James Joyce’s Jailed Lesbian Editors, a Queer Black Poet, a P&P Filmmaker
Prism & Pen Weekly Digest, 4 May 2025
by
This week in Prism & Pen, several writers focus on the recent U.K. Supreme Court decision that threatens to push transgender people out of public life. P&P editor takes a hard look at how transphobic supporters of the decision are fighting to silence one prominent critic.
Queer history remains a focus this week as writers shine spotlights on celebrated artists, from a revered queer Black poet who’s finally back in print, to the radical queer women who fought to bring Ulysses to public attention — and who were convicted as criminals for their pains.
Newcomer has written my feel-good fav of the week with a touching essay about chosen queer family. And in ’s masterful hands, a spooky fiction short (with a pulled-from-the-headlines premise) feels all too possible.
Oh, and writes a review of an award-winning film … screenwritten and produced by P&P regular !
Find those stories and more just below.👇
In this weekly edition, you can read all P&P stories for free. If you join Medium, you’ll financially support P&P when you read.
Follow us on Medium, Facebook, Tumblr, Mastodon, and Bluesky!
* P&P Highlights *
Maggie Chapman and the Silence of Anti-Trans ‘Free Speech’ Warriors
In the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling on the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act, there haven’t been many politicians willing to speak up for trans people or our rights, rights that have just been removed by the highest court in the land.
One of the few who have is Green MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) Maggie Chapman, and she’s being made to pay for it. You see, in the UK, being “gender critical”, aka anti-trans, is protected free speech ... Calling out transphobia? Not so much …
Say the Thing: a Gay Youngster Asked To Call Me Dad and Changed Everything
The epiphany came when the quiet 24-year-old hugging me looked up with those big hazel eyes and said, “Can I call you Dad?”
Blue screen of death. Andy.exe has crashed.
This wasn’t the in-the-heat-of-the-moment “Daddy” or the teasing after buying someone dinner, “Oh, thanks Daddy!” But a genuine, from-the-heart, you-mean-something-more-to-me, “Dad.”
Cue the montage: childhood failures, family disappearances, cousins and aunts ghosting me like I was contagious. All of it, swirling behind his hazel eyes as the air just… vanished from my lungs.
Bugger Courage: How One Man’s Homophobia Almost Killed Ulysses
When people talk about the most important novel of the 20th century, James Joyce’s Ulysses is at the top of the list …
Joyce had trouble getting anyone to print Ulysses. But the novel’s biggest threat didn’t come from censorship alone — it also came from one of Joyce’s own supporters: a lawyer named John Quinn, whose homophobia became a significant obstacle in the book’s journey to publication.
American avant-garde literary magazine The Little Review serialized episodes of Ulysses. Founded and edited by two politically radical lesbians, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap … But the risk caught up with them. In 1920 … Anderson and Heap were arrested for violating the Comstock Act …
For Years To Come: LGBTQ+ Film Review
I’m looking for a film that embraces the full humanness of the experience, from the sublime to the ridiculous, with humor and respect. For Years To Come is that film.
I’m not alone in my opinion. For Years To Come is an award-winning LGBTQI short film, written and produced by James Patrick Nelson, who also played the lead …
Nelson has a rare ability to convey layers of emotion with a tiny twitch of his lips, the rhythm of how he blinks, a barely perceptible tensing of his shoulders, a small shift in position. It’s simultaneously subtle and unmistakable …
How Excluding Trans Women From Women’s Spaces Is About Control
Many of the debates about transgender women in women’s spaces revolve around a narrative: that our presence somehow compromises the safety and privacy of cis women. It’s a claim unsupported by anything more than hearsay and — frankly — overactive imagination.
Victimization in public restrooms is rare in general. But research shows that transgender people are four times more likely to be harassed or assaulted. Many avoid using restrooms in public altogether, for fear of being denied access or harassed. Some suffered health-related consequences of not having access to a restroom when needed.
Essex Hemphill and the Radical Power of Black Queer Love
Born in Chicago in 1957 and raised in Washington, D.C., Hemphill was a major figure of the Black LGBTQ+ arts movement of the 1980s. His best-known work, Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry (1992), fearlessly interrogates internalized homophobia and racism in Black communities, as well as the ungraspable loss of HIV/AIDS.
But for all of its inventiveness, Ceremonies has been out of print for most of the 21st century.
Fortunately, in March of this year, New Directions re-released Ceremonies along with unpublished work that demonstrates Hemphill’s daunting talent and queer social vision.
I Love Saying the Word “Husband”
Mike and I were married on April 30, 2005. As marriage wasn’t legal in Colorado at the time, we called it “A loving act of civil disobedience”.
As times changed and as we realized we wanted to be legally married, we drove to San Diego in February of 2014 and had a legal marriage ceremony performed.
I have loved calling him my husband these past 20 years.
Queer, Anxious, and Always on High Alert: The Cost of Growing Up Different
I was eleven when a teacher’s hand landed heavily on my shoulder. “Stop moving like that,” she said, not unkindly. I hadn’t realized I was moving any particular way at all. But something in my walk, my gestures, my very being in space had registered as wrong. I didn’t know what “gay” meant yet, but my body was already being read as such, already being corrected.
My nervous system came out long before I did.
While other kids lived in their bodies, I observed mine from a distance — monitoring, adjusting, performing an acceptable version of myself.
How Gender Influences Body Image: The Viral “Olly Murs” Case Study
Immediately, my first thought, as a gay man, when I saw these pictures was: “Oh well, I prefer the “before” one, but good for him!” Fast-forward to five seconds later when I scrolled down to see the comments and everyone and their mother was validating my preference.
It’s not like I was shocked by it to be honest, but I was not expecting this many people “agreeing” with me on this one.
So far, so good, but then I saw that another account had posted a poll on another thread, asking people to vote which of the two body types they found more attractive based on their gender.
* Fiction Feature *
Everyone in Town Forgot My Gay Boyfriend, Erased by ‘Therapy’
She didn’t recognize me at all, so I introduced myself. “I’m Nic Henning.”
She still looked confused.
“I was the one dating your son when you… You know…”
“I don’t have a son.”
God, I hated her so much. Out of all the things she could’ve said, she’d chosen the absolute worst. “Seriously?” I shouted. “You’re just gonna pretend that he never existed? Fuck!” I didn’t normally talk like that. In fact, I never did.
She backed away, scared.
* This Week’s Essays & Creative Non Fiction *
Anti-Gay Conversion Therapy Pushed by Meta AI
It has recently come to light that Meta — the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — has shifted even further to the extreme, positioning itself with anti-LGBTQ+ policies to lobby with the Trump administration. In a concerning uncovering by GLAAD, it was discovered that Meta AI has been recommending and promoting conversion therapy to queer users who interact with its products.
RFK’s National Registry of Autism = New Nazi Nuremberg Laws
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced that he plans to launch a National Autism Registry using Americans’ private health records. While I am no lawyer, I don’t even want to try to get into the amount of HIPPA violations that would cause. This is beyond alarming as yet again Trump and his corrupt administration are trying to mirror what was done in Nazi Germany.
How long before the federal government emulates Texas with its registries of transgender people?
Will Trump Pardon Gay Former Congressman George Santos?
Now, 18 months after being expelled from the House of Representatives, Santos is paying the ultimate price for his crimes, having been convicted on federal charges and sentenced to 87 months (more than seven years) in prison.
It should seem ironic that a devotee of the president who so often bellyaches about “election integrity” has earned himself a lengthy stretch behind bars for election-related wire fraud and identity theft.
Biological Sex: A Lie Dressed as Science
They say biological sex is fixed — that it follows us from birth like a curse or a blessing. That it’s natural, objective, impossible to question. But I ask: where does this divine certainty come from? Who decided that something as complex as the body can be reduced to a binary label?
The truth is, the concept of “biological sex” is not ancient. It’s not universal. It’s not neutral. It was born out of the need to justify inequality — to fix differences and create hierarchies.
The Moments of Realisation: Quiet Truths From My Childhood
Some moments stay with us, not because they were loud or dramatic, but because they quietly changed something deep within us. This piece is about those early flickers of realisation. The ones I never said out loud, but that shaped how I saw myself long before I had the words.
I remember being as young as eight, lying in bed at night, hands tucked under the pillow, whispering silent prayers. Praying to wake up as a boy. Thinking, maybe just maybe, that would make everything make sense. That it would make me make sense.
A Texas Drag Tribute to a Country Music Diva
No female country singer had stretched the limits of country music as far as Miranda Lambert did with “Kerosene.”
“Ain’t a rule that ain’t worth breakin’” she rasps into the camera in the song’s riveting video. In midriff-revealing, low-rise jeans and tight T, she takes a wide stance and snarls, shaking her long, blonde, disheveled hair, pumping an electric guitar like a streetwise punk rocker. She struts, spilling a trail of gasoline on the ground and ultimately sets a fire to exact revenge on her cheating man.
“I’ve given up on love,” she wails, “ ’cause love’s given up on me.”
Who among us hasn’t felt that sentiment?
“Say the Thing”: When Family Loves You Wrong
The J.K. Rowlings of the world can, on one hand, create inclusive worlds full of magic — and on the other hand, spew hateful, damaging nonsense that stings you to the core.
The difference is, I’m not going to accidentally call J.K. Rowling on my childhood landline and hear her voice on the other end. …and if I do, she’s getting a piece of my mind…
She’s not immediate. She’s not family.
And when the people who dismiss, belittle, or outright condemn your truth are your family… well, how now, brown cow?
Is ‘Big Eden’ a Unique, Feel-Good Gay Movie or an Unrealistic Utopia?
I craved stories about lowbrow gays, the more “boring” ones who weren’t fixated on labels, hedonism and the pulsating undercurrents of ageism anxiety. Video store browsing brought films like Latter Days (2003) and Loggerheads (2005) into my life, but it was my discovery of Big Eden (2000) that threw my brain for a loop, again and again.
Indeed, ask around — there are violently different opinions on Big Eden. Some loathe it and find it slow. Some say it’s a nice idea, but too sweet or unrealistic for its own good, maybe hovering into dreaded Hallmark movie territory. (You know what I mean). Others praise the unique approach.
When Hatred Becomes Strategy: The Transgender Pawns of the Culture War
You don’t have to look far to see how vulnerable groups are manipulated to serve interests far beyond their suffering. Across the world, culture wars are igniting, fed by a growing need to polarize, fragment, and distract. In the chess game of the culture war, trans people have been chosen as perfect pawns. Easy to target, misunderstood by many, and few in number, they are the ideal scapegoats for deeper political games.
Keir Starmer and the Great Trans Flip-Flop
For a while, Labour were supportive of trans people both under leaders Jeremy Corbyn and (for a time) Keir Starmer. Starmer actually for a long time said he was a supporter of allowing trans people to self-identify and getting rid of the outdated gender recognition forms we have in place currently.
Now, it is quite a different story, and he has moved firmly to the right on this issue. He just came out in favour of the recent Supreme Court ruling that trans women are not considered women under the Equality Act. Even before this, he had clearly moved to a much more transphobic place …
Queer Hustle: 25 Years of Online Selling, Capitalism, and Staying Afloat
When you’re queer — when you’re visibly trans, when your voice on the phone or your name on a package might spark rejection or danger — traditional jobs don’t always offer safety, or even access. Side hustles weren’t about side income. They were about survival.
Over the last 25 years, I’ve sold everything from comic books to cookware on platforms like eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Mercari, and Poshmark. Some helped me scrape by. Others felt like slow erosion. But in every shift, I had to ask not just “Will this sell?” but “Will this space see me as human?”
Two Sexes and Only One God. Man’s Endless Arrogance.
I hate arrogance and ignorance. We seem to be drowning in both right now.
The worst are the religious zealots. They accept no challenges to their religious beliefs. They define good, evil, and God for their followers and then for the rest of the world.
Another group that angers me are gender bigots. They define gender with a fanatic militancy. They try to trivialize the human concept of gender to simple physical sex.
The LGBTQIA+ Community Must Be Strong (AGAIN) During These Dark Times
During our times, attacks on the LGBTQIA community, I call them the Battles for the Rainbow, have been going on for a long time. Our newly gained rights (and some others would even argue if they are rights) are again being threatened, taken away, erased. Once again, the LGBTQIA+ community is being discriminated against, oppressed, erased. This time it is not by individual people, organized religion but the entire U.S. government seems to be a threat!
Trans Resurrection
Today is always a difficult holiday for me.
Today, I am thinking about resurrection.
But mostly I am thinking about death.
You must understand that trans people do not have a normal relationship with death.
We dance with it, skate the razor’s edge of life, and understand so much more for it.
Does Neurodivergence Explain Gender Diversity in Young People?
The Cass Review was not only dismissive of trans identities, but it infantilised autistic people, suggesting we don’t know our own minds until our 20s.
Now that leaked guidance for gender clinics has caught up with Cass’s recommendations, all children under their care will be screened for autism and ADHD… Even more worrying is that children will be screened for “same-sex attraction”, a term that doesn’t fit in the world of gender diverse young people.
Transphobia Affects Trans People Too
Transphobia is a form of bigotry that is focused exclusively on trans people. Yes, cis women can suffer as a result of transphobia, but they are not the primary targets…
Transphobia has been on the rise massively across both the US and UK in recent years, with political leaders and the media being united on the issue of stirring up anti-trans hate. When you have people with such levels of influence talking about trans people in this way, the inevitable result of it is that trans people will suffer.
That’s it for this week!
Courage to all of you! Keep resisting, reading, shining your love, and sending your stories to Prism & Pen.
We need you all!
