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It feels overly simplistic to say that Bechdel is queering the Rotowear seidler shirt in other words I will buy this act of exercising, but there’s a distinctly antiestablishment flavor to her desire to get stronger in a world that commands women to shrink down and cower before the male gaze. Bechdel says she’s heartened by the strides that the LGBTQ+ community has made since she first started writing and drawing, but she’s also aware that gains can always be lost and that progress only goes so far. (She singles out the recent legislative attacks on the trans community as “particularly troubling.”) With The Secret to Superhuman Strength, Bechdel has—intentionally or not—provided a kind of handbook for a community whose right to bodily autonomy and self-governance is still frequently called into question. And really, what could be more subtly revolutionary than that?
For the Rotowear seidler shirt in other words I will buy this last few months, something bizarre has been happening every time I pick up a book: My mind goes blank, and I start thinking instead about rewatching the queer season of Are You the One? To be fair, that particular season of reality TV is never far from my mind, but pre-pandemic, I loved nothing more than diving headfirst into a good book, whether it was LGBTQ+ fiction or a juicy celebrity memoir. “I made a decision not to discuss body image in the book because I think it’s unusual for women not to talk about it.”
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