L Word alums Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig wrote the book on queer friendship...literally

Two Shanes walk into an audition and leave best friends for life. Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey’s bond fully took root several months later while shooting The L Word’s first season. But the auspicious moment when they met in the Showtime offices in the early aughts while both auditioning for the role of Shane is the precursor to a platonic love story that continues to inspire and captivate off- and on-screen.

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Of course, fans of the landmark show The L Word, which centered on a lesbian friend group in Los Angeles, know that Moennig landed the role of cool, laid-back, sex-positive Shane. Hailey was perfect to play another crucial character in the series, witty writer and tried-and-true friend Alice. As Shane and Alice became a possibility model for friendship and queer chosen family over nine seasons, six on the original series that ran from 2004 through 2009 and three on The L Word: Generation Qthat began in 2019, so did Hailey and Moennig.

LEISHA is wearing SAAF GARMENTS White Stand Collar Button Down Shirt; KIMIA ARYA White Silk Pleated Suit Pant; J CREW Dress Socks; CHURCH’S Black Lana R Polished Fumè Monk Brogue / KATE is wearing SCULPTOR WORLDWIDE Brown Blazer; KIMIA ARYA White Silk Short Sleeve Shirt; KATE’S OWN Brown TrousersMike Nelson

As they write in their dual memoir, So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, and the Show That Started It All, on the day they met, Hailey was clad in a red corduroy blazer sporting a comb (Fonzie-style) in her pocket for the audition. Moennig recognized Hailey, then a musician with The Murmurs, from the sapphic-leaning flick All Over Me (1997) and her ubiquitous Yoplait yogurt commercials. Moennig, who’d starred on the Dawson’s Creek spin-off Young Americans (2000), strolled in with a Mick Jagger vibe, Hailey notes.

When did they realize they were destined for a lifelong friendship? “The moment you laid eyes on me,” Moennig jokes, is when Hailey knew. It didn’t happen quite then, but something clicked early while shooting season 1 in Vancouver. They became so inseparable that costar and friend Mia Kirshner (who played Jenny), dubbed them “pants, because you can’t have one leg without the other” as they related on their popular podcast, Pants, that launched at the height of the pandemic in 2020.

“I saw something in Kate that she wasn’t ready to see in herself, and I kind of felt this sort of like, Oh, we’re going to help each other somehow, and I don’t know what that’s going to be, but I see you,” Hailey says of those nascent days. “Maybe [because] we were the two gay ones on the show, but there was something. We have something different from anyone else here.”

Likewise, for Moennig, there was “Something inside me that said, Oh, there’s something here. Of course, I didn’t know at the time, obviously, what that was, but I knew it wasn’t just Oh, this is a coworker.”

LEISHA is wearing SAAF GARMENTS White Stand Collar Button Down Shirt; KIMIA ARYA White Silk Pleated Suit Pant; J CREW Dress Socks; CHURCH’S Black Lana R Polished Fumè Monk Brogue / KATE is wearing SCULPTOR WORLDWIDE Brown Blazer; KIMIA ARYA White Silk Short Sleeve Shirt; KATE’S OWN Brown TrousersMike Nelson

It’s late spring, more than 20 years later, and they’re seated on a slouchy love seat in the loft of a studio in the San Fernando Valley north of L.A. where they’ve posed for the photos for this cover. They’re eager to discuss their seamless dual memoir and release it into the world. In the photos for the cover shoot, Hailey dips Moennig as if in a ballroom dance. In another, she pulls Moennig’s tie. They easefully complement one another with playfulness, trust, and joy they’ve built over decades.

“This is a love letter to The L Word and to what we experienced together, and also a love letter to the people who have been there with us from the beginning,” Hailey says. “Because the book doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to all of us. It’s really a shared experience.”

Since Alice, Shane, and the gang first sipped espresso at the fictional cafe The Planet, Hailey and Moennig have seen each other through falling in and out of love, loss, and capers (like driving a beat-up “canned ham” RV from Northern California to L.A. for Hailey to rehab). They’ve also become business partners as executive producers on Generation Q, creating Pants, and now their memoir. Regarding their relationship, including working together, Moennig says, “It’s a marriage, honestly, and it’s something that we constantly are working on.”

“Our marriage has been over 20 years,” she adds, while Hailey smiles knowingly.

LEISHA is wearing DZOJCHEN Women’s Midnight Blue Pinstripe Vest, Light Blue Brushed Silk Trouser; LEISHA’S OWN Jewelry Throughout / KATE is wearing LOS ANGELES APPAREL Chambray Shirt; GUCCI Tie; DZOJCHEN Women’s Midnight Blue Pinstripe Wide Leg Trouser; KATE’S OWN Jewelry ThroughoutMike Nelson

So Gay For You takes readers through their childhoods, Hailey in Nebraska and Moennig in Philadelphia. They grew up 1,200 miles apart, but their stories ofgrowing up queer in the ’80s and ’90s and coming out dovetail. Hailey shares that she came out to her supportive family while studying in New York. Moennig’s mom, a former Broadway dancer, briefly struggled with her daughter’s identity before full acceptance.

They also detail their scrappy days as students and actors in New York City in the ’90s, with writing so vivid it’s easy to picture them crossing paths at the usual haunts years before they met.

“What was interesting within writing this was how parallel our lives actually were without us even realizing that,” Moennig says. “I mean, we knew this just being friends. But then to see it in long form, you realize Oh, there really is a parallel.”

“There’s such a common experience to growing up a queer kid,” Hailey adds. “So no matter if you’re in a small town like I was, or a city like Kate, there are similarities to that, what we all go through. That kind of fascinated me in the end. I was like, Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.”

Of course, they regale readers with stories of on- and off-set antics on The L Word and beyond, with Moennig’s chapters covering their life on set and Hailey writing about after-hours on the series. But there was a caveat.

LEISHA is wearing CLARE V. X LEISHA HAILEY Le Vest clarev.com; LEVI’S 90’s 501 Jeans / KATE is wearing HANES White Ribbed Tank; LEVI’S Vintage JeansMike Nelson

“We said from the very beginning, this isn’t a book about gossip. This is not a tell-all. We’re not interested in that,” Moennig explains.

“That could be a whole separate book that we’ll never write,” Hailey laughs. Moennig responds, without missing a beat, “Exactly.”

Among the greatest hits is the story of the dryer fire in the place Hailey and Kirschner shared, and running off to the ski resort Whistler for the day with Erin Daniels, who played Dana. This was while Jennifer Beals (Bette), Laurel Holloman (Tina), and Kirschner were busy on set with their more in-depth first-season story arcs. Revisiting those early seasons and the community they created, a sense of true and abiding friendship shines through in those ensemble scenes. What’s not apparent are personal losses like the story Moennig shares in the memoir of returning to shoot season 2 after losing her father to cancer.

“I don’t even know what got me through it,” Moennig says. She explains it was something she only realized was so challenging afterward. “It only takes five, six years to say, ‘Actually, that was a real mess of a time.’”

“I had this one,” Moennig adds, gesturing to her friend on the sofa beside her. “It was the best of times and the worst of times happening all at the same time.”

KATE is wearing HANES White Ribbed Tank; LEVI’S Vintage JeansMike Nelson

An early chapter chronicles Hailey’s intense feelings for and breakup with a girl she fell for in high school. That first heartbreak was rendered all the more painful by virtue of not being out in that era and therefore unable to share it with anyone. Hailey second-guessed even telling that story until she saw it on the page.

“For me, it was like, I don’t find myself fascinating,” Hailey says. “For instance, the first time I fell in love. OK, we’ve all fallen in love for the first time.”

“But once you start writing it, the vulnerability I almost felt for that kid. It was almost like I was looking at myself as an adult, and I felt for myself so I could write that story,” she adds. “It was so profound at the time, and it did rock my world in a way that destroyed me when this first love of mine left for college. In hindsight, memories become sort of slippery and fluid in this way that you forget the impact. So when you start revisiting it, you can honor that moment and that time.”

So Gay for You delves into the duo’s other relationships, romantic and otherwise. Moennig, who is married to musician Ana Rezende, relays the story of her best friend, Jenna, who is trans, and their days in New York City in chapters that plant the reader in the era.

LEISHA is wearing CLARE V. X LEISHA HAILEY Le Vest clarev.com; LEVI’S 90’s 501 Jeans / KATE is wearing HANES White Ribbed Tank; LEVI’S Vintage JeansMike Nelson

“I didn’t grow up with siblings … . And Jenna was the closest thing. That book only scratched the surface of what she and I experienced together because we had so many years together,” Moennig says. “I’m glad that I could share Jenna with the world, and that’s just only a tiny fraction of who she is.”

“We just found ways to be creative and survive, and we were just the two weirdos,” Moennig adds. “She even said that to me the other day. She’s like the ‘two fucking weirdos.’”

Somewhere in another part of the city, Hailey had fallen in love with another actor, Kim Dickens (Gone Girl, Fear the Walking Dead). Theirs is a love story out of epic movie romances that Hailey shares in the book. After a few years together, living in an apartment they shared for $400 a month in their 20s, they broke up. Nearly two decades later, they fell back in love and are still together.

“I really believe that Kim and I were meant for each other, but we were just too young to settle at that time. When we broke up, I was 24 and a half, and she was my first girlfriend, real girlfriend,” Hailey says. “We had to live life, and that allowed us to come back together … . I was like, Oh, this is who I always wanted to be, and now I can share that person with you.”

LEISHA is wearing JONATHAN MARC STEIN Black Leather Wrap Top; LEVI’S Black Ribcage Straight Jeans / KATE is wearing JONATHAN MARC STEIN Black Leather Belted-Yoke Vest; KATE’S OWN Black TrousersMike Nelson

Their writing routines varied, with Hailey working on the memoir on a more daily schedule and Moennig hunkering down and writing in focused spurts, they share. Just as they finish each other’s sentences in conversation, their chapters weave together to tell an essential story of queer identity and one of the great platonic love stories of our time.

“Leisha and I, we are our own selves, obviously... . But really, Leisha’s presence in my life really completes it. I don’t know what the colors in my life would look like without her. And that platonic love is incredibly powerful,” Moennig says. “There’s a shorthand that we have.”

“[Platonic love] is what inspired this entire book,” Hailey adds. “We know how important we are to each other. And we were like, This is such an important thing in queer culture. And we find each other for a reason. When it comes to this community, it means everything. It really is like, I’m not going to say life or death … but finding our people is everything.”

With The L Word and now their memoir of queer friendship and chosen family, Hailey and Moennig are a part of the queer record. Humble about their individual contributions to LGBTQ+ history, Hailey says of The L Word, “I feel like a small part of something that helped or moved the needle.”

“Isn’t it wild?” Moennig smiles. “We’re old enough now that we’re talking about our legacy.”

Watch some fun behind-the scenes footage of Kate and Leisha's Advocate cover shoot here:

This cover story is part of The Advocate's July/August THRIVING UNDER 30 issue, which hits newsstands July 1. Support queer media and subscribe— or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader starting June 19.

talent LEISHA HAILEY@leishahailey and KATE MOENNIG@kateomoennig
photographer MIKE NELSON@mknlsn
photography assistant CHRISTIAN SCUTT@christianscutt
stylist KIRSTEN READER@kikistylist
stylist assistant MARCELA HYASU MACIAS@marcelahmacias
makeup GREGORY ARLT@gregoryarltwith FORWARD ARTISTS
@forwardartistsusing PRADA BEAUTY@pradabeauty
hair JON LIECKFELT@jonlieckfeltbeauty
video MIKE KWON@swankanalog
creative director RAINE BASCOS@designbraine