I had heard about Reina Gossett and Grace Dunham’s close relationship, and how it was informing some incredible work together, so I sought them out to find out more — over the course of our afternoon together in NYC, our conversation covered everything from the damages of biological essentialism to the radical power of empathy to how important it is to feel sexy sometimes.

“Melaine Randall has said that “the day we start defining feminism, it has lost its vitality.” I’d parry with “the day we start defining feminism, we get an enormous headache and end up subjecting readers to like 1500 words of confusion, because it is impossible.”