Unpeculiar by Oliver Amyakar

a queer anthology

Dear Reader, The stories you are about to read are about experiences that are sometimes hard to share. I compiled them with the purpose of reaching out to queer people, like myself, who find it hard to navigate the world. Media tells of queer experiences predominately from white, cis, gay men who act flamboyantly. This is changing and more narratives are being explored, but I am here to be another voice that ensures you that you are not alone. These stories are intimate and emotional and many of the authors are anonymous for this reason. This is a place of safe expression. I hope this finds you well and you find something that truly touches you within. Please remember that you are not weird, you are not a freak. You are unpeculiar.

Sincerely, Oliver Amyakar

I Am A Seed T

Content Warning: needles, depression, racism, dysphoria

Sleepovers Lin C.

Coming Out With Tea Anonymous

(in)Visible A. Davis

Content Warning: needles, transphobia

?!! Anonymous

Content Warning: sex mention, dysphoria

Commonplace: An Abridged Letter From Love 29 Finn Piper You Are Queer Anonymous

Content Warning: homophobia, implied self-harm, cissexism 4

Why Being Gay is Like Being a Rat Mollie Miller

Content Warning: vomit, homophobia

One of the Pretty People Emerson Lee

Content Warning: dysphoria

Shame Anonymous

Content Warning: homophobia, abuse

Exerpts From Letters To My Roommate Ellie Boroughs

A Love Letter to My Vagina Oliver Amyakar

Content Warning: blood, dysphoria, sex mention

Anna Anna

Content Warning: biphobia

Being Gay is Nasty Anonymous

Content Warning: homophobia, sex mention 5

by T transgender, queer, poc

January 4th, 2017 was my one-year anniversary of taking testosterone. Every Sunday night, I sit down in my bathroom, draw up 2.5 mL of testosterone cypionate and inject it deep into my thigh. I do this so my body will begin to go through the motions of male puberty (think deep voice, facial hair, defined jawline, BO) and my body will become more and more aligned with my mind. That’s what I told myself, at least. In the beginning, it was a very difficult thing to try to muster up the courage to stick an alarmingly large needle deep into my leg. It went against all notions of self-preservation that I had at that moment. I was taught how to give myself these injections by a kind nurse with brown, curly hair. She told me to just not even think about it and plunge the needle into my thigh as fast and as straight as I could. It was easy when I did it in front of her in her office – of course it was something I could do. It was the right thing to do. It was the true thing to do. I had brought two trusted friends with me so they could also learn, and I had more friends holding space for me all around Bellingham during that exciting moment. But the following Sunday, sitting in a small, poorly lit bathroom in my dorm room this time, I couldn’t do it. Very suddenly, I was alone and it no longer felt like the right thing to do. Something was wrong. At the nurse’s office, I was surrounded by nothing but love and support, 9

as cliché as that sounds. But there, in that bathroom, at 2am because procrastination schedules my bedtime, it didn’t feel like I was doing a True Thing. It felt dirty. Who was I kidding to think that testosterone was even a remotely good idea for me? What if I change my mind? What if I don’t like the changes? What if people don’t think I’m “transitioning well?” What if am no longer attractive to anyone? What if I am no longer sexually desired? For the two years before this moment, I had spent much of my free time educating myself with essays, photos, videos, movies, TV shows, and really anything that had to do with trans people, transitioning, queerness, the Community, etc. I was certain that I did truly want everything that these people spoke about. I wanted to live in a house in college with queers for roommates, I wanted to get involved in the local queer activism scenes: I wanted to become the queer and trans people I was seeing in the media. I was frequenting Autostraddle, Original Plumbing, Tumblr blogs, YouTube channels, and the like, but I was blind to the stereotypes. The people involved in these “radical,” “activism oriented” media were mostly white, mostly able-bodied, mostly healthy: mostly privileged. There are theories in the activism world that concerns the internalization of prejudices (racism, transphobia) by those who experience them. People who are considered minorities are so thoroughly inundated with prejudice and oppression that they begin to believe it themselves. It is a crucial part of the cycle of oppression. I learned this in high school, I’ve taught it, it was something that I actively fought against. I’ve come to realize, though, sitting there in that bathroom with a needle poised above my thigh, that I was unable to recognize those patterns of oppression within myself. I had been taking steps to ensure that I lived this young, queer adult life that I so desperately wanted. I was making friends with good people, found great people to live with for the coming year, and figuring out what I wanted to 10

do with my career. I was determined to live out this life I thought I wanted. And I was blissfully unaware that I wanted that life to be white. Fast forward 6 months and I’m getting continuously more involved in activism communities as the 2016 Presidential Election was gearing up. I’d signed a lease on a house with three friends, , and was in the process of finishing up my first of college. From the outside, everything in my life was going well, but inside my head I was losing control. I was experiencing a total and complete loss of myself. I no longer felt like I was a person, I could barely connect with my emotions or other people, I was drinking too much, smoking too much, getting myself into dangerous sexual situations. Anyone who is familiar with the effects of testosterone might be thinking “he was just experiencing a typical male puberty process, its normal.” I’ll give some credit to the normal processes of testosterone for the downward spiral beginning in my life, but the real culprits were my unrealistic expectations of who I could be; my internalized oppression. I never actively denied my color, or consciously wished I was white. I have light skin for a Brown person but never gave it much thought. Yet I was so brainwashed with whiteness, social expectations, and mainstream portrayals of the “queer lifestyle”, I was never aware of my color. My color was never a True Thing. And that was killing me. But once you hit rock bottom, you either lose or you get back up, so I got back up. My slow, painful awareness of my color has brought me not just confusion and turmoil, but also moments of peace and clarity that I haven’t had in a very, very long time. I am learning things about myself and the world in thundering waterfalls of realizations, intuitions, knowledge, lessons and experiences. And I am still in the thick of it, sometimes getting so exhausted that some days I just want to run until my body gives up.

Digging up the ways in which whiteness dictates my life has been terrifying. Since starting college, I have lived in four different places, all with white roommates. I go to a predominantly white university with racial issues running rampant, in a city with what is considered one of the biggest KKK activities, surrounded by white people in my academic life, my work life, my home life, my online life, and everywhere. I have been surrounded by whiteness all my life, trying endlessly to figure out what it is that causes me such achingly painful times where I lose myself and want nothing more than to cease to exist. I spent years trying to fix the symptoms. I got on anti-depressants, I did a bit of therapy, I surrounded myself with good people, I focused on my academics, and got two jobs. But I wasn’t addressing the underlying True Thing. I wasn’t getting better. In fact, I was getting worse. As soon as I was aware of my color, I began to see the ways it affected me. And I started to allow myself to feel the effects of the remarks, the looks, the ingrained norms and perspectives that even the most intelligent, activist, millennial, closest friends I had were making. I’m still experiencing this, allowing myself to become more aware of subtle ways oppression invades my life. Suddenly, I have found myself unsure of who I am. I am queer, trans, but I am not the whitewashed version of those things I thought I wanted. I am questioning everything I thought were True Things about me. I am experiencing another loss of my sense of self but this time it is remarkably different from six months ago. This time, it feels more like a journey – a challenge – that I must take on in order to ground myself, and settle into a new and more complex way of seeing myself as a person of color, and how that affects my world. Where I was passionless and detached 6 months ago, now my emotions and thoughts are more rich and intricate than I think I even realize. And that’s how I know that I am on 12

the right path. I need to work hard to free myself from my own internalized oppression. This fucked up world we live in has given me an expiration date, one that comes before most others. Trans people die sooner and in more numbers than cis people. People of color die sooner and in more numbers than white people. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not supposed to make it, but I want to. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what the coming years will bring for me. The chance of me making it with my sanity and my Self intact is the same as me not making it at all, in whatever form that takes. Right now, as I am writing this, I am a seed. I am on a journey of wellbeing with my blood family loving me from afar, a fierce army of good friends, my chosen family, and my chosen brother, who live with me and whose souls live within me. I want to grow strong, like a tall Cedar tree. I also know I could get beaten down by one too many storms. Whatever the next few years bring, the good times, and the really, really bad, I feel like I have a purpose again. That has made all the difference.

by Lin C. Asexual, Non-binary, demisexual, gender ambivalent

To this day, I cannot tell you much about the plot of CATS, and I will comedically flub the names of the characters. Mostly I recall a special or something (pretty sure it was on Reading Rainbow?!) where you got a behind-the-scenes look at the extensive makeup and wig application, plus those form-fitting spandex cat suits Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure we all have firmly emblazoned in our minds. My friend and I did all the proper sleepover things. Put on comfy PJs. Sodas and popcorn in hand, we scuttled from kitchen to living room and plopped ourselves down on the big blue couch my family owned. We had a TV that was already a relic at this time. Brown, faux wood exterior with the bulgy grey screen that glowed a little after you turned it off. And at this time we had the power of probably a dozen channels at our fingertips. I am like 85% sure there was something else that was on that we watched first. Maybe one of those ABC Family movies. But, ultimately, all shows leads to CATS. I recall singing, dancing, lots of fluffy manes and tails. But mostly I hold onto the feeling of calm and ease I had while sharing a couch with someone else. I was never a super extroverted youth. I collected cool pebbles off the playground instead of running around and socializing. Kid clusters and 14

friend groups intimidated me, so I built myself as awkward and small; I could fit anywhere if I had to but preferred to fit nowhere at all and to remain unnoticed. Boys were (and are) weird. Loud. I liked a couple of them, but there seemed to be too much expectation around liking boys, and liking them in a specific way. No one told me any rules about liking or not liking girls. So I usually just admired them from afar and remained small and distant. But! It was, for some reason, OK to have girls over for sleepovers?? And it was easy; considered healthy, even. It was safe to share a small space. It wasn’t weird to share a bowl of popcorn. It wasn’t bad when my friend fell asleep and I was still awake and at the end, I turned off the TV, then clambered back under the blanket and I laid down (we were head-to-foot) and thought about how maybe sometimes it can be nice to sit close to someone else. Fast forward to my last sleepover ever. It was my friend’s 16th birthday party. There was literally one boy in attendance, and he had to leave at 11PM for Weird Societal Reasons, even when we all knew he was very gay and not going to pull any shit. I had a crush on the birthday girl, and this had already come out in the open and been addressed, and I got to stay all night. We played a game where everyone lay down on the living room floor in a circle. You rested the back of your head on the stomach of the person behind you, and went around and tried to fake laugh HAHA without actually laughing, while getting the person laying on your stomach to really laugh. It was silly, and simple, and it involved Human Contact, so I was naturally quite conservative and awkward about it at first. I didn’t want to do anything stupid, which entirely missed the point of this game, wherein everyone gets to be increasingly silly as the laughs come quicker and eventually no one can fake laugh anymore and the game has to stop. 15

Despite my initial concern, I had a good time! People were nice to me (and these were my friends of the past three years and I was still worried??)! It was okay! And we stayed up way too long playing Rock Band. I got to sing â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mapsâ&#x20AC;? by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a lot of times because everyone else wanted to get to play instrument parts to the end of the song and not a whole lot of people could sing the vocals well enough without getting cut off by the game partway through. It was a bittersweet sleepover for me, because I kind of stopped talking to people again after that school year. I spent senior year depressed and vaguely suicidal, just grinding through the rest of the Required Academics, and spent most of my personal energy in Art and in being a T.A. at the library. I was done with the desert. I was done with traditional education. I had no community to speak of and feel connected to while learning about my evolving identity, and I was tired. Mouth full of dust. I did end up at college, at Evergreen, where I immediately traded dust for rain. And one of the first things my housemates did was set up a teeny tiny TV screen and a PS2 and we popped in DVD after DVD of Sailor Moon. We laid on the floor, in massive pillow forts. I let strange people draw things on my bare back in Crayola marker. These strange people became my community seed. They helped give me the space and support I needed to figure out who I am, and I am grateful.

by Anonymous homosexual Looking back at this, I am so much happier with who I am now. I am now more emotionally mature and have learned from the past

A globe, a human fabrication of the world. That was what I viewed life as. A mere attempt to replicate the grand blue planet floating in an astral sea. Life was not unlike only having experienced the chill of winter through a photograph. Never truly feeling the idyllic frost on a windowpane as snow fell from the somber sky. I believed I could forever hide in a lie, but simple comments that were mentioned in passing gave me courage. Courage that would bring me out of the false world I had created. My father was never a man who spoke words he did not mean. At least when he’s not joking that is, but I could never truly tell. My childhood for the most part missed him, so did I. Always an ocean away, that might be why our relationship never met its full potential. That night was mundane, normal, even boring. The news was on as usual, buzzing along to the latest topics of the world. “That’s good for them, everyone should have that right” my father would say. I looked at anything but him, the television, the table, the plates filled with food. I averted my gaze as time went on; uncaring of my distressed state. Pretending to be unconcerned, in reality I cared. My father’s simple, short words echoed through my thoughts. That sentence would be seared onto my mind as I gripped it tight with my soul. It would burn until the arrival of heat, summer 18

Summer, a hot but happy season. As birds with metal wings soared through bright blue skies, the rumble of the engines drowned out my thoughts. It distracted me, I was given respite from the fears and hopes I held within my mind. As the bird landed I was jolted out of my blank mind. The worries were once again rushed at the forefront of my mind. Walking out to another country, China, I should feel carefree, but I felt the weight of my mind crushing me. However, in this country where I was caged, I discovered the inspiration to seek reality. Among the swarms of people in China, I sat and watched. Faces flowed and blended like pastels as I sat observing. Sitting among the culture of China, I saw that my troubles, were nothing but a drop in the ocean. They were trivial when compared to the problems of the world. I was just one person, with one problem. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was, I told myself silently, after all it was nothing compared to the world’s issues. From those thoughts, a desire arose. The desire felt like ice lodged in my throat, unwilling to melt unless I told someone, anyone. Fear, the word dominated my mind as I returned home to Portland. On a warm summer night I paced back and forth on familiar floorboards. Steam rose from the cups as I dipped tea bags into them. Watching the dark sepia swirl into the liquid, I thought about what I would say. How would I explain? I imagined a thousand different outcomes before tonight and I thought of a thousand more in that moment. The tea held a steady shade of brown as the tannin leached into the water. Burning from the bite of the hot tea, I brought the cups to my dad. Without saying anything, I spoke. Words so vague that they were lost even to me. “It doesn’t matter,” my dad said. I looked up, relieved. And with those short simple words the colors revealed themselves again in my monochrome world. 19

by A. Davis transgender, queer, poly A. is a trans guy from the PNW. He/Him. He likes plants, cooking, and carrying out the gay agenda.

I had a lot of weird shit happen to me when I started testosterone. I think the first thing I remember seeing was butt hair. My body had been pretty much hairless, other than pits and crotch; testosterone kind of filled in the spaces. Suddenly having hair invading my butt cheeks was fucking wild. I was mostly expecting it, though, and that made it pretty easy to get used to. On the other, more mental side, I was not ready to suddenly realize that I was invisible. Strangely enough, I wasn’t ready to pass as “normal” and become an “everyone else.” I had to accept myself, and my “out”-ness to start transitioning; they make sure of it. You have to explain yourself to so many people, prove that you really mean it, out yourself to parents, doctors, teachers, friends, complete fucking strangers. You fling yourself into the goddamn spotlight, and you scream until your lungs are raw, because someone is finally, finally listening and you have built up and hoarded so many things to say. I became visible in a way that my days of dying my hair and wearing rainbow in high school had never prepared me for, because this time, I couldn’t turn it off. You can’t go home and peel off your suddenly hairy skin when the people looking at you become too much. You’re not ready, at 22 years of life, to suddenly have your voice squeak and crack in a way that, three years ago, you made endless fun of your little 21

brother for. I was scared and uncomfortable and there were times when I felt entirely alone. But you don’t keep driving the inches of needle into you muscle because it feels good. For me, it was about the idea of how I could feel, how I thought it might make me feel, and it was about hope. And for the times where there wasn’t any hope left, there was community. Being visible, or at least all the screaming I was doing to make myself visible, let me see all the people around me who were like me. There’s no ice breaker quite like playing the “is the person I’m talking to queer or do they just look like us” game; casually dropping hints and buzzwords until they either take the bait or you’ve completely alienated them. Sharing a certain type of oppressed, miserable, mentally-ill baggage really brings you to a different level of knowing someone. I loved having that visibility that gave me instant contact and community with people like me. So one day, when I realized that I was “passing,” I panicked. People looked at me, post-op, with short, naturally colored hair, wispy facial hair, and a deep-enough voice, and they didn’t automatically think “queer.” Nothing has ever made me feel more invisible than that. When a cis guy waited until all the women were out of earshot and made a joke that ended with “women, right?” When my partner’s cousin made a joke about how a woman on TV that he didn’t find desirable looked like a “pre-op tranny.” When a new acquaintance didn’t feel comfortable leaving his girlfriend alone with me in the hotel room we were sharing for the weekend. When I found out that I had to have my own, separate lodging at the Girl Scout camp that I had been working at for years because I was suddenly enough of a man. This is what made me feel the most alienated from myself.

I don’t really have an answer for this problem yet. I try to use my powers of invisibility for good; I made the cis guy explain his joke until he felt bad for making it. I told my partner’s cousin that he was talking to a “pre-op tranny” and watched him go from surprised, to embarrassed, to defensive, to angry that I had been keeping this “secret” from him; my partner didn’t back me up, and now she’s an ex-partner. The new acquaintance is now an old friend, and we still laugh that he was worried about me, of all people, not being safe around women. I enjoy my personal space at camp, and do a PowerPoint about inclusion and being an ally to your LGBTQ+ campers during staff training. I carve out space for my queerness where I am, and, for now, that’s enough. Well, that, and I’m taking a page from my high school self’s book and trying out the whole dying my hair thing again. Can’t hurt, right?

by Anonymous pansexual, non-binary, fluid

There’s a confusing sort of loneliness in fluidity and ambiguity. As a gender-fluid, pansexual, sex-positive grey ace (a mouthful, jeez), I am not properly defined in clear-cut, simplified terms that the entire world just understands. Fuck dude, I don’t even fully understand them, and the labels don’t personally make me feel much better. I really only understand that I’m female-bodied and while I love that, there are rare moments I’m called a boy or given male pronouns, and it gives me a rush of gratification-- a surge of feeling that says, “Yes, you were seen today”. I know that I’ve been on and off attracted to people of all shapes, sizes, genders, and identities, and there’s nothing I can do to avoid that, and believe me, I’ve tried to avoid it. I know that I never truly wanted sex--not even with myself--until I was nineteen and with my partner for a very long time. And I still think about it less than a lot of people I know. It took me a long time to understand all the hidden pieces in me I’ve been able to uncover so far, whether it was that they were really and truly hidden from sight, or right in front of my refusing eyes. So when I try to explain it to others, I can’t help but feel sympathy when they just don’t 25

get it. Why would they? My identities are invisible. They aren’t cut and dry answers on printed paper, they’re fresh, erasable scrawlings written on a window with dry-erase markers, waiting to be edited the next day, hour, minute, and occasionally, I have moments where every part of me feels like one gigantic question mark with a couple exclamation points after--for emphasis. It’s strange, because despite how much I can relate to an asexual friend’s repulsion or ambivalence to sex, a voice sometimes says, “Yeah, but you do like sex. A lot.” I can sympathize to another friend’s desire to get laid, but the voice whispers, “You have never needed sex this badly ever.” The voice appears when someone compares or puts me into a group of girls without asking me. “This is weird. You don’t belong here.” Or when I’m in a room with a bunch of men and suddenly it’s a tidal wave feeling of, “You will never, ever belong here.” So in this unexplainable way, I can understand how a lot of people in many different mindsets think and feel, and at the same time, I couldn’t possibly truly get it. I don’t have the same experience, I have a quarter of it at best. I feel like I’m just a little bit of everything, a smoothie of sexuality and gender. But I don’t think Identity Crisis is a good name for a drink at Jamba Juice, and I don’t think 10% of everything makes me feel whole, but more like a watered down mess. There are many, many things I love about being fluid. I love the acceptance I get to feel privately and around the people who know and get me. I love the freedom of not subscribing to any social standard someone 26

set for me hundreds of years ago without my consent. I love that coming into my identity has opened me up to learning so much about myself, and has brought me closer to loving myself for exactly who I am, and not hiding from myself anymore. I just wish there was a way for to make myself clear when people meet me. For people to see me and just understand that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m whatever I need to be today, and I always will be.

by Finn Piper non-binary, queer, grey-ace I write a lot of letters. This is one of them.

My Dearest Esther, It’s all a blur: 2 years forgotten and remembered in a haze of unanswered texts and unfinished calories. I am just drunk enough to remember without regret. I have propped myself up with the pillow that was previously beneath my wandering head. I cannot sleep this time of year. Memories of you have kept my mind mumbling for days. You are the creases in my sheets and the lines of the carpark. I can see your stomach beyond the cracks in my ceiling. I can see your ankles in the vapour trails I will one day follow to the moon1. I can see your name in every vein—drawn beneath my flesh in a stretch of road akin to that which keeps me from you. I thought I could forget you. I thought that as I faded north so too would your tally marks disappear from the road, but I see you more with the passing of each mile marker. You are becoming my

1 “I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom; I will fly to the moon in it… when this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together.” Dear Esther, The Chinese Room

reflection. Every body Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever touched, including my own, has become yours somehow. I remember the first time I saw your stomach, like a patient upon a table. The broken mirror that spanned your closet door was cracked in uncoordinated thin lines. Similar white railways etched their way around your middle becoming a tightened measuring tape that stretched and sank with your heaving. It has been 4 years now, since those lines briefly sent you asunder. I have since sharpened my finger, running it along one of the lines in my own mirror. I eased myself open so a sliver of the clot could leave me, leaving vapourtrails round my ankles. I carved all meaning along the edges of my canvas again and again. My skin has become riddled with maps of my own making. I found my first white line yesterday. One of my earlier attempts at freeing those within me finally found its proper end. Soon, so will I. What started as a roadmap of the creases in your hand has lead me to someone new, rather, it has lead me to a series of someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new. The red lines along your waist have faded to a stark white, and I have followed the rivers they bled in search of a new source. I can see you from across this abyss, but I can never hold you again. I traced the crack between us and found so many more. Rainfall has left me on an island in a rising sea. Your tides have risen and my world is shrinking. I am running out of time, running out of places to look. I know you wanted to slice and peel back the skin on your surface because you felt you did not deserve to be alive. You deserve to be alive, Esther. And you deserve to find someone lovely, even if heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not me. But if 30

he is me, if she is me, or if they are me, then I’ll be waiting at your shoreline at dusk. Meet me beneath the orange fog, and I’ll whisper a lullaby into the sand at you. Soon the saltwater will find itself grabbing at my ankles. It will pull me under with a whisper.

I still hope for the best2, Finn

2 “Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.” — Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters

by Anonymous queer, nonbinary/neutrois/genderfluid (occasionally demi-girl), white, able-bodied

girls liking girls loving girls kissing girls holding hands with girls fighting with girls crushing on girls hugging girls breaking up with girls leaving girls fucking girls sleeping beside girls growing with girls girls loving girls your mother tells you “if you cut your hair like that they will think you are a lesbian” she warns you “it happened to my friend women hit on her in bars” you don’t want them to 32

think you are a lesbian as if the worst thing you could be is gay fear is taught by those trusted and loved assuming you are like them that you are naturally disturbed by queerness must be told not to discriminate though you were not horrified only told thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something bad about them you must resist repulsion they want you to know that those others are bad evil disgusting you must tolerate those gay others you were taught this you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t learn love you learn covered hate you unlearn hate inside you to open to love 33

from outside you different, gross, ugly do they know? could they see it on you when you kissed a girl soft lips warm skin but it was only a dare the moon becomes your mother sheltering you, reminding you of the light that is reflected upon you from the generations of disconnected people who love bodies like their own hearts like your own like you she and the earth and the sun and the ocean they pull and attract, spinning over eons in the darkness and shadows and blinding light you are the moon hiding in plain sight (in)visible to the naked eye only thirteen looking at her jeans you tell yourself you just 34

really like fashion it’s her style you like you aren’t attracted you crush on all the boys you make sure everyone knows you are boy crazy “what would you do if there was a lesbian in the locker room? EW!!” hiding from yourself lying to yourself you didn’t want to be gay don’t let yourself become that do not accept it you worry tell yourself it’s not true there’s no way you could be one of those lesbians that word spit from a thousand mouths like disgust and anger how could you be one of those that word drips with venom 35

and bites like a dagger each time it’s stuck in your side even now “she’s my lesbian lover!” their laughter bubbles up and surrounds you like a wall with no windows your best friends it’s a joke why does it hurt so is it the history of insults flung or because you are not a woman (are you a woman?) you cannot know both. maybe. childhood sleepovers pillows fluffed and slippers on playing truth or dare always hoping they dare you to kiss one makeovers done with glittering makeup the intimacy of her hand on your skin her breath on your neck her legs straddling yours to get the right angle to dust the pink powder over my skin 36

“it’s okay to be gay as long as you don’t shove it in my face” only straight couples in the hallways at school in the movies on tv in the books you read in the songs you listen to in the photos you see in the jokes on twitter in your friends in your parents you hear your mother has a friend who is married to her wife and you hold back tears as you ask to meet her every action political mere existence radical life debatable identity controversial tolerance celebratory respect rare expectations narratives and tropes your story written out before you can live it “so brave” they want to hear your struggle 37

to commend you on your strength only after you come out you won’t can’t don’t allow yourself to consider a crush on a girl that’s not an option you will not let that happen you see how they react when they find out a friend is gay congratulations to themselves they resisted their urge of revolt they did not recoil in disgust congratulations for they did not hit you they instead paused smiled and said something uniquely tolerant what a good friend you are straight until proven guilty of being queer coming out is saying that they were wrong saying they thought you were straight 38

they never asked, though never thought to ask “do you like girls too?” the world created to cater heterosexuality you are inherently radical you do not ask| to become a walking talking protest you speak out for those unable to only a few come out how can they know one or two of them “isn’t he so flamboyant?” another year passes rumors whispered hand cupped to ear “I heard she’s gay” you don’t want them to think you could be too fascinated yet terrified you show horrified curiosity time pressing on anxiety building you fear the truth 39

slowly you notice accept these small things that make you so very gay surrounded by those like you no fear of how people could react you make small confessions concessions one day you tell your roommate “this makes me look so butch” you say it over and over tasting the word on your tongue until it feels safe could you live forever every day of your life trying to hide yourself from yourself lying to yourself? you guess you always knew you were queer (different) you didn’t like it but you had to accept it 40

becoming honest with yourself you become honest with others to Come Out would be too much giving the straight people your allies their satisfaction consuming your experience using it to further their performance of support the annoyance of being mislabeled straight your unwillingness to come out in subtle ways in small moments just making small comments you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a moment when you knew you were gay but you know when you stopped trying to be straight they say those people are so unusual exotic and strange listen to the names we call them so unlike anyone here of course your professor teaches 41

like we don’t know what queerness is like you feel yourself evaporating body dissolving the floor opens up into the earth swallowing you whole you descend as the professor drones on “let’s watch this video” it hurts so much you become numb you are shaking trembling cold in the sweltering heat of summer gripping your desk wanting nothing more than to run from the room but you cannot miss information it could be on the test quickly your feet fly to bring you home collapse and heave sob and cry you are so alone even here they say it’s not here you are supposed to be 42

safe here they are not hateful here but you still feel it here their fear of you disgust of you discomfort of you even in this haven they don’t think they are homophobic you are not a woman how do you tell your parents’ parents that you are not the gender they think you are when they cannot get their own dog’s pronouns right how can you hope for compassion and respect when people debate your existence your reality and validity even your most loved with nothing to say to you that won’t hurt “I don’t know how I feel about that” 43

let down you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect more no one believes in you not existing like a myth you are a god ask for more? no thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too much you are asking for too much patience is your virtue you cannot ask for more love compassion respect the world does not know what you are let them catch up be reasonable you call yourself queer but others look shocked you cannot say that but what are you how can they categorize you how can they treat you different 44

it’s not for you you’re too young you call yourself pansexual but it’s not about sex for you they say you try to be too unique snowflakes must melt you call yourself bi but you can’t be trusted you’ll just cheat on her you question your attraction you dated boys you kissed boys did you love them did you love him can your orientation change does boys and girls mean bi you love her now was it not real before you said the words

what do they think of you now those boys the ones who held your icy hands took you on forest walks with hidden kisses tossed you flying disks and sloppy kisses to come out you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come out they put you there they assumed you change your status: in a Relationship you cannot show her what will her family do but you tell people she is nice lovely and bright like sunshine warming my skin some of your friends from younger days and you have not since spoken 46

drifting and growing apart or did they choose do they not approve you discover realize (girl) crushes from your youth all those girls you wanted friendship she was just so pretty you wanted to be her friend you learned all about her just friends you see it was another lie you made for yourself to convince yourself you were not gay you do not worry here in this corner of a town of a county of a state of a nation of a world what they think of your orientation but your gender 47

is not one you will tell anyone desire urge pause regret shame to tell everyone your gender your pronouns what you are what you are not but you stop yourself don’t. not yet. it’s not the right time yet they’re not ready yet what will those people think public bathrooms ever feared by queers squeezed too tightly into the boxes and lines and boundaries of gender now locations of anxiety you know which are busy you avoid those choosing safer rooms no gender specified 48

“is this the men’s room?” the two girls say loudly enough for you and the other person to hear it echoes rattles off the tiled walls you bow your head avoid eye contact was it you or them or both of you why did they say it mention a partner your girlfriend boldly without fear or thinking then silence as they rush to gather the appropriate response your face filling with blood flushing with blush a mistake you made queerness is being a category of porn 49

not suitable for children to see sinful unsearchable not safe easier to see yourself and your partner in porn than in the media you are interracial lesbian you are not lesbian and neither is she but together they call you hot in the same moment another one glares â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think you are gayer than you thinkâ&#x20AC;? she assures you are scared nervous delighted you join a team where you always are on the same side

queerness is fear of showing affection being caught being found out outed the threatening world leaving home you slowly find more surrounding yourself they teach you there are many ways to be gay they chant “femmes and queers to the front!” at the house shows you are valued here they don’t ask which one you are against a fierce winter wind her love warms you shining upon your skin her eyes glittering deep amber ringed by the ocean your scars aligned

mirrored pain from before memory upon your elbows moon tugs on oceans love tugs on hearts her kisses on your cheek pull you in closer deeper down down down into a deep blood black red heat hot fire passion oozing melting sizzling cracking shaking trembling shuddering snapping shut

by Mollie Miller homosexual, non-binary

My mother says that she remembers when she was born. It felt early, and everything was dark, and then it was light. It may seem like an easily fabricated memory, but then so could any of my first memories; I had a green plaid pillow. I stood up in my crib and told my mom to change me up in fully formed words rather than the garble of diaperhood. One of my earliest memories of vomiting was when I was three years old. A trail of milky slime spewed in my wake as I waddled shakily around our grey living room carpet. When I was done, I followed the awesome snail trail back to where it began. As every child does, I had countless vomits in the early years. In my tiny head, I imagined a quota of time between each incident. Sometimes it felt like it had not been long enough, and that would throw me off balance. What if it started and never stopped again? When I was nine, there was a family outing to a new pizza place. I have tried endlessly to remember what it was called, but can recall nothing but leather booths, hot red lighting and fakely friendly tuxedoed waiters. Any pizza place, USA. The sauce was thick and coppery with basil and oregano and I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feeling it, so my mother ordered me extra cheese quesadillas. Later, the sauce revisited us all in an orange smear on the bathroom rug and cadmium spatter patterns on the bathtub and walls. Sometimes when 54

I am anxious, I still taste the bitter tang of tomato sauce. Around the same time, I had a mean friend named Stephanie. Most girls in my grade were cautious of me, understandably, because I followed them around like a traveling salesman desperate to tell them facts about hermit crabs. Stephanie was different. She wore bright yellow dresses and also made the other girls feel weird, because she tried to control them. Lonely and unappreciated, I was ready to be controlled. It was a small price to pay for being hugged every morning, sent on secret missions to spy on other playground-goers and holding hands during lunch. You can have my Arthur juicebox, just don’t let any other girls share with you. One day, she caught me playing tetherball with another person for a hair too long and became so irate that she spit up clear fluid on the blacktop. I wanted to help her but the sight reduced me to a helpless pulp, more viscous even than her toxic emission, a shadow of myself a week before when I ran out of the room and failed a spelling test because a classmate had vomited what our peers claimed was “tuna fish pancakes” into the cardboard testing divider on her desk. My parents wanted me to go to a high school with special art programs, when the time came. Burnt out from social anxiety and barely containing enthusiasm for any extracurricular activity, I was not keen to do it but applied to do so anyway. On the eve of my acceptance, my parents sat me down to have a conversation about what it would mean to go to a school that was across the city and had wider expectations of students’ performance. Amid the painful discussion of logistics, my dad told a story that chilled me. “I just want to let you know about something you could experience at this school that you may not be prepared for. One of the bailiffs I work with has a daughter who goes to the academy. She went to pick her daughter up 55

from school one day. She was waiting in the parking lot in the car, and she saw two students, two girls, kissing each other. She threw up in her car.” Ivan Pavlov, an early psychologist in the field of behaviorism, proved that one can make an animal anticipate a positive or negative stimulus with a neutral one. For example, if I clap my hands only while giving my cat a bath, the cat will soon associate any hand clapping with being sudsed up. A cat who may otherwise love going to the theater would be traumatized toward the end of the production when the audience pays their due with well deserved applause. Pavlov was not a terrifically kind man; he tested his hypothesis by showing a baby a rat. The baby had no response to the rat, until another man behind the baby smacked a metal bar with a hammer. The noise, naturally terrifying to the baby, made him terrified of the rat. It is difficult to assess why one’s emotional responses to certain stimuli are the way they are. Every person alive has experiences with vomit, loud noises, heights, and other snippets from a clickbait list of top 10 “irrational” fears. What makes these experiences positive or negative depends solely on how plucky a kid you are, whether or not your uncle is a behaviorist, and how hard the taste of milk makes you shake. Sometimes I am most comfortable when I try to remember to look at each sight, sound and idea individually.

by Emerson Lee non-binary, pansexual they/them/theirs

I never knew I could feel so free. For years, I tried to be a Real Girl. I intuitively knew that I wasn’t one but I couldn’t understand that until much later. Still, I tried. To tame the hair that was always misbehaving (even though it should never have to). To shimmy into dresses and skirts in patterns and styles that now seem inauthentic. To coerce my body into the slimmest figure, the ‘ideal’ shape (whatever that is). It felt like everything I did had one goal: to assimilate, blend in, be one of Them. Eventually, I tried to be a Real Boy. It was euphoric: the short hair, the v-necks, the unsmiling selfies like I imagine a young Jimmy Stewart would take. I always liked him. Handsome and kind, it seemed, like I wanted to be. I steered clear of pink and lace and anything that could be deemed ‘femme’. I coerced my body into the slimmest chest, the smallest hips, hiding curves and hiding myself. I was doing the best I could to assimilate, blend in, be one of Them. These are the things I associated with womanhood and manhood, being a girl or a boy. The clothes, the hair, the bodies. It never crossed my mind that those didn’t need to mean anything, that they were just clothes, it was just hair, bodies are just bodies. 58

I never knew I could have it all. These days, I wear what is comfortable, what I like. I wear v-necks and red lipstick. Dresses and high-tops. Boxers and lacy bras. These things, just things. My body, just a body. Brilliant, all of them. I reflect with sadness at the person who anxiously refrained from saying “thank you” to the bus driver for fear of breaking their masculine illusion with an obviously feminine voice (but a voice is just a voice and it can say so many things). I think about the person who spent middle and high school in a continual push to be like Them, the pretty girls and to be loved by Them, the handsome boys. I remember the aching that my boy heart felt when he saw his old favorite lipstick but couldn’t bring himself to wear it. I remember the aching that my girl heart felt when she surveyed the mirror, so sure she wasn’t a Real Girl but not having any other option (or so she thought until the blissful now). I worry about the person I would have become if I hadn’t learned that I didn’t have to become, I could just be. And it is such an indescribable pleasure, to just be. It still feels like a dream to wake up, put clothes on, and walk out the door. To not try so goddamn hard, all the time. To not think about it every moment. To use my voice, to say ‘thank you’. To feel like one of the pretty girls, and one of the pretty boys, and one of the pretty people.

by Anonymous homosexual For Holly, who helped me find my voice, and Salone, who encouraged me to use it.

I didn’t “always know” but most of the time, I really wish I had. Certain things made my heart beat fast, and certain things didn’t. Like the way a girl would tuck her hair behind her ear, or grin shyly at boys across the room. I remember those things made me flutter inside and brought pink to my cheeks. I wanted a girl to look at me the way they looked at boys. But the first time I slow-danced with a boy at a middle school dance, my stomach was in knots. I felt panicked, insecure, and completely wrong. When I told my sister about how awkward I had felt, she told me it was because I had a crush on him. Later on, I mistook the same warning flags of discomfort as signs that I liked certain boys. I didn’t. Growing up as the middle of three sisters, we constantly heard statements that began with “When you get married” and “Your kids” and “your husbands”. From a young age, I remember feeling scared of marriage. How could I marry a boy? I wanted so badly to feel the excitement my sisters felt, but instead, I was filled with dread. This dread coated my childhood and early teenage years with depression as I struggled to come to terms with my future, the life my parents dreamed for me: the marriage that I viewed as an inevitable sacrifice. I thought I didn’t have a choice. The possibility that I was actually gay never occurred to me, after living in such an aggressively hetero household. Over time, I tried valiantly to trick 60

myself into feeling love for boys. For a bit, I even believed it myself. Then she came into my life. And damn, I hate sounding so cliché, but it seemed like everything was beautiful: the stars seemed brighter, music was sweeter, and as my heart fell in love for the first time, everything made sense. As cringey and corny as it sounds, I had unknowingly gone through my love life with my eyes closed, head down, filled with dread, faking enthusiasm until I believed it myself, so when First Love hit me, I was starstruck. When I came out and told my parents I had fallen in love with a girl, my heart felt like it contained all the warmth and light of the sun, but the happiness and pride only lasted for a few hours before the threats started pouring in. The shame that would soon become so familiar to me. Commanding me to unfriend our extended family on Facebook, so they won’t find out. Telling me that I was young and didn’t know I was ruining my life. Forbidding me from coming out to anybody else. They told me that my sisters were crying about it. And the worst: “What are we going to tell our friends?” There are many nights throughout the past two years that I have forgotten (either unintentionally out of trauma/dissociation, or intentionally to block out the pain), but I will never forget the first night I laid awake, knowing that I was letting my parents down, just by falling in love. Knowing that the future they had planned for me was shattered. After that, the threats became worse. If I didn’t break up with her, they told me, they would pull me out of school and keep me at home where they 61

could keep an eye on me. And they did. It wasn’t an empty threat. My parents are smart people, and extremely conscious of our family’s untouchable reputation, so they did things as quietly as possible. When I came home for Spring break, they canceled my ticket back to school, and told me I was staying home and didn’t have a choice. They masked the entire thing as “Emma’s mental health breakdown” or something. I was granted a “mental health leave of absence” by my school, due to the fact that my parents dragged me to doctor’s appointments. At the appointments, I felt so helpless. I felt like such a freak. I knew that my parents hated who I was, they hated something so close to my heart. So of course, I cried. I told the doctor about the dread of my childhood. I told them I felt empty, like a freak. But the doctors didn’t know that the dread was rooted in internalized homophobia. The doctors wrote my dread on a piece of paper and called it a diagnosis for severe depression, and deemed me unfit for school. It felt like a death sentence to me. After that, my parents wouldn’t let me leave the house, so I spent nearly a year completely stagnant, trying to call my girlfriend in secret, cowering in fear whenever I heard footsteps. Within a week of being pulled out of school, my parents also withdrew my life savings, nearly $4000, from my bank account, leaving no extra money for me to spend, because they “were scared I would run away.” I didn’t sleep. My parents sent me to therapists, trying to find one that would sympathize with them, who would understand. They wanted the therapists to tell me to stop being so hateful, to see my parents’ side of things. They contacted the therapists behind my back, begging them to break confidentiality and tell them in detail what I spoke about during sessions. In addition to the big things they did, the abuse dug even deeper into small things, yelling at me at night, telling me that I was wrong. Most of the time, they just called me stupid and silly, they told me I wasn’t actually a lesbian, I was just confused. They rapidly cycled through the stages of grief (as they grieved 62

the heterosexuality I never had): denial, anger, bargaining, sadness... but mostly denial and anger. They channeled raw hatred towards my thengirlfriend, convinced that she had somehow tricked me into being gay. I try to avoid using loaded statements, but believe me, it nearly killed us. This part is when the shame comes in. I know it’s wrong to, but I feel ashamed of falling so deeply. I feel ashamed of my story, of my parents casting me out because of my sexuality. The emotional abuse I experienced..... it feels like too much of a trope. I’m scared to tell it, in fear that people will think I am summarizing a telenovela instead of my life for the past two years. There was a point when I relied on my friends to help me through the darkest times, but after a while, the shame soaked under my skin and I pulled away from them too. My pride is probably my worst flaw: instead of letting myself be vulnerable, I tend to strive for perfection, to never let anybody see that I’m struggling. Anna, Laney, Jenny, Christina, Linnea, Sabrina, if you’re reading this: I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let the shame get to me. I blame myself for letting it happen. I am so sorry. I don’t know how I escaped it, but I did. After months, after all energy and rebellion had been stomped out of me, i wanted desperately to move out and publicly proclaim how abused I was. But I knew nobody would believe me, because my parents always made sure to tell their side of the story to all of my friends’ parents, so I suffered in silence. When I escaped, it was because they thought that they had fixed things. They thought that I was on the right track again. So when they told me they were letting me return to college, I hit the ground running and I didn’t look back for an entire 9 months. This winter break, I returned to my family, one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done. The thing that people never tell you about being estranged from your family is that it doesn’t really get better. Your family won’t hesitate to blame 63

you and victimize themselves. I think that’s what hurt the most: knowing that during my year of torture in my childhood home, during the year I spent hating myself and internalizing the shame of being gay, they took my depression as a personal offense. They were hurt that I pushed them away. They were hurt that I didn’t look back. I think they viewed my separation from the family kind of like Percy’s separation from the Weasleys when he joined the Ministry. (Except in that case, Percy was wrong and his family just wanted to help/love him.) My parents probably viewed their actions as Tough Love for the Greater Good, but there is a line between Tough Love and Emotional Abuse, and they crossed that line every day. At this point, I still don’t know what to do. I broke up with my first love, due to differences, but I still can’t sort out the way I feel about my family. After slowly rebuilding, I’ve accepted a few facts: I am gay, I love myself, and I will heal. During the 9 months, I went to Pride, and cried ugly tears of happiness when I realized that I wasn’t as alone as I thought I was. I’ve made friends who have supported me. I’ve been in therapy for a while and have been informally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I know I will recover from my past someday, but most of the time, I try not to think about it. Even when they apologized, it was for the wrong things, and most of the time, it’s easy just to hold each other at arm’s length and be polite/distant with each other and pretend like nothing ever happened. For me, finding peace didn’t mean fixing my family and helping them see that It’s Okay To Be Gay. My solution wasn’t to hold my family’s hand and explain to them which instances were homophobic and hurtful (believe me, I tried that). In order to properly heal, I had to step back and say “You know what? My parent’s acceptance does not determine my happiness. My parents do not control my self-esteem. I don’t have to revolve my selfworth around their opinion of me.” Because yes, it’s important to think 64

critically and surround oneself with differing opinions, but this is more than just a differing opinion, this is about respect. All relationships require a foundation of respect, and I don’t want to stay emotionally invested in somebody who doesn’t respect me. I can still treat them as a human being, I don’t have to actively hate them, but I also don’t have to tether myself to them and love them unconditionally. Let’s be real: this is still really difficult to talk about. It’s causing me to freeze up a little bit. I feel scared of my past; it feels like a story from Chicken Soup for the Soul instead of my own experiences. I feel dissociated from it, yet I know that it was me and it was real. But I guess my point in writing this is to let other gay kids (esp those going through any form of shitty parental abuse) know that they aren’t alone, because I wish somebody had been there to tell 18 year old Emma those comforting affirmations: You don’t have to feel dread and shame, even though people may tell you to. You aren’t a freak, you deserve so much better. Please don’t be afraid, I love you. Everything will be okay. Even if it’s not okay, please just keep your head above the water and try not to drown. I love you, it’s going to be okay. Never let them silence you. The dread and shame does not belong to you, do not let them convince you that you created those things.

by Ellie Boroughs bisexual, asexual, cisgender, biromantic Follow me on Twitter @rebellieing

Dear Fradel, You said you hadn’t guessed it but you weren’t surprised, that I’d always been so adamant that I was straight that it made sense that I wasn’t. I guess that’s true. For a while there (a real long while, if I’m being completely honest), I was afraid of what it meant to not be straight. And then I met you and I got tired of being afraid because you never seemed to be. Some nights I still am. I’ll lie awake and think, “No! This is wrong. You’re wrong. You’re fucked up in the head and this is just another example of how much”. Or “You don’t actually like girls. You’re just doing it for the attention”. Or “It was just the one. You were lonely and mixed up friendship love with love love. It was just the one”. And there are days where I’ll be bored and go on tinder and have to close the app as soon as the first girl shows up because I’m afraid I might start thinking those thoughts during the day time too. The nights are fewer and fewer but they still happen. Other nights, I lay awake afraid that this fear inside me will never end. It never will, will it?

Dear Marlo, The first time I kissed a girl, I was drunk. I think that’s the way it happens for a lot of us, right? We know that girls kissing girls is wrong so we convince ourselves not to when we’re sober, but as soon as our blood alcohol levels are above 0, we stop thinking as much. I wish I had thought more and drank less. I would never have kissed you sober. Not because I’m a girl and you’re a girl and we both like girls, but because of everything I know about you. You were the first girl I kissed but the last one I wanted to and now I’m still hating myself for it. I haven’t been drunk since. I’m afraid the next time I am, the memories will be there. I can feel them waiting to emerge in full. Every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of one in an item of clothing or in someone who walks like you or when I see you in the coffee shop I decided to stop avoiding. And those little glimpses break me time and time again. I suppose in the long run, they are good. They force me to remember, but in the short term all they bring me is self-loathing, anxiety, and a want to stay in bed all day. It’s hard to live with the fact that your own actions are responsible for all your pain. It’s a lot easier to blame someone else, but blaming you or the alcohol isn’t going to make me feel better. I still hate myself but maybe someday I won’t. Someday, I’m gonna be a better person.

Dear Lucy, I’m having issues figuring out how to put words together right now. That happens sometimes. Always when I’m happy. For some reason, happiness means I am no longer able to write.

I know I shouldn’t have a crush on you—for the first time it’s not just because you’re a girl. Everything I know about you tells me that I can’t have this crush. •

You don’t really do relationships. I don’t really do long term sex only things.

•

We work together.

•

You’re a vegan.

I know I can’t have this crush, but I spend time with you and it brings something out of me. I make you laugh and in your eyes I see something so genuine and wholesome and wholehearted and I just want to make you laugh more. And it isn’t even just that you are the most attractive person I have ever seen. You’re also one of the most honest and kind and cool people I’ve ever met. You aren’t who I thought you were going to be. I know I should try to get over this crush but I don’t really want to. You make me not know how to write and I think I need that in my life right now.

Dear Grace, I hate queer dating apps. Everyone on there is a common connection of some sort. A friend. A friend’s ex. A former friend’s one night stand. That girl who made me a drink at that party I regret going to. That random girl who used to live in my building. A familiar face from a familiar coffee shop. There are too many degrees of connection to ever be anonymous or to meet anyone who is actually new. I guess it doesn’t really matter, though. I’ve already matched with you.

by Oliver Amyakar demisexual, non-binary white, Jewish

I don’t think we talk about vaginas enough as a society. In my life, I’ve heard a lot of dick jokes from cisgender men and women involving sexuality and masculinity and all sorts of other topics that, frankly, dicks shouldn’t be involved in. This seems really inconsequential, I guess, but when I really think about it, I feel personally affected. Growing up as a person that was assigned female at birth, I never really felt like I could safely or confidently talk about vaginas. This has only gotten harder as I’ve grown older and come to identify as a transgender man and later genderqueer. I’m not super open about identifying as genderqueer and being nonbinary, so I hear comments sometimes from my family about how I must hate having a vagina or questions about my “inevitable” phalloplasty. I completely respect people who need that, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not my experience. I really want to take this opportunity to share something that’s been on my mind since I decided to come out as trans: I love my vagina and I don’t think I should be ashamed of that. I used to feel weird about that fact. I don’t like having breasts and I’ve felt a lot of gender dysphoria regarding said breasts. I’ve been binding my chest since I was 18 and have actively been pursuing surgery to remove 71

them. But I haven’t had the same feeling about my vagina. I’ve only ever had sex with other people who were assigned female at birth and I have to say that not only do I love my vagina, but I love other vaginas and having sex with other people with vaginas. This is something I never wanted to give up while transitioning. I want to continue having a vagina and having sex with other people with vaginas. I just don’t want to be a girl. I think about this a lot and I’ve been speculating that what really scares people about vaginas is menstrual cycles— another thing that people feel is inappropriate to talk about in polite conversation. As someone who has been doing hormone replacement therapy for the last four years, I don’t have a lot experience with periods in my adult life, but I recently had one that slipped through the cracks and took me by surprise. You’d think that watching myself bleed consistently for a few days would be a horrifying experience, and you’d probably also think it would make me curse the fact that I was born with a uterus and cause incredible dysphoria. Remarkably, the only dysphoria I felt was caused by experiencing this period while having to travel and participate large social situations. I was in pain and miserable and emotional and had an acne breakout, but weirdly enough it was affirming in my genderqueerness when I was alone or with my partner. It was a moment where I was glad my body, this assigned female at birth body, was keeping me in check. It was humbling, and I’m thankful that biweekly testosterone injections stop me from experiencing periods regularly. The testosterone really stops me from having to directly address the most feminizing quality of the vagina. It’s amazing to me that after all this time, I still have found a way to love this part of me that it seems like society has been trying to get me to reject or denounce or get rid of. I’ve taken pride in embracing it. I’ve been empowered by the decision to take control of my body and I want to 72

continue to learn to fiercely love myself and the body that works so hard to keep me alive. So Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll continue to love my vagina and try to love myself and embrace whatever that means to me.

by Anna bisexual

I’m queer. It surprises people when I say this, because they say I don’t look queer. Apparently, queer has a “look.” I’m also a cisgender feminine woman attracted to men, women, and those who fall in between. Bisexual is the typical name for this, even though the dichotomy the word represents reflects the exact dichotomy in gender that I’ve consciously rejected. There’s also the term pansexual, a term that stands with me in rejecting the gender binary, but also one I haven’t ever adopted because it makes me feel self-consciously self-congratulatory, too broad or too foreign to translate to the general masses when my sexuality is publicly on the dissection table. I’m also married to a man. My sexuality was virtually invisible before my marriage, but afterwards, unless I proclaimed its existence to everyone I met; it became a translucent layer of my identity, invisible to the naked eye. Some people have even declared bisexuality doesn’t exist. “Pick one!”

“It’s a phase!” “You’ll realize you’re straight or gay eventually.” But I didn’t realize I was straight or gay. Instead, I realized I was queer, something that didn’t evaporate after my marriage, when I “picked one.” I’m in an open relationship with my husband that allows me to have outside relationships with women. This shocks most, that my husband could possibly be comfortable with such an arrangement. To us, though, it’s the most natural situation we could imagine. “Doesn’t he get jealous?” “Does that mean you’re [gasp] swingers?” “How can a marriage exist without monogamy?” We’ve wondered the same things! Our relationship is different. It’s not what people are used to, but it makes us happy. It’s queer. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

by Anonymous homosexual non-binary

Being gay is nasty. Years of conditioning has taught me this fundamental fact. God teaches you this fundamental truth and my grandmother told me, too. When I walk outside in hot pink with a fat overhanging belly, the people whisper in the streets “look at him, what an atrocity.” You live a few decades in this world and it reminds you so often that you’re a monster that you can never forget. This is how I occupy the Earth: a monster who commits unforgivable sins. I’m the product of a soldier occupying a tropical island meeting a local girl 60 years ago. I do not know if the union was a willing one. Similarly, my existence here may or may not be a willing one. But, I’m staying, so I suppose it is a willing one after all. I began to wear my label of “beast” proudly like a shining pin on my lapel. Yeah, that’s me: I’m nasty, gross, garbage, I’m not what you want, I don’t or can’t follow the rules. The rules: 1.

Dress in jeans and stand like a man

Find a girl who wears floral skirts and sits like a woman

Stand with her underneath a floral arch and reproduce

It’s impossible to follow those rules - I don’t think I could if I tried, so I might as well break them on purpose. I might as well look like a monster on purpose. The fucked up hair, the second hand clothes, fucking in an alley and making out with strangers in the dark parking lot behind a casino. That’s how you think I should act right? That’s what you want to do right? If the rules told you that you were allowed? I sin proudly. When you act like a monster you forget that inside, you are human too. When you’re fucking that nameless man, the one who’s repulsive and said some questionable things, for the fifth time this week you might forget that you dress like a monster but you’re a human underneath. When you eat fast food and live it up like a glutton and then run out of money and forget to eat for a few days, you forget that a human cannot sustain themselves like this. When you’re staring out your window you might forget who you were supposed to be again if you didn’t have to break all the rules to prove a point. Being gay is not nasty. It is beautiful and it can be pure. A neatly stacked pile of your favorite books could look like a heap of garbage to the next person and yet it is still important to you. Being a monster is beautiful and just because others see you as garbage doesn’t mean you have to lose yourself to that role. You’re the product of a beautiful, tragic history and it is amazing you are here. It is amazing I am here. And being gay is not nasty.

Unpeculiar ÂŠ 2017 Oliver Amyakar All stories within belong to their respective authors and are used with permission Self-published by Oliver Amyakar This anthology was designed, illustrated, edited, and curated by Oliver Amyakar First edition, March 2017 Printed and assembled at Western Washington University Bellingham, WA Design Department Production Lab Print & Copy Services hellomroliver@gmail.com @hellomxoliver Thank you to everyone who contributed and everyone who wanted to contribute. Thank you to those who inspired this wherever you are now. Thank you to the design professors for always encouraging me to be myself.