“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.”

There is joy here. I have dreamed of this 100 times, prayed for it twice as many.

Despite New York’s progressive reputation, it ranks among the top states for anti-trans violence. What are the factors that contribute to the plight of trans New Yorkers?

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.

There are multiple ways to be an activist. It does not have to be a large public gesture. In private, trusting conversations with someone very different from you, you can create the space for revolutionary change. Connecting with each other on every scale contributes to a stronger global fight against injustice.

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.

Perhaps my identity oscillates at times but in a world that attempts to force me to choose one side of a binary, I remain firmly in the middle.

“Call Your Girlfriend” is not just a song that holds up as a classic sad bop — but as a work of art that asks us to radically reimagine how we might uncouple ourselves from each other in gentler, more entangled ways.

Narratives of violence and abuse are so familiar in our history and culture that we hardly notice them. Corinne Manning shares what it took to notice and transform these narratives in their own fiction and their story collection, We Had No Rules.

Even if it’s not overnight, New York does have the money and economy to bankroll a $Free.99 MTA. If New York were a country, it’d have the 11th biggest economy worldwide, between Canada and South Korea. If much smaller cities like Tallinn, Estonia, Kansas City, USA, Dunkirk, France and Luxembourg have rolled out free public transit using taxes and subsidies, then NYC can too.

By the time I got out of the pool, I had five messages. Waiting at the light, the slivers of passing headlights passed over the hood of my car like sparks. You’re hot. You have a pretty face. So you’re bi? You could have a three-way with us. What are you up to tonight? You should put up more pictures.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Astrology was too complicated. I decided to place my trust in Co–Star.

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.

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.

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.

Tip #2 – “Don’t Trust the Internet.”

When it comes to my queer desire, my favorite feeling is a juicy lack — I don’t have the person or thing I want and that tastes like salted caramel perpetually not in my mouth. The distance is not only enjoyable, it’s my edge, but sometimes it feels like there’s something missing.

In a country that hates immigrants, every day immigrants are on the front line of imagining and enacting another world: One where they can safely live with basic dignity, respect, and protection.

I spent my adolescence trying to be a boy. I wasn’t very good at it, but I tried really, really hard. I didn’t wear bright colors, I didn’t listen to pop music, I didn’t even style my hair until I was 17. I certainly wasn’t the kind of person to dress in drag. And yet I was. And yet I did. Because when I was 16 I won a drag show in Florence.