Christine Stoddard

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 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.

Before I became a haunted house performer, I thought having my face touched was one of the creepiest things imaginable. But it wasn't the eerie set music or the beheaded baby dolls that changed my definition of scary. It was what went on in the green room.

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?

In the weeks since Election Day, I’ve come to realize that while I’m entitled to my feelings, resenting the Latinx folks who voted for Trump is not a productive use of my time.

When you’re married to the only white man in your apartment building—and one of the very few in the neighborhood—you, as a woman, make a habit of observing him, especially if you’re a woman of color or a mixed race woman. “Will he use his social privilege for good or evil?” is the simple question, but evaluating him in those terms is not so simple.

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

Some people think that the size and budget of your wedding reflect how much love you and your partner have for each other: The bigger the wedding, the bigger the love. On the other hand, my father likes to joke, “The bigger the wedding, the bigger the divorce.”

Fielding off-putting questions and comments is a regular part of the mixed-race experience around the world. Yet this social phenomenon is especially common in places with a legacy of institutionalized and cultural racism. That includes the South.

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.