Canary Diamonds, Ginormous Gay Club, Moral Crisis of Anti-Trans Violence
Prism & Pen Weekly Digest 8 September 2024
by Tucker Lieberman & James Finn
Did you know a 16-year-old transgender boy was brutally beaten this month by most of the high school football team that bullied him for being trans when he joined the team? That the beating happened in a city and state with very leftist politics? You probably didn’t hear, because it barely made the news. It seems like the worse the anti-LGBTQ backlash becomes, the less people want to hear about it, or report on it if they’re in positions of gatekeeping power. We’ve got it covered here on Prism & Pen, because we refuse to look away, no much how the powerful want us to.
Also, we offer so MANY stories of queer life, like a set of canary diamonds a trans woman bought her wife, a continuing story about a gay expat from the U.S., and a search for Colombia’s secret lesbian hot spot hiding out inside the Western Hemisphere’s largest gay club.
Also, if you’re a fiction lover, please scroll down and check out Torshie Torto’s hot, sexy, scary queer allegory about witches and demons. Queer horror not up your alley? Every Monday, Elle Fredine serves up a helping of smart, sophisticated drawing-room mystery — featuring a clever gay detective and his very (!) different work and life partners.
Prism & Pen brings you authentic queer voices every morning…. Come read with us!👇
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* Discover P&P Diversity in Four Stories *
My Wife Rejected My Gifts and Outed Me as Queer in Church
When I married Penny in 1987, the ring I got for her was very modest. I had promised her that someday I’d get her a better ring. We worked our asses off while I went to law school…I opened a solo law practice in a small town…a friend who had a pawn shop…had just gotten in a stunning two-carat yellow diamond ring with white diamond side stones. It came with matching earrings… she erupted, “After all this time, you couldn’t find normal diamonds!?”
Bogotá’s Secret Lesbian Bar Is in the Western Hemisphere’s Biggest Gay Club
Theatron is a 19-room superclub in Bogota; it’s ginormous, and open to all, but at heart, it’s a gay club — to be precise, the largest gay club in the Western Hemisphere.
At 10pm on Saturday night we got in the 200-strong line, which wrapped around the venue’s underground parking lot like an anaconda.
Transgender Teen Jayden Tkaczyk is the Face of an American Moral Crisis
In the early 2000s, my gay partner and I would sometimes stroll down the waterfront holding hands, our friend alongside us, our kids running in and out of tourist shops together. We didn’t think twice about it. That’s the kind of accepting place Gloucester is.
Or was.
Why I Embraced the Title of Gay Expat
So, my name, face, and the school I taught at were shared in Far Right hate groups…One friend messaged me, saying, ‘Uh, Eric. I think this is you.’…I barely slept that night…
* This Week’s Essays & Creative Non Fiction *
LGBTQI: Love is Love No Matter What Anyone Says
…one of the main goals of “growing up” is to become independent of one’s parents. In fact, this is probably your main purpose in life from the day you are born. … Many parents kick their children out of their homes when they express their independence in ways the parents cannot or choose not to accept.
Transgender Compromise: Do I get to be me or the me I get to be?
I fight transgender hate and ignorance in many ways. I have battled with the guys over transgender children’s health care, transgender athlete’s rights, and vicious statements in the media. In some cases, some of the guys admitted that they never really thought about it until that conversation.
My House: From Civil War Spy to Lesbian Collective
In the 2000s, I began to deconstruct my Bernal Heights home. In opening up the walls, I started to uncover the house’s history, leading me to an investigation into its owners and architectural evolution from the distant past to its purchase by my lesbian collective in 1980.
Growing Up Gay Stories From Gregory (RIP) My Husband
Interesting how different those stories can be: your life shared with all your family and friends, the life you share only with the special people in your life, and the life you never talk about to anyone else. The latter part dies with you when you die.
Adam (2019) — Is It Transphobic?
Adam is based on the 2014 novel of the same name by dyke comic book artist, Ariel Schrag. … These comics, with their determination to be honest about her experiences, led to work as part of the writing team for seasons three and four of that lesbian TV behemoth, The L Word. During her time writing for the show, Schrag shared the writers’ room with all lesbian writers, bar one. A straight, cisgender man named Adam Rapp.
Yes. Adam.
From Baby to Toddler Trans Woman!
I can hear you saying, “Don’t let other people define you, you can’t change how they feel or act, you can only control yourself”. And while yes, that is true, the fact that I am still put in the “man” role fills me with hopelessness that I will ever actually interact with the world the way I feel on the inside, the way I know myself to be.
Society’s Obsession With the Binary Is a Threat to All
Our obsession with social constructs and binary ways of thinking reflects our desire for simplicity and provides order in a wildly complex world. Gender roles, race, class, and measures of success are human-made categories that mold our understanding of reality, much to our detriment.
My Gay Romance with an Older Colleague: a Silver Fox and the Pet Shop Boys
It hit me like a whiskey shot on an empty stomach — sharp, burning, and impossible to ignore…You know the type — silver fox, corn-fed and chunky, with that unmistakable Midwest solidity, even though he’d been settled here for years. He always carried that Midwestern charm and swagger, the kind of guy who could stroll into a room and own it without even trying…My colleague filled him in…that I’d come out as gay and was living my best life with my partner…“Out of all the people he could’ve asked about, it’s interesting he asked about you.”…just like that, memories I hadn’t dusted off in over a decade came flooding back, like flipping through a forgotten photo album.
What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, Transgender or Not …
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
Is there an adult on the planet who gained majority without hearing this bastard hydra of a torture garden disguised as an innocent question?
Howling at the Lightning — My First Trip to the Gay Mecca Fire Island
A few hours later, I awoke in the darkness to riveting rumbles of thunder and brilliant flashes of lightning out the window. I just couldn’t resist this invitation from the universe. My headache gone, I ducked out of the house and rushed down to the shoreline.
All alone in the misty charcoal night, I took off all my clothes and danced wildly in the tide…
Q&A: Did You Have Dysphorias Before You Transitioned?
As the students listened to me tell my life story — a quick study of life events followed by an adventure through my gender times — I could see recognition on their faces and in their reactions. And their questions were rich…One student’s parents grew up in my hometown and attended my alma mater for college. Another student fled a trans-toxic state to attend this fine college way up here in our beautiful sanctuary that is Minnesota. One was vulnerable enough to share true emotion with me about feeling unseen and unsupported. Others had more questions. Some connections were deep and in an instant hugely meaningful to me. These connections give purpose to my work.
* Fiction Shorts*
The Gay Detective: A Covenant With Death
Ian had been as surprised as I was when we arrived Friday evening to find we’d be dining with a coven of Wiccans. In full regalia. Floral wreaths, flowing robes, crystal pendants. Booked in a day early for a ‘Daughters of Salem’ weekend retreat.
He Was a Polish King, I Was a Graduated Man Who Loved Him
One of the most important historical writers of Poland, Jan Długosz, was perhaps the first to associate the name of the king to homosexuality — but that in the context of his loss at Battle of Varna, in 1444, being caused by this “affliction”.
Some new studies point to a possible lover he might have had, Jan of Siennów.
* Fiction Series*
Her Witch, Her Demon
Finally, after hours and hours of pleasuring Meredith, Nyx took one look at the bliss on her lover’s face and knew that the witch had had enough.
Read Episode 18 & Episode 19
That’s it for this week!
Happy reading! Keep shining the love, and send your stories to Prism & Pen.
We need you all!
