All we have is each other. And we are the only ones we know, if we believe in the myth of ourselves enough to create truth, who will save us.

A middle-aged transmasculine butch person meets a trans-exclusionary radical feminist in the vast forest of Tumblr. What happens next is both predictable and unexpected.

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.

Both Marge and Madeline chose to find family within each other, and from there I understood, as I heard these stories from Marge after my grandmother had died, and then from my mother after Marge had gone, that such a thing could be done.

I’m not coming out to you as a lesbian, umma, I’m coming out as your daughter. I’m tired of being a stranger to you and I’m tired of tripping over boxes in my living room because you’re incapable of just being vulnerable with me.

I wanted to be whole, pure, the person I was supposed to be. I wanted to be good enough that my sexuality wouldn’t matter.

“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.”

“Selfishly, I’m worried about what will happen if I say out loud that I’m uncomfortable with all this God, if I let my brain run its anxious course. If my atheist, queer, bipolar self comes to choir with me in all its unkempt glory, will I lose my safest place?”

When everything starts moving too fast, I like to walk on bridges.

“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.

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.

This cold-pressed, organic, lacto-fermented, natural, biodynamic, raw juice is the answer to all my problems, surely.

In times like these, when people don’t understand us and decide that this means we shouldn’t live at all, we need to connect with the people that do understand, even if just a little bit, even if peripherally.

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?

Malinda Lo’s all-new short story about an inauguration protest that’s interrupted by an alien invasion is available exclusively on Autostraddle dot com!

The first time someone described Casey as having “stalkerish” tendencies, I defended her. For the most part though, I didn’t talk about it.

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.

“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.”

Having settled into sweet solitary contentment, I wasn’t looking for love. It found me anyway. Meeting an old friend, I was struck by Cupid’s arrow when I realized she was single.

17 years of birthday diary entries.