Dear Reader, I would first like to introduce myself. My name is Christopher and I am OutWrite Newsmagazine’s resident trans/(gender)queer Marfanoid and now Editor-in-Chief. I am finishing up my third year as a part of the OutWrite family and UCLA community, having grown from a hopeful, L-G-B-T, physically exhausted pure Mathematics major to the proud queercrip and rejected art student studying Communication and Disability Studies, who led two of the biggest disability rights actions in the University of California’s history. It’s been an interesting few years, and our collective isolation has allowed me plenty of time to reflect.
Drag, Deafness, and Defending Queer Youth with The Mother Birdie: Disability Pride (Month) Spotlight
Photo by The Mother Birdie As we make it to our fifth piece in the Disability Pride (Month) series, I am excited to introduce our spotlighted advocate, Birdie (they/them). For those who are on TikTok, you may know them as…
Radical Visibility and Accessible Fashion with Sky Cubacub: Disability Pride (Month) Spotlight
Photo by Sarah Joyce For the second spotlight of this series, we have Sky Cubacub (pronounced Koo-BAH-Koob), an exuberant and innovative fashion designer and artist currently working in their hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Sky (they/xe) is the founder of Rebirth…
Art as Activism with Rhiannon Salt: Disability Pride (Month) Spotlight
Photos and Artworks by Rhiannon Salt (They/He) **Content Warning: brief mentions of abuse and toxic relationships, mentions of dissociating and other symptoms of chronic illness and mental illnesses** This article will highlight the moments when the CW is relevant, but…
Disability Pride Month: An Introduction
Graphic by Christopher Ikonomou (Xe/He) As we leave June’s LGBTQ+ Pride Month, we are welcomed by July’s Disability Pride Month. First celebrated in 1990 in Boston, Disability Pride is essentially a celebration of the bodies and minds we have. This…
To Be Ugly
Created by Christopher Ikonomou (Xe/He) This project was originally published in our Winter 2022 Volume 1 zine “Queer Rage, Resistance, & Renaissance.“ I will never be pretty. Most people’s view on “growing up ugly” consists of a nerdy brunette taking…
“Diversity”: A Piece Lost to the Pandemic
Art by Christopher Ikonomou (Xe/He) Right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, OutWrite participated in the early stages of a still-unnamed Community Issue, a print compiling pieces from all of UCLA’s newsmagazines. Unfortunately, the project fell through in Spring 2020. As…