I was eight when my shape started to shift from straight lines to soft curves, and discomfort began festering inside of me. My discomfort mutated into disgust with each second I spent in an increasingly foreign body. I was eight when a man leaned out of his truck to whistle at me for the first time, and I learned my body exists for the world to look at, and they will look at it and think what they’ll think of it regardless of how I feel about it. I was eight when my body became my enemy.
Love Potion
Graphic by Vi Summer break after my sophomore year of high school. It was the first time my parents left me home alone while they went on a trip. I was going to be alone for about a week, and…
Keep On Fighting: Creating Change 2015 Conference
Image by Rommy Torrico “What does your liberated world look like?” asked the man who stood before the microphone. “IT LOOKED FUCKING QUEER,” someone yelled back even more vivaciously. A roar of *snaps* ensued. From February 4th to February 8th…
ABCs: C is for Cisgender
Like me, you’ve probably never heard of this term and therefore don’t know the privilege tied to being cisgender. Good thing you’re reading this though; education on the existence of all parts of the queer spectrum is not only something…
Queer Identity: Urban Shaman
Photo by Arvind K/Creative Commons Most people who have woken up with their same-sex significant other, only to rush back into the closet as they go off to brunch with their family, can relate to the feeling of living two…
Chinese Expressions of Queer Identities
Photo by API Equality-LA “May God have mercy on this falling land!” proclaimed Chinese actress Lu Li Ping in 2011, “We have to prevent this from happening in China.” Ping was reacting to New York state’s passing of legislation that…
My Struggle for Identification
Photo by ToastyKen/Creative Commons I’ve identified as queer for about five years. After a process of reckoning much the same as many other coming out stories of the kind—though in my own fortunate case, my own terror was a far…
