Many of us, queer or not, have never been asked who we are…

Fu’s approachable storytelling is pitch perfect. She hits all the notes. 

My beef isn’t with the author, it’s with Publishing.

The tools we carry in our toolbelt can help us survive the machinery of society that churns its violent denial of our unique and shared humanities. With them, we might even thrive.

Dear Maggie Nelson,

I am grateful for what I imagine to be your endurance through the process of obtaining a Ph.D. so that you could command the audience to prove that a book does not have to be spoon-fed narrative pablum to be richly satisfying and saturated with the truths of the human condition, to inspire innovation and reinforce lesser-expressed ways of being that transcend the status quo and imagine a more liberated future.

Can we know The Garden of Eden for its queerness? Written by a queer man in a time that would not affirm him? 

Spoiler alert: spinning thought sculptures out of words in an unconventional way isn’t a reliable way to get paid.

In Fairest, Meredith Talusan reveals the nuances in the decisions we all make to meet our needs for belonging to ourselves and others.

What a strange book to stumble across in such a moment of existential anxiety when it seems so many people believe knowing all the dangers Orwell warned us about could inoculate us from them.

Ultimately a plea for a more compassionate world, Joynt’s efforts acknowledge the way the technology of a  racialized power structure grinds up objectified individuals in its machinery, but also reveals the complexity in how even those who so-called benefit from that automation are also harmed.

Historic depictions like Queer (and the movie Capote I rewatched two weeks ago)  can be useful in recognizing how far we’ve come toward liberation.

As I watch my body reach for my phone over and over before I remember I’m not doing that anymore, and like a gift basket from The Universe, Dean Spade’s Love in a F*cked Up World arrives in my hands. 

The change I want to see in the world must happen inside of myself first.

What I really needed was a break. A break from trying to get it right, a break from striving, a break from the ridiculousness of the 21st century, a bestie to not brightside my shitty fucking day. 

Piepzna-Samarasinha’s thought-provoking work can help us to excavate any rugged (toxic) individualism we may have adopted, and rebuild our brains with collective care in mind. 

Anyone who has been rode hard and put away wet by the patriarchy will resonate with Carol Odell’s page-turner now available on preorder from bookshop.org. (Girl, Groomed by Carol Odell, LICSW) 

For those among us gasping for air these past few weeks, Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs  is a perfect companion to this moment. If you have not yet heard of it, please add to cart. Preferably from an indie bookstore.

Orange’s assembly of Native characters in present day Oakland looking for themselves and one another in an undeniably absurd world paints the picture of our unreckoned truth. 

I’m adding “NECESSARY” to the badges this paperback wears on its cover. 

Between Queers, this book is a necessary cathartic cry with a friend who gets it. Comforting. Loving. A cool drink of water or a cup of hot tea. Being seen. 

While the question is not directly asked in the text, multiple disappointments and betrayals are on display, and I pictured Orlando entertaining a question many trans people have asked themselves: “If this implicit gender performance I’ve been providing does not serve my happiness, why not just be myself?”