By Peter Kupfer

It was a gold Seiko. It wasn’t a particularly expensive watch, but it was priceless to me because it had belonged to my father. It was a part of him, something he’d worn every day.

By Ruth Marner

They called it Rock Creek, but really, it was a lake. And on a hot summer’s day in 1984, we drove out to it. We only had several days together before I needed to return home to St. Louis, so we wanted to make the most of it.

By Jeffrey Round

Of the handful of books that informed my adolescent understanding of what it meant to be gay, E. M. Forster’s posthumously published Maurice was the most revelatory. The reasons are numerous, but the most important was that it held out hope to a confused young mind—mine—enduring a very dark night of the soul.

By Leith Angel Johnson

Pretty much everything DJ knows about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was learned by watching the iconic, flat-headed monster grunting and lurching about in the classic horror movies by Universal Studios. But these types of films, with bandaged cadavers waiting to be brought back to life by bolts of lightning, are more indicative of a Frankenstein-ish genre that is altogether distinct from any imagery presented in Shelley’s novel.

By Phil Tarley
In 1964, I turned thirteen. I was a wild child, filled with a bursting curiosity about the world out there I wanted to explore. Craving adventure like the feral, ferocious horn dog, I would soon become, I was on fire for something more in my life.

By Michael Manganiello
“I spent my early career in the theater and eventually went on to own a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. A career advocating for the rights of patients had not occurred to me until two defining moments occurred in my life.”

By Melanie Carden
“It may seem unlikely that a black football star and a white drag queen’s hot pants are cut from the same cloth, but shimmy into your spandex and follow me,” …

by Sarah Priestman
Her son’s s tattoo “visible” was a present from her for his 18th birthday. He is transgender, and to him, visibility is an antidote to stigma; it’s refusing what most of the world still wants trans people to do: disappear.

By Samir El Mouti
I was that boy whose body was shackled by toxic masculinity. I was that boy, wearing a mask on a stage performing for a too large audience that I could handle, called society. In that experience, I punished my body, and it punished me in return. The social mirror where I could see myself was cracked and distorted. …I was a sinner. …

By Jonathan Zepeda
If you were to encounter Carson Russell and his husband walking down the street in downtown Seattle, you’d find yourself in a pleasant exchange with a charming man. If you caught him in uniform, you’d likely thank him for his service and …