I kinda hate Pride. Yeah, there’s the whole corporate takeover of what was once a rallying cry for validity and freedom and respect. And, sure, cis white people are pretty terrible at sharing space with the people of color and trans folk on whose backs our liberation was built. Those issues are pretty big deals.… Read More Corporate Takeovers and Recruiting Children

Last week, one of my students excitedly proclaimed that they had chosen a new name with their mom’s help. I spent the next few hours saying the name to myself. Out loud. Repeatedly. It still feels unfamiliar. I’m still coaching myself. But they doesn’t know that. And there’s no reason they ever should. This isn’t… Read More Verb Conjugation and the Act of Listening

I was born on October 16th, 1986 at 6:16 in the morning. As a result, my favorite number as a kid was 6 (still is? Do adults have favorite numbers?). I loved it, I’d talk about it, tell people in a sing-song voice that my favorite number was “six…six…six.”  And my dad would call me… Read More Hellion

I’m not butch. Androgynous, maybe. Not femme, but not butch either. I’ve never been a fan of the binary. It’s generational, I think. I remember sitting in Queer Studies courses and dismissing butch/femme dynamics. We all did. Sure there was the issue of imitating heteronormativity, but it was more than that. It seemed like some… Read More Butch as in not you

The night after Pulse, my parents called me. My step-mother was first. She held back tears. When my father called he simply wept. His grief was tangible and heavy. He didn’t know what to do with it and that was why he called me. As if sharing might ease his heartbreak. As if I wasn’t… Read More Act. Speak.

Last semester, the Queer Alliance I run was observed by a grad student. It sounds weird, but it wasn’t. She interviewed the kids and asked questions and brought them cookies and it was cool. The last question she asked me wasn’t fully formed. It had to do with the way I talk to the kids.… Read More The Incantation for Queer