whack fo’ the riddle t'me roo dun da

There's a walking path that runs parallel to a road I take to get to my dad's house. There are sculptures set up alongside the path. Some of them are kind of neat, some of them are abstract... and then there's This Fucker.

The Long Horse.

This thing is TALL. Like, I am 5'7" and I sincerely think it might be twice my height. Have a 9 year old for scale:

This thing is way more terrifying up close than it is from the car. The metal bands wrapping around like ligaments, the rust that hints at decaying flesh, the EYES. Imagine you're driving down a semi-secluded stretch of road at night and you see THIS looming at you from out of the darkness:

I have been passing by The Long Horse (actual title of the piece is Uplifted) for years, and every time I see it I think "I need to show this to someone," and every time I forget to stop to take pictures. BUT I DID TODAY. Truly, I feel like it's the spiritual cousin to that super muscular chonkster horse statue, related but opposite.

The rest of the sculptures are kind of neat. I like the motorcycle and the shark and the maple seeds.

For some folks, it’s a month of feeling fully celebrated and seen. For some others, Pride can be a bit more complicated. Maybe you’re feeling at ease with your identity and supported by others around you but you’re still bracing for the family group chat, the friend reunion, or the “sooo are you dating anyone?” questions. Or you’re questioning. Or supporting a friend.

Here are seven of our favorite articles to help you navigate all the complexities, with zero pressure to “do Pride” in any one way. From setting boundaries at home and building chosen family, to handling complicated relationships with relatives and building spaces where you can show up as yourself, we’ve got the lowdown on these topics and so much more in these seven pieces:

Chosen Families, Chosen Care: How My Queer Community Raised Me

Being Closeted & Joyful in a Black Household

Friends or Lovers? The Complexities of Queer Love

Q is for Questioning

Some basic gay-tiquette (Advice Column)

I still love my mom even though she's homophobic. Does this make me a bad queer person? (Advice Column)

Scarleteen Confidential: Parenting Gender Non-Conforming Youth

It can almost certainly tell different species apart based on the shape of those air bladders. And it can tell if a fish has something weird inside it, like a metal hook. In Hawaii, false killer whales often pluck tuna off fishing lines, and “they’ll know where the hook is inside that fish,” Aude Pacini, who studies these animals, tells me. “They can ‘see’ things that you and I would never consider unless we had an X-ray machine or an MRI scanner.”

This penetrating perception is so unusual that scientists have barely begun to consider its implications. The beaked whales, for example, are odontocetes that look dolphin-esque on the outside—but on the inside, their skulls bear a strange assortment of crests, ridges, and bumps, many of which are only found in males.

Pavel Gol’din has suggested that these structures might be the equivalent of deer antlers—showy ornaments that are used to attract mates. Such ornaments would normally protrude from the body in a visible and conspicuous way, but that’s unnecessary for animals that are living medical scanners.’

I'm not sure if I ever shared this story before here, but in Curacao, when I was allowed to assist in a guest interaction programme, there was suddenly consternation in the pool behind us. A guest had entered the water and the dolphins were going crazy, paying no heed to the trainers anymore. The lead trainer that was with me gave the dolphins to me to watch over while she went to help. When she came back she told me what had happened. The guest that had caused so much uproar had left the water again and was asked if he had done anything to upset the dolphins. He hadn't, and he couldn't imagine what was wrong... until he mentioned he had a pacemaker. The younger dolphins in the pool had never seen someone with a pacemaker before and apparently it rocked their world.

Me before I came out, when I did pageants and modeling.

This was me the day of my junior prom. The dress weighed around 20 lbs, was the first one I tried on, and my makeup was done by someone who still thought brown lip liner looked good on white people. I spent the entire day being photographed and generally hating how I looked and wishing I could figure out why, when everything was technically perfect.

Came out in 2016, here's nine years of transformation (in reverse order, sorry)

Turns out I'm neither a Normal Guy nor a woman, but a much weirder type of faggy masc thing.

In my lifestyle lolita egg era. Somehow getting to dress like a princess gave me the will to get up in the morning

granted being a big ol goth doesn't really fit the bill of "socially acceptable heterosexual femininity" but i was HYPER feminine when i was closeted, especially in the years between when i FIRST tried to come out (age 16 - around the time of those first photos) and when i actually made the jump (age 19 - about a year after the last photo)

you can tell in that second to last photo i literally got a tattoo that said "MAD GIRL" which was an exercise in many things, including abstract self-harm, a visual reminder that i had given up on myself, and wildly underestimating the number of dudes who would misread it as BAD GIRL and take that as a cue to say gross shit to me while i was at work

anyway never kill yourself

haha yeah 🫣

consciously dipped my toes into the gender fuckery pool at around 15/16 but I was pentecostal at the time and well. took them out real quick

i tried very very hard to be “femme” for a LONG time but during covid lockdowns I didn’t have to perform for anyone and I slowly started to let it all go and now I’m a silly little man 😌