David Minerva Clover

David Minerva Clover

Bio

David Minerva Clover is a queer and transgender writer, covering everything from parenting to why dinosaurs are awesome. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, New York Mag, The Establishment, and many other places. He lives in beautiful Detroit Michigan with his spouse, one child, and an embarrassment of animals. Check out his blog at Postnuclear Era or follow him on twitter at @dm_clover.

David Minerva Clover Articles

Most wild animals do not seem to over-breed in their earliest years of fertility, but cats absolutely will. The more that I learned, the more that I felt for these creatures put in a terrible position by irresponsible humans.

How Feminism Made Me Love Feral Cats

I believe in reproductive justice. I believe everyone deserves a say in how, when, and if, they choose to reproduce. I believe comprehensive sex education and access to safe and legal abortion are important parts of giving women, girls, and other people with uteruses full agency over their reproductive lives. Could we extend this to cats, too?

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Teeth are inseparable from class in this country. Image: Thinkstock.

How An Exploding Tooth Made Me Confront My Own Classism

Teeth are inseparable from class in this country. I have gotten by in life largely by being able to “pass” as middle class, by being white and articulate and confident. People meet me and assume that I must have gone to college. Middle class people talk to me like I’m their peer. But I am not their peer. I will never be their peer.

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It was like a part of myself woke up, but it was a part of myself that I was sure was dirty and wrong; a part of myself that I was sure I could squish down if I just tried hard enough.

I Just Have To Tell Someone About This Weird Thing I Do: On Discovering Masturbation

It was like how you might feel if you thought you were the only person who liked apples. Maybe everyone else just thought apples were for decoration, but you liked to eat them. And then one day you found someone else who also ate apples, and you got really excited about that! And then suddenly, it hit you… What if everybody secretly ate and enjoyed apples, only we were all too afraid to mention it?

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Yes, we should be criticizing these straight, cisgender dads. We’ve been far too easy on them for too long.

We're Too Easy On (Straight, Cisgender) Dads

Yes, we should be criticizing these straight, cisgender dads. We’ve been far too easy on them for too long. It’s straight out of the patriarchy playbook.

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It is hard in a way that you never imagined that a thing could be hard. It is IMPOSSIBLE.

Stop Saying 'It Can Be Difficult' — And Tell The Truth About Parenting

I think “It can be difficult” probably qualifies for the understatement of the century. There is just nothing in a phrase so casual and noncommittal that conveys anything like the reality of this labor of love. I’m not saying that we need to be all doom and gloom about parenting all the time — there are plenty of joys in parenting, and plenty of space to talk about those joys — but I do think that when we’re trying to talk about the hard parts, we should, you know, actually talk about the hard parts.

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When subtle homophobia meets the three of us out in public, it looks back and forth from face to face and eventually just asks, “So, whose kid?” Image: Thinkstock.

It's The Casual Homophobia That Hurts My Family Most

Despite our relative insulation from homophobia, my wife and I are not unaware of the situation. There are plenty of people in this country who don’t believe that we have the right to exist, to be married, or to raise a child together.

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I never expected to struggle like this.

Dancing On The Poverty Line: It Was Never Supposed To Be Like This

Back when we decided to have a baby together, we had a plan. She was never, ever going to have to work full-time. She was going to work part-time, and I was going to work part-time, selling dog food at that cute little store I used to work at. We would have one day off a week in common, and we would be broke, but we would get by. We would be tired, but we would be happy.

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For years, I fell into tropes popularized by the romantic comedy genre, without even realizing it. (Image: Thinkstock)

I Hate Romantic Comedies, So Why Do They Matter?

Here’s the thing though, hating romantic comedies, and avoiding them when I could, didn’t stop me from absorbing their all consuming messages about love, sex, and romance.

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Once I realized that I could embrace the parts of femme that I liked (lipstick! frilly skirts!) and reject the ones that didn’t work for me (shaving! heels!) things got a hell of a lot easier.

I'm A Queer Femme — And It Only Took Me 30 Years To Embrace It

Faced by the extreme pressure to conform to impossible beauty ideals, I followed my instincts (and my budding feminism) and rejected them wholesale. I wasn’t going to play like that; I wasn’t going to let my gender require that I wear makeup or perform a certain way.

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Nowadays, if I eat more than two slices of pizza in front of anyone other than my wife, things get weird.

It's Only Cute When Skinny Girls Eat Pizza

Thin women can overeat, and it is seen as a quirk, or a one-time indulgence they deserve, or even proof that they aren’t anorexic. Fat women though? We are expected to constantly prove that we’re doing our best to not be fat.

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