October 11 is National Coming Out Day. (We’ve also got World Mental Health Day on October 10 and, on October 14, the forty fifth anniversary of Anita Bryant, singer and notorious homophobe, getting hit in the face with a pie.) National Coming Out Day is sort of contemporary take on second wave feminism’s mantra “the…
Tag: bisexuality
Bi+ Visibility is Cause for Celebration
Pride Month in June celebrates the entire LGBTQ+ community including bi+ people. There are some struggles unique to the bi+ community though, and September has been set aside to honor them. The month of September is Bi Visibility Month., which includes Bisexual Awareness Week is celebrated from September 16-23, and concludes with “Celebrate Bisexuality Day” on…
Not Just a Phase?
I’ve written about the first time I kissed a girl. I’ve written about how much it would have meant to me to have queer role models. And I’ve written about why it was really important for me to have access to queer books as a teenager. I’ve never really talked about the “not just a…
Coming Out: That Lightbulb Moment
A note on language. This story about coming out is being told through the prism of memory. So the scenes that take place in the late ’80s and early ’90s contain some language that implies a gender-binary. We have allowed that language to stand to reflect the author’s understanding of the world in that era,…
Disability and Queerness: Celebrate the Whole Person
Talking through Issues with my Writing Community I rely on my writing community a lot. For inspiration. Support. Feedback. They’re an important part of my life, and not just as a writer. So recently, when I was talking to Adam (mentor, 2 Rules of Writing co-founder, good friend) I mentioned that I’d been having a…
Kissing Rosalyn
When I was a teenager, I spent several summers at a Montessori-inspired hippie socialist utopian creative-and-performing arts camp. The eight weeks I spent at camp were a respite from trying to contort myself to fit in enough during the rest of the school year. Camp was a place to be myself. It was a place…
Affirming Gender is not a Crime
When I got pregnant with my first child, it seemed like the moment the stick had turned pink, the first thing people asked was: “Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?” When I was far enough along to know what I was having, that question became: “Are you having a boy or a…
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law: Outlawing Openness
Conversations we Can’t Avoid There are a lot of conversations we have to have about things that are uncomfortable or difficult to talk about. We try and avoid things like sex, politics or religion–we label them as “out of bounds” and find less controversial things to talk about with people, but there are always going…
I’m Queer. Please Pass the Peas?
By Erika Grumet A few weeks ago, a thirteen year old I know showed up at my house wearing a t-shirt that read:“Bisexual Trash Panda.” Even before I was a parent, I knew adolescent sexuality pretty well–years of teaching about HIV and STIs, contraception and LGBTQ101 gave me a lens into that topic long…
Finding Myself on the Shelf
Uncovering My Own Identity through Queer Literature by Erika Grumet “We dance around in a ring and suppose But the Secret sits in the middle and knows” -Robert Frost No one knows what you’re thinking when you’re wandering the library shelves. For me, they were a safe space when I had the kind of questions…