I’m that girl, the one everybody goes to when there’s a crisis. I’m there, sorting it, finding out, lending a hand, raising money. That’s me. That was me. Then, one day, I was the crisis. And Then She Fell is the soft title of a memoir of recent events that I never plan to write. I keep making up titles for the not-book, though. It helps me try to make sense of senseless … [Read more...]
3 Ways Toxic Masculinity Harmed Me as a Male Survivor of Abuse
It’s hard for me to write the story about being in an abusive relationship. Not because it’s hard for me to talk about it, though sometimes it is. Not because I’m still carrying shame and self-doubt or because I might trigger my own trauma responses, though I am and I might. It’s because writing about being a male survivor of intimate partner abuse, especially when your abuser … [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...]
5 Ways to Help Kids Think Outside the Gender Binary
When I was in middle school, I would ask my mom if I could watch certain TV shows other kids were watching: FRIENDS, Scrubs, and so on. She said sure (she’s pretty chill about stuff like that), but she told me there were a lot of jokes I wouldn’t get. She was right. I didn’t understand why the laugh track played when Ross forcibly wouldn’t let his toddler son play with a … [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...]
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...]
Notes from a Feminist Trans Guy on the Gendered Policing of Body Hair
“I mean, look at you, man. With that mustache you look like a real man. Everybody should want that." So said a guy to me in my bro-far-masculine-of-center gender support group. He said it as a means of establishing camaraderie and admiration. I felt shame. “Girls don’t have hairy backs,” said my nine-year-old peer at the city pool. I was wearing a light blue, shiny … [Read more...]
I’m a Married Christian Woman Who Doesn’t Want Children — And That’s Okay
As a Christian woman who has no desire to procreate, I’ve often felt like an anomaly or a mutant. In the various church communities I’ve called home at one time or another, I haven’t been aware of a significant number of Christian women like me: women who are happily married, without children, and who remain childless intentionally and unapologetically. For a long time, I was … [Read more...]
Why I Stopped Wearing A Bra and Why It’s So Freeing
Like many people who wear bras, I hate them. The best part of every day is when I get home and can take off my bra. I abandoned lacy and pretty bras awhile ago, then underwire had to go, and now for the last few years I've been wearing cheap sports bras. But no more. I realized the only reason I still wore bras at all is because of being sexually objectified by men. So I am … [Read more...]
Sorry Not Sorry: Why I’m Over Playing the Role of “Sweetheart”
When I was a little girl, I was always the bossy friend. I would be the one to dictate the games we played and who played what role. When I was in middle school, I was the easy one. I wanted to be accepted by anyone and everyone, so I submitted. In my early years of high school, I was always the bitch. I didn't value people who talked to me as though I were less than human, … [Read more...]
Fellow White Women: We Learned to Be Complicit with Oppression — Now We Must Become Brave
This article was originally published on louisaleontiades.com as "The Cowardice of White Women: Learning to Resist" and is republished with permission. Some questions you don’t expect to have to ask in your lifetime, let alone answer. But with the rise of Trumpian fascism, a question has consistently rattled around my white woman’s brain: At what point would I put my own life … [Read more...]
Calling Fellow Cis Men: Why We Can’t Stay Silent About Reproductive Justice
I have never made it a secret that for a lengthy period of time in my life, I identified as pro-life. For a time, it was a decision related to the Catholic faith I was raised in. Later, even after leaving Catholicism behind, I maintained my position on something resembling a well-meaning but simplistic ethical basis. I say this with no hint of pride or irony: when I was … [Read more...]
How It Impacts Me as a Queer Woman When Friends Call Each Other “Girl Friends”
As I continue to settle into a queer identity, certain words and their meanings seem to do the exact opposite of settling in. They don't sit still. Words I've never been comfortable using have become part of my regular vocabulary, and words that have never really affected me before suddenly have an unpleasant edge. Like other people, my relationship with words is very much a … [Read more...]
The Body Is Not an Apology
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