27 Must-Read Queer Essays From 2016

"Our Vice President-elect, Mike Pence, is the same kind of person who populated my middle school and high school. I can’t say whether he is one of the abusers who called me a faggot, who kicked me, flicked my ears, pinched and punched me in the locker room, and who ultimately caused me to read the suicide textbook 'The Final Exit' and stockpile pills throughout my youth as an emergency escape hatch. I can say that he is now the vice principal of the school: he is the authority who not only ignores but who actively encourages abuses against people because of their sexuality..."

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"Some may wonder: are labels necessary at all? I think so. Labels can feel validating — as well as limiting — but what labels really represent is the fact that most of us want to feel like we belong somewhere. We want others with whom we can connect. So for myself and for those of you who don’t understand or even know about the rapidly changing “word world” of sexuality, here’s a primer on the subject..."

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"I had to figure out what to do: leave, stay, or live together as friends? One of the hardest things about a breakup for a trans couple is that they usually want to be together but can’t. They don’t hate each other; most often, they are still in love.

I definitely loved my husband. I didn’t want a life without this person I cared so deeply about, or a life with someone else. The only choice I could possibly make was to stay.

But could I be happy living with a woman?"

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"I’ve been openly bisexual for the last four years now, but for three of those years, I was in a relationship with a man. Despite bisexuality meaning that someone is attracted to male and female folks, this confused a lot of people around me. When I became single again in February, I pretty much had to have a second coming out. Because I’d been with someone of the opposite sex for so long, many people had decided I’d “gone straight again.”

I should have been baffled by this, but it’s something I’ve had to deal with for a long time. Even though it’s right there in the LGBTQ+ umbrella, people of all sexualities and genders still don’t believe bisexuality is real..."

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"We can pass all the laws we can to secure our equal rights and still, none of it matters when fundamentally we are still seen as less than, other than, sick, deviant, twisted, immoral and evil.

I’m trying to imagine what it must be like to see two human beings exchange a brief intimate moment and respond with disgust. How does someone get programmed to react that way? And how do we deprogram them and our culture?"

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"If you are a person who believes “tolerance” is enough, you are contributing to the problem. You don’t need to beat up an LGBTQ+ person to commit a hate crime or encourage another person to do so. If you misgender Caitlyn Jenner, say problematic and incorrect things about bathroom equality, cringe at the thought of gay affection, or use phrases like “no homo” or “that’s so gay” you are contributing to the culture that fostered this crime..."

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"Maybe it’s the absence of butch role models that leads me, like others, to fall back on traditional forms of masculinity. Even though I have always known better — somewhere along the way, my butch identity got wrapped in ideas that were unhealthy for me and those close to me, like: I shouldn’t cry or be emotionally expressive, I shouldn’t be vulnerable or emotionally available, I should avoid asking for help at all costs, I should not seek medical care unless death seemed imminent, I should work my guts out, and I should never ask for directions. Being butch meant being brave and tough. Ridiculous. I know. And beyond being ridiculous, a set-up for a life far harder and less fulfilling than it needs to be..."

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"What I am about to say is probably going to earn me a lot of hate. But I believe it’s time someone in the gay community address the elephant in the room that is open relationships. Because this is a conversation that we can all learn a lesson or two about diversity from.If gay people see different ideas of relationships as alien or something shameful, how can we ask straight people to see gay relationships differently?"

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"'I’m not defined by being gay.'

It’s time we retired this phrase. There are a few reasons why it’s said, and a few (and much stronger) reasons why we need to no longer say it..."

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"In aligning yourself with a politician and a party that espouse discrimination and violence (subtle and overt) at a time when transgender people are still vulnerable, you have scorned the majority of your community. (See HERE and HERE, though there are countless more.) Do you genuinely believe any of your tourbus ‘friends’ will join behind hatemongering bigots who would eagerly eliminate services, marginalize all ‘others,’ and impose ‘religious freedoms’ to force our return to the shadows?"

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"If you’re telling me that there are high volumes of boys and men out there, in schools or in general, who are just waiting for a “loop-hole” to sexually assault girls and women, we have bigger problems on our hands than bathrooms. The first problem would be your apparent lack of knowledge of how often it happens OUTSIDE of bathrooms, with no “loop holes” needed. This isn’t about transgender bathroom access. This is about you not trusting the boys and men in your communities and/or fearing that they’re all secretly predators. Why do you have this fear?"

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"There lies an untapped potential within the black gay community that I believe needs to be unveiled and activated. Every time I come across a think piece or Facebook post from some douchebag who writes about the agenda to turn black men gay, it reminds me that there are people that desire to erase us. What’s even more disturbing is the innate need many of us have to oblige them..."

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"The thing we need to get straight is that when politicians fail to support equality and instead pass discriminatory legislation or when they refuse to speak out against that discrimination, they are helping to foster the climate in which LGBTQ people are feared, scorned, hated and, ultimately, targeted. And then, when we are tragically reaping what they’ve sown, they offer their empty thoughts and prayers like so many crocodile tears.

It’s time we say: enough..."

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"Being wanted is also one reason some men might have sex with other men. John said that one of the reasons he hooks up with dudes is the feeling of being wanted. 'I think it attests to getting your heart broken by a chick and you’re just devastated. And you seek out whatever you can find I guess. You want to feel wanted, and why not feel wanted and get amazing head?'”

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"Everyone told me this wealthy, conservative suburb was the last place I’d be able to make this sort of thing work. But I thought: Might as well try. One of the gay math teachers, when I told him what was going to happen, said, “Well, I guess that takes the pressure off of us!”

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"Waking up today felt like waking up from a fever dream.Over the past 18 months, minorities have endured an immense amount of collective trauma throughout the course of this long, arduous presidential campaign. Many of us have faced threats to the very core of our identities and beliefs, compounding the pain of this moment even more. And now, the man who lobbied all of those threats against us is set to hold the highest office in the developed world..."

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"I entered the sex industry because I lacked access to health care.

In the industry, it’s common for women to use proceeds from their work to fund cosmetic procedures. It’s an investment — increase the market value of sexual labor by modifying one’s body in accordance with popular sexual aesthetics. Breast augmentation, facial surgeries, and gluteoplasty are all procedures commonly sought out by escorts, strippers, and porn stars.

For transsexuals, this often has another dimension..."

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"Sex is the pursuit of pleasure. It is not the putting of Tab A into Slot B. That is reproductive intercourse. It certainly can feel nice for a woman. But for more than 98 percent of women — it is not the road to orgasm.As a girl who used to sleep with boys and now only sleeps with girls, actually one girl in particular, I am now grateful for how much easier and more rewarding it can be to explore pleasure when the “how-to” is not prescribed. Figuring it out might seem daunting. But the truth is, as a queer girl, I do what feels good. I seek pleasure. And that is what sex should be defined by..."

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"In the coming years, the LGBT community will continue to increase in visibility and in power. As society changes and becomes more open and accepting, it is likely that life for aging LGBT people will change for the better as well. But this will not happen until gay people themselves end the taboo on becoming old.

As long as we maintain a dismissive attitude to older gay people, we will continue to fear the aging process, and we will continue to make those uncomfortable beds upon which we ourselves will one day have to lie..."

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"After I told her, we sat for a moment in silence, with tears in our eyes, wondering what was going to happen next. Would we stay together? Could we even be friends from this point forward? What would the future hold for our 1-year-old son? Would I transition surgically, or socially, or at all? These questions posed a profound threat to everything that she and I had built as a couple. If we were going to stay together, it would be the hardest thing the two of us had ever done..."

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"If we’re going to redefine masculinity for those positive traits mentioned above, they must be accessible to all people, women, queer, trans, and nonbinary included. On that note, men can and should feel comfortable openly identifying with their feminine traits as well. It’s safe to say that all people have varying degrees of masculine, feminine, and non-gender-specific traits that make up who they are. No two people are alike. We should celebrate that, not try to bar people from expressing their true selves..."

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"All together I feel that Maddy’s transition was good for the family as a whole. Don’t get me wrong, my parents annoy me to no end, but the ways they irritate me are the usual reasons why you would expect a teenager to be mad at her parents. My reasons for annoyance vary from being forced to clean my room to folding laundry, to insisting I be nice to my sister. Worst of all is how they’re always embarrassing me in front of my friends..."

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"Kink is about fantasy, yes, but people also base their play on some very harsh realities. From rape play to Nazi fetishism to slave auctions, to extreme scarification, gun play, bone breaking, domestic abuse scenes, prison beatings, and plantation retreats — events where black “slaves” go to actual plantations to serve white “masters” — kink is no stranger to ideas and activities that are potentially offensive and triggering..."

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"I wiped my cheeks and said, “A lot of people died, baby. And they shouldn’t have. It’s really sad.” As I read through the accounts, my thoughts went to all those other mothers. Those mothers who would never look into the bright eyes of their children again. I cannot imagine that pain. And I don’t want to..."

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"Immediately after hearing my partner’s diagnoses, we both took to the internet to find other transmen who have experienced this type of pain and what they did to ease it. After hours of looking, we couldn’t find anything. Literally, there was nothing. No information on others like my partner with pain, what we could do for it before surgery, not even what transmen experienced during hysterectomies. Nothing. We were left feeling isolated and lost. Was he the only one having this? Is it life threatening? Does it go away eventually?"

Read the full essay here.

4. Because older gay men are as attractive as all get-out. You are the last generation of gay death and the first generation of a new gay life, and that experience makes you more beautiful than any bicep bulge or flat stomach. And should anyone call you a “tired old queen” or “past his prime” or, in the immortal words of Jethro Tull, “too old to rock and roll,” their ignorant words should only make you grateful you know otherwise.

Read the full essay here.

"LGBTQ+ kids in fundamentalist societies have secrets to keep from a young age. They feel different when everyone around them is supposed to be the same. They are often shy, insecure, and crave love, and have no one in whom to confide. Abusive people can target kids like that, which is why LGBTQ+ kids in religious communities suffer very high rates of sexual and physical abuse, and a great deal of homelessness and drug addiction. And suicide. The rate is completely shocking..."

Read the full essay here.