The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is My Girlfriend
An Interview with Maddy Court and Kelsey Wroten
This is the Sunday edition of Paging Dr. Lesbian. Plus, this week’s dispatch from the lesbian internet. If you like this type of thing, subscribe!
This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Maddy Court and Kelsey Wroten, the writer and illustrator (respectively) of a great new book called The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is My Girlfriend. (You can purchase on Bookshop here). The book is essentially a collection of queer advice, asked by queer people from around the world and answered by Maddy as well as several other guest experts. The book is an expansion of Maddy’s handmade (and extremely popular) zines, such as “The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend” is “My Ex-Wife and Choose Your Own Dykeventure.” (You can purchase the zines on Maddy’s website). Maddy also runs a popular Instagram account, xenaworrierprincess, and writes a Substack newsletter of the same name that you can subscribe to here.
The book is beautifully illustrated by Kelsey Wroten, (whose website you can find here), and her wonderful artwork makes the book an even more engaging read. I spoke to Maddy and Kelsey about the process of creating the book and what they learned about the queer community after wading through all of these questions. They both answered my questions with an abundance of wisdom, so I hope you all will enjoy these interviews as much as I did.
I know you've had experience giving advice before this book (as a columnist and in your zines) – what made you decide to first enter the advice-giving space?
Maddy: I made the first Ex-Girlfriend zine in grad school. I was deeply broke, the bills were piling up. I was like, "how can I get my followers to Venmo me $8-$10?" I had free printing at school. Plus, I made a lot of zines as a teenager. It's a process I find comforting and really satisfying, so I was itching to make another one.
At this time, I had a pretty face-forward, personal web presence, and I would get a lot of advice questions in my DMs. I thought that if I formalized the Q&A and turned it into a zine, at the very least, the people who sent me questions would buy it.
How do you approach giving advice? Do you draw mainly from personal experience, or other sources of knowledge?
Maddy: When I was in high school, my mom bought me copies of The Rules and He's Just Not That Into You. Those books have, um, some problems and scary heterosexual overtones, but fundamentally they're about matching other people's energy and demanding the best for yourself when it comes to dating. And then, as a college-aged lesbian at women's college, all my friends were in these really wild, boundary-compromised relationships, and I was always advising them to just break up. I was also in a batshit relationship as a young lesbian, and that experience really formed the way I date and give advice.
I think about questions for a long time, usually 2-3 days. I ask my friends a lot. My girlfriend always has insights.
Sometimes a question is a challenge because the asker is in a really difficult situation, other times it's just not my lane. I get questions that I'm not equipped to answer, or I feel uneasy about. In the book, we had a budget to pay people to answer questions about, for instance, dating as a wheelchair user and non-binary lesbian.
Anyone who has read your book could probably answer this themselves, but for my readers who haven't – what are the broad themes that most often pop in the questions you get? In other words, what do the queer people who write to you seem to be looking for, if you had to summarize it?
Maddy: A lot of people are looking for assurance that they're normal. I get a lot of questions from people who came out "late" (sometimes literal 19-year-olds, and othertimes women who've been married to men and lead an entire life as "straight"), as well as people who've never had sex and feel a lot of shame about it. A lot of people aren't sure how to make friends, or are in a relationship that makes them feel like garbage. Real human stuff.
The book also includes advice from several guest experts, including Samantha Irby and JD Samson. What made you want to reach out and include these guest experts?
Maddy: I'm white and cis, and I knew the book would be infinitely more interesting with other perspectives. I wanted to include guest experts from the very beginning. It was why I wanted this project to be a book instead of another zine, actually--so I could have a budget to pay people.
You write in the book that when you respond to questions you “often feel like Gay Debbie Downer” because of the way you are sometimes forced to temper people’s lofty expectations about life. How do you balance validating someone’s feelings while also giving them a reality check, when needed?
Maddy: It's funny because I talk a lot in therapy about having low expectations for life, or expecting to suffer. I'm from the midwest so I was very much raised to be a particular kind of unhappy, dieting woman. I get so many questions that are like, "why am I sad after my breakup?" or from people who just want everything to be painless and it's like, that's impossible. Of course you can't end your relationship of 5 years without hurting the other person. Life is really hard like that, but I also think there's a happy medium.
I think the way I give advice is a more polished version of what I'd say to a friend, but some questions are frustrating and I have to yell a little bit. It's a nice yelling, though. The intention is good.
You also run a very popular lesbian meme account. Why do you think Instagram has become such a popular venue for this type of content and/or has the ability to facilitate a sense of queer community? Do you find running the account to be a rewarding experience?
Maddy: I think social media in general has done a lot for queer representation and community formation. I remember seeing the F Yeah Dykes Tumblr when I was a teenager and being totally blown away because at the time, the internet was still scattered into individual websites and blogs. I'm surprised Instagram is still used widely--it's not the best place to post text, the censorship of bodies and queer content is oppressive. TikTok is a lot more joyful and pays creators. Instagram is definitely on its way out.
I'm grateful to @xenaworrierprincess for connecting me with so many babes, including my girlfriend and Kelsey. Instagram allows me to find an audience for my zines and newsletter. At the same time, I really dislike being online and I hope to delete all my accounts in the next few years.
How did you become involved in the project? What made you interested in illustrating the book?
Kelsey: It's kind of funny. This book began in reverse order, in a way. Most of the time the illustrator comes on to a book project after the writer. So, I make comics primarily. Natalie from Chronicle approached me to pitch a non-fiction comic/graphic book idea to them. I write fiction pretty exclusively so I was kind of at a loss at first. I was always a fan of Maddy's zines, which fall into the category of what they wanted me to pitch, and I thought maybe that would be a perfect fit. I think it was! My proudest moment aside from how great the book looks (thanks in large part to Lizzie the designer for the book at Chronicle) is that I came up with the chapter title "firsts and thirsts" I don't think I'll ever outdo that one.
What was your involvement like in the process of composing the book? Did you illustrate the pages based on the content of each question, or the themes of each section?
Kelsey: Maddy and I sourced all of the questions together via social media and parsed through them choosing the ones that best fit the tone of the book. We got several hundred questions. It was a great response! When picking a question, we usually went with the ones that were generally asked the most (long-distance relationships, first crushes, etc) and ones that asked more nuanced but equally important things. Questions about community, identity, and complex emotional situations. We chose guest contributors together too. Then when it came time to answer the questions and work on the way the book would look, we leaned on our strengths. My approach to illustrating usually jumped off of the mood of the question. Or something specific in the narrative of the question or response. Some questions had very vivid imagery and that made them easy to illustrate.
Did you find that you learned anything yourself from the process? Either in terms of learning from the questions and answers, or just in terms of understanding the lesbian and queer community in a broader sense?
Kelsey: The thing that comes to mind first is how overwhelmingly empathetic and sensitive most of the questions we received were. So many of the people who submitted questions to our book weren't seeking a yes man to second their terrible treatment of a partner or friend (though we did get some like that). Most of the questions we got fell into the category of wanting something in their life and feeling powerless to achieve it or even immoral for wanting it in the first place. The concern for possibly making another person uncomfortable was very prominent, even if it meant ignoring their own needs. So many people seem to choose to ignore their own needs over the faint possibility of conflict. Myself included! I felt seen by a lot of these types of questions, ha. The amount of concern and introspection was both heartwarming and breaking. Maddy answered a lot of these questions with a mantra of self-love first which I think is something that a lot of people need to hear. I don't mean selfishness or self-interest. Genuinely thinking you are worthy of love, and to be loved. And most of all to love yourself for who you are exactly! That you deserve the world! The message is one of both recognizing the difficult parts of being queer in a society but also the radical joy that can come out of it too.
You can purchase The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is My Girlfriend here.
Welcome to this week’s dispatch from the lesbian internet.
In legislative news this week, it was announced that all 13 (!) anti-trans bills in Texas were defeated on the floor. This is great news, and a testament to the dedication of organizers in Texas who fought against seemingly insurmountable odds. There are still numerous other anti-trans bills being proposed across the country, however, so keep your eye out for those.
Apart from that piece of exciting news, by far the most important thing that happened this past week was the Tessa Thompson threeway that shook the internet last Sunday. Over the weekend, Tessa Thompson, Rita Ora, and Taika Waititi were spotted making out on a balcony in Sydney, reportedly after an all-night party at Waititi’s house. And yes, I mean making out with each other – all three of them. This is particularly amusing because Tessa Thompson is rumored to have been involved in some type of throuple situation before, when she supposedly dated Janelle Monáe who was also supposedly hooking up with Lupita Nyong’o around a similar time. (You might also recall she was part of a throuple in Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer film). To make matters even more exciting, later that very same day Tessa was spotted making out with another man, whose name is apparently Zac Stenmark. This man was also apparently on the same balcony with them that very morning. As someone said on Twitter, Tessa Thompson is “the only woman doing hot girl summer justice right now!” Godspeed to her.
Also this week, Zack Snyder’s Netflix zombie film Army of The Dead was released. I watched it entirely for Tig Notaro’s iconic multi-million dollar replacement role in it, and I am here to tell you it’s not worth it unless you really like bad zombie movies (and Dave Bautista being a bad actor). Every line Tig delivered was indeed hilarious and I’m sure 1000% better than Chris-whats-his-name’s version of the character would be…but it’s a 2-and-a-half-hour poorly written zombie movie. It did, however, give us some iconic gifs such as this one.
On Tuesday, Niecy Nash and her wife Jessica Betts graced the cover of The Advocate, and the photos they gave us were a lot (pictured below). On Wednesday, Season 5 of The Bold Type premiered on Freeform. We, unfortunately, were forced once again to see black bisexual Kat interact with a racist redhead republican lesbian, but I’ve been promised Adena will be back this season. If Kat and Adena don’t wind up together, I will personally stage a protest, alone in my living room. (I’ve written about The Bold Type before – if you want, you can read it here).
Also this week, King Princess was featured on a Calvin Klein billboard, which is obviously a win for sapphics everywhere and an f-u to the idea that these ads are reserved for men. In other news, it was announced the Rugrats character Betty, mother of Phil and Lil, will be gay in the new Paramount Plus reboot. Betty will also be voiced by queer actor Natalie Morales, who you may remember as Linda Cardellini’s girlfriend on Dead To Me. Okay!
Also on Instagram, Diana Agron briefly broke the lesbian internet on Friday when she posted this photo (below) of her kissing her best friend Megalyn Echikunwoke. Those of us who were online in 2011/2012 experienced violent flashbacks to the Glee days when Diana Agron was always wandering around doing gay things like inexplicably wearing a “Likes Girls” t-shirt on the Glee tour (also pictured below). I’m nearly positive Diana has no idea what she’s done.
In indie girl news, Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen have released a new song and video together called “Like I Used To" which in my opinion is very gay (and very good). Watch below.
Queen Latifah also gave us pause on Instagram when she posted this (below) photo on Monday. There’s really been something for everyone this week.
Lastly, if you want something wonderful and serious to read, check out this piece from n+1 on the events of last summer.
That’s all for this week, folks! Stay tuned for next week’s adventure. I will leave you with one last photo of Tessa Thompson (shortly after kissing that man Zac), who is clearly having the time of her life and trolling us all.
