Here’s My Story
HERE’S MY STORY is a new feature on The G&LR’s website, where you can share some part of your life story with other readers. We receive a lot of submissions of personal memoirs, but the magazine doesn’t publish first-person narratives as a general rule. “Here’s My Story” is a space that allows our readers (and others) to talk about their experiences as members of the LGBT+ community. There are no restrictions on subject matter, but some broad areas might include:
- Coming-out stories
- Memorable love affairs
- An epiphany (e.g. a work of art)
Click here to submit a proposal or an article (< 1,000 words, please) for publication. Also include a photo or two that could be included with the piece, as well as a pic of yourself and a short bio.
We will help you with editing as required.
Here's My Story View all
Frolicking in Summer
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.
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Only Reject: Reflections on E. M. Forster’s Maurice
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.
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Sympathy for the “Monster”
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.
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Age Thirteen: A Different Rite of Passage
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.
The Fight for LGBT Equality Never Ends
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.”
Of Drag Queens and Quarterbacks
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,” …
Visibility
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.
There is Something Called Sin. It’s Called Masculinity.
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. …