“For me, lesbian completely casts aside the idea of men. It puts me and the people I love ahead of the patriarchy. It relieves me of even pretending that I give a shit what any of them have ever thought. It thankfully gives me space to center women (and other people who aren’t men), which is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“Real human change requires space to be honest with yourself, honest with others; a space that doesn’t exist when you’re trapped by necessity behind a fortress of self-protection. As the inmate Poussey in Orange replies when a correctional officer pressures her to speak openly during a group therapy session: “Does it ever occur to you that actually feeling our feelings might make it impossible to survive in here?”

“I hated my body and punished it, and it hated me and punished me back. Is that what happened? That’s the thing about getting sick the way I got sick: nailing it down.”

Hey there, Autostraddlers. I’m Claudia, and I’m intersex.

“Coming out never ends, and for some of you it hasn’t even begun.”

“I called it sexual assault at first. Sexual assault seemed less damning, less permanent.”

Once upon a time I married a man, had kids, and realized I was a lesbian. Here’s what happened and what I wish somebody had told me at the time.