‘Can You Really Be a Queer Muslim?’: Intersectionality and the Complexity of Identity
La Herida Colonial: How Becoming an Immigrant Revealed My Ever-Open Colonial Wound
I’m happy about how the job interview is going. Of course, they don’t offer me a contract; it is a freelance thing, which is just fine. I’m ready to leave, but just before getting up the older white man looks at me and asks if I can write in Portuguese, and not in ‘Brazilian’. He even adds, ‘You Brazilians with these gerunds are killing the language.’ And laughs…
‘I Thought I was the Only One Whose “Dad” was a Woman’: Overcoming Internalised Homophobia After Growing Up in a Same-Sex Household
As time went on the reactions to my ‘fact’ changed, and so did my wording of it. While one probably catalysed the other, I am not entirely sure in which direction this was. In secondary school, the amazement I was used to receiving turned to more questions and often even accusations. I would get, ‘So… you are too?’. I wasn’t certain how to answer this – they meant the gay thing…
Babes with Big Feelings: It’s Time to Embrace Empathy and See Being ‘Too Sensitive’ as a Superpower
I cry a lot. But I also smile big. I smile when I see a cute dog. When my friends give me a hug. When it’s a sunny day. I laugh too hard at simple jokes. I have high highs and low lows. My emotions feel big – sometimes uncontainable – yet also normal and natural. Whenever I try to be less sensitive, I end up feeling a huge nothingness: to compress my feelings is to compress my entire being…
The Complexities of Pressed Purple Flowers: A Reflection on Alice Walker’s Anti-Semitism and Choosing Love Over Hate
I finished reading Living by the Word – I only had one essay left – but each sentence no longer carried the same inspiring vitality; the words fell subdued, dampened and flat in my mind that ran with a cacophonous array of thoughts. The purple tones of the pressed flowers seemed to be more faded than they once were. I could, and would, never look at Alice Walker the same, read her work in the same way or perhaps even read her work at all…
‘Change the World Instead of Changing Who We’re With’: Learning to Embrace Life and Love as a Woman Loving a Woman
There were many challenges to loving a woman as a woman. I couldn’t hold her hand everywhere. I couldn't introduce her to my family: I could lose certain people, or I could be rejected from some of the many communities I was in. With a man, my life would be like everyone else’s. Everything I had a chance to observe growing up – everything I am familiar with and not scared of – would be there…
‘Man, I Feel Like a Human!’: How Coming Out As Non-Binary Made Me a Better Feminist
I can now see more plainly the gatekeeping that can happen when trans folks want to dive into the personhood they know is theirs, and yet are sometimes told or made to feel as though they’re somehow lacking. Womanhood can be a wonderful, equalising thing – so why are we wasting time denying it to human beings who know who they are? Isn’t womanhood diverse and wonderful enough to allow its ranks to swell beyond the ideas of yesteryear?
Community, Cooperation and Connectivity: The Symbolic Importance of Queer Safe Spaces and Why We Must Protect Them
When I started taking notice of how viscerally different I feel depending on the room I am in, I realised how complex the relationship between queerness and space truly is. As queer people, we cannot yet guarantee our safety within spaces. This is particularly insidious for marginalised…
Why I Am Done Being an ‘Inspiring’ Disabled Person
Recognising what I cannot do because of and what I can do despite my disability enables me to see how my disability affects me. In turn, it allows me to see what I am capable of as a result of my disability. I am capable of things that do not come easily to neurotypicals…
‘Weird, but Proud’: Why Netflix’s Wednesday is a Big Deal for Autistic Girls
A real-life Wednesday Addams, with unorthodox habits, dark interests, gothic fashion, monotone expression and poor understanding of others’ feelings, would most likely mask herself to resemble her peers. This is where Burton’s new character became so important for autistic people, especially women; she doesn’t…
The Loneliness of a New City is Bittersweet: A Love Letter from London to Mumbai
London felt lonelier. To invoke Laing once again, ‘Loneliness, I began to realise, was a populated place: a city in itself. And when one inhabits a city, even a city as rigorously and logically constructed as Manhattan, one starts by getting lost’. Without a lover to call this city mine I was alone in a visible manner. On days I felt I wore it on my coats…
Bi The Way, I’m Autistic: Learning to Navigate Sexuality as a Neurodivergent Individual
According to studies, autistic people are significantly more likely to identify as LGBTQ+. For people classified as rigid thinkers, it’s true that many of us are over sexual and gender norms. We question stuff; we don’t respect arbitrary norms for their own sake. Of course, I didn’t know I was autistic back then…
Black and White: How Race Impacts Our Queer Experience
There’s a phrase commonly used, particularly among gay men: ‘No Fats, No Femmes, and No Blacks or Asians’. Originating from the ‘dating’ app Grindr, it was (and is) frequently used by white members to deter people who didn’t fit their ‘preference’ from messaging them…
‘I Didn’t Know I was Black Until Fourth Grade’: Growing Into My Blackness After a Blurred Sense of Racial Identity
I learned that I was black during recess. Kids told me that ‘I was the whitest black person they’d ever met’ and that ‘I talked so white’. This was extremely confusing at first. Where I grew up was the hub of any and every race that you could think of, and everybody was friends. So, when I became labelled as a white-black person, it didn’t make sense to me…
(Un)Settling In: Building a Home Away from Home as a Foreign Student
Graduating as a foreign student and settling in as a new immigrant is a unique transition experience. One has the opportunity to carefully construct a future yet embrace the challenges that come with being away from home. I can describe this journey as being aboard two boats with one leg in each. The expectations, values and dreams from home sail parallel to the hope, joy and excitement for a new land…
‘Palestinian is an Ethnicity, Not a Political Statement’: Coming-of-age as a Palestinian in Diaspora
There comes a sense of separation from our physical environment. Through our blood, we inherit love and care for our country, but we are born into a space where people hardly know what Palestine is. To care so passionately for a struggle that we cannot interact with while being surrounded by people who know nothing about it is frustrating and isolating. From this stems feelings of guilt. Being submerged in a world that cares little about the Palestinian struggle can feel like an act of betrayal…
‘Feminism Isn’t Feminism Unless It’s Intersectional and Representational’: How Japanese Literature Reignited my Feminist Flame
Some people think that because we had a female prime minister and it’s generally frowned upon to catcall, we live in a post-feminist era. A worrying number of people seem to agree women are more equal than they were before (yes, in some parts of the world) and so feminism is no longer a pressing issue. Immersing myself in the world of contemporary Japanese women helped me realise just how far we have to go to achieve genuine equality for women everywhere…
It’s Difficult Not to Compare My ‘Before-self’ to My ‘After-self’: Learning to Feel Whole Following a Life-changing Disability
I was thirty-eight years old and had just become a first-time mum. Ten days after giving birth, a blood clot blocked blood and oxygen flow to my brain. In the blink of an eye, my life was split into two parts: Before and After. I interpreted the intent of the stroke as swift justice. I questioned my life before and held up every transgression, perceived or otherwise, as the reason for my ‘punishment’. I also split myself into two parts: Her and Me…
‘Welcome in God’s Kingdom’: Rejecting Stereotypes and Embracing Self-Acceptance as a Queer Christian
LGBTQ+ and Christianity. They’re not super popular words you hear together often, but why aren’t they more commonly said together? Like, I am an LGBTQ+ Christian, which can be a bit of a surprise to some people. The reason for the surprise is obvious: according to a lot of the world, homosexuality is a ‘sin’ and therefore you can’t be gay or an ally or whatever and follow Jesus…
‘I Celebrate the Tapestry of Places that have Made Me Who I Am’: The Highs and Lows of Being a Third Culture Kid
I had spent my childhood learning how to mould myself into the most acceptable, most unassuming version of myself. Underneath the people-pleasing and the desire to fit in, I had no idea who I was. So much of my Indian identity had been buried away under shame and resentment, and I looked at any American tendency I had with contempt. Meanwhile, every influence from China felt like something that I didn’t have the right to claim…
Social Exclusion, Oppression and Depression: Growing Up Deaf in a Hearing World
I became a target for bullies who would shout into my ear and rip my hearing aids out of my ears. Trying to follow the teachers’ lips was also difficult as they would turn their back as they wrote on the board. Even amongst family members, I would follow their lip pattern the best I could, but most of the time they would talk at me, instead of to me…