personal essay

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When I’m with my wife, I don’t overanalyze things. I simply am, because she doesn’t need me to put a label on my gender.

Remembering the beautiful spirit who offered hope to many generations of trans people.

How the supergroup, who played Coachella on Saturday, shaped one woman’s coming out journey.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Riding in cars with bois.

Babylon to Penn Station. Penn Station to St Jeromes. Jeromes to a “secret location.” A spray painted school bus to a warehouse in Greenpoint. Susanne Bartsch. Flashing lights. Open bar.  I accidentally follow Solange to her private car.

Furman’s songs have always followed queer characters, outcasts, and tired and desperate people with haunted heads. When I felt aimless, her songs were a compass. When I felt so disconnected from the earth that I would float away, her songs were an anchor.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: The game begins. I chase the ball instead of my thoughts. I sweat the way I’ve started to at night, my body washing all of its parts that used to hold her. The plate of my chest, the crook of my arm, and the crevice of my thighs all weep as I sleep. 

As a semi-closeted Hindu lesbian newcomer to a rural town at the southern tip of the world, this haunts me.

From my heart to yours, I will celebrate your story with you.

The first time, I was on my back, at her tongue’s mercy.

That is what I would like to gift to myself and to others as the world continues to burst from the inside out: permission to take as long as you need to mourn whatever you lost. Permission to sit in your stillness and grieve what you thought these two years would be like. Permission to be sad and hurt and angry that people and dreams will no longer be realized.

There’s no sadness that a gay bar can’t cure.

Here’s how we make it work.

I say “yes” to Dionysus and the joy of being in both the lightness and the darkness.

In spite of the pain, I’ve found a strength and trust in myself.

Both addiction and queerness can be shrouded in shame as the messaging feels the same: there’s something “wrong” with me.

I missed my girlfriend so thoroughly, in a way these songs understood. I now knew what it was like to want a person so badly that it can only be described in anatomical terms: it’s physically impossible to get close enough until you’re shrunk down and inside their bones. 

FROM THE ARCHIVES: “She slipped her fingers beneath my panties and smiled mischievously, her pointer finger entering my body as if it had always been her home.”

Rather than feel that I had fallen into some lesbian version of Candyland, my attraction to the women around me reminded me that my sexuality likely marked me as an outsider. 

FROM THE ARCHIVES: On the sidewalk between our homes stood a concrete square with our initials carved into it. A newly installed storm grate soon replaced it.

Pride means that you can own who you are, all of you, and live your truth out loud. Proud of who you are, where you are now, where you’ve been, and where you hope to go. Proud of your body, however you were born into it. Proud of who you love, what you identify as, and how you live your life. I chose to leave my dream-stealth life behind because I knew the world needed people to help them see and treat trans people differently. That’s why I can feel comfortable saying I know what true pride is.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Our breath fought the frost and we pulled at each other needfully.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Our romance was a mirage. It had been written there on my wall all along.

I became Emily Alexa Freeman, my third alias, with a fairy tale for a backstory. I had one overriding rule: tell no one.

It’s a new dimension where we live well and dance. It’s a queer, colorful world; it’s just one person short. 

Anna Joy, who is based in the US, was facing the prospect of a winter snow storm. Meanwhile, I sat in the Australian summer heat, surrounded by the sounds of the morning birds chirping. 

Being Asian, queer, and a woman meant there was a myriad of ways I could vanish, and I saw it each time I watched a movie. 

It was heaven; it was musical nirvana; it was Marie’s Crisis.

“F*ck my rainbow wristband. F*ck my tomboy underwear. I was a fraud. And surely these people could tell.”

It’s up to a younger generation to figure out what the current iteration of a dyke bar should look like.

I will be missing America on Thanksgiving. There may not be pumpkin pie, or scarves or mittens. But there will be food shared among family and friends, and gratitude spoken to each other.

Optimism moves us, while cynicism keeps us in place.

If you are struggling with “joy and,” it’s alright. It will be a long time before we no longer have to view joy alongside heavier feelings.

Now was a moment to breathe; I was trying to remember that. But I wasn’t so sure I was ready to dance yet. 

Friends say, “I love you,” but really, do they? If they support the policies that treat me like I’m less than them, do they love me?