What Drag Has Taught Me

Every time I have gotten the opportunity to do mediocre drag as a beginner, I have had some of the most fun a person can have.

A clip art image of a drill with the words "Untethered Vol 15"

First Person Gender

Untethered: The Designated Girl-Son

I came across the concept of the “designated son” on TikTok.

A black and white photo of a trans man that is blurred.

First Person Gender

Transition Is Allowed To Feel Bad Sometimes

Realistically, I understand that if you do something for 11 months, the chance that you’ll feel good for every second of those 11 months is zero.

three images of CJ Kitten Miller, the author: in two she wears a long purple tulle skirt and is dancing in a studio alone, in the third she is dressed like Jem and the Holograms and playing a concert

First Person Gender

On Gender Fabrication and Femme Embodiment

There are so many things I may reach for to explain how I know I am a femme or an intersex non-binary woman but these words and concepts themselves are devised and constructed. Where do I anchor femmeness and how do I understand it?

First Person Identity

I’m Tired of Apologizing for My Intersex Trans Body

Within a binary understanding of sex, a binary understanding of gender, or a binary separation between sex and gender, I am impossible.

A brown-skinned masculine person cutting a femme mermaid out of a net.

First Person Gender Love + Sex

The Trans Body as a Work of Art

Burlesque is my loving manifestation of what all my ancestors deserved—not simply tolerance, but unbridled celebration.

Two people baking and forming a heart with the batter. One person's hands surround the other's hands.

First Person Gender

Change Is Magic: On Cooking and Bodies

Science fiction taught me that any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. In the kitchen, my girlfriend is a witch.

A photo of a fruit platter with a purple to orange gradient on it.

First Person Gender Love + Sex

The Night I Learned to Be In My Trans Body

My summer hookup with a rich businesswoman in Japan gave me something more valuable than even the room service wagyu steak.

A genderqueer person with a cane walking down the hallway in a h

First Person Gender

Why Discovering Your Trans Identity As A Disabled Person Can Be So Confusing

Society painted me as a burden, and undeserving of autonomy. I have taken that paintbrush and created a beautiful life where being disabled isn’t a bad thing.

A dark-skinned transgender woman looking in the bathroom mirror at school.

First Person Gender

When Thin is a Trans Requirement

Body fat is central to how we perceive gender. So what does that mean if you’re a trans person?

An illustration of a brown person with short black hair holding the hand of a brown person with long black hair, talking to a supernatural creature who is explaining something to them. They’re sitting in a magical forest area.

Gender Poetry and Fiction

Trans Fiction, Trans Imagination: I Will Answer Your Questions, If You Listen Closely

You want to know where you came from, is that it? Do not be embarrassed. Nature did not see motherhood in me, either.

a purple dildo lies in a bouquet of dead roses

First Person Gender

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.”

First Person Gender

Wrestling With Kamala and Beyond: Reckoning With Blackness, Womanhood, and What Comes Next

I am ready to be fearless. To dream beyond Black womanhood and know that I — Black, queer, and not-quite-sure — am worthy, so worthy of all of the love, affirmation, and power the universe can muster.

A black outline of a body floats in the blue and purple waves of the ocean. The ocean is covered in sparkles, like the stars of a night sky. Everything feels all-encompassing, full, and at peace.

First Person Gender

Gender Fluidity and the Black Atlantic

I always wonder what words my ancestors had for someone like me. In embracing my genderfluid identity, I’ve found great comfort in the deep and wide of the Atlantic — the way the water connects me to kin, named or unknown.

A magnifying mirror reflected in a wall mounted bathroom mirror

First Person Gender

I Stopped Tweezing in Quarantine and Realized I’m Nonbinary

On the 24th day of quarantine, I turned on all of the lamps in my room and took off all my clothes. Then I stood in front of the mirror and stared.

an image of a photo of the author's head in peaked military cap, and bare Black shoulders. there is a pink flower blossoming over his left shoulder and one cropping up out of his right collarbone. there is a blur behind him of several stacked versions of his head, unfolding to the right of the graphic.

Coming Out First Person

Everything Is Subject to Change…

I idolized Shane, and the only trans man in the series, Max. I wanted to mirror their everyday existence. I wanted to emulate their cool. I wanted the attraction they seemed to be dripped in. I wanted the clothes they wore, I wanted my jeans to have a hole in the crotch like theirs did.

a collection of faces and figures flooded in orange, bright green and hot pink, are scattered over a scene of crumbling pillars and doorways. and in between these figures are the gestures of the wings and petals, floating throughout.

Coming Out First Person

The Labyrinth Closet

We’re always coming out. As an: anime fanatic, manga-collecting Pokémon plushie hoarder; as a giddy, youthful ray of sunshine and not just the dense, American Dream-deprived immigrant, prompted over-thinker — I realize I am more than any of these individual rooms at all times.

a black and white photo of a person's chest and thin lines of scars beneath their nipples let behind after top surgery

First Person Gender

When Other People Get to Give Away Their Binders

Getting top surgery with my butch identity is no longer some unattainable fantasy. Now the question firmly rests with me: do I want to go ahead with it or not?

First Person Gender

Scenes from a Gender 02: Illustrated Moments of Trans Womanhood

“I have a question!” she exclaims. Stepmom knows where this is going so she tries to head her off, but the child will not be dissuaded. “My question is,” — here it comes — “… are you transgender?” No one knows what to say, me included.

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