One of my earliest memories, perhaps my earliest one, is watching the snow fall from the sliding glass doors to the balcony of the small apartment my family rented in a Boston suburb.

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.

When I got sober, I also thought I would be saving so much money. What happened instead is that I found different ways to spend my money.

Friends and family lovingly called him Tony the Tiger and recalled that he was big hearted. Tony is not the perfect victim — no Black person is in this nation’s eyes. So again and again I add #BlackTransLivesMatter to every post and plea I make.

For many of us, Standee’s was one of the first public spaces where we could openly and comfortably share our most authentic gender expression.

Is a soft butch a soft butch if she can barely hold even herself together? Is a soft butch a soft butch without her swagger?

Every punk party — whether it was in Ft. Lauderdale or Lake Worth or North Miami — had the exact same drink options. Either you were drinking Mickey’s or you were doing shots of Jack Daniels.

There’s a difference between domination as a way to take control or claim power over another person — the way certain lovers have done with me — versus domination as a way to provide comfort and care, and to grow one’s power without harming anyone else.

My acceptance of my own pain allows me to have the kind of sex that is rooted in the specificity of my body. I don’t love the idea that I’ll never fist, but I do love the idea that every act of sex I engage with is collaborative. Queerness reminds me that there is no standard way to fuck or live.

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.

Because of the positive affirmation I received during sex, I began to believe it was all I was good for. When people wanted me, I assumed it was my job to provide joy for other people. I gave myself to a lot of people in that way. I had to remember that I had a right to pleasure as well.

When I teach Rachel how to tie me up and fist me, when I ask her to tell me what to do, when I teach her exactly how I want to submit, I give her permission to go on a journey with me and dive into an expanding world of pleasure.

Watching them sweat from my spa on the sidelines, I’d thank my body. On the one hand, so humiliating; on the other, its own defense mechanism against the wretchedness of exercise.

I wanted to be whole, pure, the person I was supposed to be. I wanted to be good enough that my sexuality wouldn’t matter.

“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.”

“It is the weekend Beyoncé releases her “Formation” single and a bad queen has just performed it without breaking a sweat. I am watching the queen and learning that the way not to sweat is to move so little that every move seems like drama. I’ve got the not moving part down, which is how I am here at a club with a roommate whose friends want to meet the Black girl she let live in her house.”

“When I was thirteen years old I began starving myself. I did so, in short, because I wanted so desperately to be thin. And by thin, I mainly meant white.”

“That instinct, to lie or protect the men who abuse us, is hard to explain. It comes from being afraid of the person who is abusing you, of course, but also afraid for the changes that honesty will force. We don’t want to endanger the men who hurt us, because we love them and we don’t think we can live without them… If anything, my identification as a feminist made the idea of disclosing the abuse even more difficult, because I thought it was something I was letting happen to me and it embarrassed me.”

“Form-fitting feels different than tailored and my form is something I’m super protective of — so why the fuck did I decide to wear leggings today?”

“After three hours of waiting, the director sits us on the couch amongst three or four other couples. We stare deeply into the camera. I hype myself up. Look into the camera like it is a lover, NO, a hamburger! Look at the camera like it is a hamburger.”