illustration of three women of color wearing face masks and holding violet flames
Opinion
to live, not just to survive: the queer indomitable spirit

Queerness is often about survival. While Torres is alluding to a space free from discrimination and violence, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, queer survival is being threatened even more. As much as we want to create a “safe space,” there is no true safe space as long as people are dying and becoming disabled from COVID-19. COVID-19 is being swept under the rug by our government despite clear evidence that repeat infections can leave lasting damage in almost every organ in the body.7 Currently, there is also a resurgence of anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-Black, anti-immigrant, and anti-free speech rhetoric and legislation. When queer people are denied the chance to exist, we must find a way to live. By critically examining our past, we can shed light on the present.

Sports
Scissor Me, Daddy Ass: Queerness, Homophobia and the Acclaimed

The queer messaging of the Acclaimed — the two tag team champions for the professional wrestling company All Elite Wrestling (AEW) — veers in enough different directions that it’s hard to pick out a unified message. The fictional world of wrestling, whose staged theatrics and over-the-top characters often shade towards campiness, complicates the real-world impact of that message even further.

illustration of an old white detective spying on a young black queer person
Campus
The Troubling Origins of Queer Labeling: Reflecting on Kadji Amin’s Guest Lecture at UCLA

In Fall 2022, guest lecturer, Kadji Amin (he/him) of Emory University, presented his article “Taxonomically Queer?: Sexology and New Queer, Trans, and Asexual Identities.” I was nervous entering a room packed with mostly graduate students and professors, but when Professor Amin walked on the stage, my nerves melted away. I was gripped by his every word. Not only was his lecture the best one I’ve heard so far, but he was the first Asian trans professor I’d ever seen. As an Asian trans man myself, it was life-changing to see someone like me dedicating his life to studying people like us.

photo of Shilpa Rao, a brown woman standing in a forest of metal spikes
Community
Queer Next Up: SHILPA

SHILPA (she/her) is an independent musician from Los Angeles, California. She writes funk, neo-soul, and indie tunes, often touching on complex emotions and themes of growth and solitude. She recently released her debut single, a touching homage to her grandmother — this song features poetic, lyrical writing, and is the first project of many more to come.

Featured Posts
A digital illustration of a side profile of various characters. Crowley, a white masculine person with red hair and black round sunglasses, is in side profile in the top left corner. To his side, is a small Aziraphale, a white white-haired person with a haloe in a cream coat. Beneath him, is a rainbow flag. On the right side, there are two white masculine people. One has white hair, andone has dark hair. Various question marks and hearts surround them.
Arts & Entertainment
Queerbaiting to Queer Couples: The Evolution of Queerness in 21st Century Media
A black and white still where a white blonde woman sits on a couch while a masculine-presenting white individual sits next to her. Her legs are draped over their legs, and they smile at each other. Above them, the devil is a stereotypical caricature with horns and a goatee smiling gleefully.
Arts & Entertainment
“Glen or Glenda”: Feeling Seen Through Art
A photograph of a smiling Alex, a Latino man with light brown skin and black hair wearing a gray suit and American flag socks, sitting on a couch with a smiling Henry, a white man with blonde hair, wearing a black suit, blue slash, and Union Jack socks. The photograph reads, "Love who you want. It's good foreign policy."
Arts & Entertainment
What “Red, White & Royal Blue” Gets Right About Being Queer in Politics — And What It Doesn’t
A digital illustration of a young masc person with tan skin and dark hair wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. They stand in front of a weapon rocket that has a rainbow ribbon tied around it. Behind them, a city is burning. They ask, "This makes it ok, right?"
Politics & News
Rainbow-washing Genocide
The cover of "Little One," an EP by Amelia Day. It is divided into eight sections with each section being in a different color of the rainbow, colored in with crayon and watercolor paint. It reads "Little One. Amelia Day" in various crayon colors; there is a smiley face in the "O". All around the centered text are black and white images of Amelia, a white girl, as a young child.
Music
Childhood, Silliness, and Photo Albums: An Interview With Amelia Day on “Little One”
An edited photograph of Jericho, a person with brown skin and short black hair smiling with their hands tucked behind their head. They are emerging from a pink lotus flower. Behind them is a gradient of color ranging from brown to white to blue to purple.
Community
Why I Hesitate to Introduce Myself With Pronouns
A photograph of Kabalikat Kore members against a blue wall. From left to right, top to bottom: a femme person with brown skin and long black hair wearing round glasses, a masc person with brown skin and blonde and black hair wearing a dark blue shirt, a masc person with brown skin and short black hair wearing a dark gray shirt, and a femme person with brown skin and dyed brown hair wearing glasses and a light flannel.
Campus
Interview with Kabalikat Kore – Honoring Queer Filipinos During Filipino American History Month
A Netflix poster for "XO, Kitty." Besides the title, it reads, "From Jenny Han, a new 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before' story begins..." and "Only on Netflix | May 18." Five young people stand in front of a city with blooming cherry blossom trees. From left to right, there is a young man with light skin and dark hair in a jean jacket, a young man with light brown skin and dark curls wearing a dark gray shirt, a young woman with light skin and brown hair in a white tanktop, a young woman with light skin and black hair wearing pink, a young man with light skin and black hair wearing a mint jacket.
TV
Commitments to Queerness: A Review of Netflix’s “XO, Kitty”
A slanted polaroid collage of queer media posters, album and book covers. From left to right, top to bottom: Shygirl's "Nymph," "Happy Together," Tinashe's "Songs for You," Ashnikko's "Demidevil," The Dead Texan's "The Dead Texan," "Good Omens," "Heartstopper," All Time Low's "Tell Me I'm Alive," "Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse," "Bottoms," "Gideon the Ninth," and "Nana."
Arts & Entertainment
Queer Summer 2023 Favorites
A digital illustration of two people, one with light brown skin and shoulder-length dark brown hair in a gray suit and one in a blue hoodie with light skin and bob-length blond hair. They stand under an orange umbrella in a green hazy forest.
Creative Writing
The Umbrella 
The "Bottoms" poster which includes PJ, a white girl in green making a muscle, and Josie, a black woman in teal making a muscle. Clinging to each of them is a young white woman and a young Wasian woman both wearing pink clothing items. Two football players lounge beneath them, another white woman and a Black man.
Film
Gay Wrongs, and Why I Support Them — On “Bottoms” and Queer Irreverence
Formal group photograph of the Supreme Court as it was been comprised on June 30, 2022 after Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the Court. The Justices are posed in front of red velvet drapes and arranged by seniority, with five seated and four standing. Seated from left are Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito and Elena Kagan. Standing from left are Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Credit: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
Politics & News
The Supreme Court on Queer Rights: A Checkered Future
A graphic with the colors of the trans flag, white, pink, and blue running diagonally across the image. It reads, "How to Be a Trans Ally 101."
Community
How to Be a Trans Ally 101
A photograph of Nick and Charlie staring lovingly at each other from Netflix's "Heartstopper". Charlie is a young white man with black hair and a red plaid shirt. Nick is a young white man with blonde hair wearing a yellow shirt. Charlie cups Nick's face.
TV
Heartstopper Season 2: Grieving Something I Didn’t Know I Lost
A photograph of yellow sneakers with red and black socks.
Community
A Trip in Westwood
A digital illustration of a black-haired, light-skinned femme in white tanktop, jeans, and black boots in a wheelchair, an older black-haired, light-skinned femme in a green vest holding hands with a brown femme with blonde hair and wearing a blue shirt, a lounging brown masc with glasses and an asexual heart t-shirt, a lounging femme in a pink dress and draped in a progress flag, a black femme child in a pink dress holding hands with a bald black person in a green bikini top holding a progress flag, a white masc with white hair wearing a harness, and a white person with a white undercut mullet kissing a brown person with blonde hair. The background is a pastel rainbow gradient.
Community
Why Pride This Year?
illustration of three women of color wearing face masks and holding violet flames
Opinion
to live, not just to survive: the queer indomitable spirit
Sports
FIFA Banned Rainbow Armbands at the World Cup: Here’s How Players Showed Pride Instead
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Community
in pursuit of peace
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Community
Our Final Farewell: Generate Inspiration
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