If I Didn’t Have The Bruises to Prove It, Was It Really a “Bad One”?
“Was it a bad one?” My boss’s face read of pity and sympathy as he asked me this seemingly innocent question. He was referring to my rape.
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.
Pulse, Pride, and the Police: Why Liberation For Some Isn’t Enough
Rainbow stickers on one car does not make the NYPD and the areas it patrols safe for all queer people, especially those of us who are the most vulnerable members of the community.
I Need Justice, I Need Peace: A QTPOC Roundtable
It felt important for us to have a voice somewhere, so we’ve gathered a few of the Black queer voices and put them together here. We want to offer this as a place of healing for QTPOC in this time of tragedy.
Moments Like These (Where People Are Repulsed By My Existence)
Like the time we got kicked out of a restaurant mid-meal by the owner because of a kiss.
Not Quite There Yet: Safety and Progress In Light of the Pulse Shooting
“The morning after the horrific shooting, and the days that followed, I understood part of my father’s fear. Animosity towards LGBTQ people has not gone the way of black and white T.V. sets, phone booths, or travel by horse and carriage. It was and is very much alive.”
A Road Trip With Your Father In Honor of His 74th Birthday, In Playlist Form
A road trip which happens to coincide with the occasion of Prince’s death and the release of “Lemonade.”
The Unresolved Body in a State of Conflict
Often, when I’m having sex, a very specific thought runs through my head on a loop: “don’t touch me.” What gives? If I get so much out of being close to other people, shouldn’t sex be the ultimate way to prove it?
Sometime In June
“Keeping abreast of the passersby, the evidence of our intimacy was in the way we carried our hands. They were strategically placed so when they touched, it could be disguised as a perpetual accident. In honor of our silent dance, those near us were careful to walk around us instead of in-between.”
“You’re Carrie, Y’Know?”: 7 Ways My Nondisabled Friends Get it Right
Because the world sure as hell isn’t telling me my body matters. And having nondisabled friends who do, who affirm me precisely for standing out, means I don’t have to accept pity masked as kindness.
Tattoos and Disability: Surviving An Experience Not Everyone Can Handle
“I made a choice about how I would look, and didn’t realize until I’d done it how unprecedented that was.”
Mama Outsider: No Place Like Home
“Every day since my father died has been at least a little fucked up. There is no such thing as a non-fucked up day when you are a Daddy’s girl without a father.”
In A World Lacking Lesbian Rom Coms, I Made My Own
“Sidetrack is a show largely about my life and my experiences, because after years of watching so much television that erased me, I just wanted to write myself in.”
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.”
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.”
Broad City, Ilana and Space Enough for Bothness
I remember the day I found out that Ilana from Broad City wasn’t biracial. I Googled around until I found evidence that there were others like me: biracial girls who felt a little bit incredulous; just a hair shy of betrayed. To this day I haven’t been able to convince whatever part of my brain that initially projected that identity onto her to unclench.
The Pace of Queer Time
“I’ve been thinking recently that queer time for me is a self-declared snow day. A chance to stay in bed and explore ourselves unhindered by the outside world. A chance to exist, to play — free from the hetero pillars of career, marriage, and lineage.”
Grandma’s House on Memory Lane
“As an adult, I wrestle with the stupid irony of having watched my grandmother live out her Alzheimer’s and not remembering anything about it.”
Make Big Life Changes Less of an Ordeal With a Lean Systems Perspective
I’d say about 90% of industrial/systems engineering work boils down to this super easy exercise: stop for a minute and think about what the main objective is. Now look at what you’re doing. Is that activity getting you closer to the goal?
I Feel Pretty
“I know exactly why I did it. Attempted to shave my face. I wanted to be like my dad.”