Issue 4

QUEERMAGAZIN E Volume

1:Issue4

Contents

03. Creator’s Note

05. Hum Dekenge

A Nazm being used as a medium of protest, becoming a symbol of resistance and defiance after a public rendition -which ignored the ban on Faiz’s poetry- in 1986

07. Queer’s Read This

Being Queer means sometimes standing loud and proud, and sometimes it means to “stop the dancing” but not forever

11. Split In Half

To be ‘Visibly’ Queer means different things depending on the situation, whether that’s online, with family, or in school. An Op-Ed by someone who experiences this, an experience of being split amongst the various contexts of life.

13. Latine Censorship: Because I love you

An experience of growth, of realizing that just because you love someone does not mean they should have the power to change you.

15. To be Young

We need to do more for our children. For them not to censor themselves or have to hide in fear, for legal protections to be created, for more.

19. Queerness & Islam

To be Queer and to be Muslim are not two aspects of oneself that are mutually exclusive, but rather a lived experience that is real and supported by Allah

23. Golnesa: A Short Story

An Alternate Universe; one where a mushroom changes the course of the future for one person

29. Mi Corazoncito - My Heart

A narrative depicting the throes of realization and doubt when it comes to queerness and family, and how just because your family disapproves does not mean you should change who you are

31. For our Children

An anecdote about being a child and attempting to navigate queer existence on your own, as well as an urging to the reader to help other generations in their exploration.

33. Loving One Another

A guide on how to love oneself in a society that has seperated you from the rest of the herd for being Queer, especially at Cornell

37. Acknowledgements

Creator’s Note

This issue has been one of transformations, one of growth, and finally one of change. We created this issue with the idea of representing the sensationalized censorship we – as queer individuals- are experiencing today. We have curated stories ranging from representations of queerness and religion, to how to love yourself, to learning how to navigate the queer experience as a child, and even more. And all of it is for you to enjoy! Everyone involved with this issue has worked tirelessly to push the bounds of what we’ve done before, and produce this beautiful creation. We hope that you enjoy reading the fourth issue!

Much Love, Queer Magazine

Hum Dekhenge

Hum Dekhenge

Laazim hai ki hum bhi dekhenge

Woh din jiskaa ke waada hai, Jo lau-e-azl mein likha hai

Jab zulm-o-sitam ke koh-e-garaan

Rooi ki tarah udd jaayenge,

Hum mehkoomon ke paaon tale

jab dharti dhad dhad dhadkegi,

Aur ahl-e-hukam ke sar oopar

Jab bijli kad kad kadkegi,

Jab arz-e-khudaa ke kaabe se

Sab buut uthwaaey jaayenge,

Hum ahl-e-safaa mardood-e-haram

Masnad pe bithaaey jaayenge.

Sab taaj uchaaley jaayenge.

Hum ahl-esafaa mardood-eharam

Masnad pe bithaaey jaayenge.

Sab taaj uchaaley jaayenge. Sab takht giraaey jayyenge.

Bas naam rahega Allah kaa, Jo ghaayab bhi hai, haazir bhi, Jo manzar bhi hai, naazir bhi.

Utthegaa ‘An-al-haq’ kaa naara

Jo main bhi hoon, aur tum bhi ho, Aur raaj karegi Khalq-e-Khuda

Jo mai bhi hoon, aur tum bhi ho.

We shall Witness

It is certain that we too, shall witness The day that has been promised

The day which has been written on eternity’s slate

When the mountains of tyranny blow away in the wind like cotton.

When the earth will wail deafeningly under our bound feet

When lightning will strike the heads of our oppressors

When the House of God, Is rid of false icons

When we- the faithful- barred out of sacred placeswill be seated on high cushions

When the crowns will be tossed, When the thrones will be brought down.

Only the name will survive

Of He who cannot be seen but is also present

He who is the spectacle, He who is the beholder

The cry will rise-I am the Truth! Which I am, which you are

And then God’s creation will rule Which I am, which you are

We shall Witness

It is certain that we too, shall witness

Hum Dekhenge

QUEER’S Listen Up, We Aren’t Done Tilia Cordata

“WHY QUEER Well, yes, “gay” is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted. not gay. So we’ve chosen to call ourselves queer. Using “queer” is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. It’s a way of telling ourselves we don’t have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized in the straight world. We use queer as gay men loving lesbians and lesbians loving being queer. Queer, unlike GAY, doesn’t mean MALE. And when spoken to other gays and lesbians it’s a way of suggesting we close ranks, and forget (temporarily) our individual differences because we face a more insidious common enemy. Yeah, QUEER can be a rough word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobe’s hands and use against him.”

I use the word queer because for a moment it implies a united group of people that are at odds with the majority culture. For years I was taught and told that the way to exist as a queer person was to assimilate and become like the majority culture. For a long time I thought it was because they hated us, and this was safer. And if you just glance, that does seem to be true. But it’s not hate and I think we need to stop using that word.

They are afraid of us.

They are afraid of what our existence and our power means to the rules and existences that they have bought into. They are afraid of our freedom. We have shown time and time again that these rules and these norms they have followed and bought into are not set in stone, they are not concrete. They have seen queer people living their lives, happy and more fulfilled. They have seen us build new families and communities, shedding the husks of what these words mean to them. Redefining and rebuilding in love, care, and freedom.

I use the word Queer because it is a word snatched from the people who beat me down as a kid, a reclaiming of the word meant to harm and divide us, turned to heal and connect. I use the word queer because it’s shorter and ambiguous, and when every breath feels like its limited shorter is better. Ambiguous because it leaves people questioning but knowing I am a part of this “other” that they are not. I use the word queer because it can be shouted and screamed and sang so much easier and that music, harsh, rough and sweet reminds me who we are.

“The straight world has us so convinced that we are helpless and deserving victims of the violence against us, that queers are immobilized when faced with a threat. BE OUTRAGED! These attacks must not be tolerated. DO SOMETHING. Recognize that any act of aggression against any member of our community is an attack on every member of the community. The more we allow homophobes to inflict violence, terror and fear on our lives, the more frequently and ferociously we will be the object of their hatred. You’re immeasurably valuable, because unless you start believing that. it can easily be taken from you.”

I am constantly swimming in a stream of grief and anger. Right now folks might be drowning in grief, might be scared, and worried about what could come next. But I need you all to know, When they attack us, when they come after us, it is easy to go back to your houses, go back to your circle of friends and decide to tone it down, to button it up, to put away the flags, and hankies, and everything that we do to show we are queer, to stop dancing.

And that is ok.

For a bit.

But not forever.

I need you to know that we as a community have never allowed this fear and hatred to get to us, it’s tempting to make yourself smaller, but what they fear the most is us getting bigger, louder, queerer and brighter. To show them that this doesn’t end us, this doesn’t shove us back into the closet so they can continue their lives without having to question their roles and their rules. We are a wave that has the power to change the shape of the coast..

So cry tonight, hell cry all week, but don’t let this or anything else make you go dark, don’t let them win. You come from a community of revolutionaries, don’t forget that. Go to a drag show, dance in a club, get dressed up and sparkly, let your tears be rhinestones more precious than any swarovski on your face, your anger keeps you warm when you walk home with friends and family. Because they haven’t won

Rest in Power:

Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh and Derrick Rump.

Split in Half Emma McPolin

It’s very easy to be out online. I have the nonbinary flag in my profile picture and my pronoun preference in my bio. I don’t have to directly say anything for people just get it.

In real life, signaling is not as simple as displaying a flag. As someone with social anxiety, introductions are hard enough even without pronouns added to the mix. I also have no clue how be “visibly queer,” dressing in a way that people look at me and think “that’s a nonbinary person.” Many of my online friends know the secret, but I haven’t been let in on it. Since I use she/they, letting people assume what they assume is not completely intolerable, but I feel unbalanced when I hear only “she, she, she.” I made the choice to live in the all-female identified dorm to avoid men and haven’t been met with the hostility or adverse reactions I feared would ensue, reactions like “what are you doing here?”— in fact, I even noticed that “and nonbinary” was added to the language of my dorm’s title a few days after I mentioned that I use she/they in a dorm meeting. I joined the Steminist Movement, a club for women in STEM, although I have yet to go to a meeting due to other commitments. Theoretically, since I do use she/her and they/them, these all-female spaces should feel completely comfortable; I mean, being enby is all about embracing pluralism anyway right? Being of both Puerto Rican and Northern European descent, pluralism has always been a part of my life in other ways, so this should’ve been easy.

And yet, sometimes I feel like these all-female spaces erase part of my identity simply due to the fact that by definition gendered spaces assume that you only identify as the gender that the space is made for. I chose to be in these spaces, and by that logic, I have no one to blame but myself for being in these situations.

In one of my attempts to come out as nonbinary to my mom she told me to not make my life any harder by using they/them. The fact that she understands that other people are nonbinary but doesn’t think I really am hurt. It made me feel like I was doing something completely wrong. People view me as a different person in different contexts—my classmates know a bit about my personality whereas my online friends who know my actual pronouns don’t know much about my actual personality. In reality, these different contexts complicate my life in ways that makes being both out and closeted such a complex experience.

Latine Censorship: Because I Love You Gio Rodriguez

The messy room, the dim lights, the poster of girls, the pictures of people who completed your life. I should have known when I wasn’t up there in the wall as well with all those people, it was never meant to be. But who The messy room, the dim lights, the poster of girls, the pictures of people who completed your life. I should have known when I wasn’t up there in the wall as well with all those people, it was never meant to be. But who was I to say anything if we were just a “situationship” that didn’t follow any of the “rules” of what it meant to be in one. Friends with benefits, but also didn’t follow the rules. We were nothing more than an undefined relationship; okay cool … I’m fine with that, as long as it meant I was with you.

You began to label me as yours, and I allowed it. I allowed so many things because I believed this was love. Your goofy smile fooled me, I wouldn’t consider you a great actor, never, but I can say that you assumed these emotions were just un pasatiempo - hobby. Never taking into account the change you’ve created in me.

The moments we were outside together, I demonstrated my love to you, not caring about the judgment of others. Excluding the opinions of strangers and only entangled with you. Careful with your actions, meticulous with the character you display, and the persona you portray outside the bedroom. To others, we just seem like two friends and nothing more. I gave and gave and gave, and you just took and took and took.

We shared too many things in common, a culture, the duality of colonized languages, traditional gender norms, and, most notably, the idea that stemmed from our parents that homosexuality was considered a sin. I can attribute your lousy sense of humor to your culture and nationality, which we shared. I would always let slide the claims of you “not being gay” because you would say it in a joking manner. I would forgive and forget with a single hug you gave me each time.

I repressed who I was when I was with you because I loved you. Because I didn’t believe another person would love me.

To Be Young Anonymous 15

AT was eight when he first started experiencing homophobia. AT was a bit more in tune with his inner self and so he knew from the time he was five that he was different. His difference is that he had crushes on everyone. AT was bullied from fourth grade to freshman year, where he was constantly belittled and demeaned every day he was at school. His parents would move him in with his grandparents for his own safety after death threats and countless fights.

AT would go on to sue the school district for everything that he went through, the teachers not helping, the principal saying AT should be able to handle it, everything. He would get a nice little settlement, after all, it’s the 21st century and the courts believe that money can fix everything. I always had to deal with the insults, and kids would be nervous to get physical with me. But they weren’t nervous to throw around slurs like it was candy, the words were always the same though. The British word for a cigarette, the old-fashioned word for happy, a fairy, and oh so many other things. Take your pick and I’ve been called it. So has CW, and every other LGBTQ+ person at some point. This is why I care about homophobia in schools, I’m Queer, and I’ve been bullied over something so meaningless, and yet it has changed my life direction. I had to censor who I was in an attempt to protect myself, but like many others, this censorship failed at protecting me.

There aren’t federal laws to protect LGBTQ+ youth and students, the protections fall under Title IX on the basis of sex. Basically, this is how far the protections go for LGBTQ+ individuals. The discrimination that we experience as Queers is only illegal because of the assigned sex at birth. Furthermore, the Department of Education says that protections under Title IX do not apply to LGBTQ+ students. This was under the former federal administration, with education secretary Betsy DeVos who has a history of attacking LGBTQ+ protections and rights in the education sector throughout her time in the administration. Although this department has said that Title IX doesn’t apply in schools, the precedent created by the judges and the ambiguity of the law makes it so there are ways around this statement. Regardless, this lack of protection makes it so that I sometimes feel the need to protect myself by hiding who I am.

Action needs to be taken, lives are being ruined because people are so afraid of action. And I’m not innocent here, if someone is homophobic to me I don’t say anything. I know that I won’t get to that point, for me I just internalize it to the point where I hate those parts of me that make me come off as gay. But I don’t want to be another statistic, I don’t want to have an assembly over me. I have something to live for, and that’s my future. And that’s what has pulled me through, a life after school where I’m happy.

JN was just another kid in his high school, but he was an openly gay kid. He went through so much, he experienced physical and mental assaults that ultimately gave him PTSD and internal bleeding. When JN’s mom and JN had a meeting with the principal, the principal said that if JN, and I quote “was going to be so openly gay, he had to expect this kind of stuff to happen”. When I went to the principal about someone threatening to kill me with his dad’s shotgun, my principal said that I was tall enough to handle it. That I shouldn’t worry, because with my height I was going to be fine as if height is comparable to a gun. That if I really wanted this to stop, I should learn to control how I behave so I can “stand a chance”. JN would later go on and sue the court district due to his experiences, and would ultimately give kids like me the protection where the school officials would not disclose a child’s sexuality to another student or tolerate homophobia. JN’s experience is what paved the way for me and others to have some level of protection in school, even if it came at the expense of his mental stability. This is not the way that we should gain legal protection, we should not have to have one person’s situation become so bad.

Homophobia in schools is a problem, I and countless others have dealt with bigotry firsthand. It affects more than the occasional one-off, it affects Queer people every single day of our lives. A group of people has to come out and say who they are, and this action could cause their lives to change directory, all because of a couple of homophobes deciding that it’s their time to shine. And I’m not saying schools aren’t trying, they’re forced to by law. Yet that continually fails to provide what is needed so LGBTQ+ children can grow up without ever experiencing homophobia. Societal heteronormativity causes us to look at the LGBT youth as the other, as a group that we can just ignore, that what they deal with is something we can just avoid and it’ll all work out in the end. That is not the reality, and we can do more for the children who censor themselves in an effort to make it out of the school system.

Children deserve to be children, CW shouldn’t have died. He would have been 24 this year, a young man. And yet he is dead, like so many other kids who were simply dealt a hand of cards that included bullying rooted in homophobia. Children deserve to be children, and it’s our job as adults to make this true. LGBT youth deserve to live a life like every other student, not living in fear of who might snap one day and attack them. I’ve been in a fight before, I’ve lived in the fear of having to lock all my doors and shut the blinds because I didn’t know who might be out there. That they don’t miss me too much, because I didn’t want them to be in pain over it. Let’s create a future where this is not the reality for Queer children, a future where we can be visibly queer without threat.

Queerness & Islam

Queer & Muslim. Muslim & queer. An anomaly, an oddity. Islam & queerness are seen as mutually exclusive, two ways of being separate from one another. If one cannot be Muslim and queer, then queer Muslims cannot exist. Pushed into a state of nothingness, queer Muslims receive support from virtually no space. Too deviant and queer for Muslim spaces and too religious and spiritual for queer spaces, queer Muslims inhabit a space of invisibility. An experience marked by exclusion, queer Muslims perform palatability for different spaces; a grand performance to be accepted and loved, suppressing and censoring ourselves. Screw that.

When Hind sat by the [unnamed] daughter of Hassan’s grave for days and nights, utterly devoted to her recently departed beloved, the supposed contradictions between her queerness and spirituality were irrelevant. When Sultan Mahmud declared his overwhelming love for his courtier Ayaz, he was unbothered by the seemingly oppositional natures of his love and spirituality. Love is transcendent; it is all-encompassing. And religion is love. Islam is and has always been a religion of love. Love for Allah, love for those dear to you, love for your beloved. All of it is sacred. Allah is Al-Wadud, the most loving. He loves His creations impartially and He has granted us the ability to love. Queerness and Islam have never been mutually exclusive. My existence is living proof.

Queer Muslims have and continue to shape and meld spacescelebrating our love and spirituality. Invisibility does not mean complacency or docility. We continue to resist norms through art, culture, and love. There is great diversity in spirituality and practice within our communities, but ultimately, we are tied by our love for each other. We continue to practice our faith through prayers and remembrance of Allah and we continue to love and express our sexual and gender diversity. From Palestine to Bangladesh to Sudan to the West, queer Muslims exist and will continue to exist.

Golnesa: A Short Story

Pareesay Afzal

I can hear her singing: come home, come home. A distant memory of a voice that you’re not sure you experienced, dreamt, or conjured. She beckons you towards all that is still undone and unknown. A home that once held you, is now alone.

A rippling alarm in her ear startled her out of her poetic flow. Golnesa clicked the pen and notebook back into the alcove of her white-walled Consciousness. The sigh she breathed out was so deep it fogged up her Space, a clunky and glassy helmet around the circumference of her head. She took a deep breath in and it condensed back to clarity.

When Golnesa closed her eyes again, red holographic letters arranged themselves into place in her Consciousness, informing her of the next task she needed to tend to. “Not Martian Soil Science,” she thought, stopping herself short of the F word that, if she thought of directly, would also be displayed in the Mind’s Eye corner, where every idea she formulated was being spelled out for her Connections to see.

It was time for class, but Golnesa hadn’t arrived at school yet. She was short 90♂ of the ticket she needed for her Consciousness Transport to the Martian School of Science and Engineering, one of the most prestigious educational institutions on the planet since its founding. Twenty revolutions around the Sun ago, in an effort to rescue humanity from a fate of extinction, planet exploration company Cosmic Frontiers had sponsored a hundred skilled human workers—mostly doctors, scientists, engineers, analysts, bankers, and investors—to start a human race on Mars.

The project had been successful—well, at least for its push factor, because soon after, unbearable temperatures had evaporated most life-sustaining water bodies close to civilization, not to mention brought about the extinction of staple crops, essential bacteria, and condemned the remaining 300 million-strong human population to a destiny of slow and agonizing death. But what laid on the other side was a pandora’s box of challenges unanticipated, from how to engineer a steady source of ceaseless oxygen from the under-researched Martian biodiversity and how to make babies to the threat of Foreigners at every new Martian post that humans settled. Golnesa was a first-generation Martian, born to two scientists who had migrated from earth. She thought out, “Can you send me 90 please? Class in 9 seconds.” and Consciously Directed it to her Connection titled ‘Mother’ in her Mind’s Eye. This was the lay of the land when it came to communication and mobility on this new planet. There was sparse analog and little digital. Everything was conscious. Oxygen was a rare resource, so while the human race was still figuring out how to allocate it in this new colony, the rule of thumb was to move as little as possible outside of assigned pods—to expend physical energy only for work, that is, the backbreaking gravity of on-ground research and settlement. Rest all was managed through the Consciousness Installation that one underwent at birth: a mustard seed-sized chip that was implanted into the skin, connected to every Martian citizen’s Consciousness, forming a population-wide Consciousness Network. In the city of the mind, one could send and receive messages, take virtual transport to school and worksites, and activate receptors that simulated eating, drinking, and releasing.

Golnesa waited ten Moments for a reply before she decided to trek over to her mother’s pod. She wasn’t worried too much about the thought logging into her Consciousness because the Government was aware that her mother was having a hard time lately, and so, this out-of-line physical expenditure of energy could be forgiven under the wellbeing exception.

x x x

Hope about her mother’s wellbeing was bleak, though. As of late, she had fallen under a spell of anti-productivity, showing up late or not at all to her worksites. On earth they would call it depression, she had said. She had used up all of her Five Strikes, after which Government Intervention would become necessary, which would put the unfit worker to alternate use—research and experimentation on the human body’s condition on Mars. Thankfully, her mother circumvented this owing to her stature in the Martian society—during the formative years in Mars’ first settlement twenty years ago, her expertise had opened up new frontiers in the planet’s development. Her work had been pivotal to integrating the Consciousness Interface with the human body seamlessly. In fact, she was the one who had founded the Martian School of Science and Engineering, where she was chair of the molecular department. So, thanks to her valuable contributions, the government had decided to spare her the guinea pig fate—for now.

If only it wasn’t for the graver violations that she had committed as of late. Golnesa’s mother’s Consciousness had increasingly been brimming with “wistful thoughts” of the earth. This, under the Martian constitution, was a criminal offense. You could only think of earth as a place that was worth abandoning for the noble Martian mission, or think positively of its objective traits. If any of your thoughts indicated a yearning, a missing, or a wish to return, this was punishable with Government Intervention. Worse yet, she had been found in possession of earth-derived substances, a crime of the highest degree, punishable yet again with government intervention. Nobody actually really knew what this kind of intervention entailed, because once convicted of either crime and removed from their pod, the Citizens-turned-felons were never heard of or from again. Golnesa remembered the look of spite on the officer’s face as he handed out the Five Strike exception letter for the third time, as if to mock, you should be thankful you’re still getting these.

Golnesa concluded the three steps to her mother’s pod. It didn’t make sense to her, that to the generation of earth migrants above her, including her mother, the same three steps that were a walk in the park for her felt like some kind of heavy lifting. She wondered how light it would be to walk on earth, making sure to think of it as emotionlessly as possible.

“Hi mother, I don’t know if you saw my Mind’s Eye,” Golnesa spoke, walking in on her mother twirling her fingers through her hair as though she had just discovered what hair was. “But I just needed 90 for my ConTran ticket.”

Her mother didn’t look up at her, continuing to play with her hair, running fingers down its length, untangling tiny knots along the way, with a look of pure serenity on her face. It looked like she was on another planet. A notification in Golnesa’s Consciousness told her that 100 had been gifted to her by her Connection ‘Mother.’

Golnesa shrugged and trekked back to her pod, settling in a comfortable position before closing her eyes and proceeding to Consciously Transport herself to her class. x x x

The lights of all the Martian pods had been dimmed. This was key to a universal, harmonized sleep and wake time. Golnesa was unwinding from her mind-bending lecture followed by the rest of her day identifying, collecting, and analyzing rock specimens from her assigned worksite, Redroof. Her muscles had gone sore and she noticed her breath in her Space was much warmer than usual. Sometimes, she wondered what it would feel like to not live with her head perpetually enclosed in a glass helmet.

Golnesa decided that she would pay her mother a visit, just to make sure she was doing okay before the curfew for stepping outside pods was activated. She made the three-step trek to her mother’s pod, and the glass door slid open upon successful facial recognition tagged as ‘family.’

Her mother was asleep, her arms holding her body in a self-embrace. Just before Golnesa was about to leave her to it, she noticed that next to her mother was a pitcher of water, on top of which lay a curious green pill. Golnesa knew better than to poke her nose in unwanted places, but there was something about this pill that drew her in. Food was rarely ingested on Mars, and most sustenance was made within and inside the body, so she could infer that this was probably something that wasn’t supposed to be there. Was this the earth-derived substance that the government spoke of?

Unlike the iridescent, metallic finishes to many things here, there was a grainy, rock-like, distant yet inviting look to this pill, earthy almost. Temptation was at the tip of her tongue.

Before she even processed that she had done this (intentionally so), the pill was already in her hands and she was already on her way to her pod.

Golnesa toyed with this substance, trying to keep her Consciousness as distant from her thoughts as possible. Was this even meant to be ingested? What if this led to her expiration? On earth—her mother used to say— humans bore concepts of sin and virtue, good and bad, which were all the makings of an Emotional Mind, divorced from reason and reality. If Golnesa were to imagine what sin felt like, this would be it. The desire to indulge in the forbidden, and do so in the secrecy of the night. But above all, it was her scientific curiosity that was spurring her on the most. Say mother had ingested this substance—which was 90% plausible since it was found right above a pitcher of water—she had still been an okay, functioning individual, capable of communications and Consciousness. What harm could it possibly do to Golnesa?

In that moment, the allure of this pill had engulfed her whole. There seemed to be no other way to move forward through the linear progression of time than to do it with this pill in the space between her jaw and undertongue.

The taste was nothing like she had tasted before, of the very few things she had tasted in her life. There was a rubberiness to it that belied its grainy texture, and it would not simply melt into her mouth as she had originally thought it would. She chewed on the tiny pill and conceptualized ways of describing it to herself. If she was to remove from her body all but her skin and the thin layer of fat underneath, and bite into it, this would be what it would feel like. As for the taste, it was a very concentrated bitter, a harshness that easily dissolved into her cheek but left a dark afterthought.

So this is what an earth-derived substance is, after all, that many managed to smuggle to Mars in bits and pieces—pills like these hidden in the pockets of their spacesuits. What about this unassuming bitterness warrants government intervention? Aren’t they simply memorabilia from a planet that once was their home? She closed her eyes and imagined earth as made of the same rubbery substance as this pill was. At bedtime, when she was younger, Golnesa’s mother used to tell her stories of the earth: how people’s feet were able to touch the ground beneath them and their mouths were able to breathe the atmosphere without a glass helmet in between. Of the dying birds, insects, and flowers. Mountains and rivers that dried up and eroded. She had tried to picture this “nature” to the best of her imagination, but that is all she had—her imagination. Any pictures, including drawings, of earth were not allowed on Mars.

As she was holding these thoughts, separately as best possible from her Consciousness, her imagination grew more and more vivid, almost as if beyond her control. She felt a tide rise up inside her, from the pit of her stomach up her esophagus—she didn’t feel well. She laid down in her pod, closing her eyes and hoping her altered condition would not send signals for medical intervention.

x x x

As she closed her eyes, she was brought to the awareness of her heartbeat and her breath. She had always conceived of these as rhythmic, repetitive processes, like a pump destined to its duty. But with every breath in, she felt a cosmic expandedness, and with every heartbeat, she felt… life. The life of her own body. The throbbing she felt inside her body drew her attention to her veins, which were tides ebbing and flowing at the mercy of her heartbeat. Suddenly, she no longer had blood in her veins, but streams gushing in a color that she had never seen on Mars—a translucent azure, foaming at the surface. River, she mumbled to herself, river. River. As she formed these words, the corners of her lips were curled up into a smile beyond her volition. She noticed the taste of salt meeting her lips and realized tears had been streaming down her face.

She wanted more of this.

Every corner of her body, from the inside, was transformed into greenery. Vines creeped up her arms and legs, bearing green ripe fruit that she wished she could bite into. Lush gardens bloomed inside her belly, adorned with purple and yellow flowers. She could feel their scent traveling up her nostrils, a fragrance she had never known before. In her mind were insects with huge wings fluttering about—butterflies, she realized. The descriptions of earth from her mother’s bedtime stories were coming alive. As they buzzed and flew, their wings scattered a dusty glitter around her mindscape.

Golnesa was in bliss.

This earthly experience persisted for what felt like an eternity, showing her visions of quiet permafrost, of fungi facilitating the first life on rocks, of hairy primates through centuries of evolution, of the undiscovered universe in the depths of seabeds.

Her body was no longer foreign to her—it was part of a larger system of life that was the Earth. She was the Earth. She may be living in a silicon, aluminum, and glass world on Mars but inside her was the wood, the soil, and the rivers of the Earth. And she touched them, she felt them, getting excited at every brush of her fingers against an explosion of life. She caressed her skin that had transformed into the Earth and ran her hands through strands of her hair that felt like branches of a willow tree.

She was the most alive she had ever felt. Golnesa felt like she belonged.

In some distant space in her mind, soft music was playing through a flute. And there was the voice of a mother. Not her mother, but a mother. Why would you give up on me? the voice soothingly sang. Don’t you give up on me so easy. Its ethereal tones lulled Golnesa to rest. She now understood why Earth-derived substances were a crime.

x x x

classification: earth-derived

category: psilocybe

charge: second-degree felony

sentence: 3 martian years of body experimentation. first biopsy 25 marsh, 20. next scheduled as needed.

There was no way out of it. The Criminal Card was installed in her Consciousness, a cautionary tale for everyone to see. Her mother had been taken into an Indefinite Intervention Center for supplying an earth-derived substance to a Martian. Everyone knew what that meant.

Yet, as Golnesa and her mother’s eyes crossed for a last time, the only exchange between them was happiness—a smile. They had met on a plane that transcended all else—they had felt Earth, they had known bliss, and there was nothing better than this.

Mi Corazoncito - My Heart

Gio Rodriguez

My Latinidad contains my gayness. It is difficult to comprehend the experience of being queer in the Latine community, because of how drastic announcing who you love can be to your position within the family. Nobody can understand the hate, the feeling of ostracization, the weird stares, and most importantly, the disapproval from your parents. When my mother first came to learn about my quirky love preference, she asked God, "What did I do wrong?" These words are always on my mind, constantly circulating whenever I feel like my life is falling apart. The ostracization of being a member of the LGBTQ+ community within the Latine community is astronomical. To put things into perspective, parents would prefer an alcoholic son rather than a gay son because one option is more socially accepted and does not go against morals and values bestowed upon them since childhood.

As the cacophony of negative emotions surrounded me for having a sexual attraction to men, I followed the path of indoctrination. I contained myself, I tried to become the norm, the social standard. Allowing myself to be puppeteered into this persona who I could never actually become, but all I needed to do was play the part. Just give in to heteronormative actions, what everyone wanted of me. I knew and understood that my actions of opening this part of me created a shift and change with the interaction of my family members. I just wanted everything to go back to how things were, and the only way in which I could do that is asking myself, “How can I be normal?”

Changing a vital part of myself was tough. All of these factors contributed to a decline in selfesteem and self-worth—the actions to oppress a part of me and become anew continued. Until one day, while I was standing in front of a mirror, I “lentamente” or slowly came to a sincere conclusion. When I looked at myself in the mirror, it was a pivotal moment, a self-realization. I was looking at a brown body, a stranger. I witnessed a different reflection when I gently called out my name. That is when I understood that I had casted an illusion, a false perception, in which I believed everything would be perfect once I had forsaken myself. There was so much that I’ve ignored that only so many words can describe “La monotonia de me vida” or the monotony of my life. The life I was living was unsatisfying, like a meal without tortillas. Thus from that point forward, I began to re-established myself with my former self; breaking free from the chains of parental approval and the opinions of others to only seek self-happiness.

Mi corazoncito roto - my broken heart, wrapped with bandages to fix what was once whole. Slowly but surely, one day, I’ll be able to have the confidence to bring the person I love in front of my parents and say, “Te presento a mi corazoncito ..” - I present to you my heart.

For Our Children

Deb Suarez

In the present day, it really is impossible to keep children entirely in the dark about queer existence. With a growing need for people younger and younger to have access to the internet, it becomes even easier for them to access current news and begin searching for more information about seemingly taboo topics. I, for one, know what it’s like to be that lost child who finally got a phone and decided to get involved in queer forums and social media. Unfortunately, I also know how unsafe it is for a child to be forced to navigate these topics on their own. When forced to make a choice between trying to get openly homophobic family members to teach me more about my queerness, asking an adult in school and possibly being outed, or sneaking around online, one of those obviously feels like the safest option to a scared child. Being left to my own devices is how I ended up in my first abusive relationship.

Having no reference for healthy queer relationships in the toxic era of the 2010 internet scene, I felt trapped in a relationship that drained me daily. I was called horrible names, on my phone into the deepest hours of the night, and was made responsible for another human’s well-being. I became a nasty person, someone that people were put off by as I allowed this relationship to eat at me. Love bombing and manipulation were foreign topics to me, and even once I realized I could no longer live with the anxiety bubbling in my gut day to day, I was left with no one to turn to. If I told my parents, they would figure out I was queer. My entire social life and online access would be stripped away for the rest of forever and I would be left with nothing. At least that’s the extreme my young and naive mind scrounged up in my head. I knew adults at my school would be forced to tell my parents, and the shame of bringing it up to my friends was unimaginable. I was 13, dealing with abuse and mental health struggles I doubt anyone envisions someone bundling into their childhood experience. Finally, one day while out with my mom on the many lunch dates we had as her attempts at bonding with a recluse tween, I just told her. I sobbed in a McDonalds’s and told her how scared and alone I felt; how I couldn’t be responsible for this girl’s death or her depression. I thought my life was over when the last of my confession spilled out, but at that point, I was just desperate to go back to being a child. My mom told me to blame everything on her.

To tell my girlfriend that my mom had found out about my relationship and was making me delete every possible form of social media. She helped me make new accounts and make them private, tell all my friends to stop communicating with my girlfriend, and kept me safe. She just wanted me safe.

My story ended as well as it could. I learned that tolerating abuse in a relationship was never normal, even as a queer teen who believed each girl she met could be her last chance at love. I still deal with the repercussions of that relationship in my day to day, with both platonic and romantic relationships I try to form. I will always deal with this trauma and will have to work every day to be able to live with it. But if my mom hadn’t put her beliefs aside to help me, I don’t know how badly that would’ve ended up.

After this experience, I could only think about my younger family members. I have no idea if any other generations will have queer children, but the least I thought to do was make sure they knew there was someone they could talk to. Someone that understood how complex queer adolescence is, and how dangerous navigating it on your own can be. My parents told me to keep my queer identity and opinions to myself, at least when we’re around extended family. I’d be kept away and shielded from my younger family members if their parents knew about how I identify and the ideology I developed here in the U.S. So for years I have quietly normalized my queerness to them. Told them what can be worked through between partners and what should never be tolerated. Made sure they knew that no matter how busy school gets, I will be there for them. I don’t think I could live with myself if I found out a cousin of mine was suffering quietly after it was already too late to help them.

The point of this sad personal experience is to reach out to you guys. The ones with younger siblings or cousins or nephews. Maybe you got guidance in your queer existence or maybe like me, you didn’t get so lucky. I urge you to be that guide for the next generation. Keep them safe and close and let them know you are always there. That they don’t need to resort to sketchy pages and heaps of misinformation on the internet to figure out how to live a fulfilled life as a queer individual. No matter how normalized LGBTQ+ presence gets in our society, it will always be appreciated to be able to confide in their own family. So I plead with you to do your part and keep our children safe.

Loving One Another

Sami Peter

The way heteronormativity is promoted at Cornell can make queer culture an external experience isolated and separate from the overall culture at Cornell. Heavily embedded institutions, such as fraternity/sorority life, promote this separation. This exclusivity can make it difficult for queer people to engage in the greater, overarching Cornell culture. And I think it leads them into not wanting to be a part of it at all.

Even as someone just questioning sexuality, it feels like queerness is something difficult to talk about. Like speaking about it will lead to an unwanted label being put on you or being disliked by people. Which is true about any general opinion you may share, but this is something about you that is central to your identity; it’s not something that has even a possibility of changing.

However, in any regard, I believe that there is an underlying issue here that is relevant to more than just the queer experience at Cornell. I’ve noticed an almost

As soon as something is said that opposes your opinions or values, it’s almost as if you want to completely ignore the person who shared those thoughts; almost like pretending they don’t exist. I can understand that, okay? I think we all, to varying degrees, believe what we believe because we think it’s right. So meeting someone who disagrees with your beliefs can be disturbing.

But what’s real is that even if you avoid those people and pretend they do not exist, they actually do still live in this world with us. We still have to find a way to live with them. Plus, all of us are influencing the policy, laws, and everything being established in this world that affects all of our lives. To be specific about it, we could talk about the abortion debate in the U.S.. There’s two major sides, right? Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. And legislation is going one way (Roe v. Wade) or the other (Dobbs v. Jackson). But the two sides cannot both be happy. Regardless of your views on the matter, the only way a solution is possible is by these sides speaking to each other.

I think there needs to be some form of a compromise made. But a compromise in which both sides are happy. I think it’s fair to say that this is impossible. But I also think we just need to put some more thought into it, together.

To do this, we have to start by just straight up listening to each other seriously. Actually make an effort to listen to people who have differing opinions from you. I don’t mean going up to random people and talking to them about controversial topics. Just in your day-to-day, when you naturally get into a conversation, if something wild comes out of the other person’s mouth, don’t immediately go into defense mode or start viewing them as inferior. Honestly, this might already be something really difficult for you; I now it’s a big struggle for me. Try to remember that no one is one-dimensional, no matter how much it may seem like it to you or others, especially in the moment of a conversation. So, let’s say you’re talking to someone right before a class starts. And–oh would you look at that– the person just said something that makes you frown, makes your stomach turn, makes you want to yeet them into the void; whatever you feel when someone says something you don’t agree with.

Take a second before you say anything and think of how you’re both wearing socks.

—Honestly you might not both be wearing socks, but you’re probably at least wearing shoes.

T Honestly, honestly, you might not even both be wearing shoes but you both have feet. Okay, wait, that’s not a given either...

Okay, that kind of got away from me but my point is to find something in common with that person, even if it’s something small and maybe silly. The goal is to find some point of commonality and use that as a way to connect with the other person to avoid turning them into your enemy. he idea is to start thinking of that person as a human being who is more like you than unlike you; to make it easier for you to understand them and their points of view.

Now, this might sound really hard to you, really easy, really whatever to you. I can only talk about how it’s been for me, and it has been hard. I’m a really sensitive person so I don’t enjoy having conflicts with others, no matter how small. At times I’ve felt overwhelmed by the opinions and conversations I’ve had with people of differing views; it made me depressed to think about how “wrong” I felt someone’s views were compared to mine. I wondered how I could ever feel safe living in a space where others turned the things I found fundamental upside down and worked hard to poke holes into every part of it. These are times when I had to take myself out of that situation and put myself in the company of those who make me feel strong and happy and loved. After raising my spirits and coming back with a more positive mindset, I could approach my feelings about what had happened.

And that’s life, there’s ups and downs. But in the end I think having these conversations and being more understanding of others is one of the best things you can do for yourself and others. I don’t think you’ll even realize it, but you’ll grow into yourself and find that the things you start to worry about are of real importance to more than yourself.

Now isn’t this a Queer Magz article?? What does any of this have to do with our queer friends here at Cornell??

Cornell does have a lot to offer just by virtue of the money and network this university has access to. They can fund such a wide variety of opportunities and events to give students that valuable experiential learning, or even just get them thinking about what they want to do with their future by showing them what is actually out there to do. But enough of this Pro-Cornell propaganda, because the heteronormative culture here limits the accessibility of these events.

And if our institutions are not stepping up, we should. There are some people who are overdue in being listened to. In regards to the queer community, there is historic trauma to be understood, and having even a tiny idea of that trauma, and what these individuals have likely experienced in their lives, can broaden your understanding of them

and compassion for both them and people broadly. Maybe not terribly so, but any small bit is an improvement, and that’s not something to neglect.

Becoming someone who can handle hearing the controversial or uncomfortable opinions of others is a valuable skill, in my opinion. This can aid you in addressing the queer issues on campus in a productive way. Instead of cutting off or distancing yourself from those who disrespect or misunderstand the queer community, and thus allowing the problem to persist, finding a commonality with that person and understanding them probably won’t convince that person in any way shape or form of taking on your views. But you plant a seed, and keep that person from being completely isolated, which is sometimes the reason why extreme views get more extreme.

All that being said, please feel free to just tear me to shreds. But not to my face, please, I am very sensitive; we’ve been over this. But seriously, if you have critiques of my ideas, I’m glad. It means you are thinking!! Which is the point of all of this to be honest; to get us all thinking a little bit more about each other. If you don’t agree with literally anything I wrote, I hope you at least had one thought about this topic, because that would be a win for me anyway so : P.

E-Board Spring 2023

Co-Presidents

Deb Suarez Writer P.

They/She

2025 - Psychology and Cognitive Science

Craig Jacobson-Immelt

He/They

2025 - Archaeology + German + Government

Arts Director

Libby Gilmore

She/They

2024 - Plant Science

Secretary

Ali Spagnolo

She/Her

2025 - Industrial Labor Relations

Production

Anna Liba

She/Her

2025 - Economics and Government

E-Board Fall 2022

President Syd Beausoleil

They/Them

2023 - Psychology + Behavioral and Evolutionary Neuroscience

Vice President

Niamh Kernan

She/Her

2023

Arts Director

Chris Moy-Lopez

Any Pronouns

2023 - Feminist and Gender Studies + Government

Secretary

Stacey Espiritu

She/Her

2024

Chief Editor

Pareesay Afzal

Writer P.

Any Pronouns

2023

Public Outreach and Marketing

Craig Jacobson-Immelt

He/They

2025 - Archaeology + German + Government

Team

Writers Arts

Tilia Cordata

She/Her 2023 - Horticulture

Gio Rodriguez

He/Him 2026 - Global Development

Sabiha Obaid

They/She/He 2023 - Industrial Labor Relations

Sami Peter

She/Her

2024 - Environment & Sustainability

Kaye Graham

He/They

2023 - Human Development

Emma McPolin

2026

Shehryar Qazi

Photographers

Lauren Lam

She/Her 2023 - Architecture

Suzuki Lin

She/Her 2025 - Design & Environmental Analysis

Lighting Director

Aishah Alhady

She/Her 2023 - Architecture

Makeup Artist

Amelia Tomson

She/Her 2023 - Psychology

Graphic Designer

Julian Iwasko

He/Him 2026 - Human Development

Mmemsoma Nwajagu

2026

Asma Ansari

P. 1, 27, 32

Ana Carpenter

P. 3, 9, 15, 35

Alayna Earl

P. 1, 3, 9

Anna Goodman

P. 4, 10, 17

Armita Jamshadi

P. 24

Models

Claudia Leon

P. 2, 5, 8, 11, 21, 30

Daniela Vaynshtok Cover

Della Keahna Warrior

P. 1, 4, 10, 33, 35

Gio Rodriguez

P. 13, 24

Isabella ‘Izzy’ Crane

P. 1, 3, 9, 18

Abegale McDermott

P. 24

Maaya Kanvar

P. 3, 6, 11, 22

Sabiha Obaid

P. 19

Serena Moscarella

P. 1, 13, 31

Timothy Johnson

P. 2, 8, 22, 30

Jahi Noel

P. 27

The End