I pinballed between circles of lesbians but settled nowhere. Gorgeous women were everywhere but always out of reach in San Francisco’s mesmerizing haze.
With reproductive rights under threat in the US, I returned to an artist unafraid of telling her truth.
Lunch-packing videos have shown me that, regardless of your age or your body size or how big of a breakfast you had, we all deserve to eat.
Maybe I was tired of hiding and being afraid. Maybe I was just overheating and my nipples were starting to chafe. Maybe it was all or none of the above.
I needed her to tell me that it was okay to doubt, to yearn, for the lyrics in our headphones to mean something sacred—with or without God.
David Wojnarowicz captured the chaos of living as a gay man in the 1980s and early 1990s with HIV overshadowing everything we did and felt.
I’m embracing the label, with all its yearning, try-hard connotations, because desire shouldn’t be embarrassing and love does require trying hard.
When Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, I found myself asking: What pleasures are permissible during wartime?
Make me thin, I told God. Make me pretty. I added to the list: Make me Annie.
Letty Ortiz reflects back the best of our hero’s characteristics with fewer of the hang-ups.