2020 has been a difficult, heartbreaking, and tumultuous year in so many ways. The toll COVID is taking on our communities, especially the most disenfranchised among us (disproportionately poor and working-class people of color), remains heartbreakingly gut-wrenching. Governments across the globe have violated the rights of their people repeatedly, from the ongoing police … [Read more...]
Rejecting Fetishization and Lack: Claiming the Fullness of My Black Demisexuality
By Grace B. Freedom My name is Grace and I am a gray demisexual ace. Rewind: gray doesn’t really suit me. It doesn’t feel vibrant enough. I can be a gray demisexual as it pertains to generic understandings of asexuality, but I want to formally declare that I want a new color. Perhaps I will be a gold-flecked cyan demisexual with rich metallic hints and deep blues … [Read more...]
10 Ways Your Social Justice Work Might Be Inaccessible and Elitist — And Why That’s a Problem
The article was originally published on EverydayFeminism.com and is republished with permission. I’m an artist first. But I decided long ago that my art would be in the service of fighting oppression. Since then, I’ve waded more deeply into social justice spaces, and I find myself surrounded more and more by people professing these same aspirations. Being in these spaces has … [Read more...]
“Stop Looking at Your Phone”?: 5 Ways Internet Technology Helps My Queer, Neurodivergent Family
Watching my teens interact on the Internet sometimes feel like coming full circle. My own experience with Internet relationships started in the early nineties on a fetish board, complete with black screen and green print. During that time, I was on the tail-end of an emotionally abusive relationship coupled with a lot of confusion about my sexual identity. Socially awkward … [Read more...]
How Do We Really See Each Other Across Identities?: Notes From a Queer Breakup
Almost a year after separating from my partner, we had a second breakup. Our first breakup, though incredibly painful, was what I can only describe now as tender. After trying to surmount the difficulty of a nearly ten-year age difference, our romantic relationship ended upon the realization that I was not yet ready to "settle down" and wanted more time to explore life as … [Read more...]
8 Things That Happened When I Stopped Shaving (Spoiler: Most Are Pretty Rad)
I remember growing up, I was a big fan of the TV show “That 70's Show." It had a catchy intro and featured a group of teenagers, one of them even a migrant like me! In one episode, one of the characters went ring shopping for his girlfriend. The store owner tried to help him choose a ring by putting it on and pretending to be her. However, the boyfriend was “thrown off” by the … [Read more...]
Why I’m Wary of Being Friends With You When None of Your Friends Are Marginalized
One day I was grappling with shame and self-consciousness over my tendency to take stock of the kinds of people new people in my life surround themselves with. I was thinking about this in relation to bodies and, specifically, race and fatness. Until that moment I had internalized this behavior as unnecessary, judgmental, and even shallow. But I had a realization that allowed … [Read more...]
How I Confronted My Internalized Anti-Blackness as a Queer Black Man
Desire, oooh like fire... come on, baby, light my fire I used to lip sync for my life with these lyrics when I was a boy. I had no idea what En Vogue was referring to when they sang “Desire,” but that never stopped me from getting into the song. You could say En Vogue was my introduction to the concept of desire. I felt desire for the first time years later as a teenager. My … [Read more...]
3 Pieces of Advice for Folks Considering Themselves Allies in Social Justice Movements
I have seen a lot of conversations about what the term “ally” means for social justice and radical movements. Is “ally” an identity? What role should allies play in larger discussions of oppression and resistance? Should allies have access to spaces created specifically for those who experience oppression? The goal of many of these discussions is to determine what an ally … [Read more...]
25 Ridiculous Things I Shouldn’t Have To Do To Avoid Street Harassment
This article was originally published by EverydayFeminism and is republished here with permission. When it comes to the issue of street harassment, you can’t really grasp what the problem is unless you’ve had to deal with it. So for those of us who do know what being harassed is like, we often have to put up with not just the harassment, but also with dismissive attitudes … [Read more...]
Feminist Rage: 4 Ways White Feminists Continue To Silence Women of Color’s Anger at Racism
Women are angry, and rightfully so. I only have to write the words “Brett Kavanaugh” — a series of events so deeply disturbing in their unmasking of elite frat boy rape culture that I stopped my compulsive news watching for three weeks after — to convey how deeply US women are under attack by the Trump regime. As white women in particular are justifiably encouraging each other … [Read more...]
5 Myths That Uphold Mental Health Stigma in Latinx Communities
It was after three years of struggling with my mental health when I came to terms with needing to see a therapist. I was coping with regular anxiety attacks, situational depression, and untreated trauma. My reluctance to seek out professional help was due to a number of reasons that could be narrowed down to one thing: the stigma that comes with admitting to mental … [Read more...]
6 Questions To Ask Your Partner When You Have More Privilege Than Them
This piece was originally published by EverydayFeminism.com under the title "6 Questions to Ask If You Have More Privilege Than Your Partner" and is republished with permission. Content note: This article briefly alludes to suicidal ideation and eating disorders. I learned to be a girlfriend through ’90s American rom-coms. 90% of the time, I learned, I had to be … [Read more...]
Listen to Our Foremothers: Why Black Women Deserve To Balance Our Rage With Our Joy
It is a sad time for Black women in this country. I would love to say that this time is unique and unlike that which our foremothers faced after being stolen and brought to this country, holding onto their souls and the shreds of their dignity they were determined never to give up. But we know this is not true. Today, as we carry our rage and sadness, feeling an … [Read more...]
