Bikini Kill performs on stage with purple and green light

Seeing Bikini Kill Made Me Feel Like I Was 16 Again

Bikini Kill opened a door for me, a door that has stayed open ever since.

A surreal concept of a regular aluminium ladder pushing through a fluffy cloud on a peach sky background

First Person

How To Leave a Life

Leaving always compels you to look back, a final glimpse, a glance at what exactly you are leaving before you make the jump to part.

A black long sleeved crop top against a background of brightly colored patterned fabrics

First Person Queer Fashion

Crop Tops, Saris, and Unlearning Gendered Fashion

I’d avoided saris all my life. It was during the pandemic, when crop tops brought me a sense of freedom and gender euphoria, that I realized saris weren’t too far off.

People hold protest signs with phrases like "Protect Trans Kids" and "It's OK To Say Gay" and "We Are Permanent" written on them against a background of a Welcome to Florida sign and a palm tree

First Person LGBT Pride

I Thought About Leaving Florida — Learning About Our Queer History Convinced Me To Stay

The truth is, as hard as I ride for it now, there was a time when I couldn’t imagine living here anymore, too.

First Person Pets & Animals

Give It Time, Delphine

To really love anything, I think, is to run the risk of it not loving you back.

A subway car's door is open, and inside it is a pixelated image of Nevada by Imogen Binnie

First Person

“Nevada” and the Multiverse of Sadness

This is how it feels to come to art too late. It’s no longer an experience of immediate connection, but one of processing, of rewriting.

a white person's legs are seen walking down a set of old stairs, and she is wearing sneakers and holding a pink cane and wearing black leggings. there are two red flower stickers on the image

First Person LGBT Pride

I Have To Choose Between Being Disabled and Queer

In queer spaces, I cannot be disabled. In disability spaces, people ask if my spouse is my sister. I hope that someday I don’t have to choose.

an original watercolor by Wallace May featuring Gabrielle, a blond woman, sleeping with her small white dog Kimberly on top of her

First Person Pets & Animals

What To Know Before You Get a Dog

When you first meet her, scared and sick and alone, you’ll know that if you don’t take her with you she’ll probably die. Of course, she’s going to die either way. Better to have a life with you first, you’ll decide. You’ll make it nice for her. You’ll try your best, at least.

A screenshot from The Foundation for AIDS Research's "Scenes from Angels in America" fundraiser. Vella Lovell as Harper is superimposed above Andrew Rannells as Prior. The backdrop is a mix of a starry sky over a building and a staircase with candles leading from the bottom of the frame to the top. Lovell wears a black nightie and Rannells wears a turquoise robe and makeup.

First Person Theater

Slow Takes: A Tribute to Zoom Theatre

The story of how I joined theatre is like if the Disney Channel was dark and gay.

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, a brown lesbian with brown hair and eyes, throughout her twenties

First Person

The Gayest Things I Did in My Twenties

I’m 23, and I’m not sure if I’m on a date (I’m not).

A set of Scrabble tiles spell out GAME ON

First Person

I Beat My Girlfriend at Scrabble and We Never Played Again

Scrabble has always been an exciting way to show that my English degree might have meant something.

An illustration of a brown woman with long dark hair pulling a string out of her brain

First Person

Measuring My Queerness By Different Therapists I’ve Had

If I had a dollar for every therapist I’ve had, I’d probably have enough money to buy a relatively decent meal at a nearby bodega.

A curvy Black woman with long braids pulled back into a pony tail rests her chin on the edge of a white bathtub underneath her hands. She's wearing air pods. A brown, wood wall and a stack of white towels are visible to her left. The bathtub is filled with bubbles.

First Person

When I Stopped Apologizing for My Fatness, I Started to Heal

I had to figure out what it meant to reconnect with a body I’d always been afraid of.

A white, curvy person is lying in bed on beige sheets. Only their toros and thighs are visible. They're wearing a cream-colored crocheted top and cream-colored underwear. Their hands rest on their abdomen. They wear a silver ring on the middle finger of their right hand.

First Person

How Masturbation Helped Me Accept Myself as an Intersex Lesbian

I finally understood that the “normal” I was seeking was mythical and that my body was beautiful and precious the way it was.

An illustrated woman sits at a laptop, and geometric shapes emerge from it

First Person

How Fertility Treatments Got Me Back in Touch With My Queerness

I never imagined I’d have to get an IUI, or that there would be a silver lining.

Repeated three times: An abstract etching print in black ink on white paper. A central, looming abstract figure sits in the upper two-thirds of the paper. It twists with fabric or muscle-like fibers around in an upside-down "U" shape, with several pieces of the main shape curling off to the side and one extending well beneath the shape and hooking to the left like the bottom of a lower-case "G". In the center of the abstract shape is a kind of webbing that unevenly unites the "U" shape. The bottom of the page features a marbling effect that fades in from darker black at the corner to lighter grays in the center, giving the central abstract figure a glowing appearance.

First Person

Pay Attention to the Light Source

When I was 12, men started to ask me for my number at the mall.

Against an orange background, there is a peach with a slit cut down its center, causing the fruit to resemble a vulva.

First Person

Building My Own Masturbation Rituals as a Pleasure Educator

There’s nothing quite as powerful as being in charge of your own pleasure.

An illustrated tree is losing its leaves, which turn into birds as they move away from the tree

First Person Parenting & Family

Things That Have Mothered Me That Are Not My Mothers

I think of all the things that have taught me lessons and made me the woman I am and feel that, even if my mothers didn’t care for me the way I wanted them to, I still came out on the other side, not unscathed, but survived.

A light skinned person holds a trans flag behind them while facing a bright day. The frame captures the their neck down to their waist. They wear a pink shirt and blue shorts, to match the trans flag, which is blue, pink, and white.

First Person

Finding and Losing My Worth as a Trans Woman

Something had to change, because I’d never be free, be myself, if I kept it up. I decided to take the biggest risk yet, and started transitioning again.

A woman with long, brown hair wearing jeans and a beige sweater sits on the edge of a bed with a white bedspread. She rests her chin on her hand. In the background, there are open windows covered by gauzy white curtains.

First Person

How I Manage the Sexual Side Effects of PTSD

My care team couldn’t help me with the sexual side effects of PTSD — I had to figure this one out on my own.

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