By The Collectress

I binge-watched the entirety of the newest season of Veronica Mars in about two days, and as soon as I semi-recovered from the ending, I thought: how the hell am I going to review this without spoilers??? So I’m not going to. Instead, I want to share with you all a few things that I’ve learned from Veronica over the last 16 years.

Dear Collectors,

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall RiotsRebellion, and the beginning of the movement for LGBTQ rights in the United States. As a proud member of the community, this history is important to me, especially since it was not taught to me growing up. Everything I learned about the history of LGBTQ+ peoples, I learned from the internet. As such, I thought it was time that I contributed a short informative article about the community’s origins, so that others like me, who are growing up in a conservative–probably Christian–household can learn about the people who paved the way for them to have the right to express who they are.

By Maggie Boccella

“A lot of men have, historically, been very frightened of me.”

Those are the words that come out of punk icon Jordan Mooney’s mouth as she discusses her sense of fashion in the 70s that would ultimately become iconic – her Mondrian-style makeup and spiky hair sprayed solid so that it sticks up a good two feet off her head. After complimenting Goldblade singer John Robb’s shoes without knowing who he was (oops!), I’ve sat down on a backless, stumpy little chair in the back of Rough Trade Records, the original home of vinyl records and the punk movement, to listen to this incredible woman tell her story. She tells it with an incredible grace and humor that makes me admire her even more than I did when I first watched Jubilee back in February, and when asked if she felt her provocative way of dressing made her a sex symbol of the time, she says with a straight face,

“I felt all woman, but of my own choosing.”