Results for: be the change
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I Didn’t Know How to Be Poor, Black, Biracial, AND Queer; So I Wasn’t
“I wasn’t in denial, I had just become extremely successful at compartmentalizing difficult emotions that I had no idea what to do with.”
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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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On Performing in The Vagina Monologues When You Don’t Have a Vagina
“There’s an annoying song that’s only playing all the way through all day long on some days. Others, I can barely hear the chorus, and others I can’t hear it all. But every day, I know that that song will be there again one day, maybe even tomorrow, maybe even later that same day. And I hate this song.”
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Skydiving in Two Genders: An Essay on Trans Visibility
“I decide I’ll test the durability of a BB cream by Tarte at thousands of feet in the air, then feel ashamed at worrying so much about how I look, then feel the dread again, that all this might go completely wrong, not because I’ll fall to my death, but because I’ll be reduced to my past.”
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Making the Dive and Loving Myself Dangerously
“But, like embracing the woman I am, I couldn’t stay back from the allure of the waves. The pull of my trans-ness and queerness, of course, would always be stronger, the strongest impulses I have ever known. The sea, like them, was a place that represented a kind of forbidden love. I needed to overcome my fears or I would feel that I was holding myself back from living authentically.”
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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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Confessions of a Beauty Queer: The Best Goodbye of My Life
“I was simply a girl who thought she liked girls at one point in her life, but prayed it away, and now life was good. Right?”
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Learning to Use Chopsticks: Coming Out as Korean-American
“At 27, I came out as Korean-American. I was always Korean, of course. I checked the “Asian” box when filling out a form. My ethnicity was written on my face in the shape of my eyes and my small flat nose. But until a few years ago, it wasn’t an identity I felt connected to. There were many identities that came first — poet, bisexual, queer, feminist, activist, organizer, fattie, vegan. Being Korean was a fact, but not an identity.”
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This Is Because I’m A Woman: How Sexual Harassment Invaded My Life (And Some Ways to Respond To It)
“I once had a life where I could go blocks, miles, months without a stranger standing in my way, saying, ‘Hey girl, where you goin’ in such a hurry?’ I want to take my personal space bubble to the shop and have it re-inflated to its original size, but that chapter of my life seems to be done.”
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Identity Theft: A Trans* Intersex Woman On Traumas and Surgery
“It’s unfortunate, unfair and illogical that intersex people get assigned a gender and a sex and are expected to either stick with them or fix someone else’s mistake with expensive, risky surgery on their genitals.”
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The Incredibly True Story Of How Cissexism Made My Same-Sex Marriage Legal
Thanks to a simple governmental regulation, my wife and I were able to exploit a legal loophole and obtain a federally recognized marriage.
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How Finding My Korean Mother Gave Me the Courage to Transition
“I am an adoptee,” I explained through my tears. “I need to find my parents. I have waited all my life for this moment. I’m supposed to leave tomorrow, but I can’t go without knowing my family is fine. Please help me!”
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“And I Do Mean All My Life”: A Trans* Coming Out Letter
For anyone who’s ever wanted to say it in a letter.
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Ten Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started My Transition
Ten lessons I wish I’d known when I started hormones in February 2011, and why I’m taking an indefinite break from the internet.
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Coming Out As An Amorphous Weirdo
“It wasn’t until I kissed the second girl that even my therapist at the time laughed at me and told me maybe it was time to accept that my sexuality was not as cut-and-dry as I’d always imagined.”
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Disowned: When Coming Out Doesn’t Go As Planned
“The truth is that it does bother me that my parents are pretending that I’m dead—probably more than I’ve been willing to admit.”
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Coming Out: Yet Another Roundtable
“Coming out never ends, and for some of you it hasn’t even begun.”
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Femmes: Beyond Lipstick (and Heels and Dresses)
Sometimes you just want a role model.
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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About My Sexual Orientation And Were(n’t) Afraid To Ask
The eyes are all asking are you in, or are you out?