This is the legacy of colonization. It is the mass extinction of identities and languages that can no longer exist because someone else said they were bad.

“Through frank conversations with cross country mates and cheeky hints in coming-of-age films, I learned that masturbation is something people do to their vaginas with fingers, shower heads and (though I often doubted it) hairbrush handles. I intrinsically knew that what happened when I pressed my thighs together and held my breath was masturbation, too, but as my Encyclopedia of Wank expanded with no reflection of my own methods, it became clear that I was missing a fundamental element of jerking off.”

“And there was Susan and Rachel at the heart of it all, dancing to the band Susan had sworn would play her wedding if she ever got married. As they laughed and moved to the music and worked up such a sweat that their jackets had to come off, I saw a glimpse of the future wedding I hope for, marrying someone I love, the two of us not fitting so strictly into the feminine.”

“People were always so impressed that you didn’t leave me, but your gift wasn’t staying — it was seeing. Most people don’t get to transition under the pansexual gaze of someone who loves them the way you loved me.”

“There. She. Is.” Glennon wrote in her new memoir, Untamed, when she recalled the moment Abby Wambach entered her life. I assumed that would be the central conflict of Untamed. And in some ways it is — but not the ways I expected.

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.

When love is a matter of desperation, how do you even begin to know what it is you desire? It doesn’t matter what shape love takes. Or does it?

“I wanted to be single so I could explore my sexuality. Instead I was exploring other people’s.”

In the mirror, I saw a scrawny, hollow-eyed girl dressed in ill-fitting boys’ clothes, a parody of a parody of masculinity. But in the screen, I saw myself made strong, confident, fearless, perfect.

Lying in bed, she asked why I thought she’d be into women, and I tried to explain that Indian norms are full of moments Americans consider to be flirting. “Holding hands doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “It must be so sad to not touch your friends.”

“One thing most people don’t remember when approaching these kinds of situations is that the other person is likely terrified and nervous as well, worried about vulnerability and compatibility and wanting something too much.”

When the world feels dark, we have to find the light where we can and hold onto it. This is a story about a bright, shining spot of goodness: My Granny.

“Here was a community where race apparently didn’t matter, because we were all humans, made in the image of God. Where a pacifist, sensitive, caring Jesus was the primary male role model. I finally felt at home. I was promised complete acceptance and understanding, and all I had to give was… well, everything.”

It was the end of my innocence when I realized that being Black or being Queer in this country could get you killed. This was the time before Hurricane Katrina, before 9/11, before Ferguson. Before. Before. Before.

“Neither of us were comfy with the public spectacle of the thing, especially G. She didn’t like the thought of publicizing our private relationship. We also felt a bit blah about marriage itself, which can feel like an outdated institution. And there were practical worries, too — like how would we plan a big event, with so much on our plates?”

I choose her every minute of the day, and I will continue to choose her regardless of what the future brings. I choose her. For her, I will play the game and sign the papers, and ask the court to bless what we know is already true.

“The morning after the horrific shooting, and the days that followed, I understood part of my father’s fear. Animosity towards LGBTQ people has not gone the way of black and white T.V. sets, phone booths, or travel by horse and carriage. It was and is very much alive.”

“My ancestors didn’t fight for nothing. They didn’t keep going on that long, cold, hard march from our ancestral homeland to “Indian Territory” just so that I could give up. They didn’t lay down on the trail to die and neither will I.”

How did I, a girl growing up in 1970s New York City, relate to a drama about two women who fall in love during WWI? And, why has it remained with me for 40 years?

“I felt I was gradually becoming like those newly married Indian women with henna on their hands at JFK or Heathrow… Of course, I didn’t look anything like them and my wedding bowtie was probably the only equivalent to their bridal henna, but I couldn’t help noticing parallels.”