Category: Gender & QueernessAllGender & QueernessMen & MasculinitySexualityTrans Issues & the Gender BinaryWomen & Feminism123Words our fathers should have said: Encouragement for other Black cis-het men experiencing body-dysmorphiaJanuary 28, 2021I hoarded bodybuilding magazines and wasted nights diagramming routines which earned me more injuries than benefit. In the gym, I exercised to nausea, vomited and despised myself for being ill equipped for exercise regimens designed to market magazines.Black women’s impossible dilemma: How this world ties our “safety” to the protection of our abusersOctober 7, 2020The world has an appetite for our pain, and this is what I refuse. This is why I will never again decide to protect someone who harms me.Sex work is subject to the same anti-Blackness as every other industry in the USSeptember 29, 2020When we say we are committed to Black liberation it must be in service of sex workers’ autonomy. But they are never nuanced beings. The fight for sex worker liberation is the fight for all Black lives, and until that is prioritized, erasure and respectability politics will persist. In every industry.Police can’t save children from sexual abuse, but we mustAugust 26, 2020With inadequate responses to CSA and little trust in police among people of color, relying on cops to address an issue like CSA is questionable, at best.The problem with using proximity & poverty to dismiss the fallacies of “Black-on-Black crime”August 5, 2020Black men’s “senseless” acts of violence are much more sophisticated in nature than both the liberal and conservative anti-abolition culture of poverty argument would have one believe.The perils of navigating platonic relationships with other gay menMarch 31, 2020Being a sexual minority puts pressure on gay men to connect sexually or romantically with the gay men who are most proximate to them.How “Gayle King v. Kobe Bryant” obscured a valid critique of sensationalizing sexual violenceMarch 5, 2020In our efforts to resist this silencing, however, we must also consider the ways that others who are not public figures are implicated in these discussionsAyanna Pressley sees power in being a sexual violence survivor, & there’s science to thatFebruary 25, 2020For those of us survivors whose bodies revolt, it’s not just that we are experiencing random medicalized dysfunctions. We are reacting to the toxicity surrounding us.Having friendships with cis-het Black men taught me that we get to say no to sex, tooJanuary 16, 2020We’re tricked into believing that sex is about performance more than it is about connection, autonomy and consent. And the pressures of performance encourage men to consider hardness as our only option, means of expression, and source of intimacy.We protect us: Why the state will never solve the epidemic of missing and trafficked Black women & girlsJanuary 2, 2020State institutions such as the police, and child welfare services are often complicit in sexual violence enacted upon Black women and girls. Take some into the mouthDecember 20, 2019FROM OUR NEW SHORT STORY SERIES, 'IMAGING OTHER WORLDS': "Pearl didn’t push Zura on the whole cunnilingus issue because that’s not what she needed from him. He wasn’t her only partner. What she wanted from him was a few free drinks followed by an enchanting night ride and a deep quickie."Why we need Black doulas to build Black futuresDecember 3, 2019Because doulas as a whole, are not part of the healthcare system, we are the most unbiased birth experts in the labor room.Dead Black Boy Magic: How mental health stigmas compound with anti-queerness to kill our childrenNovember 12, 2019I carry a combination of marginal identities that hold an enduring need for self-sufficiency and suffering.I am a Black queer woman with HIV and I am cleanNovember 7, 2019I think that when we begin to open up about harm, cleanliness, criminalization and stigma, we get better at loving each other. And when we listen, we build up sustainable, community driven responses to diagnosis and harm.How cis-het Black men’s attempts to be advocates for others fail when we refuse to acknowledge our violenceOctober 29, 2019We illustrate further, our harm, when we react to being indicted for our wounding intentions. Yoba stormed out of an interview with The Root—their staff enduring quite a tantrum. Members of my organization, when inquiring if I cared more about community needs or my own desires, were subject to the same.Embracing ugly in a world that’s tried to weaponize it against meOctober 24, 2019The impact of being uglified has real, painful, and pervasive consequences.How I found empowerment among Black strippers in an industry that forces us to competeOctober 22, 2019All of the information that was useful to me came from the Black and non-white strippers I knew, women who the industry set up to be in competition with me. Zaddy issues: On dating older Black men & being polyamorousSeptember 5, 2019My experiences with dating older Black men have taught me that though some of their actions are inappropriate, they’re often misplaced reactions to the world we live in.At 20, Lil Nas X is still a child. Why do older adults keep sexualizing him?September 4, 2019Yes, 18 is the legal threshold from childhood to adulthood, but legality has never been something that applied “equally" to Black children, especially Black Queer children.Men of color are creating their own manospheres, & their misogynistic violence is going ignoredJune 18, 2019If most male supremacists are concerned about the declining status of white men, men of color want to establish a dominance that society never bequeathed to them. Why Black people need to explore intimacy within our friendships & non-sexual relationshipsMay 22, 2019White supremacy and cis-heteropatriarchy encourage us to have selective distributions of intimacy, touch and care that are reserved specifically for our sexual partners and family members.Caster Semenya and how the biomedical industry is designed to kill Black peopleMay 16, 2019The idea that there are only two genders is an intentional capitalist and colonial project used to strengthen the political economies of hegemony and anti-Blackness.If “interracial dating” isn’t influenced by white supremacy, why does it imply a white partner?April 17, 2019For many POC, “interracial” dating is more often than not about scoring a white partner, in an attempt to liken oneself toward a more legible humanity“Children do not deserve privacy,” and other abusive myths masked as good parentingApril 9, 2019Children who are taught that they don’t deserve privacy are in a perpetual cycle of apologizing for receiving it and/or being fearful that it will be rescinded.Can transformative justice hold abusers like R. Kelly accountable?April 4, 2019Instead of relying on the police, transformative justice and community accountability allows survivors and their communities to decide what justice looks like for themselves.“Good men” and the mythological dichotomy between toxic masculinity and masculinityMarch 21, 2019For “good men,” the opposite of “toxic masculinity” is a benevolent and respectable patriarchy.“He didn’t have to hit her tho”: The ‘Beale Street’ slap scene & loving Black women who hurt usMarch 19, 2019How do so many Black women love violent Black men without reciprocating violence themselves, but can't get that love in return? How do we normalize care strategies for Black women who hurt us?Misogynoir wants me to feel ashamed for being single today. Here’s how I’m refusingFebruary 14, 2019I refuse to blame myself for the inability of others to see the many gifts I have to offer.Sexual harassment is a form of intra-communal violence we can eradicateFebruary 5, 2019Black women are always antagonized as aggressors who are too mean, too rude, too strong, and too stuck up, and thus deserving of forceful punishment, violations of our bodies, space, and dignity, and a suppressive hand to coerce obedience.Meek Mill cannot advocate for racial justice while collaborating with abusersJanuary 24, 2019The biggest weakness in Meek Mill’s developing political formation is his extremely limited understanding of gender justice and its necessity in achieving racial equity.I am a Black woman who decided to lose weight in 2019… or did I?January 16, 2019My body, as Black, as woman, as I’ve come to know it, has never been and may never be my own.Anti-fatness and the denial of survivorship for fat Black boys who have been assaultedDecember 11, 2018Aside from Roxane Gay, social, political, economic, and cultural work around the (fat) body is overwhelmingly white—despite the ways in which anti-fat oppression is felt most harshly by Black fat bodies.When gender non-conforming Bois like me get punched in the face, it’s always our faultDecember 3, 2018There’s always something more I should have done.I went to my high school reunion queer & proud, but still couldn’t shake the fear of being outedNovember 14, 2018But truth is, from what I can tell, I am the only person who brought a “partner” to this reunion. Sure, there might be other fiances, but partner is the only term straight folks prescribe to gay niggas.There are no “danger signs” for sexual assault: Lessons from a Hmong survivorNovember 14, 2018For years, I’ve blamed myself for not being able to identify “danger signs†in the sexual assault situations.The messy relationship between f*ggots & the Black American pop divaNovember 13, 2018Diva has long-time been used to describe an archetype of the wonderfully tragic. Used to uplift and level. To shroud a person in cues: dramatic, difficult, annoying, too-much. Heteronormativity makes us prey: At 15 I believed acting out my crushes was worse than being exploited by strangersOctober 17, 2018I was more afraid of being found out than of being harmed.Rape culture tells us it is normal. My body knows this is a lieOctober 10, 2018Those who resist rape culture’s control allow my body—a queer Black body that has never known rape—to be possible. How the carceral state fuels toxic masculinity in Black childrenOctober 8, 2018The physical markers of the carceral state not only demarcate our mobility and freedom, but inform our performances as well, particularly Black masculinities.How do we maintain abolitionist principles in cases of sexual assault?October 4, 2018The solution to repairing the development of my healing was not to believe solely in the idea of restoring the justice system but to support the transformation of justice entirely.Musings on a world without rape: A listicleOctober 3, 2018Half of my DVD collection would be rendered moot without rape and rape culture.Rape Can & Must End: PoemsOctober 2, 2018These poems are part of our monthlong collaboration with FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, Rape Can & Must EndWhen liberal orgs tell QTPOC to “bring your full self to work,” it’s a lie. I know because I fell for it.September 20, 2018By recognizing the unwritten rules and expectations for what they are, we can better navigate these spaces or leave them altogether to build our own.For all the poor Black kids who become prey for rich white liberalsSeptember 13, 2018He knows he can ruin poor Black folks lives, and then just retreat into his money with no guilty conscience. A monster.There’s a Black queer dude swinging at white people by my job and I’m losing my mind tooSeptember 12, 2018Not “lose our minds” in the immediate, ableist sense, but like what happens when your mind goes off searching for freedom beyond political rights and social politeness.I won’t let them have you, Ms. Aretha: On surviving grief and reclaiming Black joy after deathAugust 31, 2018That’s what we do. We reclaim our people after death. We carry them home on our backs and in our hearts.I wanted to stop suffering like Jamel Myles. Here’s what I learned about youth mental healthAugust 30, 2018By Nickolas Gaines Content Note: Suicide, homophobia, bullying The first time I attempted suicide, I was a high school freshman. An email circulated around my friend group that said I was gay, and it was also posted up by the lockers. The school administration worked with the IT department to track down the source. To…We can hold Omarosa accountable without throwing a Black woman awayAugust 22, 2018Perhaps this kind of "I don't care what happens to so and so" is also a reinforcement of anti-Blackness.When men dispose of other men who are violent, we avoid accountabilityAugust 21, 2018By Daniel Johnson Scholar Henry A. Giroux’s work Stormy Weather: Hurricane Katrina and the Politics of Disposability positions disposability politics strictly as it relates to those who were seen as disposable by the state during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, disposability extends beyond state (in)action considering that the state is not the only entity capable of…Why we should support Black self-care even when its not costly therapyAugust 14, 2018In doing self-care, I have to ask myself what systems am I continuing to perpetuate when I expect people to seek medical attention, go to church, spend time with family, etc.“We’ve never been this close”: Why I needed to capture Black brotherly intimacy in these photosAugust 7, 2018Filmmaker Emir Fils-Aime and Music Producer Anthony Avery photographed by Gioncarlo Valentine. “Black men loving Black men is THE revolutionary act.” – Marlon Riggs Gioncarlo A few months ago I asked two friends to sit for a series of portraits so that I could test out lighting. I’ve been friends with Emir and Anthony for about…As a Black woman, I refuse to reduce myself because the world finds my being offensiveJuly 26, 2018By Anika Tene Rich The first time I can recall being criticized for the way I owned and operated my body around white people was when I participated in a teacher training program. I had just graduated from an HBCU, and was now in a white-dominated world. I was assigned to an advisor who was… Like this:Like Loading...
Words our fathers should have said: Encouragement for other Black cis-het men experiencing body-dysmorphiaJanuary 28, 2021I hoarded bodybuilding magazines and wasted nights diagramming routines which earned me more injuries than benefit. In the gym, I exercised to nausea, vomited and despised myself for being ill equipped for exercise regimens designed to market magazines.
Black women’s impossible dilemma: How this world ties our “safety” to the protection of our abusersOctober 7, 2020The world has an appetite for our pain, and this is what I refuse. This is why I will never again decide to protect someone who harms me.
Sex work is subject to the same anti-Blackness as every other industry in the USSeptember 29, 2020When we say we are committed to Black liberation it must be in service of sex workers’ autonomy. But they are never nuanced beings. The fight for sex worker liberation is the fight for all Black lives, and until that is prioritized, erasure and respectability politics will persist. In every industry.
Police can’t save children from sexual abuse, but we mustAugust 26, 2020With inadequate responses to CSA and little trust in police among people of color, relying on cops to address an issue like CSA is questionable, at best.
The problem with using proximity & poverty to dismiss the fallacies of “Black-on-Black crime”August 5, 2020Black men’s “senseless” acts of violence are much more sophisticated in nature than both the liberal and conservative anti-abolition culture of poverty argument would have one believe.
The perils of navigating platonic relationships with other gay menMarch 31, 2020Being a sexual minority puts pressure on gay men to connect sexually or romantically with the gay men who are most proximate to them.
How “Gayle King v. Kobe Bryant” obscured a valid critique of sensationalizing sexual violenceMarch 5, 2020In our efforts to resist this silencing, however, we must also consider the ways that others who are not public figures are implicated in these discussions
Ayanna Pressley sees power in being a sexual violence survivor, & there’s science to thatFebruary 25, 2020For those of us survivors whose bodies revolt, it’s not just that we are experiencing random medicalized dysfunctions. We are reacting to the toxicity surrounding us.
Having friendships with cis-het Black men taught me that we get to say no to sex, tooJanuary 16, 2020We’re tricked into believing that sex is about performance more than it is about connection, autonomy and consent. And the pressures of performance encourage men to consider hardness as our only option, means of expression, and source of intimacy.
We protect us: Why the state will never solve the epidemic of missing and trafficked Black women & girlsJanuary 2, 2020State institutions such as the police, and child welfare services are often complicit in sexual violence enacted upon Black women and girls.
Take some into the mouthDecember 20, 2019FROM OUR NEW SHORT STORY SERIES, 'IMAGING OTHER WORLDS': "Pearl didn’t push Zura on the whole cunnilingus issue because that’s not what she needed from him. He wasn’t her only partner. What she wanted from him was a few free drinks followed by an enchanting night ride and a deep quickie."
Why we need Black doulas to build Black futuresDecember 3, 2019Because doulas as a whole, are not part of the healthcare system, we are the most unbiased birth experts in the labor room.
Dead Black Boy Magic: How mental health stigmas compound with anti-queerness to kill our childrenNovember 12, 2019I carry a combination of marginal identities that hold an enduring need for self-sufficiency and suffering.
I am a Black queer woman with HIV and I am cleanNovember 7, 2019I think that when we begin to open up about harm, cleanliness, criminalization and stigma, we get better at loving each other. And when we listen, we build up sustainable, community driven responses to diagnosis and harm.
How cis-het Black men’s attempts to be advocates for others fail when we refuse to acknowledge our violenceOctober 29, 2019We illustrate further, our harm, when we react to being indicted for our wounding intentions. Yoba stormed out of an interview with The Root—their staff enduring quite a tantrum. Members of my organization, when inquiring if I cared more about community needs or my own desires, were subject to the same.
Embracing ugly in a world that’s tried to weaponize it against meOctober 24, 2019The impact of being uglified has real, painful, and pervasive consequences.
How I found empowerment among Black strippers in an industry that forces us to competeOctober 22, 2019All of the information that was useful to me came from the Black and non-white strippers I knew, women who the industry set up to be in competition with me.
Zaddy issues: On dating older Black men & being polyamorousSeptember 5, 2019My experiences with dating older Black men have taught me that though some of their actions are inappropriate, they’re often misplaced reactions to the world we live in.
At 20, Lil Nas X is still a child. Why do older adults keep sexualizing him?September 4, 2019Yes, 18 is the legal threshold from childhood to adulthood, but legality has never been something that applied “equally" to Black children, especially Black Queer children.
Men of color are creating their own manospheres, & their misogynistic violence is going ignoredJune 18, 2019If most male supremacists are concerned about the declining status of white men, men of color want to establish a dominance that society never bequeathed to them.
Why Black people need to explore intimacy within our friendships & non-sexual relationshipsMay 22, 2019White supremacy and cis-heteropatriarchy encourage us to have selective distributions of intimacy, touch and care that are reserved specifically for our sexual partners and family members.
Caster Semenya and how the biomedical industry is designed to kill Black peopleMay 16, 2019The idea that there are only two genders is an intentional capitalist and colonial project used to strengthen the political economies of hegemony and anti-Blackness.
If “interracial dating” isn’t influenced by white supremacy, why does it imply a white partner?April 17, 2019For many POC, “interracial” dating is more often than not about scoring a white partner, in an attempt to liken oneself toward a more legible humanity
“Children do not deserve privacy,” and other abusive myths masked as good parentingApril 9, 2019Children who are taught that they don’t deserve privacy are in a perpetual cycle of apologizing for receiving it and/or being fearful that it will be rescinded.
Can transformative justice hold abusers like R. Kelly accountable?April 4, 2019Instead of relying on the police, transformative justice and community accountability allows survivors and their communities to decide what justice looks like for themselves.
“Good men” and the mythological dichotomy between toxic masculinity and masculinityMarch 21, 2019For “good men,” the opposite of “toxic masculinity” is a benevolent and respectable patriarchy.
“He didn’t have to hit her tho”: The ‘Beale Street’ slap scene & loving Black women who hurt usMarch 19, 2019How do so many Black women love violent Black men without reciprocating violence themselves, but can't get that love in return? How do we normalize care strategies for Black women who hurt us?
Misogynoir wants me to feel ashamed for being single today. Here’s how I’m refusingFebruary 14, 2019I refuse to blame myself for the inability of others to see the many gifts I have to offer.
Sexual harassment is a form of intra-communal violence we can eradicateFebruary 5, 2019Black women are always antagonized as aggressors who are too mean, too rude, too strong, and too stuck up, and thus deserving of forceful punishment, violations of our bodies, space, and dignity, and a suppressive hand to coerce obedience.
Meek Mill cannot advocate for racial justice while collaborating with abusersJanuary 24, 2019The biggest weakness in Meek Mill’s developing political formation is his extremely limited understanding of gender justice and its necessity in achieving racial equity.
I am a Black woman who decided to lose weight in 2019… or did I?January 16, 2019My body, as Black, as woman, as I’ve come to know it, has never been and may never be my own.
Anti-fatness and the denial of survivorship for fat Black boys who have been assaultedDecember 11, 2018Aside from Roxane Gay, social, political, economic, and cultural work around the (fat) body is overwhelmingly white—despite the ways in which anti-fat oppression is felt most harshly by Black fat bodies.
When gender non-conforming Bois like me get punched in the face, it’s always our faultDecember 3, 2018There’s always something more I should have done.
I went to my high school reunion queer & proud, but still couldn’t shake the fear of being outedNovember 14, 2018But truth is, from what I can tell, I am the only person who brought a “partner” to this reunion. Sure, there might be other fiances, but partner is the only term straight folks prescribe to gay niggas.
There are no “danger signs” for sexual assault: Lessons from a Hmong survivorNovember 14, 2018For years, I’ve blamed myself for not being able to identify “danger signs†in the sexual assault situations.
The messy relationship between f*ggots & the Black American pop divaNovember 13, 2018Diva has long-time been used to describe an archetype of the wonderfully tragic. Used to uplift and level. To shroud a person in cues: dramatic, difficult, annoying, too-much.
Heteronormativity makes us prey: At 15 I believed acting out my crushes was worse than being exploited by strangersOctober 17, 2018I was more afraid of being found out than of being harmed.
Rape culture tells us it is normal. My body knows this is a lieOctober 10, 2018Those who resist rape culture’s control allow my body—a queer Black body that has never known rape—to be possible.
How the carceral state fuels toxic masculinity in Black childrenOctober 8, 2018The physical markers of the carceral state not only demarcate our mobility and freedom, but inform our performances as well, particularly Black masculinities.
How do we maintain abolitionist principles in cases of sexual assault?October 4, 2018The solution to repairing the development of my healing was not to believe solely in the idea of restoring the justice system but to support the transformation of justice entirely.
Musings on a world without rape: A listicleOctober 3, 2018Half of my DVD collection would be rendered moot without rape and rape culture.
Rape Can & Must End: PoemsOctober 2, 2018These poems are part of our monthlong collaboration with FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, Rape Can & Must End
When liberal orgs tell QTPOC to “bring your full self to work,” it’s a lie. I know because I fell for it.September 20, 2018By recognizing the unwritten rules and expectations for what they are, we can better navigate these spaces or leave them altogether to build our own.
For all the poor Black kids who become prey for rich white liberalsSeptember 13, 2018He knows he can ruin poor Black folks lives, and then just retreat into his money with no guilty conscience. A monster.
There’s a Black queer dude swinging at white people by my job and I’m losing my mind tooSeptember 12, 2018Not “lose our minds” in the immediate, ableist sense, but like what happens when your mind goes off searching for freedom beyond political rights and social politeness.
I won’t let them have you, Ms. Aretha: On surviving grief and reclaiming Black joy after deathAugust 31, 2018That’s what we do. We reclaim our people after death. We carry them home on our backs and in our hearts.
I wanted to stop suffering like Jamel Myles. Here’s what I learned about youth mental healthAugust 30, 2018By Nickolas Gaines Content Note: Suicide, homophobia, bullying The first time I attempted suicide, I was a high school freshman. An email circulated around my friend group that said I was gay, and it was also posted up by the lockers. The school administration worked with the IT department to track down the source. To…
We can hold Omarosa accountable without throwing a Black woman awayAugust 22, 2018Perhaps this kind of "I don't care what happens to so and so" is also a reinforcement of anti-Blackness.
When men dispose of other men who are violent, we avoid accountabilityAugust 21, 2018By Daniel Johnson Scholar Henry A. Giroux’s work Stormy Weather: Hurricane Katrina and the Politics of Disposability positions disposability politics strictly as it relates to those who were seen as disposable by the state during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, disposability extends beyond state (in)action considering that the state is not the only entity capable of…
Why we should support Black self-care even when its not costly therapyAugust 14, 2018In doing self-care, I have to ask myself what systems am I continuing to perpetuate when I expect people to seek medical attention, go to church, spend time with family, etc.
“We’ve never been this close”: Why I needed to capture Black brotherly intimacy in these photosAugust 7, 2018Filmmaker Emir Fils-Aime and Music Producer Anthony Avery photographed by Gioncarlo Valentine. “Black men loving Black men is THE revolutionary act.” – Marlon Riggs Gioncarlo A few months ago I asked two friends to sit for a series of portraits so that I could test out lighting. I’ve been friends with Emir and Anthony for about…
As a Black woman, I refuse to reduce myself because the world finds my being offensiveJuly 26, 2018By Anika Tene Rich The first time I can recall being criticized for the way I owned and operated my body around white people was when I participated in a teacher training program. I had just graduated from an HBCU, and was now in a white-dominated world. I was assigned to an advisor who was…
