Graphic by Shay Suban Growing up, I always assumed that someday I would get married and have a family. In fact, when I was little, my friends and I loved to play House, acting like mommies and daddies, pretending we…
A Word of Thanks
As a newsmagazine, OutWrite aims to empower the LGBTQ+ community at UCLA and beyond by celebrating intersectional experiences, looking critically at complex inequities faced by our communities, and providing positive LGBTQ+ representation. Lately, our staff has been reflecting on why we all individually joined OutWrite. We think it’s important to…
Making the Intersectional Visible: The Personal Importance of Moonlight
Moonlight (2016, dir. Barry Jenkins) examines the never spoken Black sexuality and masculinity through a lens of a boy, teen, then man who is hardened by what his environment demands of him. It’s a journey of how Chiron silently slips…
“Queer,” or “LGBT?”
Graphic by Liana Kindler The increasingly popular use of “queer” has become an area of contention in many LGBT communities. On one hand, “queer” has a historically negative connotation, carrying with it the weight of both collective and personal marginalization…
The Questioning Limbo
graphics by Liana Kindler A close friend semi-outed me in June. She asked me and my best friend what our sexualities were. It was a very open environment; we were at a small grad party of about ten friends, half…
In Defense of Valentine’s Day
Image by Dave Gunn/Creative Commons I love Valentine’s Day. There. I said it, and I’m not even slightly ashamed. I’m not ashamed of my torrid love affair with chocolate, or the fact that while I prefer daisies, I find a…
OKCupid Adventures
Image by OutWrite So I’m on OkCupid. Originally, I saw my roommate on Tinder and thought that it looked fun to collect hot people but my Windows Lumia phone couldn’t support the app. Recently, I found the knockoff version of…
Piss Politics: The Problems With UCLA’s “Gender-Inclusive” Bathrooms
Image by OutWrite On the eighth floor of Bunche Hall, I stand baffled before one of the twenty-five or so “gender inclusive” bathrooms on campus, except this bathroom doesn’t seem very inclusive at all. There are two signs with sliding…
By Any Other Name: What UCLA’s Preferred Name Policy Means for You
The cold sweat. The pit of dread in your gut. The gnawing sense of unrest as the professor moves down the list, calling out student names in alphabetical order. And then they reach you, call out a name you no…
This Week on Queer (Internet) TV: Lesbian Vampires, or 20 Reasons to Binge-Watch Carmilla
Still by Jordan Hall, Steph Ouaknine and Jay Bennett In light of upcoming finals and the impending wave of panic and self-loathing that’s sure to crowd my senses in these coming weeks, I’ve decided to do a favor to myself…