mastodon 4.5.19An online journal of compelling LGBTQ fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Calling on all readers and writers with LGBTQ+ flair to join us on
https://medium.com/prismnpen
#LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #2SLGBTQ #2SLGBTQIA #Queer #QueerWriters #Writing #Storytelling
I never felt repulsed by women, or even reenacted the kind of repulsion gay men sometimes do when they’re together. When I tell gay friends I’m a little bi, they get offended, as if I’ve betrayed them. Always in a joking spirit. Mostly.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/the-night-a-woman-turned-five-gay-men-straight-c586abbf05ec?sk=877877124bb175bf9a484cc4b50eef04
This has been really hard to write. Writing it means exposing things about myself I don’t really like and have never said out loud. I know how some of it could be lifted out and used against trans people. I’ve written it anyway, because I don’t think I’m the only one carrying this, and I’d rather say it honestly than keep sitting on it.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/im-a-trans-woman-and-i-think-i-might-be-transphobic-44827df5e228?sk=91374cf4bef62f1df205d9f5a96672dc
Full disclosure — for me, being #transgender is neither good nor bad, neither blessing nor curse. It is a part of who I am, like so many other things. But it is the part which causes me the most friction, because it is the part that doesn’t slip nicely into society.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/the-world-is-not-flat-neither-are-transgender-people-3f54143d0aed?sk=521575e4bfd98ca9399ec1971ff882dd
Today I wander my world as a Transgender Woman. I am aware of the questioning stares, the whispering, the spaces around me that are lengthened, the name-calling.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/there-is-a-beautiful-strength-in-trans-women-16b86a4ed5f0?sk=23811cdacc2d862ee9353d43c6efbb6f
Qtopia wasn’t always a place of queer joy. Ironically, it’s the site of the former Darlinghurst Police Station, which has a long history of queer bashing, brutality, and dishing out its own ugly brand of rough justice.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/our-police-in-australia-are-back-to-queer-hating-70b1dbb3fe6f?sk=d7cee067e33ac8143790e6991f2dc822
When I go out and meet people, attend events, perform, or even just buy groceries, I gain an alternative perspective. To my relief, people are mostly OK, and not the vindictive, braying hyenas portrayed by the media.
The people I encounter are mostly are kind, generous and thoughtful. A few are wonderfully supportive, and a lot of them simply ignore me, and that’s OK too.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/creating-greater-queer-acceptance-might-not-require-a-protest-rally-a9752d82c9b0?sk=11ef9005230a4d98465e3ecb1971fb59
A clip from Matt Walsh’s 2022 appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast has started to do the rounds online again. Walsh was arguing against gay marriage. It really got me thinking just how poor the arguments against gay marriage are.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/arguments-against-gay-marriage-fail-baea64c00511?sk=6a549f8ab4622fd683ee72ee60645eb2
Despite 18 years of stalwart dedication to U.S. intelligence under four presidents from both parties, a single post from a radical conspiracy theorist triggered Curlee’s removal from the White House staff.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/openly-trans-ex-cia-analyst-speaks-out-0c8e50b1abd6?sk=7ac6003bbfaa970fab3c9e7cb00c1f14
For over sixty years I was a normal cisgender male.
Unapologetically all male. I swear I could sell my excess testosterone on the internet if I wanted to.
Check out my biceps!!! I’m all man, damn it!
Then, out of nowhere, I came down with transgenderitis.
Where did this come from?
https://medium.com/prismnpen/oh-my-god-i-was-infected-by-the-lgbtq-spectrum-0d3867053686?sk=951128591595e322e8343d471287f419
Three years later, it’s still costing my trans kid pronouns from grown adults who’ll swear on a stack of Bibles they’re not bigots, and it cost my marriage a small, stupid secret I only got honest about long after I should have.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/i-placed-a-call-on-my-ex-husbands-behalf-and-didn-t-tell-my-new-wife-0eea33dca8ff?sk=96f71f52585a21042be328bda3f16b50
Before getting stuck in, I had to do some research, just to make sure nobody associated with the show is evil.
I’m a good queer. I don’t promote problematic people. I’m up with the times.
This is how I discovered Debra Messing, the actress behind Grace, is not only a self-identified Zionist, but an award-winning Zionist at that.
I almost recommended her work. How embarrassing. How out of touch. A real close call.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/im-a-good-queer-i-google-stuff-b517b34a126c
The thing about that one person is that somehow, someday she will attend another meal with another friend and the same topic will come up. And this time, she’ll remember what I said. She will have a new perspective, she will have second hand knowledge of our struggle and learnings and she will share this with someone else.
And that’s a win, however small.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/talking-about-my-trans-teen-with-my-mom-my-girlfriend-and-strangers-400100e6c9b9
“It must have been hard growing up in Idaho,” I remarked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. But I’ve always been my own person, done things my own way.”
“My brother has a trans son,” I relayed. “I adore my nephew. He lives in Florida. I wish he’d move to Portland.”
https://medium.com/prismnpen/sharing-a-hot-tub-with-a-smiling-young-trans-man-7cadcf654b80?sk=430781f6109e5590546ad3744fd974cd
When love comes unconditionally, there’s no knowing the lengths to which you’ll grow.
I’ve always been a romantic in some sense; I wouldn’t call myself a hopeless romantic, but perhaps a dreamy one, head nearly always in the clouds. But my most important romantic relationship, my current one, started from a place of pure pragmatism.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/tpoc4tpoc-love-story-88f26653685e
Maybe this is just a part of getting older. I was hoping some of the work we had done fighting for equality for all our LGBTQ+ family, could be considered finished. I now realize that is not true. The work is never done. We can’t close our eyes. We cannot rest on the work we’ve done. There are too many people in this world willing to undo it.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/queer-and-three-inches-off-ca48887a86af
With nowhere else to go, blue-grey smoke rolled its way through the interior of the cabin. The haze floated languidly across the middle of the room, easing its way over an old table, across the curled edges of a lime-green countertop and into the kitchen. Spreading smoke almost obscured tongues of flames in a rough stone fireplace.
A man coughed loudly as the door opened, ‘Oh god, the fucking chimney must be blocked.’
https://medium.com/prismnpen/my-heart-was-elsewhere-a-love-triangle-0cfe697dc6a2?sk=2c091aa17d51d503f1ceb3fbe427e63a
One of the gifts of coming out as queer and trans has been my ability to somatically feel a concrete sense of future. My mental health has improved so much that I’ve found myself imagining what it would be like to grow old. I’ve begun caring for myself through this new perspective of wanting a long, happy life. This sense of clarity has allowed me to plan, taking steps to help me age as gracefully as possible.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/my-wife-and-i-are-taking-a-bipoc-queer-centered-yoga-class-14012ef56711?sk=268c969f67675116ab9a656aaa34d7ff
We were a household of two, that would become one, then two again. We were adults when we met, stable emotionally and financially. We wanted each other, we did not need each other. The life that was created, inside our home, our businesses, our relationships was one that gravitated around a core that was immutable. We were two, never one comingled.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/trans-woman-expert-loving-3bf3483b3187?sk=d89ce709f87d60a259ffd39e5f047900
Criticism was the ambient rhythm of my childhood and adolescence, making it very difficult for me to feel as though I was ever truly doing anything right.
Decades since flying the nest, that inner critic remains my biggest bully, having a say even in the best of times — constantly assuring me that I am not enough or not worthy; that I am an imposition; that people only tolerate me out of some sense of obligation.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/i-was-deadlocked-between-shame-and-self-after-coming-out-as-trans-3286dfb00a09
I make a coffee, walk shirtless into the garden, sit down in one of the chairs and let my flat, hairy chest get some sun. And as a good journalist, I open my news app — just in time to find out that I am now, legally, a woman.
Happy Birthday to me, I guess.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/no-mans-land-how-i-feel-as-a-trans-man-in-the-uk-in-2026-953665cd59e1
The deacons told Dad they couldn’t be responsible for what might happen if he continued bringing Black folks to our White church. Even at 12, I recognized the violent threat barely hiding in their words.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/i-grew-up-in-a-sexist-racist-homophobic-world-thats-rushing-back-bd9ad73738bf?sk=7f837c909d2730b8efc8b74ba82758ed
Recent industry reporting points to a decline in #LGBTQ+ representation across television, with entire characters and storylines disappearing altogether.
But the disappearance is not neutral, it follows a pattern.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/the-quiet-return-of-lesbian-erasure-6743bd79500f?sk=fd57f316895d5f76346d3bd085e162dc
Normally I leave a comment, but this one merits a full article, especially given the stakes and how things have heated up in the last year regarding trans rights. As with everything else I’ve seen from Tara, she misses the forest for the trees. From what I can tell, she isn’t even on the same battlefield.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/lets-make-sure-we-re-all-in-the-correct-fight-for-trans-rights-and-beyond-adc6a1284cf5?sk=5945a84975113f02cace59685b2fc32b
#LGBTQ #Transgender #Politics #TransRights #CallOutPost #QueerWriters
Nobody ever says I met a straight man who was an abuser, therefore all straight men are abusers.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/we-are-not-responsible-for-the-only-queer-person-youve-ever-met-397c3288df45?sk=c607572b094532c67911bc86ca606bf9
One of the biggest miracles of our nature is reproducing and giving birth to new life. It’s a miracle in terms of how inspiring, exciting, and lovely it is, but from the scientific point of view there’s nothing miraculous — these processes are well known and studied.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/hormone-therapy-and-fertility-the-science-for-trans-women-ce431ba42324?sk=917a36da55f9abfee08a33c0175d21f9
The first time I saw men hold hands this easily, I was in a war zone. Back then, the air smelled of dust and diesel; now I rest in my hammock between trees, thick, humid green.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/how-being-gay-and-armenian-shaped-my-tour-of-duty-in-afghanistan-ca87494a98b3?sk=7d2bdd9031fbd0233a65859420ca0f8c
Actually, both partners are experiencing their own, different, transition, even if only one of them is transgender. It can become two colliding forces fighting against each other or one strong flow that is aiming for the same goal — understanding and accepting each other.
https://medium.com/prismnpen/can-a-relationship-survive-gender-transition-advice-from-a-psychologist-3e83a8910b30?sk=ed0c91a8bfc2cbd37d41989ce51de797