When I shook Leigh’s hand, the first thing I thought was, “He seems wise.” Maybe because he looked poised next to my gracelessness. Shaking his hand was an ordeal. In one hand, I carried a folder containing the interview prompt questions and a consent form for him to sign. In the other, an old school tape recorder—and a pen and a pad, in case the tape recorder finally succumbed to old age.

The first thing I asked was whether Leigh would be okay with my recording our interview. I wanted to have an authentic conversation instead of frantically scrawling everything he said.

He paused. Then he said, “Sure, but I didn’t write any prompts for myself, so I might struggle to articulate some things.” It confirmed my initial perception of him as precise, careful to say exactly what he meant.   

I was interviewing Leigh for The Story of My Name Project, which I coordinated from 2014-2015. The project began as part of my job at FreeState Justice, a nonprofit offering free legal services to low-income LGBTQ Marylanders—including name change services. The call for participants was vague; it asked transgender or non-binary people who had gotten legal name changes if they wanted to participate in a project that celebrated their lives. If they were interested, they could email me.  

And emails came. From people who had gotten legal name changes, but also from people who hadn’t. A transgender woman who kept her birth name. A trans man who had been going by a chosen name for years, but never legally changed it. The mother of a transgender teenage boy.

Each one taught me a little more about the inherent power in claiming a name.

Leigh is transmasculine; he injects testosterone into his muscles so that his appearance will align with his gender. But when he got his name changed to Leigh, he chose the female spelling.

“The name Leigh was traditionally male, until it recently gained popularity as the female spelling of Lee—the female spelling of a gender-neutral name,” he said. “I like how that experience of gender plays out in myself, because I’m read as male almost 100% of the time, but I didn’t want to go with a name that’s unequivocally male.”

At the time we spoke, Leigh was learning not to knee-jerk reject any femininity within himself.

“I associated such negative things with my femininity: times that I had been victimized, times that I had been abused, times that I had been made to feel not good enough. But that’s not all there is to being female. Why should my femininity be something I hate or fear, something I exorcise from my being completely?… I don’t want to perform a caricature of masculinity. That isn’t me.”

Leigh named himself after a woman who was important to him when he was young, whose strength he admired. He said she had been able to help other people, even while she herself was struggling.  

I don’t want to perform a caricature of masculinity. That isn’t me.
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This name has a history of being used as both a girl’s and a boy’s name; Leigh spells it the now-female way—but when one says it out loud, the difference is undetectable. It also has personal significance. To capture such complexity in a name feels like an art.

Monica had known she was trans since she was a child in the ’50s—before there was a word for it. In the ’60s, she ran away from home. “I needed rebellion,” she said. “I never would have transitioned without rebellion. It’s how I found out there was something besides what I was taught growing up, in church and at home.”

For many years, Monica was trying to name what she’d always known on a non-verbal level. But she kept going back into hiding. She tried to be “the perfect man” in her romantic relationships. She got involved with drinking and drugs.

When she got sober, she did so in a men’s recovery house. While there, she kept hearing the name “Monica” in her head. She thought pushing it away would help her stop drinking and drugging; if she could just make it go away, all her problems would go away, too. But sobriety was what brought her out of hiding.

“What I didn’t know was that the more I worked on myself, the more I would find out about my true self,” she said. “In recovery, they talk about peeling away the layers. I was peeling away the layers.”

One night out after the recovery house, her friend made her up. When the friend asked what she thought, her answer was one word: Monica.

When you call a person’s name, you conjure them; their essence is supposed to be contained in that one word. Of the dozens of people I interviewed, no story is the same. For some, like Leigh, the process of choosing a name was more cerebral. Others tried on a few names until one felt right—a more intuitive decision. Another person, Angela, chose her name because as a kid she drew pictures of angels for her mom: “They were the one feminine memory from my pre-transition self.”

But one thing was consistent: Most people knew themselves enough to know exactly why their name fit. Stories about chosen names are often stories of self-knowledge. Perhaps in some cases the process of choosing a name helped people understand themselves. In others, choosing a name was a chance to honor what they already knew—an articulation of self.

In Iceland, they generally use a formula to name babies. Siblings’ last names can be different based on their assigned gender. If a baby is assigned female at birth, for instance, her last name is her dad’s name, followed by the word “daughter.” Both first and last names are usually gendered. Names must only contain letters from the Icelandic alphabet.

The Icelandic Naming Committee approves or denies names, and determines whether given names not used before in Iceland are acceptable. If the naming committee allows it, transgender people—if their gender falls within the binary—can change their name to be more aligned with their gender.  

Stories about chosen names are often stories of self-knowledge.
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In America, parents can give their kid any name. Often, they pick a name before they even meet the baby—let alone know who the baby will be. Grey, who I interviewed for the project, said, “You need something to be called when you’re born—but it’s a big deal for your parents to pick this thing that is going to be such an important part of your life and your identity. It’s a big thing for someone else to decide for you.”

I was given the name “Tyler” at birth, but I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect name. I’m non-binary, assigned female at birth, and was always put on boys’ little league teams as a kid based on the name alone. In early 2017, after years of wearing binders, I got top surgery. Hair grows on my cheeks, neck, and chest. This is from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and “abnormally high”—according to one endocrinologist—testosterone levels.

Thirteen years ago, I stopped taking the spironolactone (anti-androgen medication) I was prescribed. I like the ritual of shaving my beard in front of the mirror. I liked when a cis male former roommate and I shared a shaving ritual. I like choosing how much facial hair I have at a given time.

I buy most shirts in the boys’ section. Usually when I go to a fancy event, I wear a suit and tie. But I like feeling pretty. I most often wear women’s pants. Occasionally I wear eyeliner, and even more occasionally, mascara. I feel like a slightly femme man, who is a woman, but not. Not all non-binary people think about or express their gender this way—there’s a huge, wonderful range.

Most strangers who aren’t aware of the nuance call me “ma’am.” Most queer strangers ask my pronouns.

“Tyler” fits. Even the cadence of my name, the way it sounds when it comes out of peoples’ mouths—like some people said during their interviews, just feels right.

Sometimes I felt guilty interviewing people who had to go through an arduous process to find a name that felt right. All I did was emerge from the womb.  

Before I entered undergrad, my school “mistakenly” roomed me with a boy. My senior year, when my school actually did begin to offer gender-neutral housing, a cis male friend and I lived together for a few months. But then residential life attempted to take it back, insisting they’d thought I was a boy because of my name. They’d been confused. I thought: “Me too.”

Transgender women are mistaken for boys at birth; they are usually given boys’ names and put on boys’ teams. The fact that something feels off about this is often informative.

Mine is the opposite story, in a way. People would always apologize for putting me with the “wrong” roommate or on the “wrong” team. But I’m not sure what the wrong team would mean.

While working on The Story of My Name Project, I got an email from a trans woman named Tyler, who had been given the name at birth and chosen to keep it. She didn’t know if her story was appropriate for the project, but when she was coming out as trans, she wished she’d seen a story about keeping a name that fit. 

Along with sharing my excitement about my connection to her story, I told her that it was very appropriate; the project had evolved to become more about the importance of having a name that fits, not solely about legal name changes. Hers fit, even if she didn’t have to change it to get there.

Sometimes I felt guilty interviewing people who had to go through an arduous process to find a name that felt right.
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I came to learn the many, layered reasons Tyler’s name resonated. Growing up, Tyler’s parents had been horribly abusive. She said they used the name Tyler as code for “be a man.” But Tyler had known and admired a girl with the name since middle school; she said she would often look at her and think, “If I were a woman, my name would still be Tyler.”

It was not up to Tyler’s abusive parents to decide what the name meant. As she put it, “The name belongs to me, and it always will.”

In Ancient Egypt, people kept their real name secret; it was believed that if someone learned your real name, they’d have power over you. A version of this belief exists in many cultures, legends, and traditions—throughout the world and throughout history.

In the story of Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin is defeated when the miller’s daughter learns his real name. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is careful not to reveal his true name to the giant, calling himself a word that means “nobody.” Later, when he does reveal his name, it plays a role in his downfall.

There is a belief in the western world, though it’s hard to pinpoint where it originated, that if you can name something, it loses power over you.

If knowing a true name is powerful, then naming yourself is giving yourself a kind of power. Not the kind of legends, where your power lies in having a leg up over someone else. The empowerment in saying, “This is me.”

I walked through the door with you
The air was cold
But something ‘bout it felt like home, somehow

I’m not entirely sure why, but as I entered the party I had Taylor Swift’s song “All Too Well” in my head. Considering I had never been to this location or one of these events and I wasn’t arriving with anyone, the lyrics had no relationship to what I was actually doing; attending a members-only intimate party via an anonymous erotica club. Not quite a sex party, although that was certainly available to anyone interested in partaking. It was more of a hyper-flirtatious gathering for adults; consenting, eager adults.

Each party begins with some icebreaker games for the newer members, accompanied by music and live burlesque or acrobatic performances. There are tables with snacks set out, encouraging the seventy or so members to meet and mingle. Behind some doors are the actual “playrooms” where guests can engage in sex, erotic play, or just sit and watch. Ever mindful of my journalistic integrity, and crippling social anxiety, I remained an observer.

It was fascinating to watch the playroom, a room of maybe fifteen people, some in pairs, some in trios or more, all in different positions and various states of undress. As I stood holding up the wall as though it would crumble behind me, I was approached by a beautiful woman in ripped jeans and a crop top with her hair natural and teased out.

“First time here?”

“Yes.” I was certain she could hear the T-Swift refrains repeating in my head.

“Cool. I mostly just watched when I first started coming here. Let me know if you have any questions.”

“Oh, do you work for the club?”

“Nope, just know it can be intimidating at first.”  

She smiled warmly and walked away, the goal not to out me as a newbie but to offer some support in an intimidating scene. I breathed a sigh of embarrassed relief and moved on to the next track from Red, pressing down my skirt as I had decided my inspiration for the night was Kathleen Turner from “Romancing the Stone.”

This type of friendly interaction is not a perk of parties like this, it’s the point. The atmosphere is designed to be a communal, artistic, space. Sex is available if you want it, but it’s not necessarily the end goal, and it’s certainly not the only thing available. It was my maiden foray into a private play party, but certainly not the first event I had attended where enthusiastic consent was a selling point. And that’s becoming far more common for clubs that host these kinds of events.

One of the most popular spots in the Brooklyn scene is House of Yes, a dance club and performance space located in Bushwick that has gained notoriety for its themed parties as well as its guidelines regarding club behavior. The rules are listed on the website, when purchasing a ticket, and are visible on walls throughout the club:

Behave with beauty, connect with intention. We are obsessed with Consent. Always ASK before touching anyone in our House. If someone is violating your boundaries or harassing you, please speak to a security guard or any staff member. We have a zero tolerance policy for harassment. If you feel something, say something, and we will help.

Each night at House of Yes is different to accommodate the different interests of the attendees. A Tuesday night may feature amateur burlesque, followed the next day by an aerial circus and DJ, and an early no-booze-on-the-dance-floor dance party for the nine to fivers. The website is clear that this is a space for anyone wanting to try something different from the norm. Imagine Studio 54 but without a crabby owner outside telling you that you’re not cool enough to come in.

And while clubs like House of Yes put a premium on safety, they are also careful about how they promote consent policies and lay out expectations to clientele. I spoke with Katie Rex, creator of the queer fetish party BOUND, who this year moved her events from exclusively underground to public spaces like Elsewhere.

“I don’t know of any club that markets itself as a safe space. To call a space a ‘safe space’ you would have to screen every single person entering the door and evaluate their behavior while intoxicated before entry. The only proposed safe spaces are completely underground. Clubs are certainly upping the ante when it comes to the priority of safety and how to manage unsafe people, but it would be completely irresponsible for a space to say they can promise none of their patrons will act out of line.”

The application process to the private party I attended is detailed. Currently the club encourages female members who may bring male dates, but has recently opened up selective spots for men who have displayed appropriate behavior at previous parties to attend events by themselves. While the club does not have language directly addressing submissions from prospective non-binary members, it makes clear in the questionnaire that the goal when vetting members is mostly about your vibe.

The questionnaire I filled out had the standard questions, “Age,” “Zip Code,“ “How did you hear about us?” then followed with more thoughtful inquiries like “What made you interested in us,” “Describe your current relationship and what you think [Party Name] can bring to it,” “Do you trust your partner?,” “Do you feel comfortable communicating your needs and desires with your current partner or other intimate partners?”.

This was the first of many surprises when researching this scene; how deliberately it draws a line around what type of members they’re looking for, establishing from the outset that this wouldn’t be an unsupervised fuckfest, but a community of like-minded adults who wanted a place to comfortably explore and experience different parts of themselves, either sexually or creatively.

The atmosphere is designed to be a communal, artistic, space. Sex is available if you want it, but it’s not necessarily the end goal, and it’s certainly not the only thing available.
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This type of vetting is inherent to private parties, and bringing it to a public space like has not been as simple as posting rules on a website as Jacqui Rabkin, Marketing Director, and Consent Co-Director at House of Yes, and I discussed.

“A lot of it is very straightforward. You make a policy, you make it visible, you make a system for reporting,” she says. “You have to know your limits, and know what your knowledge base is and what your capabilities are and if you want to have a safer space … you should build a team, you should talk to other members of the community who are also doing this.”

The other Consent Co-Director is consultant Emma Kaywin, a sexual health writer and activist who works with clubs, private parties, and music festivals, training staff how to manage public play spaces. It’s become a vital part of the House of Yes program, specifically for their House of Love events, which mirror private parties, but with more limits on what can take place.

“The Consent Team and program we have in place is modeled after real play parties. We have active guardians; people walking around the club kind of monitoring,” says Rabkin. “We call them ‘Consenticorns’…[they] have been trained by Emma in de-escalation techniques and bystander intervention, just the basics of how to approach people so you can step in and offer people help without causing a scene or a complication but also they have these light up beacons so someone can find them easily if they need help.”

The queer community has been managing the “safer space” movement for far longer than their more cis-hetero counterparts. The inclusivity and safety of many queer clubs and roaming parties underscore the nuanced language around sex that many marginalized communities developed because of the very real threat of violence that hangs over the head of anyone considered other. Safer spaces needed to exist where people could express the very basic desire to represent themselves honestly, without harassment or judgment.

It’s not surprising then that straight women were attracted to these spaces. When fear polices your daily life, regardless of exactly why you are being targeted, anywhere you are able to simply breathe comfortably is a welcome relief. Moreover, those communities were often required to police themselves to avoid bringing unwanted attention from anyone on the outside.

Safer spaces needed to exist where people could express the very basic desire to represent themselves honestly, without harassment or judgment.
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Self-policing is also a part of the kink community that, while not an apparent physical presentation, labors under a societal stigma that pushes it underground. Kink works only when lines and boundaries are drawn very clearly before physical interaction. Fantasy scenarios are outlined over text or email, safe words are established early, and aftercare is often essential before a play session can be considered “complete.”

These rules are not only important for physical safety, but they also acknowledge that sex and intimacy can be emotionally challenging for any number of reasons. In the current #MeToo era where predominantly cis-hetero men and women are still grappling with dangerous societal gaps in sexual communication, this type of prior consent was bound to find its way into the mainstream.

While these spaces were not and are not free from any form of harassment or problematic behavior, their emphasis on community safety and clarity of purpose is a welcome jolt of change into more public spaces where people have not yet figured out how to communicate desires or boundaries. As House of Yes became more popular and saw its audience expand, they had to make changes to how they approached and enforced their policies.

“When we became really really popular we got this tsunami tide of people who maybe don’t have the best etiquette on the dance floor and the vibe started to change,” Rabkin tells me.

“Too many people, more spectators, they’re not dressed up, they’re not overly friendly and they’re not participating. They just show up to see what crazy shit is happening. If you’re going to survive that you need to be very proactive about trying to orient and educate your new clientele.”

The club initially attempted to combat the changing crowd by instituting a mandatory costume policy, but realized shortly thereafter that such policy was excluding lower-income patrons who may find the need to spend money on a costume prohibitive, as well as tourists who want to attend but may not have packed a feather crown in their suitcase. They relaxed the policy to greatly encourage people to express themselves through their look, as well as providing a costume box for guests to get their make up done, restyle their outfit, or pick up some accessories to signal that they’re excited to participate in the night ahead.   

Combining the inclusivity and artistic expression of many LGBTQ clubs with the rules of consent in Kink culture is a powerful bulwark against sexual inequality, a pervasive and harmful construct that thrives on fear and silence. The only way to combat it is consent and communication, but also to remember that communities are not static. Reimagining and reinforcing rules to meet changing tides is just as important as establishing them in the first place.

Boundaries are there to make sure guests feel at ease, that they know what is expected of one another and how to behave. It’s not just about being safe, it’s not just about saying “yes,” it’s about allowing people the space to express themselves in ways they have been conditioned not to. You can do something, or nothing, and no one is entitled to pressure you either way. Once the threat of violence or coercion is removed, once a true sexual equality is established, the possibilities when exploring that physical and mental space become exciting rather than intimidating.

Nyamdorj Anaraa has come out to his friends and family three times: first as a lesbian, second as a transgender man, and finally as a transgender man who is attracted to other men.

From a young age, Anaraa knew that he was different from his peers. For many years, he identified as a lesbian. He married a woman and the two became pillars of Mongolia’s burgeoning LGBTQ community. However, even within this community—which did not yet include people with alternative gender expression—Anaraa felt out of place.  

Anaraa hated his female-assigned body. At first, in speaking to other women, he thought the body shame that he was experiencing was endemic to being a woman in a patriarchal society. When he tried to express his feelings to the group, he was met with sympathy and told that all women hate their bodies for falling short of established beauty standards. While he at first thought that his feelings stemmed from the same toxic source, he eventually realized that what he was feeling was instead gender dysphoria, the distress experienced from the misalignment of one’s gender identity and the sex one is assigned at birth.

In 2004, Anaraa embraced what he had not been able to express until then: he began telling people that he was trans. In 2011, he began his physical transition by pursuing surgery and hormone therapy. As Anaraa transitioned, he began to see the beauty in his body for the first time. “The more I became me, the more I came into my body,” he said in our April interview. “I began to see the beauty of myself and other men.” This profound psychological and physical change also precipitated his attraction to other men, and now he identifies as a queer trans man.

In the same way that Anaraa has undergone tremendous transition, so too has Mongolia. Only 28 years ago, the vast, yet sparsely-populated country became an unlikely democracy situated between two global superpowers. Mongolia has endured many economic and political trials, but because of its own commitment to democratic values and the urging of activists like Anaraa, it has become a leader in human rights protections for developing nations.

For Anaraa, the lack of resources available to him during his struggle for self-realization made his life more difficult. “Had I the language, had I the environment, had I even an inkling of [transgender] people […], had I been in a community where there was knowledge of other gender expressions, I wouldn’t have complicated my life so much by having to come out three times,” he laments. Indeed, Anaraa, now 41, came of age during a turbulent time for the country of Mongolia. During his childhood, Mongolia was a puppet regime of the Soviet empire. The country suffered under the poverty of late-stage communism and information did not easily find its way in or out of the country. In 1990, Mongolia’s youth staged a revolution, throwing off the Soviet yoke. As was true for many former socialist countries, the 1990s were a desperate time as the country struggled with its economic transition to democracy and capitalism. The Mongolia of Anaraa’s youth was not a place with access to resources for people struggling with queer identities.

Though not an ideal environment for navigating queer identities, Mongolia’s political transition provided Anaraa with the inspiration he later used to fight for LGBTQ rights in his country.

The Mongolia of Anaraa’s youth was not a place with access to resources for people struggling with queer identities.
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Anaraa’s was inspired by his mother’s activism. Tsendmaa Khorchinjav worked her whole life as an engineer in agrarian Mongolia’s iconic wool and cashmere industry. When Mongolia’s economic and political transition began, domestic manufacturers were unable to compete, and eager Chinese traders bought companies and raw agricultural materials wholesale. Tsendmaa’s colleagues chose her to lead the Federation of Wool and Cashmere Producers, an industry association, and she took to her charge of saving the quickly collapsing domestic industry. As Anaraa describes, his mother—who had lived her whole life under a communist system—threw herself into researching marketing, commodity pricing. She presented her findings to parliament and organized politically to pass a law that prohibited raw cashmere exports. This protectionist measure ensured that cashmere would be processed in Mongolia before being sold to other countries, protecting the industry and saving the jobs of countless Mongolian workers. Because of his mother’s work, Anaraa learned firsthand that change can be won by ordinary people organizing for legislative change.

Anaraa has dedicated his life to helping others find the self-knowledge and acceptance that was once elusive to him. In 2007, he and a group of passionate activists founded Mongolia’s LGBT Center, the first resource of its kind in the country. The group focuses on not only creating social awareness and acceptance of its community, but pursues an ambitious legislative agenda. While there is certainly discrimination against Mongolia’s queer community, the work of the LGBT Center has pushed the Mongolian government to adopt a legislative framework far more progressive than that of its neighbors. While other post-Soviet republics have seen an increase in intolerance towards queer communities, Mongolia has recently introduced new protections into law.

The LGBT Center’s political organization is savvy. In addition to finding allies in country, they have leveraged Mongolia’s international allies and the treaties that the country is party to in order to promote their legislative agenda. As a member of the United Nations (UN) and signatory to its treaties, Mongolia is periodically reviewed for its protection of universal human rights. In 2010, the freshly incorporated LGBT Center inserted itself as a civil society organization involved in evaluating Mongolia’s human rights progress and reporting back to the UN. This process yielded the recommendations  that hate crimes should be outlawed, investigated, and that the perpetrators of such crimes should be punished; that the country should pass a comprehensive stand-alone law on discrimination that includes sexual orientation and gender identity; and that it improve public education on human rights and non-discrimination.

By going through the UN processes, the LGBT Center had established a mandate, which it could then use to hold the country of Mongolia accountable. The Center used this platform to maintain a dialogue with government and the National Human Rights Commission in order to push for reform.

Becoming Trans: Transgender Identity in the Middle Ages
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Victory was not straightforward, however. When Mongolia overhauled its criminal code (which had been written in the communist era), the LGBT Center had hoped to include a classic anti-hate crime definition so as to expressly protect minorities. Instead, the new criminal code, passed in 2015 and in force since 2017, outlawed discrimination of any kind. While this was a victory, the broad wording of the new law does not explicitly protect the LGBTQ community in the way its members had hoped it would.

Anaraa and his colleagues realized that in order to receive this protection, they needed to make sure that hate crimes became recognized as discrimination. Mongolians needed to learn that engaging in hate speech or otherwise harming others because of their gender identity or sexual orientation did not constitute freedom of speech, but was now a form of discrimination under Mongolia’s new criminal code. They launched several initiatives to make sure that discrimination is widely recognized: they helped pass a law preventing medical discrimination against LGBTQ people and have provided education and treatment guidelines for medical professionals; they pushed for a ministerial resolution against police discrimination; and are currently fighting against employment discrimination and are actively engaged in debating a labor law in parliament.

In November 2017, a transgender woman was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. While in police custody, an officer pinned her to the floor and forcibly stripped her. The police division responsible did not find the officer guilty of any wrongdoing, and to date the LGBT Center is not aware if any disciplinary action that has been taken against this officer. The Center helped the victim file a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission. In helping bring her case to authorities for prosecution under the criminal code, the LGBT Center realized that beyond pursuing justice in her individual case, the police force as a whole would benefit from a better understanding of discrimination.

Aside from legal action, the Center focuses on education. As Anaraa explains, providing information and taking away fear of the unknown is crucial to changing people’s attitudes and gaining acceptance. “Once you’re able to claim your identity and fully live as yourself and be honest about your feelings […] people do accept you,” he said. “They might be shocked at first, but then you take the time to educate them and actually acceptance is very easy to come by.”

With support from the Asia Foundation and the U.S. and French embassies, the LGBT Center has developed a curriculum on discrimination and is training the Mongolian police force. The training—called “A Hate Free and Tolerant Mongolia”—uses lectures, case studies, and exercises to help police officers recognize discrimination and hate crimes. At the outset of training, some officers did not see the harm in discrimination and were inclined to express their personal opinions about minority groups in response to training prompts. Many officers expressed the belief that hate crimes do not exist in their country. Trainers described a divide between older and younger officers, gleaning optimism from the younger officers’ more tolerant attitudes and willingness to learn. Moreover, the training has been successful in that it has offered guidance to officers as to how to implement the new criminal code in their daily work.

As Anaraa explains, providing information and taking away fear of the unknown is crucial to changing people’s attitudes and gaining acceptance.
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Beyond creating a safer and more equitable country, training police officers in this way generates data to understand the depth of the problem and identify areas for improvement. Officers admitted that before the introduction of the new criminal code and training on its implications for their work, they were inclined to classify crimes that they could now identify as hate crimes as something else. For example, what they may have previously classified as a straightforward assault case, officers now know to classify as a hate crime if it was motivated by discrimination and bias towards a minority group.

The LGBT Center has now conducted six trainings of over 300 police officers, as well as some prosecutors and judges. They have been able to include officers from rural areas spanning Mongolia’s vast landscape and are currently completing training for all nine divisions of Ulaanbaatar’s police force. Anaraa believes that while this has been a strong start, for this training to truly have an impact over time it needs to be included in compulsory police academy curriculum to ensure that every officer understands what hate crimes are and their responsibility in preventing and prosecuting them.

Mongolia began its fight for LGBTQ equality by modeling the laws after other nations, but in doing so became a leader that other countries may now follow. Anaraa recently became the third transgender person in the country to legally change his gender marker on his government documentation, something that only one third of governments worldwide currently allow. He has spent the last eighteen years fighting tirelessly to improve the lives of LGBTQ people in Mongolia, and due in no small part to his effort, there is now a thriving community of leaders and activists.

After three years as the Executive Director, Anaraa recently resigned his leadership position. He will continue on in an advisory capacity while Munkhtuya Dashtsend, the Center’s former Legal Program Manager, leads the Center. He is content to live his life knowing that the group he helped found will continue to advocate for a more equal Mongolia. Looking ahead to the future, Anaraa believes the best times are yet to come. “Things will only get better […] the work of the LGBT Center will never be complete,” he said.“We have another fifty years of work ahead of us, but I do believe that in another ten years, we will have a very, very beautiful society.”

Therapists who identify as queer people of color, like me, are few and far between. As a result, women of color (WOC) and LGBTQ+ people of color (POC) often take a keen interest in my mental health advocacy. I am routinely asked for advice about how to find WOC and LGBTQ+ POC therapists, in particular, and many also inquire about my availability. In response to the latter question, I began to notice over time that sheer disappointment washed over some folks’ faces whenever I shared that I don’t currently practice therapy.

“Surely, I can’t be the only like-minded therapist out there,” I always think to myself. But for many, I am.

Findings from a 2013 study revealed that White Americans comprised 83% of psychologists, while representation of Black Americans stood at 5.4%, Latinxs at 5%, and Asian Americans at a mere 4.3%. Native Americans — a demographic that researchers routinely disregard because of cultural erasure — were not even accounted for (despite Native American youth having the highest rate of youth suicide, by ethnicity). Likewise, WOC and LGBTQ+ POC psychologists, as well as therapists of all types, are also underrepresented, both in research and in the field. This invisibility has alarming implications.

Findings from a 2013 study revealed that White Americans comprised 83% of psychologists.
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For one thing, research on race-matching in therapy suggests that for some clients, sharing a minoritized identity with a therapist may reduce guardedness, mistrust, and self-consciousness. Yet, the dearth of WOC and LGBTQ+ POC therapists means that clients from these backgrounds often face an uphill battle searching for a cultural match along the lines of race, gender, and sexuality. Add to this the fact that rates of depression are higher among WOC and LGBTQ+ POC, compared to cis-hetero (cisgender-heterosexual) men of color and White people who identify as LGBTQ+.

For these reasons, I created this resource about therapy, specifically for WOC and LGBTQ+ POC. My aim is to share the most frequent question asked of me: “How do I find a therapist who ‘gets it’?” These four simple questions can help you do just that.

1. Why do you do what you do?

Pro-tip: If you ask a therapist why they got into counseling, and they reply, “I just wanted to help people”…run.

The “I just wanted to help people” type of therapist is what I call a general practitioner. They can surely support you with one-size-fits-all interventions that aren’t culturally specific. But when it comes to addressing mental health stressors related to identity and oppression, they usually overpromise and underdeliver. Rarely, if ever, have these therapists demonstrated a strong, unwavering commitment to centering underserved communities in their work.

Furthermore, these “I just wanted to make a difference” therapists will sometimes subject you to their self-serving savior complex. Their motivation for working with minoritized communities is often not rooted in a genuine interest in social change, but in ego and pity, instead. As a result, many disregard a core principle of cultural humility: that impact trumps good intentions. Failing to recognize their own blind spots and implicit biases can lead to some very awkward and offensive interactions. Don’t be their “cultural competency guinea pig.”

2. How do you do what you do?

Pro-tip: If a therapist can’t cite the spiritual healers, philosophers, theorists, therapists, or even revolutionaries who inform their work…run.

Every therapist informs their work with one or more theoretical orientations (i.e. “standard interpretive frameworks” and “philosophical assumptions” that guide interventions). Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is probably most well-known. Feminist therapy, which is particularly affirming of WOC and LGBTQ+ POC, is much less mainstream, on the other hand.

The good news is that clients can exercise the right to request feminist therapy, or any other orientation. In fact, you could ask your therapist to get familiar with any school of thought or healing practice that supports your goals, no matter how “alternative,” non-Western, or unempirical. Simply ask, “How do you do what you do? Could you please describe your preferred theoretical orientation(s), as well as your willingness to consider other approaches? ”

WOC and LGBTQ+ POC rarely assert their needs in therapy, especially to White, cis-hetero therapists. But closed mouths don’t get fed.

3. Who and what informs your understanding of oppression?

Pro-tip: If a therapist can’t define intersectionality, or, at the very least, make an educated guess…run.

During therapy sessions, intersectional feminists often find ourselves pausing after every sentence to explain social justice terms like positionality and rape culture, and concepts like “the personal is political” and “prejudice plus power.” On top of that, we’re burdened with unpacking the historical context around myriad forms of internalized oppression, as well as nuanced intracommunity issues. WOC and LGBTQ+ POC get into these predicaments partly because no one encourages us to screen the politics of our therapists.

Often, we just take a chance on new therapists. We simply pray that they will share our awareness of structural intersectionality, and the language that we use to makes sense of it. But the only surefire way to gauge whether a therapist is equipped to meet you where you are, is to ask, “Who and what informs your understanding of oppression?”

Be sure not to settle for run-of-the-mill answers about cultural competency workshops, either. Ask what you really want to know, like whether they are familiar with the work of certain feminist scholars of color, or if they follow certain blogs, podcasts, or activists on social media. Only the most thorough and specific answers will clue you in to their learning curve.

If a therapist can’t define intersectionality…run.
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4. How will you hold space for me when we discuss my oppression?

Pro-tip: If your therapist isn’t willing to lean into discomfort…run.

According to author Heather Plett, “holding space for someone” means bringing your entire presence to them, and walking alongside them on their journey, without judgement. She suggests eight tips for holding space, including: “give people permission to trust their own intuition and wisdom,” “don’t take their power away,” “keep your ego out of it,” “give guidance with humility,” and “create a container for complex emotions, fear, trauma, etc.”

When you settle for therapists who can theorize about oppression, but not process the emotional texture of it, you settle for therapists who cannot hold space for you. Almost always, these therapists will shift the focus from your needs, to their countertransference of defensiveness and guilt. It often looks like being tone-policed, treated like a know-it-all, mocked as a “social justice warrior,” schooled about non-existent “reverse” -isms, or even pressured to apologize because of your therapist’s tears.

Moreover, a therapist who cannot separate their work from your work, especially your anger, is not mature or skilled enough to do engage with you about oppression in healthy and affirming ways. Holding space for you should always be a therapist’s first priority, even if leaning into the discomfort of their privilege means leaning into your rage.

As writer Amy Dentata penned, “People often say ‘stop being angry and educate us,’ not understanding that the anger is part of the education.”

HA, age 30, Abuja

“I had to remember to change the pronoun of my lover so nobody could tell she was female … making up pictures and stories of how we met and why I couldn’t introduce ‘him’ to any of my friends. It was exhausting.”

I grew up in a normal northern-Muslim household in Jos. My parents were well educated and worked government jobs. We spoke Hausa and English interchangeably in a five-bedroom house with my three siblings and four cousins. Each room had a double bunk and people running in and out, so we learned early in life to share everything, especially personal space. We woke up every morning at 5 a.m., we ate lunch at 2:30 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. and were in bed at 8 p.m. I attended an Islamic primary school, returned home to extra lessons, then attended evening Islamiyya school to learn to read the Qur’an and write in Arabic. Our lives had a comfortable routine and life was easy.

I attended the same school as my siblings and I remember having a crush on my teacher Ms. S___ when I was in Primary 3. She was pretty. She was female. She was political. I don’t think she did anything different or special, I just enjoyed being in class and watching her while she taught. I loved going to school. I excelled because I was super attentive and always trying to please her. As an adult, I learned that my reaction wasn’t unique as most people have a crush on their teacher at some point. Mine just turned out to be female. This was mildly disappointing; I thought we had something special.

As much as I loved school, I was severely bullied because I was young, small and generally easy to pick on. People knew what was going on. There was this tall girl who had a little clique. I can’t remember her hitting me but I was deeply afraid of her and if she ordered me to do anything, I quickly obeyed. When we had a test in class, I would crawl under the tables and my classmates would make space for me. I would give her my paper to copy off, then crawl back to my own seat. She would ask what I’d brought for lunch today and if she liked it, she would say, ‘Okay, I’ll have that one. You have mine.’ She told me that if I ever saw her carrying anything, I should come take it. So, if she had a bag on her, I would take it to her desk.

Most people have a crush on their teacher at some point. Mine just turned out to be female.
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One day in Primary 4, when I was about 8 or 9, I was sitting on the windowsill in class. She was late. Her car drove into the school compound. I could see it from where I was sitting. She got out with her bag so I jumped out the window and went to take it for her. Unknown to me, the teacher was there and wondering what the fuck was going on.

All hell broke loose. There was a whole lot of trouble for everybody — most of the people in class, her and her gang, and other teachers — for not having said anything. They started watching me and it became annoying. I became that person that everybody knew was being bullied so I convinced my parents to let me stay home and write the Common Entrance exam. They bought me the form and put me in extra lessons. I wrote the exam and got admission into the same secondary school as my sisters. I was very excited!

I really loved secondary school as everybody was friendly. After being brought up in such a regimented household, I was used to going to bed early. In school, I would get punished often for sleeping during prep. The punishment was to jump for thirty minutes or so to wipe the sleep from your eyes. But I was so notorious that I perfected the art of sleeping while jumping. So many nights were spent in front of class, jumping and sleeping. After prep, I would not even remember walking from class to the hostel. Immediately I got to the hostel, I would sleep, half the time in the clothes I wore because I was so tired.

I can’t point to the first time I liked a girl. I have memories of so many women who drew a strong reaction from me. From Ms S___ to these older girls who took care of me and whom I was attracted to. There was a rotating number of women whom I had a thing for.

In boarding schools in Nigeria, women are allowed to show affection and love. There was a kind of coupling up that was generally allowed. It wasn’t a big deal. A chokkor or a lifey was just someone special to you. Sometimes the person was in the same class as you and sometimes they were in a higher class. And the relationship was romantic in nature. There was even a whole economy around Valentine’s and buying gifts for your chokkor.

So, we grew up accepting that it was okay to love another girl. It was even celebrated. In our uniform, there was a code. If you tied your belt backwards, it meant you were in the market for a chokkor. A person would be like, ‘Okay, I like this girl.’ Her friends would go and talk to you or your friends and ask if you had a chokkor. You would say, no and they would reply, ‘Okay, we’re going to connect you with someone. Thursday night, you’re going to wear your best outfit, and we’re going to come take you from your room to your chokkor’s room.’

Sometimes, you would have no clue who she was. Other times, you knew because she was sort of picking on you or gave you extra food or said hello to you one too many times during assembly. They would take you to your chokkor’s place and leave you there for the night. That was totally normal. There was drama when some girls were snatched from their chokkors. We would hear things like ‘Amira was just going steady with Nneka and the next thing, Bola came into the picture and now Amira no longer hangs out with Nneka. They stopped going for break together and now she goes for breaks with Bola.’ We would all be scandalised that such a thing had taken place.

We grew up accepting that it was okay to love another girl.
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Throughout secondary school, almost everybody had a lifey but there were only four people who had girlfriends. They were not just in love but had kissed, made out or had sex. They were all known of course. You’re teenagers, you talk to your friends and nobody can keep a secret. When I was in JS3, there was this huge outrage about two girls being lesbians. One was in SS2 and the other was in JS3. They spent all their time together. At some point, they kissed and someone found out. They told somebody who told somebody who told the school administration. They were both suspended.

I thought it was weird that people were allowed to be in love, but never to take it to the next stage. Years later, people who knew me in school would tell me how homophobic I was. I wasn’t homophobic but people around me were and I didn’t do anything to speak up. At school, I was so sure that I was not a lesbian. To be a lesbian, you needed to have held a girl’s hand, kissed a girl, made out with her or had sex with her. I had done none of those things. Then secondary school finished.

My childhood passed really quickly — one day I was a kid and the next, I wasn’t. University was fun. I found studying a breeze. But socially, few girls played any kind of sport at that level so I kind of stood out. It also didn’t help that I liked to wear men’s clothes. Everyone I knew became super feminine and conversations became about clothes, parties and boyfriends. I wasn’t into clothes nor did I like any boy but in my bid to fit in, I decided I needed a boyfriend.

H___ was the first boy I kissed. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was almost exciting, but not quite. I would talk about the fact that we were not really compatible and he always told me that my expectations were built around watching too many Bollywood movies and that, actually, we were fine. I had doubts but I didn’t want to rock the boat because I was very comfortable in the relationship. He was a good friend, he lived and schooled in another city, and we saw each other once or twice a year. We relied on writing each other letters as no one had cellphones then. After about three years of this, we broke up when he started dating another girl in his school. I was relieved and moved on quickly.

Around that time, I was coming into myself and trying to figure out what was different about me. I knew I liked girls but I was still convinced I wasn’t a lesbian. I concluded that there must have been something wrong with H___ and I just needed to find the right boy.

This led to the beginning of my wild stage. I started partying every weekend, hanging out with a lot of boys and I had no problem kissing anyone and everyone. I was determined to find the right person with just the right chemistry. I made out with a ton of boys. There was tons of heavy petting and that was it. And my friends were fascinated. They would joke about it and help me keep score.

We only stopped counting after about a hundred. In all those hundreds of boys and men, I never found anyone mildly exciting and I never dated. But it made me feel normal to have a boyfriend and be out there kissing everyone. I was slowly realising that I was only attracted to women, but I was in deep denial!

It was around this time that my family went on hajj. I remember trying so hard to pray away the gay. It might have even been my sole aim in hajj. I would include it in salat, during tawaf around the Kaaba, during my walks on Safa to Marwa, and it was my consistent prayer when I stood on Mount Arafat. I prayed every day, deeply, sincerely, that I would no longer be in love with girls, that I would no longer be a lesbian. I wanted nothing more than to be straight, to meet a man, fall in love with him, get married and have a family. I just wanted to fit in, to be a good daughter, to be a good Muslim.

Then I met this girl on the website Hi5. My status had ‘interested in girls’ and hers had the same thing so we started talking and flirting. She told me she had a boyfriend, she had dated girls before, she was fascinated by northern girls and she would like to meet me. I told her I would definitely like to meet her too.

Her name was N___. She was schooling and living in Ghana. We decided to meet when she was in the country. I went to Lagos because she was there for one night before flying to Kumasi. We hung out that night and the next morning I flew back to Abuja. I was so excited: Oh my God, I can’t tell anybody. I met this girl and she’s cute and she’s also into women and she likes me and I like her and we are going to date. When she got back to Ghana, we had a conversation and decided to date.

We would talk on the phone all the time. I told my friends I had met this boy named Nathan. After about three months, I bought a ticket to Ghana to visit her. We had agreed we were going to take everything slowly but after three hours at her place, she asked me, ‘So, can I kiss you?’

The world stopped. If I said yes, I was going to be committing a sin. If I said no, all of this was kind of useless. I would never find out if I really like girls like that. She kept on asking, ‘Can I kiss you?’ I told her, ‘If you keep asking, I’m never going to answer you.’ So she reached over and kissed me — then we had sex.

And … the sex was awful. It was awkward and very weird. I was too into my head and watching myself have sex with her. I was overthinking everything, and I was riddled with guilt. We had sex a second time and just cooled it off. We would write long emails to each other and talk all the time but that was it. I went to Ghana on three different occasions. We would kiss but we never had sex again.

Then Facebook came along and destroyed Hi5. We all moved to Facebook and stopped meeting people who could put ‘interested in girls’ as their description. Internally, I was settling into self-acceptance. I had already had sex with a girl. I knew I was completely into women and no man was going to change that.

At the age of 26, I fell in love. I was sooo in love, I wanted her to meet everyone. I wanted to shout from the top of every building how much I was in love with her. She was the first person I could walk with on the streets holding hands. We would talk about everything, anything and nothing; honest, frank conversations. We were friends and we were lovers. For the longest time, it was perfect.

I knew I was completely into women and no man was going to change that.
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I experienced the awesome freedom that was the ability to love myself, to love another person and be okay with it. I didn’t know where it was going but it felt good. I wanted to keep going and figure it out whenever. Shortly after she and I became official, I moved out of home and started living with a flatmate. I knew in my heart that I could not live in the closet. I was flirting with the idea of coming out, and I knew that I was likely to lose friends and family if that happened.

I was already living a double life: free and out when I was with my girlfriend, hidden and sad when I was back home or at work. I felt like I was choking. I couldn’t take the pretence any more so I started to cut ties with a lot of people. I stopped spending time with friends and buried myself in work. I would tell them I was too busy. I would travel without telling anyone and spend weeks away. I had decided that I would shut out everybody before anybody alienated me. I even stopped communicating with my family and told them I needed to be an adult.

One day in 2012, I sent a message to my mom saying, ‘I want to introduce you to my girlfriend and don’t you dare act surprised.’

With my heart in my mouth, I waited for her reaction. Deep down I was ready for the absolute worst. She replied saying, ‘Where’s she from? And are you girls getting married?’

I said, ‘Slow down woman. I said girlfriend not fiancée. Do not try to U-haul us.’ I was flabbergasted. I took a screenshot and sent it to all my queer friends. I was shocked, relieved, happy and convinced that my mum was the most amazing person on the planet.

I had decided that I would shut out everybody before anybody alienated me.
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Then fast forward to 2014 after the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill passed. I was so angry that it had passed into law that I wrote an article about being lesbian in Nigeria, stating how the law couldn’t criminalise sexuality. Immediately I published it, everything changed. There was a lot of abuse, a lot of online bullying and a lot of threats. Some type of stupid semi-hisbah board from my state put out an APB to find and prosecute me.

My mum went crazy on me. ‘How could you? How dare you? How could you say you’re a lesbian?’

‘Why are you acting this way?’ I asked her. ‘We had this conversation years ago and you were fine with it.’

‘I regret the day I had you,’ she told me. ‘You’re a disappointment to me. In fact, you’re not my daughter.’

My sisters said, ‘Why are you doing this thing to her? Are you trying to kill her?’

I asked them, ‘What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to take it back? Lie? Just say what you guys want to hear? Because it’s not going to change anything.’

The entire family went ga-ga. Everyone was calling me, trying to ‘talk sense into me’. All they wanted me to do was take it back and tell them what they wanted to hear. They sent me all these preachings and scriptures to get me to change.

I stopped picking up their calls and replying to their messages. But to put their minds at ease, I told them I was a lesbian but I had never dated anyone. I thought it would be easier for them if they thought I had never had sex with a girl.

Throughout all of this, it was just my baby sister who was supportive. She asked, ‘What does this mean? What has this meant for you all this while?’ I told her, ‘Well, that’s it. All these lies, the pretending and faking. I’m tired. I am a lesbian and that isn’t going to change.’ She asked me why I never told her, and then just listened to all my experiences as I ranted about how hard it was. She stayed on the phone and cried with me and I felt very guilty. She was barely 21, all her friends were talking about it and there was nothing I could do to protect her from the outpouring of hatred that also came her way.

W hen I was in graduate school, I worked part-time in retail. One of my co-workers — let’s call him Jake — was a white gay man who liked to tell stories about his various dating exploits each time we had a shift together. These conversations quickly went from amusing to problematic. Jake’s tales frequently centered on his conservative rural upbringing, his “love” of black men, in part because of how “masculine” he thought they were, and how he didn’t like guys who were too “femme.” “How would your family react if you were dating someone who wasn’t white?” I asked, trying to make small talk during a lull between customers. “That would never happen,” Jake said. “Black men are for fucking; white men are for bringing home to your family.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the frankness of his words stunned me into silence for the remainder of my shift. I later tried to make Jake aware of his racism, but he said that had nothing to do with him. He couldn’t possibly be racist because he was attracted to black men. Not long after, I quit in order to have more time to focus on my dissertation. Jake tried to reach out to me via social media. When I saw that his Instagram feed was comprised primarily of images of muscular black men, I declined to follow him back.

Jake’s attitudes are a microcosm of many of the toxic behaviors enacted by white gay cisgender men: the adulation of conventional masculinity and muscularity, the rejection of femininity as undesirable, and the sexual objectification of black and Latino men due to their supposed exoticism and hypermasculinity.

In light of the #MeToo movement and the exposure of sexual violence and misconduct in Hollywood, the federal government, and society at large, much attention has been directed towards the toxic behaviors exhibited by heterosexual men that contribute to a culture in which sexual violence and misconduct thrive. There has been little mainstream discussion of the ways white gay male culture, in particular, is rife with its own brand of toxic masculinity.

Here’s How Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us In So Many Ways

Still, the conversation is beginning to move in positive ways. Jacob Tobia, in a recent New York Times op-ed, critiqued the film Love, Simon for portraying its lead character as “the right kind of gay” (typically masculine, not flamboyant) in contrast to the character of Ethan, a queer black gender nonconforming teen. Ethan’s story is underexplored and, as Tobia argues, his racial and gender nonconformity are presented as a foil to Simon’s average white masculinity, telling gay teens it’s okay to be gay as long as you are gay in a “respectable” way.

But I disagree with Tobia that Netflix’s reboot of Queer Eye follows this same formula. In my opinion, Jonathan Van Ness, Queer Eye’s “grooming expert” and an unabashedly femme gay man, carries the show. In contrast to Van Ness’ dynamic personality, his more masculine counterparts, such as Antoni Porowski and Karamo Brown, recede into the background. Van Ness’ expression of gayness is depicted as equally valid, not as a trope to highlight normative masculinity. Queer Eye has its problems, but foregrounding a gay man like Van Ness is a welcome change to the mainstream media’s typical representations of respectably masculine gay men. However, Van Ness’ popularity is the exception that proves the rule.

Gay male toxicity contributes both to the oppression of queer men and to the pervasive culture of violence against women (particularly any who are feminine, people of color, and/or trans) and anyone outside of the gender binary. If we are serious about eradicating sexual violence in all its forms, then we must move beyond discussions of toxic masculinity that center heterosexuality and work to name and uproot the toxic behaviors of both dominant and marginalized men alike.

The phrase “toxic masculinity,” oft-cited in social justice circles, originates from the work of psychiatrist Terry A. Kupers. Though Kupers focuses on how so-called “toxic” expressions of masculinity impact men’s mental health outcomes in prison settings, scholars and activists have found his concept more broadly applicable, particularly as a way to describe how masculinity fosters a culture rife with sexual violence.

All expressions of masculinity are not inherently toxic. Kupers differentiates between what we might refer to as “typical” masculinity — the dominant or “normal” notion of masculinity within a particular context that stipulates what it means to be a “real man” — and certain aspects of masculinity that have socially harmful, or toxic, effects. “Toxic masculinity,” he explains, “is the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence.” In other words, “toxic masculinity” embodies a constellation of the worst aspects of masculinity as a whole.

Because toxic masculinity is defined, in part, by expressions of homophobia, we may falsely assume that regressive male traits are the property of straight men alone. Gay, bi, or queer masculinity, because they differ from the ideal, are often positioned as inherently transgressive.

Sexual minority men, however, are still exposed to the same expectations of masculinity as all men, and can also exhibit socially regressive traits, though they may not look exactly like those expressed by their heterosexual counterparts. If toxic masculinity as a whole is based primarily on the domination of women, then gay toxic masculinity is based on stigmatizing and subjugating femmes, queer men of color, and trans men via body norms, racism, and transphobia.

Sexual minority men, however, are still exposed to the same expectations of masculinity as all men.
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Gay culture, like the dominant culture, creates a hierarchy based on norms of masculinity. At the top are those who occupy the position of what we might call the “normate gay”: those who are thin, toned, muscular, white, cis, able-bodied, and express their gender in conventionally masculine ways. Despite pervasive stereotypes that gay men are improperly feminine in comparison to straight men, gay male culture often dictates that conventional masculinity is the most desirable. This hierarchy of gay masculinity also contributes to our inescapable culture of sexual violence. Part of masculinity is domination over those deemed feminine (not solely those who possess “female” bodies), so sexual violence functions as one way to reinforce what it means to be “masculine.”

A conventionally masculine appearance is prized within mainstream gay male culture. Indeed, it is not uncommon for gay men to post images of their toned bodies and exercise routines on social media, or to express their preference for men who are “straight acting” on dating apps. Preferences for masculinity indirectly shame those whose bodies are “soft,” “curvaceous,” or “fat” — qualities associated with femininity — and position femininity as shameful and undesirable. Body shaming and policing, therefore, support the invalidation of femininity as a legitimate way of occupying the world. As someone who often inhabits gay male spaces — though I identify as queer — I witness such behaviors on a near-daily basis.

The Remarkable Intersection Of Anal Sex And Toxic Masculinity

Gay men who care about physical fitness or their appearance are not automatically toxic. It is understandable, to a certain extent, that gay men would seek to challenge the stereotype that they are feminine or “sissies” by masculinizing their bodies through diet and exercise. This challenge, however, ultimately has toxic effects by reinforcing gender norms as opposed to subverting them.

Gay men can choose to care about their appearance, or express preferences for hypothetical partners, while also working to undo the systems that oppress those who do not conform to normative standards of masculinity. Too often, gay men seek to alleviate body shame and feelings of unworthiness by disciplining their bodies and policing the bodies of others who do not conform to masculine standards of appearance. While adhering to masculine norms may temporarily mitigate the effects of oppression, conformity does little to dismantle the systems which cause it.

Gay toxic masculinity also manifests in the form of racism and transphobia. Jake, for example, fetishized black men both for their racial difference and due to the fact he saw them as hypermasculine and therefore more desirable. Racial stereotypes intersect with those of gender and sexuality to exacerbate toxic masculinity in gay male culture, primarily through sexual objectification.

Mainstream white gay male culture objectifies queer men of color who, because of racial stereotypes, are seen as desirably masculine (such as black and Latino men) and shames queer men of color who are seen as undesirably feminine (such as Asian men). Furthermore, gay toxic masculinity is often transphobic, as it invalidates the identities of transgender men who may be seen as unable to fulfill the criteria of what it means to be a “real man” because their sex assigned at birth is emphasized over their gender identity and expression.

How Can The Queerest Generation (Ever) Still Believe In Gender Roles?

The #MeToo movement, particularly through the case of Aziz Ansari, has brought to light the difference between behaviors that are illegal versus those that are socially detrimental. While some expressions of toxic masculinity may not be criminal, they are, nevertheless, harmful and speak to the necessity of a broad shift to address our current culture of pervasive sexual violence. To this end, we cannot leave white gay men’s toxic behaviors and the general toxicity of mainstream gay male culture untouched.

Some of this can be done by calling on others to change their behavior, whether by pointing out instances of gay toxic masculinity when you see them, asking both mainstream and LGBTQ media to present diverse representations of masculinity, or amplifying the voices of those who don’t conform to masculine stereotypes.

But the hardest work is internal, especially when it comes to expressing “preferences.” We often mistakenly feel that our attractions are just what they are, rather than influenced by social context. As social justice educator Beverly Daniel Tatum explains, “racism is like smog in the air.” In other words, even though we may not see ourselves as racist, if we live and are socialized in a racist society, we invariably absorb its prejudices. Jake didn’t get the idea that all black men were “hypermasculine” out of nowhere.

We cannot help but breathe in whatever toxic particles are in the air. Just as we cannot simply choose to stop breathing, we cannot exempt ourselves from exposure to racist, sexist, and queerphobic images and messaging. You can’t force yourself to be attracted to anyone, but you can interrogate the societal influences on your preferences.

We often mistakenly feel that our attractions are just what they are, rather than influenced by social context.
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Privilege and oppression do not cancel each other out. Because they are on the receiving end of homophobia, white cisgender gay men, in particular, may perceive themselves as incapable of oppressing more marginal members of the LGBTQ community. Intersectionality forces us to consider the ways we are simultaneously privileged and oppressed and to broaden the lens through which we view the world beyond our subjective experiences.

White gay men can no longer profit from the toil and labor of their queer ancestors — many of whom were trans, femmes, and people of color — without also holding themselves accountable and working to dismantle the systems that oppress those who fall outside masculine, white, cis, and able-bodied ideals. The implications of gay toxic masculinity extend beyond gay male culture and contribute to our general culture of misogyny in which women, femmes, genderqueer people, and others who don’t or can’t perform mainstream masculinity are consistently devalued and undermined, often in violent and dehumanizing ways.

If white gay men are committed to the work of our collective liberation, then they must take a hard look at their own behaviors, because their time, too, is up.

Queer identity and expression is often seen as a very au currant issue in today’s society. I often hear statements that queer identity “didn’t exist in my time” and that queerness is a “problem of the millennial generation,” specifically when dealing with trans individuals.

This is simply not true.

Questions surrounding sexual orientation and gender expression have existed since long before modern times, even before the 20th century. As David Halperin, author of How to Do the History of Homosexuality, states, “We have preserved and retained different definitions of sex and gender from our premodern past.”

It is through this variety of definitions of sex and gender passed down through the ages that premodern people also struggled to define what it meant to be a “man” and what it meant to be a “woman”; they also wrestled with the nature of their sexuality.

In fact, during the Middle Ages, there are several key figures who expressed a queer identity analogous to a modern trans identity. These figures—both fictional and historical — challenged and complicated the prevailing definitions of gender identity, much like trans individuals do in our society today.

As Heather Love writes in her book on lost queer history, Feeling Backward:

“Paying attention to what was difficult in the past may tell us how far we have come, but that is not all it will tell us; it also makes visible the damage we live with in the present.”

Because queer history has been obscured and erased throughout time, non-binary identities are readily framed as “problems of a modern age,” when in fact, they are questions and identities we’ve had for centuries.

By surfacing the trans identities of the Middle Ages we can reclaim some of our lost history, as well as challenge homophobic and transphobic claims surrounding them.

In the 13th-century French romance, Le Roman de Silence, or Silence, the titular character is born a woman, but lives as a man in order to inherit their father’s land. As they grow, they are raised as a knight and constantly praised as the “best man in England.”

Pretty soon, though, Nature (personified) feels she has been cheated as she has made Silence more beautiful than “a thousand of the most beautiful girls,” yet no one recognizes them as female. A whole comical debate breaks out between Nature and Nurture about Silence’s gender, prompting Reason to step in and, ultimately, she sides with Nurture — Silence was raised a man and should continue to be a man.

As Silence concludes, “I have a mouth too hard for kisses/and arms too rough for embraces. One could easily make a fool of me in any game played under the covers.”

As the romance makes clear, gender is not a clear cut issue—even in the Middle Ages.

Trans people are often thought to be going “against” nature for expressing their identities, and Silence is presented in much the same way. Silence often feels conflicted over their biological sex and their gender identity, echoing the body dysphoria felt by many trans individuals.

Even though Silence “deviates” from Nature’s intended role, they are only able to catch Merlin—a vital piece of Silence’s prophecy is “Merlin will only be fooled by a ‘woman’s trick’”—because of their queerness.

Within the romance, Merlin is depicted as more animal than man, a mad hermit living in the woods. In order for Silence to fully become a retainer of the king, they must capture this elusive man-beast. Their biological sex technically fulfills the prophecy, but their gender expression—which determines their position as a knight—is what allows for the quest to occur and succeed.

Gender is not a clear cut issue — even in the Middle Ages.
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To read Silence’s character as a trans man vastly expands the possibilities of trans history and reveals it’s far more than a modern phenomenon. As this medieval romance reveals, gender and sexuality are presented as ever and always in flux; there is no clear resolution between Nature and Nurture’s argument on Silence’s gender, and there doesn’t need to be.

Even at the end of the romance, when Silence’s “true” gender has been revealed and they are married to the king, we still have the king bedding the most beautiful and skilled knight in all of England.

Silence is not the only trans figure in the medieval period. The historically real case of Eleanor (John) Reykener, a medieval sex worker who lived as a woman, but was born a man, again suggests gender and sex have been fluid for far longer than our current dialogue accounts for.

On a Sunday in December of 1394, Eleanor Rykener and John Britby are arrested by London authorities for presumed prostitution.

The authorities—and the court—were shocked to discover that Eleanor Rykener was actually John Rykener and that they had been “posing” as a woman. In their testimony, Rykener admits to working as an embroideress under the name of Eleanor, and having sex with at least three other men. (As well as several women, too.)

Their continued confession recounts various religious and secular men that they had slept with either for money or pleasure. As Carolyn Dinshaw arguesin her book Getting Medieval: “It is impossible to discern what Rykener’s various customers wanted,” but it is also too limited to assume their desires were strictly heterosexual in nature.

The Left’s Long History Of Transphobia
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Even the legal documents had a hard time defining Eleanor/John’s gender identity as the author continually slips between referring to them as male and female in the same brief.

Again, like Silence, Rykener’s gender identity is similar to modern trans identity in that their identity resists categories. Even the crime itself—either of sodomy (primarily a male crime) or prostitution (of which only female cases are recorded)—is left open to interpretation in the legal document.

While Rykener’s identity does not fully account for the varied trans identities we have today, their life is, according to Ruth Karras, “transgender-like.”

Like Silence’s and Rykener’s bodies and gender expressions suggest, sexuality and gender identity were complicated and nuanced in the Middle Ages. Both literary and real figures openly questioned traditional gender norms, and even then those definitions were not solidified.

Is Silence a good knight because they are born that way or because of their social upbringing?

Is Rykener’s crime prositution or sodomy?

These questions are subjective at best and suggest that medieval people did not have clear answers for them.

Fast forwarding to the present, we find ourselves still struggling with these questions. As trans people become more visible, dialogues abound in both social and legal settings on how to define trans bodies. With current travel laws and the ever-infamous bathroom laws, trans bodies are always forced to be put into categories — categories that even premodern people recognized as unstable.

‘Is It Safe Now?’ The Trauma Of Bathroom Laws
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As author Carolyn Dinshaw says, “Laws based on clear and apparent sex differences” are made inadequate when dealing with “queer desires or queer truths.”

Dinshaw’s point is correct because laws that rely on rigid definitions of gender and sex cannot fully account for queer bodies or queer desires. Queer people resist tidy categorization by their very nature. As trans identity and other queer sexualities and identities become more visible, laws based on basic definitions of heterosexuality and biological gender become increasingly inadequate.

Queer identities — specifically trans identities — are not a part of modern culture, but rather have existed and evolved through time. While a queer future is important, we should also not forget about the past.

We as queer people deserve a history just as rich and varied in order to combat homophobic and transphobic ideas. Sex and gender have evolved — and will continue to do so. It is through revisiting what was considered “normal” in the past to see that these definitions have changed.

By turning to older literature and willingly reading characters or works as queer, we can reclaim some of our lost history; this is one of the only ways we can continue to have access to queer people in the premodern world and honor the voices of the past who have paved the way for our future.

4 Ways Queer And Trans Parents Are Raising Revolutionary Children During The Trump Era

These parents are turning this tumultuous political moment into a teachable one.

Unsplash/Bruno Nascimento

By Neesha Powell

Originally published on Everyday Feminism.

Sometimes becoming a parent feels out of my reach. My wife and I both have uteruses, and sperm costs too damn much.

Even adopting feels like an unattainable dream. It can cost upwards of $40,000 to adopt, and LGBTQ couples have previously been barred from adopting and fostering because of their gender and/or sexuality.

Raising kids on working-class salaries here in Seattle, one of the world’s most expensive cities, isn’t exactly ideal. And despite its progressive reputation, this white haven often feels hostile to me as a Black queer non-binary person partnered with a Black queer femme immigrant.

I have enough heart to be a parent, but I have to ask myself: Do I have the will to raise a Black child when our people are being killed every day? In the last week of December 2017 alone, four Black queer women were murdered, and I can’t help but picture me and my wife in their shoes.

Furthermore, what do you tell a child of queer parents when lawmakers believe that businesses should be allowed to use religion as an excuse for banning LGBTQ people? Policies are constantly being put on the table that strip families like mine of their humanity.

Despite my fears, I remain open to parenting because of my friendships with trans, non-binary, and queer activists of color whose parenting is bound up in their quest for liberation. Their existence dares me to dream of parenting one day.

These parents are turning this tumultuous political moment into a teachable one by talking to their kids about oppression: What it is, how it manifests and how to interrupt it. Their parenting is rooted in intersectional feminist and anti-racist values.

White Kids Are Bullying Minority Students Using Trump’s Words

This type of parenting is essential during a time where our president casually calls Africa a “shithole.” President Donald Trump’s blatant racism and misogyny might poison our youth and their futures if they don’t learn about systemic oppression and how to dismantle it.

Selena Velasco, a Chamoru queer non-binary femme artist and community organizer in Seattle, explains Trump and his discriminatory policies to their 8-year-old multiracial son Elijah by bringing the issues close to home.

To help Elijah understand Trump’s recent immigration ban, Velasco asked him to imagine how he’d feel if his grandparents who immigrated from Mexico had to leave the US and couldn’t come back. This allowed him to better empathize with those directly impacted by the ban.

Also, Velasco has brought their son to Black Lives Matter marches and spoken with him about how anti-Black racism shows up at his own school. Their hope is for Elijah to be able to spot and disrupt anti-Blackness on the playground and beyond.

Velasco draws parenting inspiration from their mother, who was never afraid to speak out against racism. They remember their mother once reprimanding store workers for ignoring them in favor of white children. Seeing that was empowering and instructive for Velasco.

“I want my child to feel that same energy, like they have enough strength and power to be able to stand up against oppression,” Velasco says.

I, too, remember my mother pushing back against racism. She called out a white lady employee for treating her as if she’d stolen a pair of pants. It took guts for her to advocate for herself in our small Confederate flag-laden town.

I’m grateful to have seen my mother reject racism. If I have kids, I hope to set a similar example for them. No matter how hateful the political climate, I want them to see value in Black and Brown skin and queer and trans lives because it’s who they are and who I am.

My heart is full of gratitude for trans, queer, and non-binary people of color who are raising children to love and respect people of all races, genders, and sexualities. I look forward to these kids being old enough to lead this country out of the grips of bigotry and oppression.

Parents or not, I believe we can all learn something from the intentional, thoughtful practices of revolutionary LGBTQ parents of color. Here are 4 ways that trans, non-binary, and queer parents of color are raising revolutionary children during the Trump era:

1. They don’t hide the hard stuff from their kids — they keep it real.

Shaun is a Black queer non-binary parent and researcher in Seattle who keeps it real with their child about this turbulent political era. While their 4-year-old daughter V doesn’t know Trump’s name, she knows what he’s doing isn’t right due to her parents’ longtime activism.

Shaun’s daughter, who’s mixed with Black and white, already knows that police are harmful. She learned this after three of Shaun’s friends got pepper sprayed at a protest against the Seattle Police Department’s shooting of Charleena Lyles, a 30-year-old pregnant Black mother.

After seeing their friends in pain shortly after the pepper spray incident, V was confused about why the police hurt them. Shaun told her the truth: Because they didn’t have enough training to keep people safe.

The Troubling Erasure Of Trans Parents Who Breastfeed

And when their daughter asked if the police could hurt them, Shaun told her the truth yet again, “Me and mommy are going to do our best to make sure that we always keep you safe.” Shaun couldn’t tell her “no” because of the realities of our anti-Black police state.

Velasco also keeps it real while parenting, using books to teach Elijah about our country’s long legacy of white supremacy and how history repeats itself. This is their effort to decolonize the education their son is receiving at school.

2. They teach their kids that their bodies belong to them.

Organizing alongside queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) who normalized asking for consent to hug and touch each other shifted Velasco’s parenting in a major way. It led them to teach their son about consent and bodily autonomy at a young age.

When Elijah was as young as three or four, Velasco made it clear to him that he owned his own body. They encouraged him to take space from his parents whenever he needed it.

Because Velasco grew up in a family plagued by abusive dynamics, reclaiming autonomy over their own body and teaching their son about bodily autonomy has proved to be a transformative act. For them, it’s a part of an intergenerational healing process:

“How do I heal, and how do I create space for my child to heal? And then also, how can they go into the world and address so many things that are hurting our Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, and how do we create healing wherever we go?”

3. They expose their kids to diversities in race, gender, and sexuality.

Both Shaun and Velasco affirm their children’s race by sharing ancestral stories and practices with them. They want their kids to be proud of their cultures and where they come from.

They also want them to understand that gender exists outside of the binary. Their kids know to ask others for gender pronouns and that a person’s pronouns may change because gender is a fluid thing. They’re growing up aware of their right to determine their own gender.

It’s not easy for QTPOC parents to find gender-diverse children’s media. Most of it suggests that only boys can do “boy things,” and only girls can do “girl things.” Binary portrayals of gender push Shaun and their wife to get creative when reading books to V.

They want their kids to be proud of their cultures and where they come from.

“When we’re about to start a story, we’ll ask what the characters’ names are going to be this time, what their pronouns are going to be this time, we’ll change up relationships. We’ll just try to queer things up as much as we can,” Shaun says.

Velasco actively creates space and dialogue with their son about things like race, sex, and bodies, and he asks questions about these topics with no shame. This is a big deal for Velasco, who wasn’t able to have these types of conversations with their parents growing up.

4. They create a community around their children.

Shaun strives to build a community around their kid that allows her to see “the rich diversity of the human experience.” They’re collaborating with like-minded parents to create an intentional cohousing community for their families.

Velasco also finds it important to surround their child with a community, specifically QTPOC. This helps Elijah learn about the shared struggles of trans, non-binary, and queer communities of color. He gets to witness these communities working together in solidarity towards liberation.

“I really want to have Elijah present in a lot of these spaces because I think it’s important for him to see me in my own power and to feel that he also has autonomy to be present in movement work,” Velasco says.

Elijah recently asked their parent what “resistance” means because he hears the term in movement spaces. As he grows up around activists, he’s sure to learn more about what resistance is and what it looks like. It’s a good thing there’s a village to raise this revolutionary child.

Maybe, one day, social justice and anti-oppression will be required coursework in all schools. Until then, parents like Shaun and Velasco will continue bringing the revolution home by relying on their ancestries, creativity, and values to raise conscious kids in the face of white supremacy.

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“My girlfriend, ‘Wendy,’ and I have been living together for seven years. She has a daughter, ‘Ariel,’ 18, who recently graduated from high school. Ariel and I always got along great, but I liked her more than I liked her mother, and I feel terrible about it.

A few years into our relationship, Wendy started neglecting her health and hygiene, put on weight, wouldn’t exercise, and after a while I was no longer attracted to her. All the while, Ariel started to look great, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

I saved all my passions for Wendy, but honestly I was thinking about Ariel the whole time. Ariel and her mother never got along. Her mother was jealous of our relationship.

When Ariel was 15, I suggested sending her to boarding school. She loved the school, and I hate to say it, but another reason I wanted her to go there was because I wanted to have a relationship with her, and I hated myself for it.

I visited Ariel a few times at school. Wendy was very jealous and suspicious of Ariel for dressing provocatively. I was visiting Ariel at her school right after she turned 18, and she came on to me. Now that she is 18, she’s been telling me that she wants to have sex with me before she goes off to college.

I confess, I am almost ready to take her up on it. I’d be breaking no laws. If I left Wendy, I wouldn’t suffer. Would it ruin Ariel’s life or cause her trouble later on if we have this relationship now? We won’t be living together or dating, and she’s looking forward to heading out of state to go to college soon, and I expect she’ll be dating a lot when she gets there.”

—From “Not Really Stepdad” via “Ask Amy,” Washington Post, 11 September 2017

Welcome to our latest Bad Advice column! Stay tuned every Tuesday for more terrible guidance based on actual letters.

Dear Not Really Stepdad,

First of all, you deserve some major kudos for not sexually assaulting your teenage stepdaughter when you totally had the chance. You are seriously an A+ stand-up guy, and it’s important to recognize how thoughtful and responsible you were every moment that you didn’t rape a child, something almost anyone else would have done in your circumstances, especially if the child was dressed “provocatively,” which like, come on, child! Try a little harder not to get creeped on by a man whose job description literally includes parenting you, a thing almost anyone else would have confused with having a sexual relationship with you! What a lucky kiddo she was to have a man around who didn’t rape her even though she failed to bury herself in a giant burlap sack in order to shield your helpless adult man boner from the literal fact that she exists as a corporeal human on planet earth.

So, obviously you’ve got a big heart, but it’s led to a bigger problem: Should you reward yourself for not raping this child with some not technically raping this child? Good news! Everything that isn’t technically illegal can’t possibly have negative consequences, so you are totally clear to have sex with your stepdaughter!

Bad Advice On Shift-Key Mutiny And Wedding Cruelty

Since you’re attracted to her, you have no obligation to treat this girl like a member of your family whom you’ve been tasked with raising into a happy, healthy adult person who is encouraged to make good decisions and take care of herself. Guiding her away from an abusive relationship with a sexual predator might be your job in another universe, where having an orgasm in the vicinity of your stepdaughter wasn’t objectively more important than seeing her develop mutually healthy relationships with people her own age and embark upon her journey into young adulthood without the baggage of being sexually abused by her stepfather, but we don’t live in that universe — we live in this one, where if you don’t have an orgasm in the vicinity of your stepdaughter, you’ll face the awful prospect of having to find someone your own age, who isn’t related to you, with whom you can establish a consensual sexual relationship. No boner should have to endure that shame, and no man should be forced, against his will, not to have sex with literally anyone he wants to have sex with regardless of who they are or whether they are emotionally or psychologically capable of consenting to sex.

“Love your column and your advice; however, after this week’s column I had to Google the term cis-man (maybe I don’t get out enough), and when I read the definition, I thought, Seriously?! Isn’t there enough nomenclature out there that cis-people can be identified simply as a man or a woman? Am I wrong that it implies that there are more transgender people than those who are comfortable in the sex they were born into, so they need to identify specifically with cis?

Frankly, I don’t care how anyone identifies — your sexual preferences have nothing to do with whether I like you or not! In fact, I’d be just as happy not knowing, because I just don’t care. Am I wrong that it seems we are bending too far in the opposite direction to make up for persecution in the past, to the point where the majority of us will have to refer to ourselves as non-LGBTQ?”

— From “LGBTQ…BGHMNHGRESDFE?” via “Dear Prudence,” Slate, 29 August 2017

Dear LGBTQ…BGHMNHGRESDFE?

The gay trans army grows ever closer to the collective heterosexual doorstep every day. Every time someone uses a word to describe a person who identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth, the gay trans army glows with an incandescent force, ever strengthened by the cruel prospect of oppressing others with the existence of adjectives. But for the brave objections of people like you — people who nobody fucking asked but who went out of their way to publicly object to the mere existence of words that they absolutely do not care about even a little bit — we might already have been overtaken by the glittering front lines of the gay trans cavalry, thirsty to run roughshod over anyone who dares fail to loudly announce the circumstances of their birth, as all members of the gay trans army long to do.

But the gay trans army is stealthy, and it’s already swinging the big, gay trans pendulum toward the inevitable: requiring all people who don’t identify as “LGBTQ” to identify themselves as “non-LGBTQ,” the precise modern equivalent of the widespread, centuries-old social ostracization of people based on their sexuality or gender identity, the sexual assault and abuse of people because on their sexuality or gender identity, the medical abuse and assault of people because of their sexual or gender identity, and the physical assault and murder of people because of their sexuality or gender identity. It’s great that you don’t care about the fact that “cisgender” exists as a word that people can use to describe themselves and that you wrote a letter to the whole internet announcing your lack of interest in the word or what it means or anything about it, but the gay trans army does care, and they are coming — at any and all moments — to force you to use it. And also to watch Steven Universe.

“When you treat someone to a cup of coffee at an expensive coffee shop, should they choose a smaller size?”

— Via “Miss Manners,” 15 September 2017

Reader,

They should choose the smallest size that they can reasonably carry while licking your boots.

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‘I hope my writing will call people to action.’

I n this age where truth has been twisted, resisted, and relentlessly bastardized, Casey Quinlan reminds us of the power of facts. Not “alternative facts.” Not sorta-kinda half-truth facts. Real, cold, hard facts.

A reporter of impeccable integrity, Casey understands how to ground her pivotal stories — be it about faux progressive men, the medical industry’s poor treatment of marginalized groups, or an epidemic of sexual assault against LGBTQ college students — in estimable, vetted research and meticulous interviewing.

It’s no wonder her work has appeared at such illustrious publications as The Atlantic and ThinkProgress — and no wonder why we’re thrilled she’s made a home at The Establishment.

As The Washington Post intones in its tagline, “Democracy dies in darkness.” Journalism — under siege to an astonishing degree — is one of the most powerful bastions we have against the erosion of democratic principles. Thanks to fact-driven, dogged reporters like Casey, there’s hope for us yet.

Below, Casey shares her thoughts on why not paying writers is bunk, her favorite fish and mixed drink, and the Frasier character she feels a special kinship with.

You can generally find me writing in a crowded newsroom or DC restaurant on a laptop while glowering.

The writers that have most influenced my life are Joyce Carol Oates, Rebecca Solnit, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Rebecca Traister, Jia Tolentino, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Patricia Engel.

The TV character I most identify with is Lilith from Cheers and Frasier.

I think “paying writers in exposure” is something LGBTQ writers, femme writers, and writers of color are asked to do too much of.

The coolest thing I’ve bought from money made writing is a desk to write on (it’s a beautiful old desk painted turquoise).

My most listened to song of all time is a split between “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell and “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone.

My 18-year-old self would feel happy about where I am today.

I like writing for The Establishment because editors are comfortable with LGBTQ issues and sex positivity, and they are always interested in making your pieces the best they can be.

If I could only have one type of food for the rest of my life it would be scallops and risotto.

If I could share one of my stories by yelling it into a megaphone in the middle of Times Square, it would be “Dear Straight Allies, Please Don’t Forget the Harassment of Queer Women.”

Dear Straight Allies, Please Don’t Forget The Harassment Of Queer Women

If I could give the amazing people who sponsor stories anything in the world to express my gratitude, it would be a gin and tonic and conversation about their interests.

The story I’m working on now is about Democrats who are supporting a litmus test for abortion.

The story I want to write next is about what middle and high schools could do to protect students against sexual assault.

Writing means this to me: I write to better understand how our culture and government institutions fail marginalized groups of people and bring attention to people who are working on mitigating these issues and looking for solutions. I hope my writing will call people to action who otherwise wouldn’t be aware of these problems.

If I could summarize writing in a series of three GIFs, it would be:

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