#agenderedexperience

Sometimes healing looks like mourning.

I can love you without accepting you.

My mother doesn’t blink as she says it; I stare back. These are words she believes. She trusts this is what God wants. Every thought and feeling whooshes from me before returning as the familiar slow-burn anger I always carry with me.

Her face is unreadable. Mine fights to match hers.

I need you to respect my name.

I…

Becoming Jaded With Pride

I attended Twin Cities Pride this past weekend. I could just be severely jaded, but I felt very conflicted feelings towards the event itself. Not every feeling was negative, but the negatives were very strong and I feel the need to air my thoughts.

I severely dislike how much corporations seem to have taken over the general feeling of Pride, and how capitalistic it all has become. I hate how my…

Unlearning the Evangelical in Me

I am unlearning the evangelical in me.

I hate the evangelical church.

I need to say that.

I learned God could never love me or any other LGBTQIA2S+ person. Not as we are.

I learned that HIV/AIDS was God’s punishment for being gay.

I learned that Intersex people where proof of the Fall and the sinfulness of Man.

I learned that my sexual purity was the equivalent of a piece of duct tape. The…

A Label By Any Other Name

By my count, I’ve officially only been part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community for about 4 years. In that time, I’ve gone through label after label in an attempt to find words for who I am. I’ll admit that labels have always been present in my life, from my identity as an Oglala Lakota and Sicangu Lakota individual to the slightly more laid back label of “college graduate,” but my years in college…