Hello and welcome to the October 2020 edition of Outward.

I'm Christina Cotterucci, a staff writer at Slate, and I, for one, welcome the season where queer women's fashion

truly takes center stage. We've got beanies. We've got Doc Martins. We've got flannels.

We've got cardigans. We've got hoodies. It's like, we've got cargo pants and car hearts.

This is truly the season that was made for lesbians.

And every year it's like we come out of our, you know, whatever we wore during the summer.

Some of us it was little bikinis.

Some of us it was, you know, board shorts.

But we coalesce as one each fall. and I am proud to see it every year.

This is your moment to shine, Christina. That's beautiful. Yeah, that's beautiful. I'm Raman

Alam, and this October is even scarier than most because I'm talking about the election.

And the way that I've been dealing with it is by stocking up on candy. It's not for trick-or-treaters because part of what's scary about this moment is we don't even know if we're going to have any of those. So every night for the past few weeks after the kids are asleep have found me in the kitchen, scrolling the headlines on Twitter, shoveling Hershey's kisses into my face.

But, you know, whatever it takes.

And as Christina noted, I could just put on a cardigan

and sort of hide my winter body that way.

No, let it shine. Let it show.

Speaking of hiding, I'm Brian Lauder, editor of Outward,

and I only came out from the rock

that I've been hiding under until the

election out of my deep love for y'all and our listeners. But please let's really make this

quick so I can get back in there because I don't want to know what's happening at all.

Have you been, Brian, have you been avoiding the news? I know it's probably impossible in your

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