Results for: be the change
-
“Transparent” Changed Me (And TV) Forever
“Do you have something to tell us?” my mom joked. It was a joke, because of course I didn’t. “No,” I said with a laugh. And I thought I was telling the truth.
-
This One Time At Queer Writing Camp: All About the 2013 Lambda Literary Retreat
What I learned from a week on a hilltop with 50 queer writers.
-
The Birth and Death of a Name
This is the story of the birth and death of my name, which means that it is a story about transition, which means that it is necessarily a story about the border between two places and the force with which one rends it.
-
Dispatches From My First Few Weeks in Florida
Everyone keeps telling me the correct way to outrun an alligator, but I keep forgetting. Also, everything about Disney World sounds made up.
-
I Met My Sperm Donor’s Mom and It Changed Everything
As the daughter of lesbian mothers, I always knew I had a sperm donor, and that I could meet him when I was 18. I loved my moms; I loved my queer family. Still, I had always wondered what part of me was cut from a different cloth.
-
This Is an Essay About Penises
“I spent years not thinking about my penis — or, at least, thinking about it as little as possible. After I transitioned, my penis became the most important part of my body — at least, to other people.”
-
I Spent the Summer Screaming in My Car, What About You?
When the sound of a scream leaves my throat, it is a choice. I am never accidentally screaming. I scream in the car and it is on purpose.
-
I’m Coming Out as an Anti-Zionist Jew
Going viral holding a sign that reads “My grandpa didn’t survive Auschwitz to bomb Gaza,” is not how I planned to start a conversation with my family condemning Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people. I’m not the only Jewish person who has long chosen to self-silence rather than stand with my values, but it’s not too late for other Jewish people to join me. The moment for Jewish-Palestinian solidarity is now.
-
MISSED CONNECTION: Gay Brunch Apology
You: The two women from my past who I judged too quickly during a chance brunch encounter
Me: The dyke who apparently projected her own hangups about middle school onto you
-
A Scrutinized Body Becomes Art: How Makeup Helps Me Manage my Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Often, use of makeup, especially as a way to cover up perceived flaws, is seen as a symptom of body dysmorphic disorder. But for me, using makeup is not a way to hide what I look like. Instead, it’s a way for me to be seen.
-
How Queer YA Novels Taught Me to Write My Own Happy Ending
Maybe, she finds herself thinking, there could be space for joy in this new life. Maybe, she dreams, as she finishes the last page and immediately starts the book over again, this is not so hopeless after all.
-
Here’s What I Learned By Choosing to Step Away from Productivity For a Whole Day
I did nothing “productive” for a whole day: no email, no phone calls, no work, no cleaning, nothing that fuels my inherent Capricorn desire to win at Capitalism. Here’s what happened.
-
Harden/Soften: Finding Sensuality After Top Surgery
My chest continued to breathe new life, even when I was no longer alone. Physical affinity suddenly cropped up in corners I never anticipated.
-
Learning To Live After My Younger Brother Died
When I unexpectedly lost my little brother to cancer, I had to learn how to close out his unfinished business and live life again without him.
-
Making Amends with Valentine’s Day
I hid behind instruments, computers, Whitney’s voice, Prince’s guitar. I sat in front of my computer surrounded by cassettes, illegally downloading songs, awkwardly whispering “I love you more than I know how to explain and I’m scared so here’s a mixtape I made you.”
-
Bipolar Disorder, Trans Dykes, and Celestial Catastrophe
One patient in the study “Observation of Trends in Manic-Depressive Psychosis” by O. Spurgeon English recounted that living with bipolar disorder “is like opening all my pores on a cold day and subjecting myself to catastrophe.”
I too have felt like a catastrophe of a person, a catastrophe of a star, a catastrophe of emotions. -
How To Write A Spell Against White Supremacy
To me, magic means resilience and connecting to ancestors who survived the tragedy of the Middle Passage. Magic runs through my veins and feels like my birthright. It’s stronger than white supremacy will ever be.
-
The Illusion Of Safety
I don’t want to be caught parading around in last generation’s false sense of security. I’m kicking off Autostraddle’s first Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Heritage month by exploring the values my own South Asian and Japanese American parents and grandparents imparted to me, to learn to carry them forward.
-
Seeing the Wind: How It Feels To Be A COVID Nurse
The first time I took care of COVID patients, I felt helpless. I’d lost access to my purpose, to my spiritual practice that lives within deeply connecting to my patients. I felt undeserving of human connection. I’d become a “dirty” nurse.
-
Giving Poppers to Cis Women
“A cultural exchange from a person with a prostate to those without.”