Christine Stoddard

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

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.

Most of my friends are my age or slightly older and yet virtually none of them want children… ever. They argue that women deserve respect and autonomy over their bodies. I passionately agree. A few of these friends are, like me, engaged or married, but even they don’t want kids. One of my engaged friends says she and her fiancé may want to adopt children later in life, after they’ve had the chance to travel extensively.

I cringe when Kim Kardashian opens her pouty lips because I know the onslaught of vocal fry

[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.

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.

In art school, conversations about the merits of polyamory thrived, but hearing anyone express a genuine desire to get married almost never happened. It was almost taboo. The implication was, how could you want something so traditional? So suburban and unimaginative?

Plenty of Americans have names that don't convey their full cultural background because, at this point, so many of us are mixed up. How could our names possibly communicate all that we are? But when the time comes for an interracial, interethnic, international couple to name their child, they're often faced with a political decision.

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.

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.