There Are Some Ghosts I’m Still Waiting For
Someone once told me that if you’re Asian American, or mixed, or whatever, you have a grandmother poem in you that you need to write. This is mine.
family
My Parents Made Me Gay
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.
How To Be The Estranged Gay Kid This Holiday Season
Because you’re gay — and maybe a host of other reasons — you and your family don’t speak. Get through it by exclusively listening to music from your parents’ era and try not to have a meltdown.
Queer Sex Coven: Protect Yourself From Homophobic Parents
Queers, allow me to introduce you to Saint Martha.
Uncovering My Secret Queer Family History
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.
How These Lesbian Couples Decided to Get Pregnant
For queer couples, deciding to get pregnant often involves a lot of planning, money, and time.
Bearing Life With and Alongside: On Masculinity, Pregnancy, and Medical Trauma
I hadn’t experienced transphobic violence in medicalized form before. But I’d experienced it in many others: in punches and pushes, through threats with weapons, or by being run off the road by cars while I was on foot.
She Never Liked Me Anyway
Dementia used to be called madness, I was told.
“Don’t Tell the Babysitter Mom’s Dead” Isn’t Afraid of Feelings or Jokes
“Don’t Tell the Babysitter Mom’s Dead” is a beautifully produced podcast for anyone interested in exploring themes of family and loss, but especially for people looking to connect to another queer soul who lost their mom young.
Daddy Issues: Some Queer Father’s Day Reading for You From Autostraddle
Some essays and stories about our Dads — the good, the bad, and the very complicated.
Every Trans Girl I Meet Is From the Future: Finding a Bereft Sisterhood
I find myself preemptively mourning the transgenerational communities and cliques and cults and clubs and covens of girls like me that could be and may not be.
Y’All Need Help #20: Is This Too Many Metaphors?
Your family buys you weird gifts, your mom is kinda rude about your long-distance girlfriend, and you can’t move on after this breakup. Let’s get some shit done! Come on!
My Absurd Skincare Routine Is the Softest I Am to Myself
Sometimes being queer and black, bisexual and biracial, feels like contradiction, like too many things, and sometimes I’m not sure that I’d recognize myself if I walked by.
Raising Baby T-Rex: My Mom Says We’re Exactly The Same
I wasn’t at all ready for the feelings I’d have about being adopted and queer and raising a toddler who still isn’t as old as I was when I came to the United States on an airplane.
On Loving My White Mother
In which a debate over body hair pushes a white mother and her brown daughter to the limits of mutual understanding.
You Need Help: Coming Out When Your Girlfriend Is Amazing but Your Family Super Isn’t
“I feel like I’m lying to my my parents, hiding part of myself, and disrespecting my girlfriend by constantly avoiding mentioning her or referring to her as my friend when my parents ask what’s going on in my life. Of course, I know coming out can be difficult in general, but I’m wondering if you have any advice for coming out in the context of a toxic family relationship? How can I best protect myself from the inevitable insults, yelling, and criticism while still being honest?”
Y’All Need Help #16: You Can Do Things About You!
Being miserable at your 9-5 job, your family isn’t wild about your fiancee and you’re embarrassed to get married, you’re not wild about your current roommate, and people think you might be related to your gal BUT YOU’RE NOT. Come on in!
Making a Home in the Closet
I was a newly minted queer and everything I knew about queerness was rooted in coming out. I’d heard about the relief that came with coming out from everybody. If TV was to be believed, I would feel free even as my parents stopped looking me in the eye.
Six Tips for Dealing with Your Difficult Family Members Over the Holidays
I’m sharing tips and techniques that have been useful to me in the face of conflict for those of you who’ll need to advocate for yourselves in difficult conversations and fight the good fight this holiday season. We can do this. Hopefully one day we won’t have to.
I Met My Sperm Donor’s Mom and It Changed Everything
As the daughter of lesbian mothers, I always knew I had a sperm donor, and that I could meet him when I was 18. I loved my moms; I loved my queer family. Still, I had always wondered what part of me was cut from a different cloth.