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CDC Worker With Lanyard Instills Faith That Lesbians Will Fix COVID-19

Jen Bornemann

A viral tweet praising the sight of a competent-appearing woman involved in coronavirus response has Twitter users referencing Fun Home's "Ring of Keys."

A photo of a woman working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has inspired an outpouring of love for lesbians on Twitter from users who feel comforted in the face of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak by the sight of a woman assumed to be lesbian with a lanyard around her neck.

"First relief I've felt on the US COVID-19 response is the CDC posting this picture from their emergency operations center showing there is at least one lesbian with a keychain neck lanyard that jangles when she walks on the job," wrote Twitter user Taber (Bain).

The post sparked a flood of tweets praising lesbians in charge with some references to the showstopper "Ring of Keys" from Fun Home, about a butch woman with whom the young lesbian main character feels a connection.

The tweet also met backlash for its assumption that the woman in the photo is a lesbian. While she didn't confirm her sexual identity, the subject of the photo, Jen Bornemann, weighed in on the post, encouraging people to practice good hygiene.

One Twitter user responded, "Jen, you're my most famous lanyard wearing key dangling lesbian friend."

Without making any assumptions about Bornemann's sexual identity, it's certain that her image started a conversation about how people respond to the depiction of an apparently competent woman.

One person on Twitter called the original tweet "[the] best recruitment of more lesbians into public health!"

Read some of the responses to Bornemann's picture below.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.