Is it too obvious to say that reading books about queer women with superpowers can be very… empowering?

Louisiana is in the top three states for the highest amount of anti-trans violence. Remnants of laws from the 1800s continue to trap trans people in a cycle of abuse.

Book archives and research on queer identity from the Institute for Sexual Science were destroyed by Nazi book burnings. Our history and culture got lost. What else had I missed about the queer past of my city?

“I identified as a heterosexually-inclined bisexual when I started giving hand jobs for money, and I left more or less a lesbian. It wasn’t the only factor in that transformation, but boy was it a major one.”

Screams are often ripped from us, either through fear or fervor, but rarely does one think, soberly and with intention, “ I would like to indulge in a scream,” and then do it. This is a mistake.

We were just friends the first night she stayed over. I only had a single bed and there was little choice but to press our bodies close together: one big spoon and one little spoon. My desire for her followed me around like a lost dog. It would scratch at the door, whining and begging to be let out.

Our ability to conceive of ourselves surviving and thriving into the future is a crucial part of manifesting it as a lived reality.

As COVID-19 brings the world as we know it to and end, queer, trans and marginalized communities need to transformative justice more than ever. But what does it mean to believe in a world without punishment in the apocalypse?

It takes effort to choose an ending. It’s a lot easier to get back together, to catch a flight, to miss a flight, to fuck someone else. It’s easier to be with someone until you hate them than to walk away with love.

When my wife walked out on me, we’d had a trip to Austin booked for months. We decided to take it anyway, and this is how I remember it — and us.

Minutes before I saw Poison Ivory pour champagne down her back and watch it drip between her legs, I knew seeing this black burlesque performer would evoke Power.

Tip #2 – “Don’t Trust the Internet.”

“I told myself that moving was not going to actually fix my life, that living in a different state didn’t mean that my personality was going to change. It wouldn’t fix my depression and anxiety. I told myself this, all the while secretly hoping this move did have the power to fix me, to break me down to an elemental level and rebuild me.”

In finding out that the legacy of redlining was so connected to my childhood home, I started to wonder what else I harbored that no one had ever thought to explain to me. I wanted to understand how my family and I became this way: so oblivious to our direct complicity in white supremacy

Church leaders wielded the idea of “the will of the Lord” in ways that forced me to surrender power and agency — but when I started reading tarot, I found a new way to move through the world.

This was the way we found power over pain: Move.

I was ready to declare myself and to bring everyone else who was ready along for the ride. I thought, “I’m going to put as many women as I can into one publication, and they’re gonna get to say whatever the f*ck they want.” And Selfish, the magazine, was born.

As Vermont became the second state to introduce a bill to decriminalize sex work, the real possibility of decrim future is on our horizon. But how would decrim take shape in the United States? Would the police still arrest sex workers? Will sex workers get labor rights? And what about human trafficking?

I could be anything, my mother taught me. I could be anyone I wanted. Except for being an atheist lesbian — that wasn’t really on the menu.

In QTPOC community, the future can feel precarious. If queerness is so often associated with action and survival, how do we learn to slow down and rest so we can live long enough to grow into the queer elders we always dreamed of having?