We Find Freedom in Black Trans Joy

We place joy at the center of our spaces, because spaces created for us are often only interested in our trauma and pain.

Identity

The Price I Pay For(ever) My Culture

Being a first-gen, Indigenous, queer, Samoan girl in diaspora almost cost me my Samoan culture. But one day, I’m going to be the queer Samoan elder who looks my grandchildren in their faces, and says: I was afraid the entire time that I was fighting for the world you deserve, but I did it anyway.

Sal Tran cooking their mom's recipe of braised fish.

Identity

Lost and Found in the Fish Sauce: How I Cooked My Way Back Home

Through my mother’s recipes, I’m reminded of the resilience that flows in our blood. Instead of disconnecting from my body to survive, I nurtured it. Like me, cooking is hella queer and fluid. Every time I reimagine a dish, it can taste different depending on my mood.“How spicy do I want this dish to be today? “How sweet do I want this dessert?” It’s never fixed or prescribed. That’s what makes these evolving recipes — and the queer experience — so delicious.

Gender

You Need Help: Gender Feels in Quarantine

Your rawness and tenderness is a primal signal that you are alive. It’s exhausting and there’s no way to turn it off. Let yourself breathe through this, and trust that it is not a waste of time to devote your energy to the work of becoming.

Gender

What It’s Like To Realize You’re Trans and Queer in Quarantine

Suffice to say that we’ll all be coming out of this pandemic different people than we were before — but for many people, being in isolation is specifically providing the opportunity to explore their sexuality and gender in an intimate and unprecedented way.

Identity

Stepping Out Of Silence

When love is a matter of desperation, how do you even begin to know what it is you desire? It doesn’t matter what shape love takes. Or does it?

Identity

Four Transracial Asian Adoptees on Body, Place, Family, and Race

I believe my queerness makes my Asian-ness and my adoptee-ness stronger. I am more myself when I hold all these truths together than when I try to compartmentalize them.

Geekery Gender

How Solace, the Transition App Designed by a Trans Woman, Will Lifehack Your Gender Transition

Evergreen State tech entrepreneur Robbi Katherine Anthony is one of the people hoping to solve the struggles that exist for transgender individuals in the 21st century. Billed as the gender transition app, her company Solace was launched at last year’s LGBTQIA Hackathon in Austin, Tex.

Coming Out

You Need Help: How Do I Let Go of Feeling Guilty After Coming Out Late in Life?

I’m happy and grateful to be out, but I can’t get past feeling like I have created pain and difficulty for so many people.

Coming Out First Person

The Lunar New Year Coming Out Letter I’ll Never Send To My Mom

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.

Gender Music

Six Songs You Love That Are Actually About Being Trans

I’m not trying to win you over to my interpretation of the lyrics of any of these songs; but I am inviting you to explore the world within each of them. Looking at songs we love through a trans lens can teach us new things about our gender.

Gender

You Need Help: How To Be A Trans Lesbian

Make sure to be kind and generous to yourself, give yourself plenty of time to process all of these important feelings, and don’t rush it!

Food and Drink Gender

Trans Radiance: Sharing Food As An Act Of Love

A common refrain in trans activism is to “give us our roses while we’re still here” instead of just honoring us upon our deaths. Donating to, uplifting, and otherwise supporting Black trans-led projects like the Okra Project is a tangible way we can do exactly that.

First Person Gender

Trans Radiance: What’s in a Name?

For this piece, I talked to some trans women about their names and their experiences changing them legally (or choosing not to), as well as a couple of the incredible organizations attempting the make the process more accessible to all of us.

Gender

You Need Help: A Non-Binary Woman Working Through the Gender Feels

“Sometimes, when we allow ourselves to open a door, to open a possibility, the weight of that possibility and that choice is damn heavy – and overwhelming.”

Gender

3 Cheap and Approachable Starter Packers

A lot of people pack! It’s most commonly talked about and practiced in trans men’s circles, but packing is actually something very accessible for absolutely everyone that feels like doing it. Packing doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, I promise; it can just be fun and affirming!

Gender

You Need Help: How Do I Tell If I’m a Butch Cis Woman or a Trans Non-Binary Person?

If I could tell everyone how to differentiate between gender expression feels and gender feels, I’d be Sovereign Ruler of Gender and maybe things would be easier, but probably also a lot less fun.