Results for: Feel good
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Wear the Band Shirt, Make Your Own Rules
Band t-shirts are a way of both presenting and defining acceptable enthusiasms, and the baseline for what kind of enthusiasm is permitted is always socially established by straight men.
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My Parents Made Me Gay
Being focused on women never seemed remarkable to me. I grew up in a household with my mom, my younger sister, and my dad, so even if we were just being fair, 75% of our time was focused on women. And we were not fair.
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From Willow to Waverly: A Decade of Being Out and Me and Queer TV
“I remember little moments so vividly — like Ashley kissing Spencer on the shoulder while they looked in the refrigerator for something to eat. This is what I wanted. And I wasn’t afraid of wanting it anymore.”
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Finding Friendship Between Past and Present
She is living her best life. I am living mine. It is as though we released each other.
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Getting Stonewalled at Stone Mountain
What, were you expecting the National Anthem to be sung in Spanish?
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Love That Looks Like Me: Finding My Queer, Non-Binary Place in the Wedding Industry
“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.”
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You Don’t Always Transition Once
Transitioning is stigmatized as betraying our assigned gender. Sometimes, though, it takes two betrayals to get where we need to be.
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Why Do So Many People Have Goodbye Horses as Their Tinder Anthem?
“When I first matched with the “Goodbye Horses” fans and asked them about it one said, “that buffalo bill scene is classic” and the other said, “I LOVE the song.” Then they both ghosted.”
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You’re Just You: An Accidental Love Letter to Los Angeles
“Towards the end of the night you fall and tear the skin on your knee. But you pop back up and keep skating. You’re relieved. Now that you’ve fallen once you know you’ll be okay.”
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The None-est of All: My Journey as a Reluctant, Disabled Athlete
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.
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I Still Don’t Look Like Myself
“I can’t be a woman without the right clothes. I’ve been on HRT a year by now, but I still haven’t been gendered correctly by a stranger. It’s a lot of things. I try not to think about bone structure, about shoulders and necks and foreheads.”
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I Am a Sex Idiot
I feel nothing and everything when I’m with her and I want that more than I want to protect myself. I know this will hurt me, but pain is part of my life, so I allow it in bursts I think I can control.
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“Transparent” Changed Me (And TV) Forever
“Do you have something to tell us?” my mom joked. It was a joke, because of course I didn’t. “No,” I said with a laugh. And I thought I was telling the truth.
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15 Crushes and the Art They Gave to Me
Listening to a song your crush recommends is a low-stakes window into their identity. It’s a way to get closer to someone, away from them. And isn’t that what a crush is all about? A solitary experience that has everything to do with the other person and at the same time nothing at all?
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20 of the Best Personal Essays on Autostraddle in 2018
We published so much good work this year, and here is a fraction of it we think you will particularly enjoy reading back through!
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A Tale of Two Mommies (Or Who Wore the Maternity Pants?)
“She would have loved to carry our child. Would have met the body changes with joy. That she was physically barred from being pregnant did not make the situation easier. She hid it well. But now I understood why she looked forward to the birth with such clear-eyed intensity.”
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Fleabag’s First Season Captures the Trauma of Being a Woman
“When it first came out I loved the show for its humor, for its raw portrayal of depression and grief, and because, like any rational person, I’m deeply in love with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. But it wasn’t until about a year into my transition that the show started consuming my thoughts.”
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How to Be a Grown Woman
“Maybe I could teach you how to do that and you could teach me a couple of things I’ve been wonderin’,” I told her. She shook my hand. It was a deal.
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Zumba Sisterhood of the Traveling Hips
In short, Zumba is a dance fitness class set to popular Latin music but honestly, for me, Zumba is more than just that, it’s given me life.
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The Closet Let Me Feel Anything and Everything
Closets suck, generally speaking, but sitting in mine gave me joy. This is a coming out story that doesn’t neatly fit in the queer community, much less my own mind.