Results for: be the change
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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.
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Living While Black, Queer and Sometimes Mistaken for Male
My white queer friends don’t know why it’s such a big deal for them to not do any of the stupid and obviously illegal things they tend to do if I’m the one behind the wheel.
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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.
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Am I Bisexual? Is That The Word?
I will never again cultivate a romantic relationship with a cis person on purpose, not in this life. I have been hurt too badly, too often, by too many people. T4T only. Inscrutable genders from outer space to the front, those that can be best described as “smell of campfire” && “a great pink shape.” && those best described as “a single chandelier earring dragging across your chest while we fuck.”
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Anatomy Of A Mango: Skin
There is a different level of intimacy and affirmation that I have found when having sex with other fat people. Thin people approach the fat body like a series of insecurities. They see the swell of a stomach or rolls of fat on the back and assume that you hate those parts of your body. When another fat person touches me, it is to be made whole.
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I Never Meant for My Hair to Be the Way Back to the Lighthouse
“I thought changing something on the outside would change the wrecked ruin of me on the inside. I thought somehow the inside would get a memo from my outside and get into shape. It didn’t, but my hair is the first way I was able to gain autonomy over my body.”
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Such Softness in the Harsh World
Stacy asked what she could do, how she could help, all she wanted to do was be useful, and I said nothing, nothing, I’ve got everything under control. And so she held me on the nights I was pretending to be able to sleep and whispered “I’ll take care of you” over and over without ever expecting an answer.
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Why I Got Off the Pacific Crest Trail After 454 Miles Instead of Walking All the Way to Canada
I stopped hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2017 because of toxic masculinity and bro culture in the hiking community. It exists, it’s shitty, and it fucked me up.
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Lesbian Visibility Day Roundtable: Carrying History, Worshipping Women, F*cking Up the Patriarchy
“For me, lesbian completely casts aside the idea of men. It puts me and the people I love ahead of the patriarchy. It relieves me of even pretending that I give a shit what any of them have ever thought. It thankfully gives me space to center women (and other people who aren’t men), which is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
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Sharon Stone Crossing and Uncrossing Her Legs
“I watched her zip up her white dress in the mirror; I watched her cross and uncross her legs; I watched her, and my friends watched her, and in the movie we were watching the other characters, men and women, watched her. I hated her so much, and so purely, with such satisfaction. I couldn’t look away.”
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I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School, Awaiting Someone Like Mike Pence as a Messiah
To take back the country for Christ, we needed to outbreed, outvote and outactivate the other side, thus saith The Lord.
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I’m Just A Small-Town Lesbian Wearing Flannel, Building Community
“But for change to happen, for the community I want to grow, someone has to stay. Someone has to wear the flannel not just because of its function.”
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What We Mean When We Say “Femme”: A Roundtable
We now live in a world where it is totally possible to claim the same word as someone else and completely disagree on what the word means.
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Winter Is Coming: Diary of a SAD Girl #1
“Time Change Sunday is my personal gateway to hell. It gets dark earlier (and then earlier and earlier). It gets cold in the morning and night (and then stays cold all day and all day). I stay inside to keep warm and then I stay inside because I don’t want to leave and then I stay inside because I can’t get out of bed.”
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My Virtual Brunch With Dolly Parton
“Dear Editor: You are cordially invited to have brunch with country music icon Dolly Parton this Sunday, August 7th.”
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If I’m Queer But I’m A Preacher, Maybe He’ll Love Me
“My father has very few admirable qualities when it comes to our relationship: he doesn’t follow through on his promises, he doesn’t compromise, and he has a God complex. “
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The Story of “No”
This year, from April 20th until June 12th, I made some variation of “no” my Facebook status every day. It was just something I found vaguely funny but by the end it was something that I could count on for strength.
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The Army Taught Me That I Can Change My Body (And It Will Still Be Mine)
Here’s the deal: I both like and am my body. I am a girl, ergo I have a girl’s body. It’s neat. You know what I think helped me to be comfortable with my body more than anything else? The US Army.
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This Is A Dead Mom Essay
“Not being an asshole” to myself meant admitting that my mom’s death and her illness permeate every single part of my being, and always will.
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Gay, Interrupted: On Navigating Gaybourhoods As A Queer Brown Woman
Gay districts are safer, more open and more profitable than ever before, but for whom?