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 …

By Martha Shelley
My wife Sylvia and I moved into our house in Portland in 2005. We met our neighbors, Don and Sarah, who are Pentecostal Christians. When Sarah said she believed that God created the universe about 6,000-10,000 years ago, I said I go with the astronomers …

By James Carnelia
In 2010, five years before the Obergefell decision, New York, my home state, had still not made same sex marriage legal, but was honoring out-of-state marriages. My partner and I talked about marrying, but actually, we were ambivalent about engaging in such a ritual. 

By Jennifer Thompson
Since I was a child, I bought into the idea that my attraction to a person of the same gender is an abomination in the eyes of the one I loved most and the one who loved me most. God himself.

By William Lawrence
HOW DID I COME to meet the writer Robin Maugham—the man who was to be my first openly gay relationship? Socially, we were poles apart. …

By Randy Tibbits
Rereading Tennessee Williams’s Memoirs recently, I came across this line: “But then life is full of transient loves when you are young.”

His poignantly poetic line sent me searching for reminders of my own transient loves of youth …

By J. C. Villegas
“The churches down South are not few and far between, not by a long shot. One of the very first questions you might receive from a complete stranger is, “What church do you attend?”

Spring 1955 in Paris. WWII was long past, but times were still tough all over Europe. Nevertheless, the Paris theater, opera, fashion, and art scenes were flourishing.

My first haircut in Michael’s apartment culminated in him seducing me and giving me a blowjob. It was amazing, but it left me even guiltier than before. I not only had thoughts and desires, I had now succumbed to them.