Queer Life

When you’re growing up a bisexual guy, how can you come out or otherwise talk to your friends -- be they straight or queer -- about your sexuality?

I am an autistic, genderfluid lesbian, and I experience these identifiers as tightly intertwined.

Relationships, like gender and sexuality, don’t fit into a binary. The phrase queer platonic, which comes from the asexual community, means a deep and meaningful intimate relationship which isn’t based on sex. You can have this with anyone – no matter their gender or sexuality. Perhaps if the term were more normalised (I hadn’t heard of it before researching this article), more people would be comfortable with such a relationship.

There’s this feeling of smallness - that your world is confined to secrets you tell in your diary, or to the few people you know in real life that are brave (or perhaps foolish) enough to come out - that I identify as a part of my theory on queer orphanhood. You spend so much time contemplating your identity that you don’t have time to wonder about people out there. There’s a kind of spiritual displacement in being queer and young.

Letters from the author to himself in his teens and early 20s, as he tries to sort out multiple facets of his identity.

Social distancing has introduced new challenges into Pride month. Here are some tips on how to celebrate safely at home, including what to do if it's not safe for you to be out yet.

We hope every time you open up to someone about your truth they respond with love and kindness. But we also want to make sure you're prepared in case they don't, and give you some practical strategies and tools to look after yourself if that’s what happens. With that in mind, here's a new, totally non-exhaustive, step by step guide to coming out.

Happy, happy, happy Pride, everyone! We're talking (and listening to) some good trouble right now. And if you're going to make some, you're going to need some anthems. Sam, Alice M., Izzy, Jacob and I crafted you a mix this time that's full of good trouble and we hope will power you up in all the best ways.

I’ve changed dramatically because of this place that never insisted I change. This place where it didn’t matter how—or even if—I was sexual gave me sexuality as something I could live. Sex became something I could know about, talk about, do, enjoy and choose. My body became livable. Imagine that.

As we approach this new annum and everything that lies in store, instead of thinking about the ephemera one could manifest into being, I want to ask how we create the space to make our queer love and joy stand out and shine.