This is an email from The Digest, a newsletter by Prism & Pen.
Jan 2
Queer Coping for the Holidays
A week of Prism & Pen — January 2, 2022
by James Finn
Happy New Year! This week, P&P writers share holidays, with a tilt toward “coping as queer.” We’ve got news and personal stories from across the rainbow, a fiction treat from Chandler Myer, and Molly Martin shares why and how she self-published her latest book.
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Editor’s Picks —
Texas School Severely Punishes Latino Boy For Ponytail
Conservatives claim to love liberty, but when a trans kid showed up at a Texas school last August, administrators came down like a hammer, enforcing long-ignored hairstyle rules. They punished the trans kid plus 6 cis boys, forcing 3 out of school, including a Latino boy whose ponytail is part of his culture. Administrators wielded racism, sexism, and transphobia to destroy liberty.
Administrators stuck him in a small room with a few workbooks and occasional access to a teacher who was often mean to him. The only opportunity he had to socialize was on the school bus.
His grades plummeted and he was placed in a disciplinary school. Because he kept his ponytail, he lost the “privilege” of sitting at a desk.
My Mother Keeps Buying Me Homoerotic Novels
Roo and his mother communicate with novels, especially by queer author Christos Tsiolkas, whose works are transcendent and explicit.
We gay people know how straight sex works — it’s all over movies and popular culture. Some of us have even tried it. But acting on the sexual passion between two men still carries an element of taboo.
I always wondered about those friends who do have the kinds of relationships with their parents where they could open up about sex.
Ida’s Last Dance
When Chandler encountered “Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida,” he penned a story that perfectly captures the painting’s haunting beauty and pathos.
Ida pulls herself away from the mirror’s brutal honesty to look at the plain, white envelope sitting on her bureau. Sal dropped by earlier to give her this and one last kiss on the hand. He won’t be at the show tonight. He never sees a dancer’s final performance.
Memoir —
After My First Hit of Meth: 42nd Street was a Struggle
John’s theater career started to unravel when he tried meth. Before he hit bottom, he was an Actor/Singer/Dancer belting tunes and tapping his heart out:
When we broke the pose and made our way off the platform, I was still holding up my own performance, trying to be light and pleasant while my innards churned and my brain felt like it was sloshing around in motor oil.
I stood next to the show’s director and watched the principals begin their numbers. He crinkled his nose. “Oh, honey, you smell like booze and sweat.”
Essays and Creative Nonfiction —
How I Got My Book Published
I published a book in 1988 with a new edition in 1993. Hard Hatted Women: Life on the Job is an anthology by and about women in the construction trades and blue-collar jobs.
I had a publisher then, Seal Press, a woman-owned press that focused on women’s stories…
A Winter’s Tale: A Transgender Christmas Pt. 1
The cards I have by my pygmy Christmas tree are addressed to her, the sequined soul that has arrived in my life bearing armfuls of glitter and meaning.
These three Christmases form significant landmarks on my road to recovery and form a smooth and svelte upward curve thank the Blessed baby Jesus, charting the progression from rut to strut.
A Late-Transitioner’s Holiday Lament
I found the holidays this year particularly painful. Everyone was happy and we all get along so well. Everyone knows me as the man they have known for decades. I have known the 20- and 30-year-olds since they were babies. I feel like a social terrorist about to blow up this amazing family.
Lesbians Are Disgusting, Teaches Progressive Christian School in Florida
We LGBTQ people hurt when conservatives hate on us. We bleed when progressive ‘friends’ do it .
Students say faculty told them they canceled the dance over concerns young children might attend. [Administrators] say same-sex couples are not “appropriate subject matter” for children, including middle school students.
An Innocent’s Indoctrination Into the D.C. Gay Scene
I stood entranced. Several men dancing by themselves interested me, but I hadn’t the nerve or the talent to dance, so I stayed put and only eyed the candy. To walk up to a covetable man, a man I desired, a man who was, I was certain, more longed-for than me, then to put my hand out and say “Hi, I’m Alex,” was an impossible thing.
Gender Immigration
I am the grandchild of European immigrants. They came to the U.S. in the late 1890’s. I don’t know why they came other than to escape the bleakness that was their world.
I used to think I couldn’t imagine what it was like to part with their families and travel on a dangerous ocean journey to a new world without any expectation other than hope.
New Wave Ex-Gay Christian Leader Admits Frequent Sex with Men
A Christian ex-gay leader just admitted he’s had sex with multiple men. No surprise. Most Christian ex-gay leaders have admitted past change claims were baseless. Many have admitted they never stopped having same-gender sex. This scandal is surprising because it’s barely a scandal: This leader isn’t stepping down. What does “ex-gay” mean to him?
Trans and Bra Challenged
I looked her in the eye and said: “Do you offer bra fitting for transgender women?” She smiled sweetly and said: “Why of course we do.” I was ushered into a private dressing room. She asked me to take off my shirt…she was the first person to see my breasts.
My First Sexual Experience as a Queer Black Boy in Rural New Jersey
We lived a short fifteen-minute walk from each other and were the best of friends. It was the rural New Jersey countryside and our little town was sparsely peppered into a towering forest. When I knew he was coming over, I used to climb the roof to see if I could spot him traipsing up the road.
To Yeet or Keep the Teets?
If I could wave a non-TERFY wand and chant Teetus Deletus and be done with the useless overgrowths, I would, but as I’ve explored my gender and allowed myself to experience dysphoria, I’ve realized that something I want is to see what my body can do with a little boy juice.
Am I a Mansplainer?
After I started passing as male, I was forced to change how I interacted with others. I’ve always been opinionated, which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with my writing. I am also well-educated and hold two degrees, am well read, and am open-minded.
A Winter’s Tale: A Transgender Christmas Pt 2.
I’d woken delighted by this but the crows were gathering in me at the same time.
I’d two choices; either sit with the scum or go to the top table where the prudent and pragmatic were taking coffee with pinkies outstretched.
We Trans Women Are Tougher Than We Look
One of the sad things for transgender women is the general perception that we are wimps. It is so pervasive that we actually start believing that we actually are. Well, we are not!
Workplace Culture and the LGBTQIA+ Discrimination it Creates
Mandated webinars, training, or email memorandums are not going to stop people from discriminating and harassing LGBTQIA+ employees. It is not going to stop them from misgendering, refusing to use pronouns they do not understand or believe in, acknowledging someone’s new name, etc.
I’m a Trans Woman But I Function Best As a Man
I sort out disputes and my words get attention. And I am quite sure that it is because I know how a man of this age and position in life should speak. It’s not that it comes naturally. I’ve mastered this role so well that I’m buying it off myself again in the last few days.
Thirty-One Variations of Intersex!
After all these years searching for answers to why I never felt like a boy, I’m still learning new facts about human biology. It blows my mind that there are 31+ variations of intersex. There are so many people in the world feeling different, and most likely don’t know why. Or they do know and they are hiding this secret.
The Weight of Family
My mom is 73 and still has all her cognitive abilities. She lives in the house we all grew up in, and often takes in boarders, typically students from the local college. Sometimes international high school students. She knows up from down, left from right.
Yet she still manages to get in the little digs. The deadname. The use of “he” or “his” when referring to me with others, in my company.
2021 — Another Rough Year
Back at the end of that annus horribilis, the how much worse can it get year of 2020, I figured we had nowhere to go but up; things could only get better. And yet now, looking back over the past 12 months, I wonder.
I don’t remember doing much, if anything for last New Year’s Eve …
And those are our stories for the week, folks.Happy New Year from all of us.
Writers? Hit me up with prompt ideas? It’s time!
Jim
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