Julia Conley: Book-Banning Efforts Rising at Unprecedented Rate, US Libraries Report
Efforts to censor entire categories of books reflecting certain voices and views shows that the moral panic isn’t about kids: It’s about politics.
Rebecca Scofield, Elyssa Ford: How gay rodeos upend assumptions about life in rural America.
The cowboy has long stood as a symbol of American values and virile masculinity. But this understanding of the cowboy hides a more complex reality.
Video: Shahmaran
The Shahmaran is a mythical creature, half snake and half woman. The first human she encounters is a young man named Camasb who gets stuck in her cave after he tries to steal honey.
Elsa Gidlow: A Happy Song
Heaped sweets and a treasure
For a new sin to play with,
To pass a night and day with––
Heaped sweets for a pleasure.
Sam Long: Why I Decided to Come Out to My Students as a Trans Man
Every August, as new students arrive, I wonder whether I want to share this part of myself.
Video: West by God
At a water park deep in the Appalachian Mountains, Nelly locks eyes with Dane. On an awkward date, they drive around their West Virginia town, and Dane shares a version of himself others don’t see.
Video: Who is a Runner | Erin McGrady
It takes the first 5-6 miles for the “bird’s nest” in Erin McGrady’s head to unravel. And then, putting one foot in front of the other, the photographer and writer works to create and celebrate safe spaces for others in the queer community.
Michael Simms: Mary Jo and Aline
Mornings they loved best
sitting over long breakfast
light slanting over them
Moudhy Al-Rashid: Ancient Akkadian poems and medical texts reveal grief’s universals
A long compilation of various therapies given to improve a patient’s happiness was unearthed in a house in Ashur, a city along the Tigris River.
Video: Elif Shafak | The Politics of Fiction
Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.
W.H. Auden: At Last the Secret is Out
At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
Video: When the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence canonised Derek Jarman
Born on the streets of San Francisco in the late 1970s, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI) is a gay rights group known for their subversive use of religious imagery – and, in particular, donning Catholic nun attire to upend gender norms, protest oppression and satirise moral hypocrisy.
Amy Lowell: Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
Abby Zimet: What In the Ever-Loving Gay Fever Dream? Tucker Carlson Is Worried About the End of (Mostly Naked) Men
Boldly aiming his furrowed brow at “one of the biggest stories of our lifetimes,” perennially puzzled, flagrantly fascistic Tucker Carlson has released the hottest, weirdest, gayest trailer ever for his new season … Continue reading
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