Dear Reader,
This month’s theme is Labels, a subject I spend considerable time pondering. I am a campus speaker, and one of my workshops is Choosing to Label: What’s in a Name. I could have filled this entire issue with my thoughts about labels. My intention was to write for this issue, but we received so many other thoughtful pieces that I chose to step aside. Instead, I’ll use this letter to insert a few words of advice about labeling:
May we use labels as tools for communication, and to find other people with similar experiences, but let us not allow labels to restrain or limit us, or to separate us from one another – people with different labels do not have to be on opposing teams. May we use labels as adjectives, not as nouns. (I identify as bisexual. I am not a bisexual.) And we can use as many labels as we wish. (I identify simultaneously as bisexual, pansexual, queer and fluid.)
Enjoy this issue, which may well be the most graphically-rich issue we’ve produced to date. Our “Around the World” column features Esperanza Monteiro, an impressive activist from Madrid, Spain. We present various forms of writing by Stella, Katherine Garcia, Courtney Carola, Lila Hertelius, Keira Edwards-Huolahan, S. H. G., Michelle Spring-Moore, Theresa Tyree, Paige Owen, Iyanna James-Stephenson. And we are excited to have Tiggy Upland back for a visit, in an entirely new format. Also featured: paintings by Jo-Anne Carlson and another comic from Why Not Both Co. And finally, as always, we bring you our News Briefs and Calendar.
If you live in the Boston area, please join us at one of our upcoming bi women’s brunches on June 18, July 17 and August 13.