Anonymous

This support my gender-fluid child receives at school means so much to my family, but the ripple effects of what the children will learn will go far.

I’ve shared my struggles in navigating when your kid is struggling with their sexuality, at the end of the day, this is my daughter’s story.

... the last thing I want to do is open my legs for a man to penetrate me. Or to pleasure a man with any part of my body. Even if that man is my loving fiancé, who does listen, who does understand (as best he can), who does respect me through this ongoing turmoil. It is all too symbolic of the lifetime I have already experienced of being fucked and then told to smile and politely ask for more.

I start each day by drawing two cards for guidance, and then further consulting the deck. Last fall, tarot cards saved my life.

That’s part of the problem, I think. I keep waiting for my sexual partners to figure out how to bring me to orgasm.

The sad thing is, it took someone almost destroying me to make me open my eyes to the extent of what happens when we talk not about a culture of consent, but about temptation and defense instead.

While I may not get flowers on Mother’s Day, I live with the daily responsibilities that go along with the adulting of parenthood as a full-time caregiver.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.

Anorexia is not what you think. Warning: Triggering pictures included.

I had grown to learn that fighting=love. I was dead wrong.