Results for: be the change
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How I Claimed Being Thirsty as a Personal Lifestyle and Learned to Live My Dreams
The more I allowed myself to want, the more I realized I wanted. The more I leaned in to my desires, the clearer they became.
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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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“Sex Education” Taught Me How to Masturbate
“I wanted to be single so I could explore my sexuality. Instead I was exploring other people’s.”
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When You Wear An Agbada
“To understand my relationship with this symbol of masculinity, we’ll have to start with my journey of queerness I had no idea I had embarked upon until I was turning 28, the sleeves of my buba — the tailored Agbada shirt — all rolled up to my elbows and my fingers rubbing down on the clit of a girl I had only met a couple of times prior to that moment.”
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The Mammalian Dive Reflex
I changed. But it was a gradual process, in the way a forest becomes stone. Petrified forest of a body.
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The Implication of a Bag
“I was unwilling to buy a binder. It seemed like a declaration, the kind I was nowhere near ready to make yet. But for that winter, I had the bag.”
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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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How My Badass Butch Skyrim Character Saved My Life
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.
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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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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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Birthdays I Remember
Melanie was born on August 5, 1982. I know this because I fell in love with her in fifth grade.
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Uncharted Waters: A Trans Woman’s Journey Transitioning in the Navy
“Presenting as male every day hurts. When the ship is in port, it’s not as bad; I grow to hate coming in to work, but once the day ends I can go home and be myself. When we’re underway, it’s worse. I’m stuck being ‘him’ all day, every day. Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks… once, for months.”
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A Birthday Party No One Else Was Invited To
The first time someone described Casey as having “stalkerish” tendencies, I defended her. For the most part though, I didn’t talk about it.
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She Never Liked Me Anyway
Dementia used to be called madness, I was told.
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The Life We Never Knew Would Find Us: Navigating Loss as an Interfaith Queer Couple
“We’re in Lancaster County at Erin’s family’s house, surrounded by plastic Bible quiz trophies adorned with gold crosses and family portraits taken at national parks. My bewildered partner comes to me, face slack, and tells me I need to call my mother.”
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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.
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Food and Water, Silence and Solitude: The Bike Trip That Returned Me to Myself
In 2014, after learning how to care for a person on the edge between life and death, I went on the bike ride that would, ultimately, return me to myself.
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Brown, Queer, Sad, Strange, and a Skilled Practitioner of Each
I found a different self slowly, learned to exist as if with many different goggles on at once. Always speaking from my mother’s kitchen in the Silicon Valley and, at the same time, my grandmother’s crowded living room in Punjab. In these years, I would feel the sharpness of many kinds of difference, marginalization. But when I looked down at myself for signs of why I felt so other, all I would find was the color of my hands.
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“She Told Everyone I Was a Dyke”: How My Bully Stole My Coming Out
“I am 12. I have never thought of the idea of being gay. I am the only one being called gay at school, that I know of, and I am learning very quickly that it is the worst thing one could possibly be. It feels contagious, like I’m walking into school every day with a giant, hideous cloak of gay-ness, and everyone knows it.”
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Relearning How To Dress Myself From The Closet I Came Out Of
I feel the need to do something to the outside of my body to mark the tremendous shift I’ve experienced inside — to somehow match my inner self to my outer self. But I’m not sure who my inner self is anymore.