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Loving the Women Who Look Like Me: Queer Black Women in Love

Loving the Women Who Look Like Me: Queer Black Women in Love

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When I first came out to myself two years ago, I didn’t know how to love the women who looked like me. I barely knew how to accept my same gender desires, but at least the TV shows, movies, and books that lauded ivory-skinned beauties with hair that grows and flows down taught me how to lust after white women. But, loving, lusting after, dating, fucking, playing with, and appreciating the women…

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Sober in the City: Redefining My Queerness On Fire Island

Sober in the City: Redefining My Queerness On Fire Island

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I’ve been queer in New York City for 15 years, and sober for the last five of those years. However, long before I jumped in a U-Haul and planted my baby dyke roots in the Big Apple, I was born, raised, and spent a good portion of my life in Any City, USA. I stayed in my hometown for undergrad and came out during college. Like many Any City, USAsacross the country, my hometown, at the time when I resided there, had little to offer in the queer culture department. Other than my college’s small LGBTQ student group, which had less than 10 regular participants, there was not a single LGBTQ-specific community center, sex shop, health center, coffee shop, or museum in the entire state. But, my city was home to the state’s only gay nightclub.

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Rebel Girls: I Think Women’s Studies Saved My Life, And I Want It To Change Yours, Too

Rebel Girls: I Think Women’s Studies Saved My Life, And I Want It To Change Yours, Too

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I think women’s studies saved my life, but I don’t know what that means. Maybe that I’m not good at anything else – that I failed at being normal, that I failed at falling into line, that I failed at being everyone else, that I’ll never talk to God. Maybe it means that the closest I will ever get to mightiness is uncovering everything that’s damaged me and smashing every surface standing in my way. Maybe it means nobody’s invented the right hero for me yet, or that I need to be a hero for someone else.

Maybe we should find out.

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Lessons Learned From Menstruation Pop Quizzes While Being Intersex

Lessons Learned From Menstruation Pop Quizzes While Being Intersex

Hey, there, Autostraddlers. Looking at me now, what do you see?

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Well, okay, don’t look at The Wild Thing.

I mean, if we were passing each other on the street and you saw me. How would you read me?

Before you could even think about it, your brain would probably stamp me: FEMALE. I can’t really blame your subconscious for doing so. Part of being a living thing is to recognize stuff, categorize things, figure out who ‘s who and what’s what and what the hell is going on out here. Our brains do this kind of stuff all the time, although we can train ourselves to critically examine those thoughts when they do.

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A Queer Fat Femme’s Adventure In Finding A Bra That Fits

A Queer Fat Femme’s Adventure In Finding A Bra That Fits

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I have been a loyal user of one kind of bra for over ten years. Obviously, I’ve bought new ones (time and again) and that’s been great, but I have not strayed from my allegiance to the Lane Bryant Plunge Bra. I knew I should up my support game by trying something new and I’d always been curious about getting a custom bra fit. We’re lucky in New York City to have quite a few legendary stores to choose from.

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Recruiting All Homos: Losing Myself In The Basics, Loving It

Recruiting All Homos: Losing Myself In The Basics, Loving It

Are you there straddlers? It’s me, your Soldier. I know, it has been a WHILE, but I hope you’ll forgive me…

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Because this adorable pup is begging you

If you’re not a dog person…

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Kitteh is hoping you’ll take me back

It has been quite a ride. I’m in South Korea now, after a two month luxury stay in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for basic training and a sweet moldy escape in Fort Meade, Maryland, for advanced individual training (AIT). At DINFOS here today (inside joke for any public affairs specialists out there).

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Reclaiming Abuelita Knowledge As A Brown Ecofeminista

Reclaiming Abuelita Knowledge As A Brown Ecofeminista

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When I was going to college in Berkeley I lived in this extremely bizarre vegan co-op that was filled with white people that were “into trees” and vegan food. They had this thing called “Naked Pizza Friday” where anyone who was naked got the first grabs on vegan pizza. So this co-op was definitely a weird experience for me. I saw too many naked white bodies and even learned about vegan butter. I…

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My Personal Is Political: Reconciling My Queer Trauma with My Feminism

My Personal Is Political: Reconciling My Queer Trauma with My Feminism

December 26, 1996

My mother calls me downstairs in our latest rental home. The living room was still covered in wrapping paper and clothes and presents from the day before, and I’m certain I’m being called to finally take care of the mess. Her big blonde curls and pageant dresses are all over the TV.

Why is she on TV? Isn’t she supposed to be visiting today?

My mother says something about…

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Know Me Where It Hurts: Sex, Kink, and Cerebral Palsy

Know Me Where It Hurts: Sex, Kink, and Cerebral Palsy

I have cerebral palsy. That means something different for all of us: some of us walk with braces; some walk without anything; some use wheelchairs; some have hands, feet, and faces that do their own thing; some stand on their toes; some communicate verbally; some don’t. Personally, I walk like this:

cat-power-jukebox-cover

And I wear these:

rainbow braces

(My orthotist gave a knowing look when I finally requested the “rainbow”…

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disability featured personal essay sex and dating

It’s A Boy*!

It’s A Boy*!

She swallowed two pills with a sip of tap water and looked at me. I don’t know how she knew what was going through my mind — all the what-ifs and why-nots and should-haves. All the regret, and all the sadness, while I watched the person who used to call herself my boyfriend disappear with a sip of tap water. I didn’t miss having a partner who could pass as male. I didn’t even really miss straight…

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This Is Because I’m A Woman: How Sexual Harassment Invaded My Life (And Some Ways to Respond To It)

This Is Because I’m A Woman: How Sexual Harassment Invaded My Life (And Some Ways to Respond To It)

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feature image via stopstreetharassment.org, poster made by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

There is no way to prepare a person for how much women get hit on. Cisgender men don’t typically experience aggressive flirtation, and cisgender women seem to experience it from birth. I once had a life where I could go blocks, miles, months without a stranger standing in my way, saying,”Hey girl, where you goin’ in…

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Once Upon a Time at a Bushwick Loft at 11am on a Sunday

Once Upon a Time at a Bushwick Loft at 11am on a Sunday

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Once upon a time I found myself at a Bushwick loft at 11am on a Sunday morning to make out on camera with my half-Irish girlfriend for a Scandinavian music video to protest Russian treatment of gay people and I was there because I was promised fifty American dollars. In short, I was feeling very cosmopolitan, very Carrie Bradshaw.

But I was naive. I knew not what I had done.

Odd Jobs

I am very…

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