Christine Stoddard

I tapped the razor on the side of the sink and inspected my smooth legs for any missed spots. Then I rinsed the blade, washed my hands, and put on my outfit: a long-sleeved black top, a knee-length denim skirt, tall black boots, and a silver dragon necklace for good measure.

Indigenous people throughout the world already face so many challenges; they don’t need non-Indigenous people appropriating their cultures and championing family lore as fact. The genocide of Indigenous people is an ongoing travesty throughout the world

I eventually began to accept that truly being a feminist means embracing the idea of “my body, my choice” in all its incarnations. If I truly believe that women have the right to accessible birth control, the right to safe abortions, the right to consent to sex, and the right to make any decision regarding their own body, it also means I should believe women have the right to decide to never, ever have sex. There are two things that made it hard for me to come to that realization: virgin-shaming and purity culture.

The moon sauntered out from a curtain of clouds, whispering, “All things must end.”

[CN: mention of intimate partner violence] Patsy Cline sang with such a beautiful range of emotion because she had experienced so many ups and downs in her own life.

Looking back at childhood photos now is bittersweet. In the moment the camera caught, I'm always smiling, but I wasn't always a happy child. I was fat-shamed almost daily.

Drag queens, like Lady Bunny, teach outsiders to embrace ourselves and to embrace others. That means doing more than demonstrating tolerance.

I scrolled through my Instagram feed to catch a photo of a friend’s first tattoo. It was an abstract design that paid homage to her wedding venue, a distinctive historic site in her home state. The tattoo seemed sweet at first, but then I read the photo caption. My friend had gotten inked to honor the child she lost in miscarriage.

I was shivering and sweating. What if the procedure didn't work? What if I had serious complications? What if I had to come back?

Black—the whispered word in educated, politically correct, upper middle class society.