By Stacy Nathaniel Jackson
What of a different world Baldwin steadfastly conjured in his novels, essays, plays, and poems interrogating race, politics, and sexuality? Is that not the definition of worldbuilding?
By Iryn Tushabe
I didn’t have a boyfriend, so pregnancy checks didn’t bother me. Indeed, they were an opportunity to do the lord’s work; I was omulokole, a saved person.
By Héctor Vizoso
On Halloween night in 1991, the doorbell rang, and it was Bruce. He was excited and hurried in to tell me to get ready because he had enrolled us in a Halloween competition at the After Dark.
By Khaled Alesmael
“Genet wrote about Syria and Palestine!” says Naima, the cemetery caretaker, as she turns the key in the gate’s lock, leading me towards the grave of Jean Genet (1910–1986).
By Nastya Dzutstsati
The tragedy of a state-imposed closet is that the performance never ends—unless you find a way to escape, or the government finds you first.
By Gregory Walters
Here was Rod Stewart, unabashedly telling anyone who would listen he was friends with a gay man. It’s important that he describes George as “the kindest guy I ever knew.”
By Elizabeth Costello
My heart, my gut, my cunt assumed positions of power. If that moment was a tarot card it was absolutely The Tower — the first time I spoke to her I felt hit by lightning. The rules of my gravity changed.
By Damisola Sulaiman
How do you accept that your closet is a country, that the place that made you into the person you are, is where you can’t be yourself?
By Patruni Sastry
I had watched enough Bollywood movies to know that a good pair of sunglasses could shield both my identity and my makeup from prying eyes. I packed my carefully chosen outfit— flowers handcrafted by my partner, and a wig— into a bag, locked the door behind me, and called an Uber.
By Akram Herrak
I don’t know what I expected from a gay bar—the closest I’ve ever gotten to being in one was when I went to a drag show in Beirut, Lebanon, and still, the place was filled with large groups of friends and a few straight couples…
