She looked like an exotic bird that summer, with her pink and blond mohawk, blowing about in wisps. I told her so, and she understood that it was a compliment. It’s always a compliment to remind me of something wild. She was wild, in a way. Our relationship was sharp, and sometimes bloody. I catered …
I’m terrified of heights, but I jumped off of that cliff anyway. I didn’t jump in spite of my fear; my fear is why I jumped. Over and over, I go to Greece. It’s where, as a teenager, I watched my grandmother die in my care. It’s the last place where I felt unconditionally loved. …
I was six, and he was five. Irish twins, I later realized. He followed me around. It was extremely annoying. My precious, shadow boy. We spent all of our time together. For better or for worse, I made him into a man. Our daddy (yes, we called him that) worked in the paper mill, down …
Adriana Wilcox. She was sturdy, strong, and had curly, light brown hair. In seventh grade, we had P.E., second period. We were required to wear little, white shorts, which I abhorred. Those shorts seemed designed to humiliate adolescent girls. I usually got into my awful shorts, and into the gym, without a problem, but changing …
I have always loved chain. I was a ‘free-range’ child, and for ten years, we lived across from a half wooded, overgrown lot, where people dumped their shit. Sometimes, there were bits of chain. I collected them. For years, I wore a wallet chain. Not that ridiculous paper clip chain that comes on the wallet …
Growing up, I had a lot of strange pets. We were the family that took in everything. Find a possum, or a duckling, or a mole? Bring it to that house. They already have a skunk, a pair of cats, snakes, guinea pigs, and a dog. Everyone knows that they’ll take in anything. We took …
I’m just like my father. Growing up, my mother regularly reminded me of that. They’ve been married for fifty years, but it was never meant as a compliment. Nonetheless, when there’s a crisis, I’m the one she calls. When I was six, I told her that I would never get married. She patted me on …
Last week, my dad told me a story. He told me a story about a barefoot, sun-browned, low country, Irish, Navy boy, catching crab with his older brother, on Sullivan’s Island. He told me about catching five buckets of crab, about the sunburn that ached for days, and about how many times his brother hit …
I’m often asked why I call myself female but don’t identify as a woman. I’m also often asked why I say that I have a transmasculine experience, rather than saying that I am a trans person. Sometimes people think that means that my transmasculine experience is somehow not as valid as their transmasculine experience, because …
I’ve been pondering these tensions about queer identities. Sometimes people deny other people’s right to particular identities, consider them appropriation, or try to erase them entirely. When I was in my early twenties, we were having eerily similar arguments, over different identities, with the generation that came before us. This is how I am coming …