On Learning to Love My Body: Because Summer Is For Fat Girls, Too
Dipping into my summer wardrobe for the first time reminded me just how far I’ve come in learning to love my body.
Where Intersex Meets Lesbian
“Not all of my experiences as an intersex person inform my being gay, and vice versa, but the overlap is there and it affects things in ways that are both good and complicated at a time in history when homophobia and intersexphobia are alive and kicking.”
My Pregnancy Was Perfect, and I Lost My Baby Anyway
Sometimes, even the best laid plans are, well, decimated. Even a type-A mega control freak like me couldn’t control my own body when I was pregnant — and I certainly couldn’t control what happened to my son after his premature birth.
I Said Yes To The (Gay Wedding) Dress
“Despite all the planning, and all the talking, and all the money we had spent, it was THAT moment that suddenly made the wedding feel very real. This was the dress I was going to get married in, that I would be wearing when I affirmed my desire to spend the rest of my life with my amazing partner. But, it also touched something deeper, more complex, more fundamental to my transition and my womanhood.”
A Queer African Tale: On Trauma, Gender Transitions and Acceptance
“Dating broken white women became a way to reprise a powerlessness that years of sexual abuse and generations of blackphobia had tricked me into believing in. I drowned this feeling of powerlessness in weed and seeking out relationships in which I could engage in yet remain completely hidden from view.”
A Fragile Dance: Queer Brown Futures (Or Lack Thereof)
“Why do we only collect coming out stories, it-gets-better stories, these stories that are set in the past, that tell of a particular set of experiences that not everyone can relate to? Stories that treat the future as if it doesn’t come with a problems of its own.”
The Fugly Dyke Chronicles: How Getting Trolled About My Insecurities Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened to My Self-Esteem
“I didn’t even tell her when the notes started getting specific. Someone calling out my “crossed eyes” in a Tumblr ask. My “pocked skin” in an email. My “hillbilly teeth” on Twitter.”
Visiting Family After Marrying my Wife, Part 1: Packing My Suitcase
“Since the wedding has made me come out to more people than I had ever intended, this trip back to my place of origin makes facing their reactions inevitable. Will my physical presence stoke the intensity of their opposition?”
Salsa y La Naturaleza: How a Willie Colón Song Taught Me About Queerness and Love
“If Simón was a girl, then I was a dyke and if my father let the song play, then maybe I could sing to him and we’d finally be able to speak to each other.”
I’m Both an L and a T and I Don’t Want to Choose a Side
Really, I’m not sure why we feel like we have to keep on amplifying this fight. A solid two-thirds of trans women are on both sides of this so-called divide. We’re a part of both communities.
TransBlack and Beautiful: Acknowledging My Authentic Revolutionary
“One morning, while I was applying my new lighter makeup, I accidentally put too much banana powder on which created a shroud of ashy yellow veil all around the center of my face. I stopped and stared back at my reflection. I looked absolutely foolish. Here I was relishing in this depigmentation of my beautiful ebony skin that I no longer looked like myself.”
Being Lesbian While Black & How Five African Women Saved My Life
There’s just something about feeling inauthentic, impossible and insignificant that really makes life a burden, and that’s where I was for years. I was sick of living and wavered between a fear of and desire for death. I’m better these years; so far so good. I’m still here, I’m Rwandese, I’m queer and these are my mentors.
Gay, Interrupted: On Navigating Gaybourhoods As A Queer Brown Woman
Gay districts are safer, more open and more profitable than ever before, but for whom?
This Is A Dead Mom Essay
“Not being an asshole” to myself meant admitting that my mom’s death and her illness permeate every single part of my being, and always will.
See Jane Teach: How Sexism In the Classroom Hurts Both Teachers and Students
“When I’m worrying about how to teach without coming off as a bitch because I expect students to be quiet when I’m talking, I’m not thinking as much as I should be about whether my students are really learning.”
Seeking Queer Theology And Perfect Love That Casts Out Fear
If we don’t abundantly love each other, we can’t have an abundant relationship with God. I must embrace an interpretation of my faith that requires unconditional love for queer people because any less would be to deny my own humanity and that of my community.
Badass Blacksmiths: Women’s Work and Transgender Identity
People would look surprised and say, “But…you can’t be a girl. You’re a blacksmith!”
Five Queers Of Color On What Connects Us To Our Complicated Or Mixed-Race Identities
Accepting ambiguity feels like being welcomed home.
Are We There Yet? An Interracial Family Visits a Southern Plantation
One of the first things my mother’s boyfriend noticed upon waking up Thanksgiving Day was that all of the rooms were named after prominent confederate soldiers.
24 Incredible Personal Essays We Published In 2014
We told some really incredible stories this year and you won’t want to miss a thing.