Camille Perri: It’s Not a Bad Time to Be Queer, If You’re Rich and White

It wasn’t until I got to a private university in the late 1990s that I learned the phrase for the kind of poor my family was: not sleeping-on-the-street poor, but always-worrying-about-money poor. My-father-worked-two-jobs-poor, but my-mother-still-had-to-remove-items-from-our-shopping-cart-at-the-grocery-store poor. It was called “working class.” Before college, passing as “not poor” had been my way of life, much in the way that trying (and failing) to pass as “not gay” had been my way of life. Keep reading >

Barbara Smith: Why I Left the Mainstream Queer Rights Movement

I enthusiastically participated in the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979. About 100,000 of us were there from around the country, a good turnout but much smaller than subsequent marches — when being out and proud was less dangerous. At the second national march, in 1987, I was invited to be one of eight major speakers. It was exhilarating to speak before a crowd of nearly one million people. Three decades later, despite some genuine efforts to increase diversity, especially in progressive movement circles, exclusivity and elitism still divide us. Keep reading >

Julia Serano: The Science of Gender Is Rarely Simple

Most anti-discrimination policies intended to protect transgender people are centered on gender identity, a term that originated in the field of psychology and that has been used for over half a century to refer to individuals’ deeply held understanding of what gender they are. It may or may not align with the sex assigned at birth. Opponents of transgender rights have increasingly worked to shift conversations and policy language away from gender and toward biological sex. Keep reading >

Mandana Mofidi: Coming Out to Myself, for Myself

At 9 years old, I was unable to dodge a speeding car heading directly at me. The impact separated me from my bike and sent me flying in the air before landing face-first into concrete. My nose was broken and my four front teeth shattered, along with my jaw. But the pain and embarrassment of my new face — a crooked nose and a toothless smile — didn’t come close to what I felt when I discovered I was a lesbian at 13. Keep reading >