Dear Reader, The theme of this issue is “Firsts.” We asked: “What ‘firsts’ have been significant to you? A first awareness, first kiss, first relationship, first sexual experience? A first with someone of a particular gender? A first coming out? Tell us a story about a ‘first’ time, or about the ‘firsts’ you hope to…
Facing the Fear Dragon
By Becca Flintham — When did you first know? (That I was bisexual. Queer. Attracted to women, to men, to people of all genders.) Coming out isn’t a one-time process. We do it not just for the first time, but over and over, and to different people, at different points in our lives. We come…
An Ode to Tinder
By Amanda Rose The first time I saw a naked woman with my own eyes was on my very first date with a woman. Impressive, right? Well, let’s go back a bit. I had been raised and lived my young life with the assumption that I was straight. That’s our heteronormative society for you, right? I was…
Around the World: Noelia Mellado Pozas, Palma de Mallorca (Belearic Islands), Spain
Interview by Robyn Ochs Noelia Mellado Pozas leads the Bisexual Policy Group of FELGTB, Spain’s national LGBTI organization. RO: Noelia please tell us a bit about yourself. NMP: My name is Noelia Mellado Pozas. I was born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, and I’m 26 years old. I studied Hispanic Philology at the University of the Balearic Islands…
Fourteen Things I’ve Learned From Dating A Trans Girl For The First Time
By Amanda Torres-Lantz Two years ago, I would have told you that I was afraid of not being an informed enough ally to date a trans person. When I started dating someone who identified as trans femme, I didn’t even know what that term meant. When I asked, they described it as “I’ve always sort…
I, the worst of all
By Alicia González She was the Sun. She was that kind of woman that could attract you into an invisible orbit spinning around her without even trying. She was power, she was wisdom, she was light and beauty in her late thirties. And I was only 19, a naïve Language and Literature student with a…
Edna
By Jan Steckel My grandparents’ Brazilian cook danced with a band at night. Evenings, she’d samba around the mahogany table, ladling vichyssoise into gilded bowls. On each bowl she’d float a carved radish rose. She called her gnarled feet “dancer’s hooves,” claimed to be ashamed of them. Still, she painted her toenails the color of…
Second Baby, First Awakening
By Beth Innis Being attracted to all genders never seemed weird Especially if I never spoke of it Being attracted to all genders never seemed odd Especially if I married a man Being attracted to all genders never seemed strange Especially if I had little straight children However Shortly after my second daughter was born Suddenly life…
First Menage à Trois
By Jane Barnes 1/16/19 we tried swinging two straight couples and he was nicer than Richard then another time Richard was late and we three got impatient and Don said to me Did you ever consider… Laura? Yes, I said, so he politely got out of the way and she told me just what she liked and…
Late-Blooming
By Samantha Pious Pink and silver flowers raining down float lingering, all around me, in mid-air as though my body were a cherry tree limbs branching toward a hundred thousand buds disclosing, after twenty fallow springs, the secret they’ve been holding in at last of petals delicate and sheer and fine and smooth and liquid…