Months: Puerto Rico’s LGBTTs Face New Threats, Old Politics

Annika, writer

San Francisco, CA

started 04/11 as writer

Annika, a trans lesbian, wrote 15 posts and became a hero for at least 150 people, probably more, maybe even 1,500

“It’s as though after 23 years, I have finally stopped trying to fill up a diesel car with unleaded gas. My brain was made to run on estrogen.”

Our Favorite 2011 Annika Posts:

+ I’m Just Your Typical Urban Hipster Femme Twentysomething Trans Lesbian

+ Hello, Estrogen – Farewell, Heteronormative Privilege

Intern Grace

Columbus, Ohio

started 5/11 as intern

Grace has written 24 posts and made 5,000 screencaps.

“It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to feel misled. It’s okay to feel stupid. It’s okay to listen to ‘Jar of Hearts’ on repeat.”

Our Favorite 2011 Grace:

+ Rejection 101: A Lesbian’s Guide To Getting Turned Down, Keeping Your Head Up

+ Listling Without Commentary: Real L Word Recap Images Riese Asked Her Intern to Create This Season

Sebastian, writeR

Massachusetts

started 01/11 as writer

Sebastian, our first trans writer, whipped out 19 excellent posts and moved with grace through the fury of ten billion thousand hundred flame wars.

“Seeing and feeling the discrepancy between living as a gay woman and living as a straight man makes me want to work even harder to dismantle this heteronormative world.”

Our Favorite 2011 Sebastian Posts:

+ When I Knew I Was a Boy

+ More Visible Than Purple: LGBT Kids and the Road to Safer Schools

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Rose, writer

Baltimore, MD

started 7/11 as contributing editor

Rose has written 20 posts with an average of 20 sources per post, which is just the way we like it.

“Not every artist should have to be an activist. Heck, not every artist can be. But for those who do use their talents for advocacy, it can make all the difference.”

Our Favorite Rose 2011 Posts:

+ Michelle Bachmann is the Beatrix Lestrange of the GOP Political Candidates

+ Art, Politics and the Gays

BEST OF photo/VIDEO

JULIE GOLDMAN & BRANDY HOWARD

Best of 2011:

Julie & Brandy in Your Box Office #201: Black Swan Did You Really Happen,

In Your Box Office Season One: The Shit You Didn’t See

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UNICORN PLAN-IT

haviland stillwell, sarah croce, ashley reed

Best of 2011:

Unicorn Plan-It #103: A Single Ceremony

Unicorn Plan-It #105: Hunting Bambi

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ROBIN ROEMER, photographer

Best of 2011:

Photographs: New York City the Night We Won Same-Sex Marriage

Autostraddle Calendar Girls 2012: Julie & Brandy are April, Stacee is May!, by Robin Roemer and Kelli Griggs

THE BEST OF THE REST: CONTRIBUTORS

Deanne Smith and the Unfashionable Utopia of Yore, by Deanne Smith

Lady Gaga “Judas” Music-Video: The Mini Recap, by a;ex (Design Director)

Mary Gray Knows What It Feels Like For Gay Kids in Rural America, by Chloe

Lily’s College Lesbianage #12: Quarter-Life Crisis and Red Carpet Ricky Martin, by Lily

The Sordid Lives of Lesbian Twins, by Lindsay D

Where The Bois Are: Bklyn Boihood is the Future, by MJ

Lauryn Hill at Williamsburg Music Hall: Worst. Concert. Ever, by Stef M.

100 Michigan Law Students Walk Out of Graduation: Winning Hearts and Minds, by Sarah P.

THE BEST OF THE REST: GUEST WRITERS

If You Ain’t No Punk Holla Gays Need Prenups GAYS NEED PRENUPS, by Bevin/QueerFatFemme

I’m Neither a Butch Or a Top, via Bkyln Boihood

Pure Poetry #14: Sady Doyle on the Great Poet Diane Di Prima, by Sady Doyle

The Ethics of Lust: On Interracial Relationships and Anti-Miscegenation Laws, by Queerie Bradshaw

Pure Poetry #33: Sappho Was a Right-On Woman, by Marissa Meltzer

Texas Is Not the Only State: Confessions of a Lesbian Exile in New York, by Lemon Wilder

How I Came Out to My Evangelical Parents And You Can, Too, by Jana



Soooo what was your favorite?