I have spent this Valentine’s Day season wrapped in the loving embrace of feminist friends and family who have expressed their care and affection through thoughtful cards, shared meals, and copious amounts of cocktails. I have been reminded numerous times how bootleg a holiday is that celebrates heterosexual coupledom at the expense of all […]
My Daughter is a Vegetarian: Parental Grief on the Occasion of Coming Out
Note: I miss my mother. She is a phone call away and lately those phone calls haven’t been made as often. When made, they are shorter. She thinks my girlfriend is always around, a specter she’d rather avoid. I didn’t tell her when we broke up, although she is usually the one who holds my […]
Love Me Like You Love Your Lover
Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else. We can give ourselves the unconditional love that is the grounding for sustained acceptance […]
Love Lessons: Musiq Soulchild & Tressie Cottom
When I sat down to write the song that came to mind was Musiq Soulchild’s Love. I thought about this perfect ballad because it allows for a much larger vision of love that includes all manner of relationships including the one we have with ourselves. Soulchild sings… Love So many people use your name in […]
Immigration Reform: What Queer & Trans Immigrants & Our Allies Need to Know
Guest post by Verónica Bayetti Flores Those of us who have been doing immigrants’ rights work have been hearing whispers of it coming along for a few months, and it finally seems to be here: Immigration reform is gearing up to come into full swing, and if we want this to benefit queer and trans folks, […]
Beyonce’ In the Hands of Jesus Freaks
So apparently, Christendom is “uncomfortable” with Beyonce’s performance at this past Sunday’s Superbowl Show. Well I’m “uncomfortable” with their discomfort. This post from David Henson over at Patheos.com, who called out his friends and acquaintances for their thinly veiled racism during the show inspired this FB rant from me: “Let me say as a Christian how […]
(On Making Sure) Love Never Fails: Some Reflections on Feminism, Faith, and Holograms
I have made no secret with y’all that I’m a church girl and that the church remains profoundly important to me, even though I have walked out of it in anger, been disturbed and therefore refuse to be contained by much of its stifling theology, and generally am completely over the shenanigans of church folks, […]
101 Things That Are Not True About The Most Famous Black Women Alive: Alexis Pauline Gumbs on Black Women, Black Feminism, and The Capacity to Love
My favorite biographical description of Alexis Pauline Gumbs is included in her Conscious Campus profile: “Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a queer black trouble-maker and a black feminist love evangelist. She walks in the legacy of black lady school teachers in post slavery communities who offered sacred educational space to the intergenerational newly free in […]
The story that’s taken ten years to tell: On abortion, race and the power of story
Guest Post by Shanelle Matthews “Are you in college?” The doctor could tell from my face I wasn’t at all interested in having a conversation. “You speak well. I mean, you’re articulate.” The wrinkles in my forehead deepened. I wrung my fingers tightly around the scratchy, blue exam gown and briefly thought about the woman […]
We Have Dreams: Some Thoughts on Intentional Dreaming on this MLK-Inauguration Day
On this inauguration morning and MLK day, I woke up with Anna Arnold Hedgeman on my mind. You may not know her but you should. Anna Arnold Hedgeman was the only woman to serve on the 1963 March on Washington planning committee. She was the first Black woman to serve in a New York Mayoral […]