“Other people built a gender for me and trusted that I would defend what they built. But what I was handed never made sense.”

“Not all of my experiences as an intersex person inform my being gay, and vice versa, but the overlap is there and it affects things in ways that are both good and complicated at a time in history when homophobia and intersexphobia are alive and kicking.”

Intersex and queer identities sometimes match up in ways that we’re familiar with and that conform to our understanding of how these identities are commonly defined. Other times they don’t.

I want to talk about shape-shifting, and clothing, and being a butch who wears things, because so much of butchness is tied up in the things we put on our body.

There is something strange about the street harassment I receive as a butch in that it is often terrifying and extremely triggering, but something about it makes me feel justified. I am glad these men see me as a threat.

“I did extremely well in any video games with dating elements, like Persona 4, but virtual dating and real dating are two very different things. I could master playing as someone else, but as the old cliché of dating advice often goes, I needed to be myself.”

“It’s easy for us to say that we don’t participate in the patriarchy because we are women, or because we have been women, that we have known what it’s like to be objectified, oppressed, fetishized. The thing is that we queers can perpetuate rape culture just as much as the next frat boy…”

She looked me up and down, shook her head like she was clearing her ears, and then turned to check the sign on the door. Ah, I thought.

Having the blessing – or curse – of lighter skin is a double edged sword. I never gave much thought to the idea that society needs positive cultural images of minorities until I came to embrace my Hispanic heritage and come out of the closet.

As with the meaning of written text, our bodies float somewhere between the author (ourselves) and the reader (those we encounter).

“There are so many terms for what I am – genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, pangender, neutrois – but none of them feel quite right. So Kade takes the place of that descriptor, and Kade feels right.”

“If I wear my heart on my sleeve – and I do these days, much to the shock and dismay of a butch gone prematurely tender – then the sleeve itself is my masculinity.”

Everything’s gonna be super duper.