Broad Magazine, Issue 91, February 2017: What's Your LGBT IQ?

BROAD A Digital Media Movement

photo by elise gallant

whats yourLGBT IQ? february 2017 issue 91

Themes february

What’s your LGBT IQ?

march

Health: Mental and Physical

april

Immigration and Criminal Justice

may

Environmentalism

Art by Eduardo Monteagudo

OUR ARMY

CEILI ERICKSON Editor-in-Chief

CURTIS MAIN

Founder and Advisor

RACHEL GOLDENSE Section Editor

MARIS YURDANA Design and Layout Editor

RENEE ZAGOZDON

Copy Editor and Poetry Curator

BROAD understanding our approach

SECTIONS Critiques, reviews, opinions, and information from your BROAD team in several mediums

COLUMNS Our most passionate contributers share their stories, opinions, and experiences by intersecting each magazine theme with their lives.

ARTICLES Our BROAD communities contribute expression in many forms: stories, listacles, essays, cathartic 4 am epiphanies, etc.

BROAD celebrates its 5th sexuality issue!

Art by Evan Turk

columns

Queer Body: On Being Queer, And Clergy, And Having A Body Mandy Beal Caffeinated Thinking: Discovering My Sexuality Through Theorists R.G. Upward Lift: Amphibian kin Maris Yurdana Punctuation Marks: Yes, I’m Bisexual: Or, A Note On Questioning C.M.E.

fiction

This is the Feeling Spencer Gjerde Somewhere Spencer Gjerde September Twenty-Seventh Kaylah Saltzman-Bravo It is a Very Strange Thing Lucy Williams

CONTENTS

broadside

It Piper O’Malley The Accident Piper O’Malley Love by the Shore Necko L Fanning Asexual Cimarron Burt Admit One Piper O’Malley

s

y l s . n a g .

n

e e o s

e

y y g t y

articles

A Guide to Queer Media Jay Hendricks

words are useless Art and poetry by Megan Gonzalez Art by Hayden Wallace Isabelle Parshall

quote corners Jennifer Finney Boylan Jazz Jennings

other sections Liberation Leader: Janet Mock Not Buying It Message Me Tell-A-Vision WLA (Re)Animated Search This Screen/play + Bookmark Here Who To Follow

letter from BROAD

Letter fromBROAD

Dear Readers,

We are living in a time when LGBT+ issues have more visibility than ever. Marriage equality has finally been achieved across the United States and in many other countries, and queer characters are ever more present in our mass media, allowing more young LGBT+ people to see themselves represented. We’ve made great strides in recent years.

We are also living in a time when a major US political party unapologetically has legalized anti-gay and anti-trans discrimination on its official platform, and still gone on to take power. We are living in a time when discrimination against LGBT+ individuals on the basis of “religious freedom” is loud and pernicious, and the country has been divided over an issue as simple as letting our trans brothers and sisters pee in peace. We are living in a time when hate crimes run rampant, and we struggle to support each other and remember those we’ve lost, while still trying to be agents of change in the world.

Right now, I believe that our LGBT+ issue of BROAD is more important than ever.

Raising and amplifying the voices of the LGBT+ community is crucial. We hope that our straight readers take the time to listen, and realize how serious the issues facing this community are. BROAD also very much hopes that our wonderful gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, transgender, and otherwise queer or gender nonconforming readership takes comfort from seeing some part of themselves in these pages.

Please use the resources given in our Who to Follow section, enjoy some positive representation of LGBT+ folks in the media, and practice self-care when you need it. You are important.

For all our readers, I hope this issue inspires you to be a voice against hate for all marginalized groups. I ask you to please, please exercise your political rights, contact your representatives, speak up if you can. Know that LGBT+ individuals of all backgrounds and races and creeds are good and powerful and loud and proud. We have always been here, and we are here to stay.

This issue of BROAD is for all of us. I hope you enjoy.

In BROAD Solidarity,

Ceili Erickson Ceili Erickson Editor in Chief

Art by Eduardo Monteagudo

“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community. I hope that my being real with you will help empower you to step into who you are and encourage you to share yourself with those around you.”

liberation leader

“I will proudly and unapologetically embrace that part of my identity that I was taught growing up to silent and ashamed about.”

JANET MOCK

Janet Mock is a prominent transgender rights activist, TV host, and author of the book Redefining Realness. She has received several awards for her advocacy work including the Sylvia Rivera Activist Award. Mock also founded the social media project #GirlsLikeUs which aims at helping to empower trans women.

Her 2014 memoir, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, details her life growing up as trans and the challenges she faced. Mock transitioned as a teenager and only after began to define herself as transgender and became more familiar with the community. Her story of coming of age and finding herself has received lots of praise. She has become a well known a leader in the trans community for her activism. Mock has been recognized by TIME Magazine as one of the “30 Most Influential People on the Internet” and as a face of Black Leadership. She has been interviewed on Oprah, The Colbert Report, and The Nightly Show.

The #GirlsLikeUs started as a twitter hashtag and evolved into an online project that works to gather resources for young trans women and provide them with safe spaces to share and with each other. It aims to promote discussion among trans women to help them find a sense of sisterhood and share their unique experiences with each other. The online space intends to be inclusive of all trans women regardless of their sexuality, race, or women in any stage of transition. The project is still new but mock hopes to expand it into a wider resource for trans women.

not buying it

The political cartoonist, A.F. Branco depicts a man with a camera walking into a women’s bathroom with the defense that he is transgender. It is in response to recent calls for transgender bathroom rights and gender-neutral bathrooms.

What types of fears does this cartoon rely on to make its point?

How is this an inaccurate representation transgender women?

How does the cartoon rely on scare tactics and misunderstandings of what it means to be transgender?

Piper O’Malley

It

broadside

She called the Truth out of me – Welled up like a tsunami wave about to crash over An unsuspecting Shore, A Scream bottled up for twenty years, A Breath you never realized you were holding – Finally released.

A game of Marco Polo where calling out Polo would mean that They would find you, and now everyone knows you are a monster.

She called out my Truth – And now I am

Photo by Mark Tipple

column

not always perfect, but it’s pretty darn good. For example, when I register for trainings and workshops, I can choose from a number of titles, including “Mx.” I can also choose to leave that blank, which is what I do most often.

Queer Body ON BEING QUEER, AND CLERGY, AND HAVING A BODY Mandy Beal

There are a lot of challenges and struggles on the road to becoming a minister. I’m about 2/3 of the way through the ordination process with the Unitarian Universalist Association, which has one of the most rigorous sets of requirements in the United States.

This includes receiving a Master of Divinity Degree, completing Clinical Pastoral Education (a chaplaincy, usually in a hospital), an intense psychological evaluation, and a ministerial internship. I’ve completed all of this except the internship, which I will finish in June 2017. All of these experiences have been difficult and beautiful in unique and unexpected ways. I can honestly say that I’ve come out of each step in this process feeling like I understand myself as a minister more deeply and that each step had value.

It’s been said that one of the goals of ministerial formation is to push all of your buttons so much that they stop being your buttons. I’m not really sure if I totally agree with that. For me, it seems that my buttons will always be my buttons and they find new and interesting ways to get pushed. That being said, what I’ve learned is how to anticipate that pushing and to manage

my response so that neither I, nor the button-pusher, leave that interaction in pain. And, of course, this is an aspirational statement.

So what are these buttons? They are primarily clustered around my sexual and gender identities. I identify as queer because it’s expeditious. It’s more accurate to say that I’m a masculine-of-center female (sometimes genderqueer, sometimes gender non-conforming) pansexual human. I’m often read as being a soft butch lesbian. I have no problem with that identity, it’s just not totally accurate. My identities feel almost unpredictably fluid, so I don’t really expect anyone to get it right 100% of the time. But I do expect people to try to give me the space I need. And generally they do. I don’t usually get worked up about how I’m being read by the average church goer or other person I might interact with. I do, however, get worked up when I’m mislabeled by fellow ministers. This is rare, but it always shocks me when it happens. I just expect a little more of people who have been trained to ask questions and honor self-naming practices. I belong to a religious tradition that does a lot of good work around gender and sexual identity. And it’s

One of the things that’s been the hardest for me is navigating how I’m expected to interact, particularly in the face of discomfort or disagreement with people. I had an issue last year in which a person who had cause to provide a lot of feedback about my ministerial formation had a critique that he just would not let go of. He said that I adopted a “tough guy” persona when I needed to be firm with parishioners. What was happening in those interactions was him finding what felt like a legitimate avenue to critique my masculinity. He also had some persistent comments about my vocal tonality, which weren’t completely unfounded, but again where a roundabout way for him to talk about my gender presentation. For example, he wanted me to find a “brighter, more lively” tone for readings. It’s true that I tend towards flatness when I’m nervous (and I was often nervous in the first year of my internship), but the terms he used to describe what I should strive for where clearly in line with a more feminine vocalization and affect, which I just don’t have. Which, by the way, I have never had and (most likely) never will have. I never quite fit his idea of what a “young lady” should be. The thing is, I’m ok with that. I believe that I’m made by a Creator who wants me be to be exactly the way I am and that same Creator has called me to ministry. The goal of ministerial formation is to step more fully into yourself, not to try to fit yourself into a mold. He never could agree with me on that, and eventually realized that he wasn’t the right person to help me become a minister.

Ib ma wh be Ia Cr me

The other big challenge that I’ve faced related to my identity and how that identity plays out in my body is vestments. There are only a handful of companies that make religious attire and I’ve yet to find the one that serves the queerfolk (let me know if you know one). It’s not too hard to find a black shirt you like and sew the collar down to make a clerical shirt, and a lot queer clergy I know do just that.

What was tough for me was finding a liturgical robe that I liked. There are robes for men, and robes for women. Robes are made using a pattern for the main body, and the sleeves are custom made to fit. Honestly, it’s a lot like ordering

That robe was literally falling off one shoulder like I was about to do the worst revival of Flashdance conceivable. I called the company and talked to someone in their customer service department who was lovely and put in a rush order for the size that I needed. I wear that robe practically every Sunday. I love the way it fits me, even though the pockets are way too low because it’s a “guy’s” robe, but I can live with that.

I felt a call to ministry as a young kid, but couldn’t reconcile that call with the truth of who I am in this world. I spent many years in social work, feeling good about the work I was doing, but miserable because it somehow didn’t feel right to me.

When I realized it was time to answer my call in a different tradition from my childhood church, everything just seemed to start lining up for me. I don’t see those years as wasted, though. I needed that time to get more comfortable in my skin and how that skin interacts with the rest of the world. I know that when someone has requested a meeting with the minister, I’m not always who they were expecting.

I don’t mind that at all. It’s quite literally my job to be authentic and open in situations that are difficult and tender. There was a time in my life when that was completely impossible because I didn’t understand or accept who I am. I’m grateful to be at a point in my life when I can just take that discomfort off the table so I can focus on the real work of ministry. Ministry isn’t done at the exclusion of our identities, but with and through them. I am a unique combination of traits and characteristics (as we all are) for a reason: to experience, demonstrate, and embody the love of God in a way that only I can.

This is God’s gift to me, and my gift to the world. May it be so.

believe that I’m ade by a Creator ho wants me be to e exactly the way am and that same reator has called e to ministry. a man’s suit; you provide measurements and then they give you S-XXL based on what is most likely to fit you best. Women’s robes are cut to form fit the curves that many female bodies have. That’s fine.

It felt horrible and looked weird on me. Trying on the women’s robe was the longest 15 seconds of my life. So I ordered a man’s robe and had my measurements taken. It takes about six weeks for a robe to be made. When I got mine, it was an XL, which is about 2 sizes too big. I had tried on a medium the day that I was measured, but the woman that had taken my order put in my measurements like I was a dude with a huge barrel chest. I’m not. I’m a short, kinda chubby queermo with a big bust.

Mandy Beal, MDiv, MSSW is a candidate for Unitarian Universalist ministry based in Western Massachusetts.

Mandy would love to guest preach at your church sometime, or talk with you about social justice and/or theology. Mandy can be reached at revmandybeal@ gmail.com.

broadside

The Accident Piper O’Malley It was an accident.

I didn’t mean to drag you into this isn’t familiar to me.

Why did you have to go and do that? put your elbow on my desk – a moment of intimacy – The Line has been crossed too far to turn back now Now I see it everywhere Everywhere it follows me relentlessly while you are Nowhere.

Who can I tell?

Tell me if This is right.

What feels right is Wrong – Many would say Say what you want! – I want that

Art by Paul Bennett

“ c p b n o g

“And at every moment as I lived my life, I countered this awareness with an exasperated companion thought, namely, Don’t be an idiot. You’re not a girl. Get over it. But I never got over it.”

“I was sitting on top of a mountain of secrets so high that it was almost impossible to see the earth anymore... I was living as a woman about half the time. I’d come home and go female and pay the bills and write and watch television, and then I’d go back to boy mode and teach my classes. I didn’t venture out into the world much en femme, although I did get out now and then. It was unbelievably frightening.”

“My story is just about someone who is surviving and who went on to live a happy life... I know so many people in our community don’t land where I landed.”

quote corner

“I want to counter the idea that we are particularly interesting.

The world is full of many, many boring gay people and our work will be complete when trans people are boring, too.”

“I really did “choose” to be Jim every single day, but that once I put my sword down I haven’t chosen Jenny at all; I simply wake up and here I am.”

JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN

“If you’d told me in 2000, as a transgender woman just coming out, that I was a person of privilege, I’d have angrily lectured you about exactly how heavy the burden I’d been carrying was. It had nearly done me in: the shame, the secrecy, the loneliness. It had not yet occurred to me that other burdens, carried by other women, could be weightier.”

fiction This is the Feeling A script by Spencer Gjerde Time: Present day

Place: An apartment style dorm room in the city of Chicago Characters: Keegan: Twenty. A transman (meaning that he identifies and presents himself as a man, despite being born with female genitalia. Whether or not he still has that genitalia now is, honestly, none of your concern. He should be played as a man. He is not a trope. He is a human being with actual feelings.

It’s just wild.)

Claire: Twenty. A cisgender woman. (Though she is described as a ‘cisgender woman’ here, that is not all she is. She is more than that. She, too, is a real human being with actual feelings. It’s mind blowing.)

(Lights up on the living room of an apartment-style college dorm. Furniture is minimal, but the room does have a coffee table, a futon, and a mini papasan chair. KEEGAN is seated on the futon, his computer in his lap. He is typing something. CLAIRE is seated on the papasan, curled in a small ball, watching KEEGAN type. They’re both in their pajamas, and they both have that nice, squinty-eyed, hungover look to them. As the lights come up, the energy in the room is instantly palpable. KEEGAN is upset. He’s typing furiously, doing his best to avoid CLAIRE’s eyes. CLAIRE looks like she’s about to cry.

Throughout the scene, the two of them tread the thin line between offensiveness and understanding. As in, they want desperately to understand each other, but they can’t seem to find the right language.)

(There is a long silence before either of them speak.)

Claire:

I’m sorry. I just don’t understa-

Keegan:

It’s not something you can understand.

(A pause) Claire: But maybe if you try to explain it to me? Maybe then I can try?

Keegan:

I can’t explain it to you. How am I supposed to explain some thing like that?

Claire:

Just try.

Keegan:

Why should I? Why should you have to understand it? Why can’t you just support me?

Claire:

I do support you-

Keegan:

Good. Great! Then the conversation is over.

(A beat) Claire:

Keegan.

(A beat. KEEGAN keeps typing as if he hasn’t heard CLAIRE.) Claire:

Keegan. Please.

(Another beat. KEEGAN stops typing but doesn’t take his eyes off of his computer. Finally, he sighs and sets his laptop aside. He turns to face CLAIRE, and CLAIRE adjusts so that the two of them can look each other in the eyes. KEEGAN closes his eyes for a minute, takes a deep breath, and then speaks.)

Keegan:

Claire:

Just so you know, I’ve tried to do this....multiple times. And I can never do it right. So I don’t know why you think this time will be any different.

It’s ok.

Keegan:

If I couldn’t explain it to my mom I don’t see why you think I can explain it to you.

Claire:

I’m not your mom. I’m not fighting you. I’ll just listen.

Keegan:

No. You should ask questions. You need to ask questions. I can at least answer your questions. It’s not like I have a speech planned out or anything. I just....it’s hard to talk about.

Claire:

I know. I know.

Keegan:

Okay....so what do you want to know?

Claire:

Umm....Ok....(She thinks for a minute). I guess...what does it feel like? How did you know?

Keegan:

(He laughs. It’s a bitter sound) How did you know?

Claire:

(Taken aback) How did I know I was a girl?

(KEEGAN nods.)

Claire: Well....I...I was a girl...physically Keegan: You’re telling me that little tiny Four-year-old Claire was

aware of the fact that she had a vagina while she was play

ing on the play ground?

Claire: Well...no. I didn’t think about it then.

fiction Keegan:

Exactly. You didn’t think about it. You just knew.

Claire: Are you saying you knew when you were in elementary school?

(KEEGAN nods.)

Keegan:

Probably even before that.

(A pause) Claire:

Wow.

Keegan: (Shaking his head) No. Not wow. It’s not that impressive.

You just said that you knew too. You knew you were a girl

instantly, just like I knew I was a boy. It’s not like I did any

thing profound. I just felt it. Here. (He softly presses his fist

against his stomach). Like a rock. Like a heavy, comforting rock.

Claire:

How can a rock be comforting?

Keegan:

(He shrugs) I don’t know. It’s warm. It’s like...burning coal. It... fuels me (he laughs softly). That sounds stupid, but I don’t know how else to put it. You’ve probably got it in your stom ach too. You just don’t know it. You don’t notice it because you don’t have to fight to keep it on fire.

(CLAIRE experimentally places her own fist on her stomach and pushes down. For a moment she says nothing. Then, finally, she shakes her head.)

Claire:

But people told me I was a girl. People told you that you were a girl. How did you know they were wrong?

Keegan:

I...Don’t know. I guess I just did?

Claire:

How?

Keegan:

Well....It was just a feeling I guess. Like breathing. It was just a part of me that existed.

Claire:

That sounds....

Keegan:

It sounds what?

Claire:

I’m sorry. I don’t want to be offensive.

Keegan:

It’s ok. You’re learning. You don’t know what’s offensive and what isn’t yet, but I’m trying to teach you. I won’t get mad.

Teachers can’t get mad.

Claire:

Ok....then I guess I was going to say that you make it sound so...easy? Like this feeling is just so easy.

Keegan:

Yah. It is easy. It’s easy to feel.

Claire:

Well then....I guess I don’t understand.

Keegan:

Don’t understand what?

Claire:

I guess I don’t understand...if it’s so easy, then why are all of you so sad?

Keegan:

All of who?

Claire:

You know. Trans people. The transgender community. Why are all of you so sad?

Keegan:

Who says we’re sad?

Claire: I don’t know....the media I guess? Society? The only stuff you

hear about transgender people is like, about suicide and stuff.

Keegan: Hmph.

Claire:

What?

Keegan:

You want the truth?

Claire:

Of course.

Keegan:

Alright, listen. We aren’t sad. Transgender people, we’re happy as clams! We know exactly who we are and what we want. If we’re left to our own devices, we can live hap py, normal lives. You wanna know when we get sad? We get sad when you cis people try to control us. When you cis people think you can tell us who we really are, like you know us better than us.

Claire:

Cis people?

Keegan:

Cis means anyone who isn’t trans. You’re cis.

Claire:

Oh. So cis is normal?

Keegan:

(Firmly) No. Don’t say that. Cis is not normal. Trans is not abnormal. They both just....are. That’s like saying an apple is a normal fruit and an orange is an abnormal fruit. That just doesn’t make sense. They’re just two different things.

Claire:

Oh. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to offend you.

Keegan:

(He sounds tired) It’s ok. You didn’t know. (Beat) So, like I was saying, cis people only think that trans people are sad because we get so sad when we’re around you guys.

Because you say things like we’re abnormal. You write us

fiction

into television shows, and you make us depressed as fuck.

You turn us into fetishes. You murder us. (CLAIRE shifts. KEE GAN snaps) Don’t make that face! You do! You act like we’re

trying to prey on you in public bathrooms when, at the end of

the day, we couldn’t give less of a fuck about you guys and

what you think. But we have to.

Claire: Why do you have to?

Keegan: Because otherwise you’ll murder us.

Claire:

Woah. (A beat) Umm. Ok. I’m trying really hard not to get offended by what you’re saying.

Keegan:

(Bitter) Ha! Welcome to my life.

(A beat. CLAIRE is visibly uncomfortable. KEEGAN’s hands are balled into fists in his lap. After a moment, he lets out a heavy sigh and relaxes.)

Keegan:

Ok. I’m sorry. That wasn’t ok. I said I wasn’t going to get mad and I got mad. I got...too heavy. I-....To be honest, I’m still learning how to talk about this too. We’re both learning.

Claire:

(Softly) It’s ok. I offended you earlier, so...

Keegan:

Ya...so now we’re even.

Claire: Right. (A beat) So why do you think cis people are trying to murder you?

Keegan:

(Flatly) Ha. I don’t think every cis person is trying to murder me. That was an exaggeration. Only some of you are trying to murder me.

Claire:

You shouldn’t lump people together like that.

Keegan:

Why not? You do it to us trans people all of the time. Like we’re just statistics.

Claire:

Keegan:

There are so many kinds of cis people I just don’t think it’s fair to lump us together.

And you think there’s only one kind of trans person?

Claire:

I didn’t say that.

Keegan:

No. You didn’t have to.

(A beat) Claire:

I don’t like you putting words into my mouth like that.

Keegan:

I didn’t put them there. They were already there.

(A beat)

Claire:

You don’t actually think that, do you? You don’t actually think that I want to....murder you or something?

Keegan:

Of course not, Claire. But I have to act like you do. I have to be careful. Because I don’t know who thinks that and who doesn’t. I know that not every cis person wants to murder me. That would be ridiculous. But what if someday I run into somebody who does and I don’t have my guard up? Besides, I may not think you’re all out to get me, but I do think that a lot of you are disgusted with me. Most of you even.

Claire:

That’s not true!

Keegan:

Yes, it is.

Claire:

Keegan...

Keegan: Claire. Trust me on this. A lot of people just....it’s in the way

they look at me. It’s in the way they say my name even. I al

ways catch people staring at me on the bus, and I know

exactly what they’re thinking. I can see it in their eyes. ‘What

is that thing?’ they’re thinking. They don’t like it when they

can’t pin me down. They don’t like not knowing what’s in my fucking pants.

Claire:

I think you’re exaggerating.

Keegan:

Of course you do. You don’t know what it feels like to be looked at like that.

Claire:

Keegan, I’m a woman living in Chicago. I know what it feels l ike to be stared at by creeps.

Keegan:

That’s different.

Claire: Keegan:

How? Because! That’s......That’s like lust. It’s equally creepy, and equally awful, don’t get me wrong. But it’s just different than disgust. It’s....disgust is like....heavier.

Claire:

What do you mean?

Keegan:

I mean....It’s like....It’s like every time I walk into a public bathroom, right? Doesn’t matter if it’s the men’s or the wom en’s, every time I walk in I just get this feeling like I don’t be long, like people want me out of there. And I can feel their eyes on me and it feels like....it feels like....

Claire:

It feels like what?

(He’s getting angry with himself) It’s....It’s.....Ugh, I don’t have Keegan: the words.

fiction Claire:

So try to find them.

Keegan:

YOU THINK I’M NOT TRYING?

(A beat. The two of them freeze for a second, both shocked that KEEGAN raised his voice. After the moment passes, they both shift uncomfortably, suddenly sheepish. KEEGAN’s eyes shift to the floor. He is thinking. Another beat) Keegan:

(Hesitant) Hey....Close your eyes for a second.

Claire:

Why?

Keegan:

Just do it. Sit up and close your eyes.

(Hesitant, CLAIRE does this, moving to sit on the futon next to KEEGAN. She sits with her back straight. For a moment, KEEGAN hovers awkwardly next to her as if he isn’t sure what he’s about to do. Then he makes a decision.)

Keegan:

Ok. So. (He takes a deep breath, trying to find his words).

Imagine that you’re me.

Claire:

Ok.

Keegan:

No. Wait. Don’t imagine that you’re me, umm...Imagine that you’re you, but you’re trans.

Claire: Okay. (She pauses. Then, with a nod) I am a transgendered man.

Keegan:

No. No. (An exasperated sigh) That’s not right. If you want to put yourself in my shoes, you can’t think “what if I were a transgender man”. You have to think...you have to think “what if I were a woman, but I looked so much like a man that I had to pretend to be one every single day of my life for my own safety.” You have to think “What if I was a woman who looked so much like a man that everyone got my pro nouns wrong every day.” You have to imagine, like, “What if I was a woman who couldn’t be a woman because of the people around me.”

(A beat) Claire:

I...wow...

Keegan:

Can you do that?

Claire:

I...I’m trying.

Keegan:

That’s all you have to do. I know you can’t feel like that, not really. But you just need to try.

Claire:

Ok.

Keegan:

Ok. So keep your eyes closed. Imagine that you’re all those things. And you’re walking down the street. And you feel all these eyes on you as you walk past people, because they’re all looking at you and wondering what the hell you are. They give you this up and down look. You feel them watching your back while you walk away. And then, it feels like this.

(KEEGAN places one hand on CLAIRE’S shoulder, and his other in the middle of her chest. He pushes down, firmly, at the center of her chest. For a minute, Claire collapses under the pressure, but then she sits up straight again. She pushes against his hand, as if fighting his pressure. There’s a moment of silence between them as she feels this. Keegan watches her.)

Claire:

...

Keegan:

What does it feel like?

Claire:

I...can’t really breathe....

Keegan: Mmhmm.

Claire:

It hurts.

Keegan:

I’m sorry.

Claire:

No....don’t be sorry I.....keep talking.

Keegan:

Ok....Ok....Um, that’s the feeling of everyone’s eyes on you.

That’s the feeling of everyone telling you that you can’t be what you are. That’s the feeling of having to bind your chest every morning. The feeling of your parents being ashamed. The feeling of your friends being ashamed. The feeling of you being ashamed to feel their shame every time they talk to you, or look at you.

Claire:

Keegan I-

(KEEGAN shifts his hand so that his palm is no longer on her chest. Instead, he drives two fingers into her chest, above her heart. CLAIRE flinches. KEEGAN notices, and a pained look crosses his face.)

Keegan:

And this feeling. This is the feeling when someone gets your name wrong. When someone gets your pronouns wrong.

This is the stab in your heart when someone calls you ‘miss’, even though you spent hours this morning trying to make sure you looked like a ‘sir’. This is the power that every stranger has over you when they talk to you on the street. This is the pain that every friend and family member drives into you when they say that changing pronouns is “just too hard.” This is knowing that you can’t even be you in the sanctity of your own house.

(He moves his hand down to CLAIRE’s stomach balling it into a fist and pushing against the soft part of her flesh. CLAIRE’S eyes are still closed. She

fiction does not flinch, but she visibly clenches her jaw.)

Keegan:

And this feeling....this is the one that you get when you look in the mirror. This is the one you feel when you’re all alone with yourself, in the shower, or in your bedroom. This is the feeling that tells you you will never be good enough to change the minds of the people that are around you. This is the feeling you feel when you wonder if all of this is even worth it. This is the feeling that maybe they’re right, and everything you do is wrong. This is the feeling of self-hate.

(A beat. The silence is heavy) Claire:

(CLAIRE sounds like she might cry) You feel this all the time?

All of these things?

Keegan:

Every day.

(A beat. CLAIRE says nothing. After a moment, KEEGAN releases her and adjusts his seat on the couch so he’s no longer facing her. CLAIRE opens her eyes and looks at the floor.)

Claire:

I’m not ashamed of you, Keegan.

Keegan: Claire:

You don’t have to lie, Claire.

I’m not lying!

Keegan:

Do your parents know about me?

(A beat) Claire:

They know your name.

Keegan:

Do they know that I have two?

(CLAIRE shifts uncomfortably) Claire: They’re...homophobic. Small minded. Traditional. They wouldn’t understand.

Keegan:

(Matter-of-factly. He is not angry.) And it would be too much trouble to make them understand.

(A beat) Claire:

I can tell my parents about you. If that would help.

Keegan:

No. You don’t have to.

Claire:

I want to.

Keegan: (A soft smile) Well, do what you want. Maybe it’s better if

they don’t know. Maybe when they meet me they’ll think I’m

just a regular boy.

Claire:

You are a regular boy!

Keegan:

(Shaking his head). No, Claire. I’m not. But...that’s ok. I’d rath er be out. So that I can like...be an activist. So people can ask me questions. I don’t want to hide. If I hide, sure I can pretend to be....cis....and maybe that will be, safer, or what ever. But then I can’t teach people. At least if I’m out, at least if I accept the fact that I’m different, I can do some thing about it, you know? Maybe I can change people’s minds. You know, sometimes I’m the first trans person some one has ever met. Sometimes I’m the ONLY one. I’d rather be a good one, like a good ambassador or something, than hide my identity. I’d rather be an advocate than hide, I guess.

Claire:

Really?

Keegan:

Ya...I think......I think I kind of decided that now. Just now.

(There’s another pause between them. Both of them stare at the floor. Then, Claire moves closer to Keegan and puts a hand on his shoulder. Keegan looks up, surprised) Claire:

(Softly) Hey.

Keegan: Ya? Claire:

Thank you for talking about this with me.

Keegan: Thank you for listening...I’m...sorry...that I made you feel those things. I-

(CLAIRE hugs him. After a beat, KEEGAN hugs her back. They stay like that for a few seconds.)

Claire:

This is the feeling that you are not alone. This is what it feels like to love you.

(KEEGAN hugs her tighter. He is shaking. He might be crying. CLAIRE might be crying too) Claire:

This is the feeling that I want you to feel. All the time. I know that those other feelings might not go away, but....

Keegan:

It’s ok, Claire. This is....this helps. You help.

Claire:

I know this feels like something you have to do by yourself-

Keegan:

Because it is.

Claire:

I...I know. I know it is. But even if you have to do it by yourself, just remember that I am here too.

Keegan:

I know.....Thank you.

fiction fiction Claire:

I love you.

Keegan:

I love you too.

(They hug for another beat. Then, CLAIRE rises and returns to her seat in the papasan. KEEGAN grabs his laptop and goes back to typing. The air around them is no longer tense. It’s as if with the release of their hug, the room itself breathed a sigh of relief. After a moment, CLAIRE smiles) Claire:

So, does this mean that you’re straight or....?

(KEEGAN stops typing abruptly and gives her a look. When he sees that she is smiling, he relaxes. He smiles back.)

Keegan:

That is a completely different conversation!

Claire:

So? Teach me!

Keegan:

Dammit, I will!

(KEEGAN sets aside his laptop and CLAIRE moves to sit closer to him on the futon again. The two of them mime conversation as the lights fade to black. The last thing the audience sees is them laughing together.)

FIN

message me

How do you identify?

Pansexual fat woman Lesbian human woman Pansexual genderquestioning Queer and gender non-conforming person

Queer Queer alien Definitely gay Queer fat femme Cis-het white passing

Androgynous pansexual Happily unknown CAMAB lesbian avenger Non binary queer femme with a handful of mental health diagnoses

words are useless

Poetry and Photography by Megan Gonzalez

1. she he he her

2. milk bathed beauty swallows girl whole - whole whole world loves milk bathed beauty loves milk made smiles and milk made women make perfect porcelain dolls

words are useless

3. my mom has a sharp tongue and an iron spine i was doomed from the start to be an aggressive woman

4. we are the items you pick through in busy grocery store florcent produce isles hands greedy acting as though apples are the same as kiwis we the decomposing fruit tossed out -still good just a little bruised we are not just here to be the sweet thing you want we are what you need

broadside Necko L Fanning There once was an old man by the shore.

But no ordinary man was he.

Surely, this be an old tale to bore?

And now you think your poet crazy?

But this man with hair on chin so white, Was born with a gift, power, a sight.

The hearts of lovers he could see; Their truth and final destiny.

So that all came from far and wide, To have the old man peek inside; Tell them whether their love was true.

Truth be told he spoke what they knew.

Love by th So he did scheme a simple plan, To get the boys to visit the man.

“Come now and I’ll tell you the truth, good and bad, but a promise you make before it is had.

That betrayal lurked in their future, Wounds made deep that none can suture, And so it did pass that none came, Maris Yurdana For all his words were dark and the same.

“Once a day until I die, visit me here, do not lie!”

The boys smiled true, and blue eyes flashed, They enjoyed the old man, unabashed.

Years passed for the old man by the shore, And slowly his sadness grew more and more.

For the old man had meant no ill, And told the truth by lover’s will.

So they agreed, a pact was made, And he told them their love would not fade.

But Lust of others and Want of life, Bring only so much dark hurt and strife.

One day a couple, young and fair, Came to his cottage on a dare.

One boy had eyes as blue as the sea, The other’s smile was kind and lovely.

Tears fell from cheeks as hearts broke, One boy begged it to be a joke.

But the man of the sight and of the sea, Could only say what he saw truthfully.

Trembling in fear they asked the man with their voices, Tell us, Sir, has love been made by our good choices?”

Well the sad man could see a tragic love.

Faithful they were, trouble came from above.

Yet, the other boy was strong and good, The future could not move where he stood.

So they remained each other’s “mine”, Or at least they did for a time.

For the powers of Want and Lust were at work, They waited in the future and did lurk.

But what could the man really say?

Dark news would make them go away.

And leave the man of the sea alone again, To wonder when death would finally begin.

But tell a lie could he not, For happiness cannot be bought.

Years did pass and forever they kept true, The promise they made before the sea so blue.

The man by the shore watched them grow, Watched their love bloom then lose its glow.

No longer in love they still did come, To visit the man as they had done.

The boy with the smile became the man with the frown, And blue-eyed boy married a man that put him down.

Y S It A B A S In n

T T T N

“ t Y A

“ W Y A

“ I A A

“ B W A

“ Q B A

he Shore

Yet they did come to tell the man of their woes, Some days laughter, others only “hello”’s t came to pass that the boys’ love died, As the man had said when he looked inside.

But the old man had come to love the two, And wanted their true love to bloom anew.

So he took the boys and gave them a draught, nto deep sleep they fell and he woke them naught.

Then came the demons, Want and Lust, Two who destroyed the boys trust.

The man stood tall and began to speak, No longer an old man sick and weak.

“You two devils have broken their vow, to love each other past, future, and now!

You made his smile whither away, And you made another’s blue eyes turn gray.

“What would you give if we agree, to now leave your boys of the sea?

Yes, old man tell us we say, What would you give to send us away?”

Without pause or doubt, The man declared in a shout, “Take my life my very breath, be it payment for your theft!”

The demon’s cackled with dark glee, “We agree, say we, we agree!”

The old man then quickly awoke, The lovers for whom he had spoke.

“Together you stay in love and in peace, Anger, pain, and betrayal must now cease.”

They saw the fire in the man begin to fade, As his breath was taken by the pact he had made.

Then weep they did for an old man who taught love, A man who fought the very powers above.

The man died then without flash and bang, Merely closed his eyes as silent angels sang.

And passed from the arms of those he cared, Those that love him for all they dared.

The two men did then take a door, To set the man to sea forevermore.

“And with Want of fame and of notice and pride, With Lust of others to fill a void inside, You tore them apart with mean words and lies, And you made them destroy all bonds and ties.

Then with kisses and forgiveness on whispered lips, They drank the cup of passion with fevered sips.

Done were the days of hurts and lies, Love blossomed again in smiles and eyes.

“And I was twice as bad as you, did cower by my sea so blue.

And did nothing to save love between lovers, A love pure and so much greater than others.

Gray eyes turned blue once more, The old man’s life had touched them to the core.

Pulled into day and out of night.

Frowns turned to smiles with dazzling light.

“But no more will you haunt them I say, Be gone, be gone, I send you away!”

Well the devil’s did cackle and laugh And were unscorched by the man’s wrath.

Every day they say their thanks to the sea, By where they stand together on the shore, And miss the man who was like father to thee While they love forever and cry nevermore.

“Send us away, not by you.

Quiet man of sea so blue!”

But the old man would not be enraged, And demanded loud the demons be caged!

And thus the story of love by the sea is told, The lesson apparent to the brave and the bold: Love with passion, trust, and honor abound, Let not Want or Lust rule the battleground.

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Asexual

Cimarron Burt

Like a plant, or an amoeba, right? I concede.

Today is not the day to explain I am wholly hairy mammal, wholly beast of burden, wholly swinging my tits boldly closer to the ground each year, immaculata & steeping in a clawfoot tub, blanching my pinkness clean & standing over the vent, laughing & taking great joy in choosing panties to snap over my brown down and ass & catching my heel on the door and leaving a milky strip of skin waving on the frame, a single cell one million times over.

Photo by Hayden Wallace

I thought I knew what I was getting myself into last year when I signed up for a feminist and gender studies course. Being already familiar with the complexities of feminism and gender I thought I would be well prepared for a class focusing on these issues. I have strongly identified with feminism since I was thirteen and will happily discuss my beliefs with friends and family. After a week into the class I realized what I knew about these issues had nothing to do with the complexity of actual theory and my understanding would drastically change overtime. The more I read theorists like Foucault, Butler, and Frye and analyzed articles with these theories in mind the more I began to relate their stories to my own experiences.

Throughout the class we discussed feminist, sexuality, and gender theory as it relates to history and contemporary media. While I knew many of the concepts about gender we were discussing I only knew them at a surface level. Reading about experiences of authors and activists and the complexities of issues such as gender, sexuality, and power all challenged my thinking about the LGBTQ+ community. Having these discussions about the ways in which these concepts work on the individual and in societal level opened my mind to the fluidity of sexuality and gender also made me think about my own sexuality. The more I came to understand how sexuality can function as a scale, as fluid, and as changing the more it began to relate to my own experiences. If I agreed with these ideas what did for my own identity? Of course sexuality isn’t fluid and changing for everyone but it made sense to me on more than an intellectual level. I realized

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Caffeinated Thinking DISCOVERING MY SEXUALITY THROUGH THEORISTS R.G.

how much I related to this idea of a changing sexuality and attraction to more than one gender.

Once I started to think complexly about my own sexuality apply these theories and ideas to myself I had some very personal realizations.

Growing up in the Catholic Church my beliefs about sexuality never

I still don’t have a concrete identity in my sexuality, but that’s fine. I identify as more than just an ally but I couldn’t tell you what identity in the LGBTQ+ community I feel fits best.

Maybe that will change one day, or maybe not. I’ve come to accept that I fall into a liminal space and recognize the fluidity and complexity in my own identity. It is something that is intensely personal for me and I’m not willing to discuss with everyone but I also want to be open to having these discussions with friends and family. Coming to these conclusions about myself has made me more confident in discussing these ideas and more comfortable with myself. While many find comfort in labeling the sexuality and attraction I don’t simply don’t find it necessary to label myself. Sexuality resists simplicity and I’ve come to recognize that I am no exception to this.

I’ve come to accept that I fall into a liminal space and recognize the fluidity and complexity in my own identity. matched up with what the church was telling me what was right and wrong. As someone who grew up in a family with very traditional values about sexuality I always just figured I would fit neatly with these ideas.

Yet the more my understanding grew because of this class and my own reflections the more I realized that wasn’t true

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“Pe Iw wit nat fide it w hav disc wit fam and and the anc ing hav mys em I am

JA

“Betwe ported [ rifying, public a happen biggest will gro

Art by Isabelle Parshall

“I an

eople say was born th this tural conence, but wouldn’t ve been covered thout my mily’s love d support d without eir reassurce of tellg me that I ve to love self and mbrace who m.”

“Being transgender is not just a medical transition, it’s discovering who you are, living your life authentically, loving yourself, and spreading that love towards other people and accepting one another no matter their difference.”

quote corner

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, you’re the transgender girl’ and that’s not how I want to be labeled at all. I want to be labeled as Jazz, the girl who just happens to be transgender.”

message me

AZZ JENNINGS

een 2008 and 2014, there were 1,731 re[transgender] murders. That’s really terand a huge reason why I continue to be a advocate and keep speaking out. Change ns through understanding, and one of my t hopes is that our next generation of kids ow up in a world with more compassion.”

“Ever since I could form coherent thoughts, I knew I was a girl trapped inside a boy’s body. There was never any confusion in my mind. The confusing part was why no one else could see what was wrong.”

I’m willing to sacrifice my privacy if it means making a difference nd helping other people out there who might be struggling”

tell-a-vision

COMING OUT (AKA SURPRISE MOM AND DAD) Marina Wantanabe (Marinashutup) is a college student who makes personal and educational videos on YouTube about feminism from an intersectional perspective. She creates content to promote awareness of a variety of social justice issues and advocates for change. Many of her videos deal with current issues in the media and relating them to her own stories. Her weekly series “Feminist Fridays” explores social and political issues from a feminist perspective.

Some of her recent videos include: “Trans Bathroom Rights, Mental Health, and Problematic Parenting”, “How to Deal with Body Issues During Sex”, and “Feminism 101: A Crash Course”.

Her coming out video discusses her personal experience with realizing she is bisexual. Marina shares what it was like for her growing up in a catholic school and finding both girls and boys attractive.

She was always extremely interested in media representing different LGBTQ+ issues and came to realize she identified with these stories.

She does all this with a sarcastic twist on her past self. Marina ends with telling her audience that you never are really done with coming out, and that this video might come as a surprise to her parents.

Do you relate to any of the experiences Marina describes?

What are the strengths of this type of educational/personal video?

Piper O’Malley Come One, come all to see the Show!

The Greatest Show on Earth!

Only the most spectacular entertainment for our most honorable audience.

Come quick! It’s free!

You don’t need any money At the gate.

If you don’t buy the popcorn inside you’ll starve, but no food or drink is allowed past the entrance.

Admit One

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All are welcome! Come right in if you are dressed properly, for We can’t have vulgar people at our Show.

Our audience is made of ice cream and clean linen – Can you smell the sugar of the children’s sticky sweet cotton candy?

Wait, miss! You must not enter!

Why, you do not have a ticket – such a shame – But don’t you worry, We have a place for you!

Join us onstage, The Spectacular love a good spectacle.

The Others are down the hall & around the corner, right over There Some of them are just like you – Double-humped and smooth-crotched with half-mooned rainbows in your eyes.

Others look different, with wild attractions and extra limbs.

The mimes, they gather.

The fairies, they gather.

The leprechauns, the jungle cats, the hags, the elephants, the Ethiops – gather You are all the same – The Spectacular wouldn’t be The Same without its entertaining characters The Stage is set, it’s your turn to go on.

What is your trick? What can you do?

Anything, with the freaks standing beside me.

fiction Somewhere

Spencer Gjerde

“Psst. Hey. Hey, dumbass.”

The monotonous drone of Mrs. Keller’s math lesson was interrupted by an all-too-familiar tap on my shoulder and a sharp hiss in my ear. At the sound, I sat up a bit straighter. Ever so slowly, I turned my head away from the chalkboard and its dusty white equations. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see David leaning forward over his desk, his butt out of his chair so that he could whisper directly in my ear. His eyes were bright and there was a smile on his face. For a moment, I thought that he looked a lot like an excited puppy. The comparison made me want to smile, but I bit back the expression. I couldn’t give in to David’s bait so soon.

“What do you want?” I whispered, feigning annoyance a bit too convincingly. David didn’t seem to notice. He grinned, his bright white teeth stark against his dark skin.

“I found a spot,” he said, leaning a bit farther forward on his desk.

The old wooden table-top squeaked in protest at his weight, and the sound made the hair on my arms stand on end. But at the front of the room, Mrs. Keller didn’t seem to notice the interruption at all. She went on talking about functions and statistics, oblivious to the tangible excitement that was seeping from the boy behind me. I relaxed, and my hand went back to scrawling notes across my notebook paper, so familiar with its path through the margins and lines that it didn’t need my eyes to guide it. David continued speaking as if nothing had happened. As if Mrs. Keller wasn’t standing at the front of the classroom, trying to teach us. As if we were the only two people in the world.

“It’s under the old overpass on Kennedy Street,” he said. He drummed his pencil rhythmically on his desk as he spoke, quietly tapping along to some song I could not hear. “It’s right by the river. Used to have some other guy’s stuff on it, but they painted over it. Brand new cement canvas, just for you!” He grinned at me, his chest puffing with pride. I felt the urge to smile again, but swallowed it and shook my head.

“What about cops?”

“No worries!” David said, shrugging my sentence off with a roll of his shoulders. “It’s Thursday. That’s drag racing night down by the dam. The cops will be all over that. No one will give a shit about two kids hanging out under a bridge.”

I considered this. He had a point. Finally, I shook my head again. “We don’t have the stuff I need,” I said. “I ran out last time.”

“I have it!” David said, sitting up even farther in his chair so that he was perched on his knees like a cat ready to pounce. “I got my brother to buy it for us.”

“Pfft. I bet you don’t even have the right colors,” I scoffed, one side of my mouth twitching.

“Fuck you,” David said. But he was smiling, like he knew he’d already won. “I got all the shit you need! Red. Orange. That one blue you like, crew-lian.”

“Cerulean,” I corrected gently, unable to keep my grin at bay any longer. David just rolled his eyes and gave me a light punch. It hurt, but only a little. I swore under my breath.

“BOYS!” We jumped, and like lightning David was seated back in his chair. I hadn’t

realized it, but at some point I had turned completely around to face him, and my hand had stopped my pencil’s march across my page. Mrs. Keller stood at the front of the room, her mouth a thin line. I turned around to face her again, my ears burning and my eyes trained on the old graphite lines carved deep into my desk. When she was sure we had settled down, Mrs. Keller returned to her lesson. After a few moments of patiently listening to strings of numbers and mindless vocabulary words, I turned back to David.

He was already watching me, his excitement crackling through the air like static electricity.

“Fine,” I said. “Meet me by the bike racks after class.”

His smile could have lit up our entire city.

After class we met at the bike racks and made our way to the burger joint across the highway. We both carried our backpacks, and David had a gym bag slung over his shoulder. It filled the air with muffled metallic clanks as he walked, and my eyes kept falling to it as we bantered mindlessly. I knew what was inside the bag, and I yearned for it hungrily. But I knew it wasn’t time yet. First we had to get dinner for Beggar Joe.

Beggar Joe was an old man, and one of the many homeless folks who peppered our city streets like poppies in a field. He wasn’t the sanest guy around. He would tell stories that didn’t make sense, and sometimes offered us “advice” that we would never be able to use. Things like “keep low when you’re in the trenches,” and “always wear two pairs of socks to stave off the ice.” His name wasn’t actually Joe. We didn’t know what it was. We’d just called him that after we had stumbled upon him last summer, sleeping in a city tunnel that David had scoped out for me. We’d felt bad that we’d intruded on him, so we offered to buy him a meal. Suddenly, Beggar Joe had begun to appear at our spots again and again, as if he had a homing beacon trained on us as we moved about the city. We had no idea how he was always able to find us, but eventually we just began to consider him part of the process. And we always bought him lunch. David insisted on it.

“Those canvases we’re using aren’t ours,” he said. “That’s his home we’re painting on. All over the city is his home. He deserves something in return.” I agreed.

September was coming, and with it cold winter nights. Nights that made David worry about Beggar Joe. “We should get him a coat,” he said as we walked out of the burger joint. A bag of hot food was clutched tightly in his hand. I nodded in agreement, not sure how either of us would pay for such a thing, but feeling in my gut that it was a good sentiment.

It was a steep climb from the road down to the spot under the underpass David had mentioned, and as we tumbled through overgrown brambles and I nearly twisted my ankle on a loose rock, I wondered how in the hell David had managed to find the spot at all. This wasn’t the first time I’d wondered this. He always seemed to find new places for us, just when I thought every piece of concrete in the entire city had been filled. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, when David had first stumbled upon me last summer, I had been up on the roof of the school, decorating an electric box with a dark purple viper coiled around a cherry-red apple. He had appeared suddenly and out of nowhere, sitting beside me as if he had been destined to do it. I had been so surprised that I’d flinched and dashed a deep black dash of spray paint across my work.

fiction

“What are you doing here?” I’d shouted, letting my bottle of black paint fall to the ground with a guilty clang. David had just shrugged.

“I was watching you paint.” He’d turned away from me and looked at my work, the thick black line dripping color across my purple viper’s face.

He’d tilted his head to the side, put one hand on his hip and the other underneath his chin, studying my work like a critique with years of experience under his belt. I remember being suddenly nervous.

“It looks sad,” he said finally, when I thought the silence had become deafening. I blinked.

“What?” I asked.

“The snake,” he said. “It looks sad.” He moved both of his hands to his hips and nodded once, as if putting a period at the end of the sentence.

I stared at him, my hands hanging dumbly at my sides. “It’s a viper,” I finally said. David looked at me, then at the viper, then back at me again.

Slowly, he began nodding to himself.

“You seem to be amidst your blue period,” he said. “Van Goh had one. All of his paintings were sad. And blue,” he added.

“Oh,” I said. David nodded again, once, short and curt. He folded his arms across his chest.

“It’s good though,” he said, tilting his head to the other side, as if he was trying to view my two dimensional art from every possible angle. “It’s beautiful.”

“It isn’t,” I said.

“It is,” he replied, and the words had an air of finality to them. “I’m sorry I ruined it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said with a shrug. But David was shaking his head.

“You made it,” he said. “You made it, so it matters.” I just stared at him, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot in the silence that followed. After several moments, he grinned at me. I couldn’t explain why, but I felt my heart lift along with the corners of his mouth. “I can’t wait to see what you paint tomorrow,” he said.

With that, he left, and I had found myself suddenly alone on the roof of the school, standing dumbly with a pile of half empty spray-paint bottles at my feet.

The next day he had found me again while I was painting the backside of Freeman Drugs on Johnson Avenue. I don’t know how he did it. I never asked. I’d been halfway into the painting when he arrived, and I didn’t even notice him walk up and sit on the curb behind me. When I painted, I kind of lost myself. It was like the whole world melted away, and it was just me and the wall, a bottle of liquid color suspended in the air between us. When I painted, I was somewhere else.

David was a good audience. He watched in silence. When I finished the painting, I stepped back and let the empty bottle of spray paint fall to the ground at my side. By the time it hit the pavement, David had been standing beside me. He didn’t say a word. Just put one hand on his hip and the other on his chin, tilting his head one way and then the other.

“It’s good,” he said. “It’s really good. Better than before. Probably your best one yet!”

I said nothing.

He asked a few questions. Things about shading, color balanc-

ing, how I got my ideas. I answered some of them, and others I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I simply couldn’t. I had no idea what shading was. I didn’t know what he meant when he asked about things like perspective and dimensions. I didn’t think about those things, I said. I just painted.

“Who are you painting for?” he asked me.

I didn’t understand the question. “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging and looking at the ground. “Me, I guess?” David just nodded. Once. Sharp and curt. The perfect period at the end of a perfect sentence.

David started always watching me when I painted. Suddenly I had an audience. I was painting for two. Then Beggar Joe joined us, and I was painting for three. It was nerve wracking at first, having their eyes on me as I made every stroke. But as time went on, they became background noise.

Soon it was easier to think of just myself and the wall. I was off somewhere else again. Except somehow things were different.

When we reached the bottom of the drop, Beggar Joe was there waiting for us, sitting in the shadow of the overpass and tapping his knees rhythmically with the flats of his hands. David waved hello and gave him his dinner. Beggar Joe said nothing and simply dug right in, a rare occurrence for him. I realized that it had been a long time since we had last been out painting. I suddenly wondered if Beggar Joe ate anything when we were not present to feed him. Feeling suddenly sick, I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and crossed over to the bare wall beneath the underpass, tossing my backpack against the wall. David followed suit, collapsing to his knees beside me and opening his duffle bag. He grinned at me as he revealed ten cans of spray-paint. I kneeled on the ground with him and took stock of our inventory, pleased to find that David was true to his word. He had every color I could have wanted. I felt my heart drop into my stomach.

“You didn’t have to do this,” I said, my mouth feeling dry. I looked at the bottom of one of the cans and winced at the price tag. I struggled to add the numbers in my head, but I felt suddenly dizzy and had to stop myself.

David waved me off, rolling his eyes.

“I wanted to, Ace,” he said. My brow furrowed. He raised his hands in surrender, laughing. “It’s a birthday present you dumbass! Just take it,” he said. I said nothing, but the numbers tumbling through my head subsided just a little, and I managed to pick up one of the bottles without feeling sick to my stomach.

I turned to the bare wall beside us, and David followed my gaze. The concrete slab stood over six feet tall, a giant canvas compared to what we were used to. I could see faint changes in the gray paint, where old graffiti and tags had been covered up by repainting. I sighed, taking a moment to mourn the loss of my fellow painter’s work. I became abruptly aware of the fact that David was staring at me.

“What?” I asked, giving him a sideways glance.

“Nothing,” he said, his smile arguing the contrary. “I’m just wondering what you’re going to paint today.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but whatever I had planned to say was overpowered by the sudden wail of a siren on the road above our heads.

The shadows under the overpass were bathed in red and blue light.

“Shit,” David spat. My own heart leapt into my throat. I was filled with

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the sudden urge to run, but I realized immediately that to do so would be pointless. The high walls of the gully that surrounded us made any escape impossible. So instead, the two of us stood there in awkward silence as a police officer descended the side of the gorge to meet us, stumbling and tripping as he went. David had the foresight to zip the duffle bag up again, hiding its precious cargo from view. Beggar Joe continued to eat his burger and fries, oblivious to the flashing lights above him. Or perhaps he saw them and just didn’t care.

“Evening officer,” I said as the policeman approached. He was an older man with white hair, and he was gasping weakly for air when he finally approached us, winded and exhausted by the climb down. For a moment, I wondered how he would possibly climb back out again, and the corner of my mouth twitched as I imagined him rolling helplessly down the face of the gorge, falling head over heels. But the rapid beating of my heart and the jelly-like feel of my knees were enough to keep my expression under control.

“What are you boys up to this afternoon?” the officer asked between gasps of air. His badge glimmered in the afternoon sunlight. Officer Danford it said. I instantly turned to David. I might have been good with paint, but both of us knew I had absolutely no skill when it came to the art of lying.

“Just hanging out with a friend of ours,” David said, motioning to Beggar Joe, who in that moment let out a belch that was monstrous enough to startle a nearby bird from its perch in a tree. Officer Danford grimaced.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked, motioning to the duffle bag at David’s feet.

“It’s my school bag,” David said without missing a beat. Officer Danford raised an eyebrow, and his eyes darted behind me for a moment.

I followed his gaze and saw our backpacks lying haphazardly against the overpass wall. I groaned inwardly. Officer Danford gave David a pointed look.

David grinned sheepishly.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of homework we’re getting these days,” he said. “It’s almost criminal.”

Officer Danford sighed, and suddenly every little line in his face seemed to be ten times deeper. He rubbed his temples with a thumb and finger and looked for all the world as if he might collapse of exhaustion right then and there.

“Listen boys, I’ve had a long day,” he said. Then he laughed bitterly.

“A long month,” he amended. “I’ve got better things to do than hand out tickets for petty graffiti-”

“Hey we haven’t painted any-” Officer Danford raised a hand and stopped David mid-sentence.

“I’m sick of filling out the paperwork involved with this B.S,” he continued. “So how about you just give me your bag and we’ll just walk away and pretend this never happened?”

I looked at David. He seemed poised to argue, and I prayed to myself that he wouldn’t. I knew my mom would kill me if I came home with any sort of ticket. Finally, to my relief, David picked up the duffle bag with a sigh and handed it to Officer Danford by the handle, never taking his eyes off of the urine-stained concrete beneath our feet. Officer Danford took it, my own relief reflected on his face.

“Thank you,” he said.

“It was a birthday present,” David muttered, his voice filled with bitterness. Officer Danford ignored him.

“You boys stay out of trouble,” he said. With that, he turned away and began his climb up the gorge. I watched him struggle for a moment, but to my disappointment he made it up the gorge with surprising ease. With a sigh, I turned back to David, who had collapsed beside our backpacks and was looking at the bare concrete wall, his brow furrowed so low I wondered if he could see. I moved to stand beside him, my eyes trained on the wall as well.

“Well that sucked,” I said after a moment of heavy silence.

“Ha!” David spat. It was a short and sharp sound, and it made me wince. Beggar Joe looked up at us from his fries. I stared back at him. I couldn’t tell if there was concern in his eyes, but I liked to think that there was.

“I’m sorry,” I said to David, not sure what else to do. “I know you spent a lot of money-”

“It wasn’t about the money,” David snapped, slamming the flat of his hand against the concrete ground. His anger evaporated as quickly as it had appeared, and he sighed. “I just....I just wanted to see you paint,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet. “I’m sorry.”

I stood beside him, my hands hanging awkwardly at my sides. My tongue sat lamely in my mouth, trying to form words of comfort that just weren’t in me. I wasn’t good with words like David was. They didn’t work like colors. I could never shape them into something beautiful. They always felt flat and lifeless on my lips. After several long seconds, David sighed and stood up.

“I’m going to watch the river,” he said.

“Ok.”

He walked over to the edge of the river without another word. I didn’t follow him. Instead, I turned to look at the large gray wall again. Its emptiness stared back at me, feeling cold and lifeless. I sighed.

“’Bout to lay down some new shades, Rookie?” Beggar Joe’s rough voice cut through the silence of the fall air like birdsong. I turned and gave him a pointed look. He had finished his lunch, and was seated cross legged on the concrete next to some thick underbrush, his back straight as if he were at attention. He had his bag in his lap, an old canvas sack of faded army green that he always carried with him. I had always thought that it was a really small thing. A small thing that held everything Beggar Joe owned. I shivered.

“No new shades today Joe,” I said. “Cop took our colors. We’ve got nothing to paint with.”

Joe blinked at me, and then slowly nodded. “Hard to hammer without the nails, huh Rookie,” he said. Not knowing what else to do, I nodded back at him. We shared several moments of solemn head bobbing. Then, Beggar Joe abruptly stopped and threw open the flap of his backpack. “Good thing a soldier always has the right tools for the job. Gotta be prepared. Always prepared,” he mumbled, more to himself than to me. I watched him, unable to hide my curiosity. In all the time David and I had known Beggar Joe, he’d never opened his bag in front of us before. I heard some shuffling, some tinkling, some metallic clanking. My imagination wandered, wondering what

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a man like Joe could possibly carry with him. My brain was flashing several images of military grade knives when Joe suddenly withdrew a rusty, faded, metallic can. My eyes widened.

It was old. The label had been worn completely off by time. It was no longer silver, but a dull gray. It had no cap, and I wondered if it had ever gone off in his bag. With no cap and no label, I couldn’t even tell what color lived inside of it. But regardless of all this, it was still a can of spray paint, and for that alone it was beautiful.

“Drop some shades Rookie,” Beggar Joe said, tossing it to me. I caught it, and was satisfied to feel that it was full, despite its age. I gaped, first at the can, and then at Joe.

“Joe, I can’t take this,” I said. “This is yours.”

Joe just shook his head. “Shades don’t belong to no one, Rookie,” he said.

“Shades just find the right hands.” He smiled at me, a sad grin without teeth.

I smiled back, and without another word I turned to the grey wall in front of me.

I didn’t know what color it was, but I knew what I wanted to paint. I gave it an experimental spray, and a warm orange circle appeared on the wall. I smiled. Not perfect, sure, but it would do. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much with one flat shade, but I could make it work. And so I started to paint.

Slowly I fell into the rhythm of it. I stopped feeling the paint can in my hand, and it gradually became an extension of my arm. I moved my arms in long arcs, swift lines, low swoops. Flames sprung from my spray can like sprawling orange tentacles. They grew across the surface of the canvas, flat and orange. I was slowly drifting somewhere else, when suddenly my rhythm was interrupted by a twinge of disappointment. Without yellow, red, and other colors, this fire would never live up to its full potential. I could only do so much with flat orange.

And then it happened.

I was so surprised that I dropped the can. It hit the ground with a metallic twang, and rolled a ways away, landing somewhere near my backpack. I did a double take, staring at the wall with wide eyes. Then a triple take. Then a quadruple take. My breath was darting around my lungs like a startled bird. I didn’t believe it, but there it was.

Amidst the flat orange flames stood a perfect, beautiful line of deep red.

I looked at Joe. He was watching me, his eyes unfocused and his face passive. “Joe, the fuck is this can?” I said. Joe didn’t respond, staring straight ahead like he was trying to find a memory inside of his brain. He was looking at me, but really he was miles away. I nervously licked my lips. Suddenly, David appeared beside me, in that sudden and abrupt way that he always did.

This time I didn’t jump.

“Dude, where did you get paint?” he said, looking at the color on the wall with a bright smile.

“I, uh. Joe,” I said. “Joe had a can.”

David paused.

“A can?” he asked.

“Yah,” I said. “Just the one.”

David looked at me, his brow furrowed. Then he looked at the painting.

More specifically, the line of red within the orange. Then he looked back at me.

“You have two different colors here.”

“Yah.”

“Out of one can?”

“Yah.”

“...What the fuck?”

“Dude, I don’t know. It’s like I just thought wow I could use some red and then BAM! There was red!”

David raised an eyebrow. “Where’s the can?”

I pointed over to my backpack, not sure if I wanted to come into contact with the spray paint a second time. David, on the other hand, crossed over to it and picked it up without hesitating. Once it was in his hands, his brow furrowed deeper. He stared at it and gave it a shake. The musical sound of the paint stirrer that lived inside was strangely absent. He shook his head.

“Dude this is empty,” he said.

“What?” I crossed to him. “No it isn’t! I was just holding that thing! It’s completely full!”

“Nah man,” David said, shaking his head again, once. Curt and precise. “It’s empty. That’s probably why it changed colors. It just ran out of juice.” He held out the can to me. I hesitated, but after a moment I took it from him. It fell into my hand with considerable weight. My eyes widened. I looked at David, then back at the can, giving it an experimental shake.

The light tinkling of the can’s paint stirrer sang its soft metallic song. I gaped. I looked at David, and my expression of surprise was mirrored on his own face.

“Dude, this shit is full,” I said.

“Nah, I was just holding it!” David took it back and shook it. Only silence greeted him. He gave it an experimental spray, but nothing happened. He put it back in my hands and I gave it a shake again. We heard the clinking. I aimed it at the ground and gave it a spray. This time, I thought of blue. Cerulean. I don’t know what I expected, but when a thick stream of blue paint flew out of the can and coated the ground, I yipped in surprise and dropped the can again.

“What the fuck!” I shouted, jumping back and holding my hand as if I had burned it on a stove top. “What the fuck?”

“DUDE!” David rushed to pick up the spray can before it could roll away towards the river. He looked at me, his eyes sparkling with the constant excitement that lived inside of him. “It’s like....it’s like made for you!”

“No it isn’t.”

“You have to use it!”

“No I don’t!”

“Yes you do!” He held out the spray paint for me, his hand shuddering with excitement. “You have to! How could you not! It’s like...” he paused, searching for a word. Finally, his mouth spread into a grin that was brighter than any I had ever seen. “It’s like magic, Ace!”

I stared at him. Then I stared at the can. Then I stared at the colors I had made on the wall and the ground. Then back at David. He watched me intently, buzzing with energy. I groaned internally.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll use it....but only once. Only this time.” I held out my hand for the can and I thought David was going to explode with joy. He hand-

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ed it to me, bouncing on his heels. Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at Beggar Joe. He was still staring, off and far away, but underneath his glazed over eyes there was a soft, gentle smile.

And so I started to paint. ◊◊◊

The next day, David and I were stumbling and falling down the steep incline of the gully again. David held a thick Northface jacket close to his chest along with Joe’s traditional lunch. He’d found the jacket in a box under the stairs at his house. “It used to belong to my dad,” he’d said. And now he wanted to give it to Beggar Joe. Thinking about it made my heart swell, but in a way that felt warm and comfortable.

I was carrying my backpack. Inside it, the rusty can of spray paint Joe had given me the previous day bounced and clanged. Despite the fact that my painting was over half finished, the can remained completely full.

It was as if it held an endless supply of color. Color in every shade I could imagine. I tried not to think too hard about it. Whenever I did, my mind raced and my heart leapt, and I started to feel sick to my stomach.

We reached the bottom of the gully without breaking our ankles. Our zig-zagged path down had dropped us a considerable ways away from the overpass, so I couldn’t see my painting from here. I wondered how it looked from the road, with its orange flames rising up the side of the old cement wall. As I had painted them, I could have sworn I had almost felt heat...

Surprisingly, Joe was waiting for us at the bottom of the gully. He must have seen us coming. David greeted him with a warm smile.

“Yo Joe! I brought you something special today!” he said. He held out the coat along with the food. Joe saw it, and he gave David one of his soft, sad smiles.

“That’s beautiful, Lieutenant,” he said, handling the jacket like it was made of delicate spider webs. “Just beautiful! Almost the most beautiful thing I ever have seen! This and Rookie’s shades are gonna keep me warm all winter!”

David smiled his sparkling smile, but I raised an eyebrow.

“My shades are gonna keep you warm Joe?” I asked. Joe just nodded like he was listening to slow moving music.

“Me and every other soul on this side of the cosmos! Those flames are fire,” Joe said, still nodding his head softly and slowly. He turned and started walking towards the overpass, still nodding and waving his hand, motioning for us to follow. I gave David a look, and he shot a grin my way. We trailed behind Joe, picking a careful path between the brambles and bushes that grew along the river bed. Beside us, the river trickled by, a soft stream of water and city grime. It made the Earth under my sneakers soft and wet.

My nose was filled with the sharp cold of fall. I kept my eyes on my feet as I went, careful to follow the path that David laid out in front of me.

S ince I was so carefully watching my own feet, I didn’t notice when David stopped. I ran into his back, nearly knocking him over.

“Dude, what are you-”

“Ace, look!”

I stopped. David was pointing ahead of him, at the overpass. At my painting, and at what looked like...I wasn’t sure how to describe it. It was almost like a small encampment had sprung up overnight. A city within a

city. Sleeping bags, blankets, and backpacks were scattered about. People were sitting around, standing, talking, sleeping. There were at least forty of them, all around. I recognized some of their faces from the streets around my house, or from my walk to and from school. They were some of the homeless people who I knew populated the city. The people who called my canvases home. None of them seemed to notice us as we slowly made our way through the crowd, towards my half-finished painting. They all seemed comfortable. Content even. As we got closer to my art, I realized why.

It was warm here. The fall chill had almost completely fallen away.

And as we got closer to my painting, the air around us got warmer and warmer. Then it got hot. So hot that I was forced to take off my winter jacket. David did the same, and we finally reached my painting in just our t-shirts.

The fall weather had been replaced by intense summer heat. The kind of heat that you felt in late August, when the sun was highest and all you could do was lie on your front lawn and sweat.

And it was all coming from my painting.

For a moment, the two of us were speechless. We stared at fire in front of us, its shades and shapes so life-like that for a moment I didn’t recognize them as my own creation. We stared at the people around us. I watched David as he stepped forward and tried to touch the orange, red, and yellow colors. But the moment he got too close, he flinched back, like the wall had bitten him. I jumped, ready to help him and worried that he had burned himself. But when he turned to look at me, there was a smile on his face.

“Do you realize what you did?” he asked.

I stopped. My arms hung lamely at my sides. I scanned the encampment, looking at the faces of the people around me. They didn’t look back at me, but I could see that they were warm, despite the fact that so few of them had coats. They were content. In a small way, they were safe.

My heart felt suddenly heavy. I thought of Joe, cold and alone all last winter, shivering in some tunnel covered in old tags and faded graffiti. Joe, who had to depend on two middle school boys for food and warmth. Joe, who was such a smart and kind person, shivering in a gutter because he had nowhere else to go. My vision blurred as I felt tears swim in my eyes.

Then I thought of him here. Warm. Beside my art. My art.

“I told you Ace,” David was saying. “I told you it mattered. I told you that the stuff you made mattered.” He put a hand on my shoulder and he squeezed, just hard enough that I felt the weight of his hand in my heart.

He nodded at me, once. Short and curt. The perfect period at the end of a perfect sentence.

With his hand on my shoulder, I let myself drift away. I was off somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Somewhere warm, and happy, and safe.

Somewhere where I wasn’t just painting for me. Somewhere where I was painting for me, and for David. And for Joe. And for everyone. Somewhere where the things I made meant something for someone else. Somewhere where I mattered.

Slowly, I started to realize that the somewhere I was imagining and the spot that I was standing in at that very moment were the same place.

I looked to David, and he smiled at me. The perfect period at the end of a perfect sentence. I smiled back.

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A Guide to Q

As a queer woman just discovering her queerness at the end of high school in 2005, The L Word was a beacon and a saving grace.

Dating a girl for the first time after experiencing no inkling of being pansexual or even bicurious, it was essential to have a queer TV show as a reference point. As I was discovering my queerness and was being thrown into this world that I knew nothing about, seeing characters on the screen who were confident in their sexuality and who didn’t fit a certain mold, gave me a level of comfort that I desperately needed in my baby-dyke phase. That show not only opened me up to various different flavors of relationships, but it also introduced me to a culture that existed beyond the show. The soundtrack, for example, frequently featured artists like Tegan and Sara, Betty, Peaches, The Organ, Le Tigre, Goldfrapp, and more, which led me even further into queer culture. The L Word gave me a starting point from which I was able to learn more about myself and this culture that I was unknowingly a part of.

The L Word ended when I was 23, which was also right after I started my most serious relationship to date. Dating a woman, becoming engaged to her, marrying her, and buying a house

Jay Hendric with her suddenly meant that I no longer felt the need to immerse myself in the queer culture.

Suddenly, being in a queer committed relationship was enough without having to also surround myself with queer culture or community, so I watched it all from a distance. I was still reduced to tears the day that gay marriage became legal in the USA—I felt immense kinship with my fellow queers that day— but then I went right back to my regular life. Now, at the age of 30 and dealing with the dissolution of my marriage, I am again finding myself reaching out to this community that I neglected for years in hopes that I can find some of that same comfort from 12 years ago. And, boy, has the community grown.

Focusing just on television and web series, here are some of my recommendations for what to watch if you’re needing a good, queer, infusion. (Note: I’m sure there are many more shows than the ones listed here. I’m recommending these because I’ve seen them and give

Queer Media ica. While being fascinating to watch just on a scifi level, this one also has a wonderful GBF named Felix as well as several other queer characters.

cks them a thumbs up. Also, there’s not a lot of male representation here, especially in the Web Series section. Next time?)

TV (including Netflix and other streaming options) The L Word - Let’s just start with this, shall we?

The L Word is frequently described as a show that follows a close group of lesbians living in Los Angeles. In reality, it’s got straight characters, lesbian characters, gay characters, bi characters, trans characters, and even a lesbian man named Lisa. As most dramas, what happens in their lives is frequently over-the-top, but there are a lot of lessons to learn here. And you’ll find at least one character to relate to.

Orphan Black - Orphan Black is a Canadian series that follows Sarah, an English orphan, as she navigates a world in which she discovers that she’s one of several clones living in North Amer-

Orange is the New Black - I don’t think anyone can get enough of this wonderful, dysfunctional, cast of characters. This show is one of the best things to come out of Netflix’s lineup, and it includes straight, lesbian, bisexual, and trans characters. You’ll really delve into the lives of the characters through the backstories that OITNB tells so well. Again, there’s something for everyone here.

South of Nowhere - Sadly, this show left the air back in 2008, but the themes are still relevant if you’re a young person figuring out your sexuality today, particularly if you’re in love with your best friend. Been there, done that - right?

Arrow - Don’t laugh. Arrow, which bases it show on the Green Arrow character from DC Comics does actually have some else to offer you besides a team of heroes in tight costumes. Black Canary/Sara Lance comes out as bisexual and makes out with a girl. It’s worth it.

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How To Get Away With Murder - First of all, this show is excellent. There could be zero queer characters in this show and I would still recommend it. Shonda Rhimes is a master of cliff hangers. This show follows a law professor and her students as they become entwined in a murder plot. So far, we’ve got a gay character and a bisexual character, which is a good start.

Faking It - Oh, Faking It. How we will miss you.

This show follows a couple of female teenaged best friends who pretend to be a lesbian couple in order to become more popular. As the show progresses the charade is eventually discovered, but one of the girls realizes that she might not be as straight as she thought. Again, a great show for you young, questioning queers.

Grey’s Anatomy - This show is a medical drama that follows the lives of multiple doctors, interns, and residents as they try to figure out life and this whole “saving lives” thing. For some reason, the world went crazy for a character named “McDreamy”. Really, the entire reason to watch is because of Dr Callie Torres and Dr Arizona Robbins. Well, before their relationship went to hell.

This show is seriously lacking in queer represen-

tation these days, but go ahead and watch it to relive the good ‘ole days.

Transparent - Enough positive words can’t be said about this Amazon Prime original series.

It really is so good. The story revolves around a family as they discover that their family member, Mort, is transgender. While also featuring other queer characters, the way that Mort/Maura’s story is told is beautiful and painful and so well done.

The show is incredibly quirky with colorful characters, so it’s a “must-see” in my book.

Web Series/YouTube Channels Carmilla - Carmilla is a Canadian web series that takes place at the fictional Silas University and is told through video journals made by firstyear journalism student, Laura, which also feature her vampire roommate (and future girlfriend) Carmilla as well as other friends and students.

This show also explores genders and features a non-binary character. While the series is now over, a feature-length film is in the works and will be released sometime in 2017.

MyHarto - Hannah Hart is a YouTube personality, comedian, author, and actress. She’s got a widely-popular channel (2.5M subscribers!) and it’s tough not to fall in love with her. Give it a try.

Watch her. nowthisisliving - Shannon Beveridge owns this YouTube channel (430k subscribers). What I love about these personal YouTube channels is that you get to see the inner workings of someone’s life and relationships. Shannon used to do many vlogs with her ex Cammie Scott (which are adorable), and there’s also a breakup video that is beautiful and tender and a must-see.

RoseEllenDix - What’s not to love about Rose and her wife Rosie? They’re both unfairly gorgeous and hilarious, but they’re also real to a fault and explore topics that might be uncomfortable to explore. Rosie also has her own channel, TheRoxetera, which you should check out.

Stevie - Why are all these YouTubers so hot?

Steve Boebi owns this channel (500k subscribers) and uses it primarily to provide answers to the burning questions of her viewers. She’s definitely not afraid to talk about some touchy subjects.

realisticallysaying - Kaitlyn Alexander owns this YouTube channel and is the non-binary person who portrays the non-binary character in Carmilla. Try not to laugh at their videos. I dare you. Kaitlyn’s laugh is infectious and their content is hilarious.

This is Taylor - This is actually a Snapchat series. Didn’t know that was a thing, did you? The series follows Taylor, a college student who is just starting to explore her attraction to girls, as she tries to find a girlfriend. You can watch the whole series on Vimeo.

Unsolicited Project aka The Gay Women Channel - Sarah and Adrianna, the owners of the channel, bring some hilarious content to the interwebs. They frequently interview other LGBT people and/or people who portray LGBT characters onto their channel, and they also frequently create advice videos. You might not want to take these to heart.

Jay can be reached at jayndricks@gmail. com or on Twitter @jayndricks

WLA (re)animated

The information and materials for this article came from the Carol Ronen Papers at the Women and Leadership Archives. The Women and Leadership Archives collects and makes available permanently valuable records of women and women’s organizations, which document women’s lives, roles, and contributions.

,

CAROL RONEN The Women and Leadership Archives

Carol Ronen, born March 28, 1945, was a progressive Illinois politician who championed the causes of childhood education, violence prevention, healthcare, and human rights. Ronen, appointed as Executive Director of the Chicago Women’s Commission in 1989, helped transform the commission from a group focused on recognizing the contributions of the city’s women leaders into a political body focused on advancing legislation related to women’s issues. In 1993, she was elected as an Illinois State Representative, where she remained until 2000. Ronen then served in the Illinois State Senate until her retirement in 2008.

Carol Ronen was the lead sponsor in the State Senate for an amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act that extended civil rights protection to the LGBTQ community.

The legislation added “sexual orientation” to the already existing state law that prevented discrimination on the basis of categories including race, sex, gender, and religion. “This legislation is a matter of basic human rights and fairness,” Ronen said in a 17th District News report.

“A person should not be refused a home, apartment, credit card, job, or promotion because of his or her sexual orientation.” In 1993, her first year in the Illinois House of Representatives, Ronen sponsored a similar bill that passed in the House but did not make it through the State Senate. The landmark bill was signed into law on January 21, 2005. For Ronen, it fulfilled a campaign promise made when she first ran for office to extend equal protection to Illinois gay, lesbian, and trans-gendered citizens.

At the time, Chicago and Cook County already had ordinances that banned discrimination, but the 2005 legislation extended this protection throughout Illinois.

The amendment defined “sexual orientation” in a broad manner, making Illinois one of only five states to have such an inclusive law.

Caroline Lynd Giannakopoulos

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early teen years, this milestone of their ever-unfolding essence was met genuinely with open, loving arms.

Upward Lift AMPHIBIAN SKIN Maris Yurdana

I am a straight, Caucasian woman whose sexual identity has blended in with conventional society my whole life. I come from one of the most progressive and accepting communities in our country, and an immediate family as liberal as they get. How can my words be compelling when I neither have personal attachment nor have experienced the indirect trauma of LGBTIQ oppression? The answer is the same as when examining the skin toxicity of a tree frog to determine environmental toxins. I may not be affected, but I see in myself the absorption of my surroundings— childhood’s toxicity, or lack thereof, is represented through the way I interact with and perceive the world.

My life is a time capsule, a blip in the universe, yet I see my eighteen years as a product of countless lifetimes. Throughout my short life my amphibian skin has soaked in the toxins of my past and present, each day portraying a new representation of how I have been nurtured. When examining the relations of LGBTIQ and society, my toxic concentration is unique.

I come from Portland, Oregon, where being gay does not automatically get equated with oppres

sion. All throughout my childhood I felt this way; not that the city was vacant of ignorant horrors, but in my young conscious the oppression did not exist. Some of my favorite neighbors and family friends were lesbian; oftentimes it wasn’t apparent what sexual orientation they were because many people I grew up with referred to their significant others as “partners”, regardless of their gender. Many of my most inspiring and well-loved teachers weren’t straight either; their sexual orientation wasn’t even an afterthought because it never mattered. My parents never had the conversation with me about what being gay is, or had to explain it, or shielded me from it, or any of the other bulllsh*t drama that surrounds closeminded families when “exposing” their children to this normal, beautiful version of love. Being gay wasn’t ever talked about—it just was, as it should be.

Of course, as anything in life, it’s not as if Portland in the early 2000’s was utopian—the older, bigoted generations still existed in minute concentrations and young boys occasionally parroted ignorant phrases picked up from mass media. But when a wave of people began coming out starting in my

I don’t remember categorizing sexual identity as something that could distinguish a person beyond who they sought to be with until I was older. Learning about the oppression that still happens today was baffling. Not because I was blind to injustice, or that I didn’t know it had happened historically, but because I could not understand why. Why now, why in those places, when my community seemed to exist effortlessly without hatred for something so fundamentally human?

It’s hard for me, even now, to remember that the struggle is still so prominent in much of our world.

Just last year, when gay marriage was celebrated, my own community’s attitude was what the hell took them so long? Of course it’s easy to generalize and glorify an entire city’s attitude. I’m speaking for my own experiences only, yet on the other hand, truly, you could take survey after survey in Portland and receive the same frame of mind as what I’m describing.

Even now, as I transition into Loyola’s community, I am constantly reminded of the differences in culture. One of my friends began our friendship unaware that he may not be straight, although it was clear to everyone around him. He hadn’t even considered a difference before college because of the conservative way he’s been raised. To me, this lack of awareness was disturbing in its restriction and the process of him coming to realize the truth he’d been denying himself touched me deeply.

Another friend I’ve made is still hiding his sexual identity here because he’d been conditioned to hide it his whole life. Yet anoth-

er friend has a best friend back home who’s gay, but her mom makes her keep it a secret from her dad because he’s homophobic.

She’s also prohibited to speak truthfully about her best friend to her younger brothers, so that they don’t become “exposed”. This last example astounded me, as my friend’s family’s traits quite closely resembled your average Portland family—I had assumed them to have similar open minds and hearts. Not just learning about but actually witnessing these situations rattles me. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that this happens today.

What I’ve been recognizing through my adolescence is this: I grew up in a progres-

I inherently have shades of ignorance, and I know for a fact that I cannot relate on a personal level to the oppression from society which many, many people face today. It is easy to point out the logistical flaws to my analogy: the frog, being an amphibian, is one of the most receptive and vulnerable organisms in an ecosystem. One can argue that as a non-oppressed, heterosexual woman, I have the freedom and privilege to interpret the world through a lens which I choose, and I agree. Yet we often focus heavily on how there is still so much growing to do.

As progressivists we have aspired for our newest generations grow into the world without giving a thought to whether someone is lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, or questioning—the lack of acknowledgement is the roots of the separation disappearing. This has been my truth. And while prejudice, ignorance, and oppression of the LGBTIQ community still poison much of our earth, I believe my interpretations and internalizations of my own culture are authentic, and more importantly, I feel that they are; I interpret them as real.

I see my own experience of as reflection of the world, on a small level, towards equality. And that is beautiful.

Being gay wasn’t ever talked about— it just was, as it should be. sive bubble which, although made up almost entirely of mainstream-rejecting liberals, is indeed a part of this nation we collectively call the United States. And because this bubble exists, the vulnerable, absorbent layers of who I am have soaked in its beauty and shaped my perception of “normality”. While I understand how unique my nurturing has been, I am constantly realizing how my own opinion both relates to and impacts our larger culture.

words are useless

Artwork by Hayden Wallace “Identities� photo series by Hayden Wallace

words are useless

“Identities” photo series by Hayden Wallace

words are useless

“Identities” photo series by Hayden Wallace

fiction September Twenty-Seventh

Kaylah Saltzman-Bravo

This love story starts where love stories always do. Two kids meet, caught off guard by each other. They did not know how to act around each other. Always giggling, peeking looks every now and then. They stare at each other longingly, moony-eyed over each other, but they don’t know what it means. Neither of them had ever been in love, not like this.

Elle used to be somewhat of an enigma. Her mind was everywhere all at once, but at the same time she was composed. Her head was off in different continents, but her feet were firmly planted on the ground. She liked someone new every second, she was a hopeless romantic but could never find love. Until she met Jane. All Elle wanted was an adventure. Something to take her away from her mundane life, she had no clue that she would find a person who could be both home and an adventure all at once.

Jane was new. Jane was different. She looked different, seemingly more put together than freshman are. She smelled different, like vanilla and home. She acted different, she was smart, mature, and she knew what she wanted from life, everything that Elle was not. Jane knew what she was doing. Elle did not. They were exactly different, yet at the same time, strikingly indistinguishable.

The two spent their nights up late, talking until they fell asleep.

During school, they would find ways to be around each other. Jane often wrote Elle little notes during the day for her to pass between classes.

Messages on blue paper, written completely in marker, as though they were secret lovers in sixth grade. The pages were filled with stupid jokes, cute little poems, and funny quotes from earlier in the day. They were love letters, even if Jane did not intend them to be. After months of the back and forth, through all of the high school drama, Jane confessed her love to Elle. Elle had her first kiss that night, in between the first “I love you” and the sunrise.

Their lips met at 3:08 in the morning. The kiss left them scared, confused, and excited. It changed both of their lives in ways they never knew existed.

It was as though when their lips collided, their souls intertwined, never to be apart again.

A few weeks later, they started dating. Their love and their relationship was so intense, they were two different oceans colliding, often peaceful and serene, but the occasional rip occurred, carrying them to dark, dangerous places.

Sometimes their love was a battlefield, but their thoughts killed faster than bullets.

Sometimes the bullets assassinate. Relationships can end just as quick as they start, and once the bullet hit, it was dead weight. They were sprinting toward the finish and they just hit a wall. The force of their bodies against the wall was too much, and they both shattered into pieces.

Time works wonders, but Elle was clueless, and did not know how to give space. She was constantly texting and calling, staying up late thinking about what to say, how to fix things. “I love you,” she wrote.

“I miss you.”

“Please come back.”

“This is so hard.”

“I’m really sorry.”

All remained unanswered.

She did not understand that she was tearing Jane apart, like a toddler does with playdoh. She saw the things other people were saying to her, she saw that Jane had better options, and slowly she became the playdoh.

Some nights, Jane didn’t sleep. Other nights, Elle didn’t sleep. Some nights they are both up, puffy-faced and unable to breathe. Neither of them knows how the other feels, neither of them knows they are going through the same thing for different reasons. Neither of them knows they both want to end everything to help fix their problems. Neither of them knows that the other still truly loves them.

Time works wonders, and eventually space embedded itself into the relationship.

Elle left for college, Jane stayed home in high school. Both got a clean slate. Jane became the person she had always wanted to be. Looked up to, head held high while others admired her. She was focused, she was happy, she was on top of the world, and she truly deserved it. Elle met new friends, she found people that she felt comfortable with instantly. She started branching out and trying new things, staying up late, letting loose. But she never forgot, and she never would. She made a promise that she was destined to keep, and the weight of the promise kept her grounded.

She carried around the letters that Jane had written to her. Every single word from the past two years—all of the good and all of the bad—she kept in a shoebox in her bedroom at all times. They were all signed “Love, Jane,” but Elle knew it meant more than that. She kept every picture. The childhood photographs that Jane gave her on their anniversaries. The polaroid and photostrip of them on the night of Winter Formal. The baby pictures in her wallet that Jane gifted her with little notes of reassurance on the back. She kept them all. Every gift that she gave her, the green and yellow striped hat that Elle mentioned once, the sweater from the thrift store in Portland that meant everything to Jane, the twentyonepilots record that showed just how well she knew Elle, and even the rose gold ring. The tactile objects weighed on Elle’s skin, the letters felt as though they were paper-mached to her soul.

However, there was one thing that weighed more than the objects, and those are the memories.

All of the late nights spent talking, all of the plans for the future, that is what kept her head from flying away. She’ll never forget the promises of yellow ceilings and mismatched chairs in their apartment. The future full of alphabet mugs from Anthropologie and Chinese food every Wednesday night. She knew that one day, once they were both finished with school and in a better place, they could finally be together in the way that they always dreamed. She knew that she would do anything to be with the girl. Elle had all of these wonderful stories to remember the love, she knew that hitting the wall was not the end. Everything needs time to heal, so it can grow again to be healthy. Until then though, she will always have the single shoebox full of objects and a head full of memories.

column my daydreams and so much happiness in my heart. I’m bisexual, and it’s the perfect word for me, a word that feels like home.

Punctuation Marks YES, I’M BISEXUAL: OR, A NOTE ON QUESTIONING C.M.E.

The last time I sat down to write a column for a BROAD LGBT+ issue, a year ago, I didn’t have a label for my sexuality. When I put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, in October of 2015, it was the first time I had ever dared give voice to all the questions about my sexuality that had been swirling inside me for years. I wrote a column all about questions and Questioning, that all important letter in the LGBT alphabet that gives queer people a safe space to inhabit while they figure themselves out. I admitted to the world and to myself that I was queer, that I was not a straight girl after all, and that was revolutionary for me. My fingers shook as I typed the words, but I was making the first foray out of shame in my identity- and into Pride.

months since that October column was published in BROAD, before I found my own word and owned my own identity. I was- I am- bisexual. I always have been.

I came out with flying colors, wrapping myself in bi pride and surrounding myself with queer media and community. My family and friends were a little surprised, but they accepted me for who I

Questioning can be a very scary and overwhelming time, and I’m not going to say it’s easy. I’m not going to say it gets better, or that you can count on as low-stress and accepting a coming out experience as I was lucky enough to have. Sadly, I can’t guarantee that. There are so many LGBT+ identified people out there who just would not have a guarantee of their personal safety if they were to publically come out, and that breaks my heart. But if questioning readers who might be struggling take anything from my story, I hope it’s this: even if you don’t have a label, even if you can’t or don’t want to come out publically, please, please have the courage to come out to yourself.

I know you have that courage inside you, and please believe me when I say that you have nothing to be ashamed of. Your love or attraction or lack of attraction

Your love or attraction or lack of attraction and/or your gender identity is valid and beautiful and good.

By April, the truth building inside me was fit to burst, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand that my family, my friends, all the people who loved me would never recognize me as not-straight. I didn’t want anyone to ever make the mistake of thinking I was heterosexual, ever again. It had taken a few

am, mostly without incident. I’m still setting them straight whenever biphobic microaggressions sneak through, and that hurts. But it is worlds better than where I was a year ago. I will never hate my bisexuality again. I can look at a beautiful girl and feel my heart flutter and fill with light. I can have a crush on a man and still never doubt my queerness. There’s a bi flag on my wall and a cute girl in

and/or your gender identity is valid and beautiful and good. You aren’t lying or doing anything wrong by choosing not to share your identity as queer with other people, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still own it in your heart. It’s a long road from self-hatred to self-love, but if you’re at the beginning of that path, please keep walking. I’ll be walking with you, cheering you on, and holding my Pride flag high.

search this

screen/play + bookmark here

QUEER MEDIA While these lists are not comprehensive, by far, they offer a look into what kind of media are important to Queer folks. Our lists of books and movies for this issue were crowd-sourced from a range of LGBTQ+ folks across the country by asking the question: “what books and movies are important to you as an LGBTQ+ person?�

We hope that you as readers, and possibly queer people yourself, can find community and connection, or maybe just a good read!

FILMS BOOKS Paris Is Burning (1990) If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000) Gun Hill Road (2011) Beautiful Thing (1996) Moonlight (2016) The Children’s Hour (1961) Velvet Goldmine (1998) But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) Were the World Mine (2008) Hedwig and The Angry Inch (2001) Nico and Dani (Krámpack) (2000) Tangerine (2015) Weekend (2011) All Over the Guy (2001) Lost and Delirious (2001) Go Fish (1994) Parting Glances (1986)

Borderlands/La Frontera – Gloria E. Anzaldua Fun Home – Alison Bechdel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit- Jeanette Winterson Hood- Emma Donoghue Tales of the City- Armistead Maupin Whipping Girl – Julia Serano Gender Outlaw – Kate Bornstein The Birdcage/ La Cage auz Folles The Ethical Slut – Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy Feedback – Mira Grant Running with Scissors – Augusten Burroughs The Gender Book – Mel Reiff Hill, Jay Mays (et al) Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones – Torrey Perters Ariah – B.R. Sanders Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin Stone Butch Blues – Leslie Feinberg Nevada – Imogene Binnie A Safe Girl To Love – Casey Plett Rat Bohemia – Sarah Schulman Redefining Realness – Janet Mock There Should Be Flowers – Joshua Jennifer Espinoza He Mele A Hilo – Ryko Aoki I’ve Got A Time Bomb – Sybil Lamb

fiction

It is a Very Strange Thing Lucy Williams

It is a very strange thing to wake up in the middle of a kiss. All of a sudden you are conscious of your moving lips and tongue, your closed eyes, and the body beneath you that you are straddling—but you have no recollection of how or when you found these lips, this tongue, these protruding hips and wandering hands. So you first try to taste the person, searching their bottom row of teeth and inner cheeks. You try and recognize the length of the fingers making their way beneath your shirt, slowly towards your naked breasts. And finally, while waking up in the middle of a kiss, you cautiously open your eyes, and looking through slits, there you see, there she is:

Your best friend.

You tell yourself you would stop if you could but her tongue’s so persistent and her fingertips just moved in the most spectacular way; and so you continue kissing her, and you think back to the time when your first best friend made you pull down your underpants so you could count each other’s hairs and the first time you got drunk and you kissed her at midnight on New Year’s Eve, but didn’t remember until the next morning when you woke up, and your lips smiled at the lost memory. And all this while you think it’s strange, but maybe isn’t so strange, that your fingers are straining to explore the person you’re kissing, and the only thing holding them back is that you see that your kisser is your best friend, and not some other (girl) person.

And so you think to yourself, it is a very strange thing to wake up while in the middle of a kiss. A very strange thing indeed; but a strangely beautiful thing all the same.

who to follow MARINA WATANABE

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Marinashutup Twitter: https://twitter.com/marinashutup Tumblr: http://marinashutup.tumblr.com/

HANNAH HART

Twitter: http://twitter.com/harto Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harto/ Facebook: http://facebook.com/hannahhartofficial

RUBY ROSE

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RubyRose Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rubyrose/?hl=en

JACOB TOBIA

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JacobTobia Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacobtobia4real

COURTNEY DEMONE

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MykkiBlanco Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MykkiBlanco/

(local to Chicago!)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rebirthgarments Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebirthgarments/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/janetmock Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janetmock/ Website: http://janetmock.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CourtDemone Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/courtneydemone Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/courtdemone

MYKKI BLANCO

REBIRTH GARMENTS

JANET MOCK

MANIC PIXIE NIGHTMARE GIRLS Twitter: https://twitter.com/JesskaNightmare

RYAN HENLY

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamryanhenly

SAM DYLAN FINCH

Twitter: https://twitter.com/samdylanfinch Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ lqtublog Website: https://letsqueerthingsup.com

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Jesuit Social Justice Education & Effort

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