​Somehow … Glee has returned.

​It’s the biggest recession indicator since any-size-drink-for-55-cent deals and a hundred different ways to lose next month’s rent on sports betting from the comfort of your own home. It’s an opportunity for a brand-new generation of fearfully closeted queer kids and improbably straight thespians to suffer the unique brand of woke bigotry that makes Ryan Murphy one of the richest producers in Hollywood. It’s the last horseman of the apocalypse before the rapture. It’s the ominous graffiti in a video game where the world has been wiped out via plague. Everyone, this is the Bad Place.

​I struggle to even imagine that beautiful, blissful oblivion where anyone unaware of Glee must reside. In the 2010s, Glee occupied a place in the collective consciousness that is difficult to draw comparison; the world is so much bigger now, everything stratified, punching through cyberspace at speeds discernable only to the average middle schooler. It’s sort of like when your mom talks about how there were only five channels on T.V., and everyone saw the finale of Seinfeld and listened to the national anthem at midnight before static fuzz took over. Everyone knew about Glee, whether they were actively tuning in or not. The show was a behemoth of musical performances and petty interpersonal conflicts with impossibly life-or-death stakes — a blackly satirical, profoundly politically incorrect comedy, carrying on the proud tradition of Mean Girls’ no-holds-barred high school setting with an added dose of competitive cruelty that’s largely non-existent outside of musical theater. In six seasons, Glee featured over 700 show choir renditions of both popular and obscure songs, but its jukebox premise gained cultural permanence with a series-long commitment to diversity that was previously unheard of on primetime television. Glee’s storylines included LGBTQ+ characters, teenage pregnancy, mental health, domestic and sexual abuse, school violence, ethnic inequality, and physical disabilities — just to name a few. From 2009 to 2015, the show earned dozens of awards and accolades, shattered viewing numbers, outpaced most other fanbases in sheer volume of social media activity, and even haunted the zeitgeist well after its conclusion: the trope of a cutthroat show choir group inappropriately devolving into song — as well as occasional emotional breakdowns — has been a Hollywood running gag ever since, cropping up in shows from Community and The Simpsons to Sesame Street.

​Based on mere premise alone, Glee hardly holds a candle in terms of controversy to more current releases like Sam Levinson’s heinously oversexed Euphoria or Sam Levinson’s other, heinously oversexed The Idol. But, much like Glee itself, the issues surrounding the show are somewhat of a time capsule: inconceivable as long as we view them from the lofty moral position of 2026.

​Instead, we all must recollect — back to that familiar dog-eat-dog environment of American high schools, never quite as dramatic as Hollywood wants it to be, with bleakly glamorous drug lords and trashed McMansions from coked-up parties, yet still cutthroat in its own right, in a far more mundane way: mental health crises, college test scores, sexual violence, predatory teachers. Add the aggressively hormonal, obsessively neurotic cult that is music theater, boiling over with the kind of drama that only repressed choir kids could come up with, threesomes and inter-friend-group dating, eating disorders and Adderall overdoses, and overachievers sabotaging their way to Julliard. Then you top the whole thing off with a producer more interested in shock value than tasteful storytelling, a narrative inability to resolve conflicts without musical numbers, a cast that is overwhelmingly just the richer, more entitled version of the characters they’re portraying, and an overinflated Hollywood budget backed by vicious Hollywood lawyers. Serve hot.

From this perspective, Glee’s biggest issues were apparent even from the very beginning. As a showrunner, Ryan Murphy has received accusations throughout his career of favoring spectacle over sensitivity — but this criticism just didn’t hit the same in the 2010s, where the biggest hurdle for representation was its lack of existence. There just weren’t enough openly gay characters on television for the finer points of Murphy’s LGBTQ+ characters to warrant much scrutiny, which meant the fact that Murphy played up certain stereotypes or used harmful language flew largely under the radar. Most hot-button social issues featured on the show received similar treatment, from mental health crises to racial and ethnic violence.

Additionally, because of Glee’s premise, almost all major conflict resolutions on the show featured some kind of musical performance. Once again, this was far more tonally acceptable in the Obama era, where life was better even if it wasn’t good — from less political and economic division to a growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities that would lead to the federal legalization of gay marriage in 2015. It’s reductive at best — and propagandizing at worst — to believe that we’ve exclusively devolved since then, but the fact is that as a collective, we were much more optimistic. These days, though, there’s not many audiences who would feel warm and fuzzy at the sight of a MAGA Trump supporter and an Antifa activist holding hands and singing a Beatles song. The star-studded Imagine debacle during Covid proved that much.

If Glee’s reboot is a carbon copy of the original, it’s unlikely to survive very long in the current political and cultural landscape. But evolving the show to a more palatable version may not be so simple. In the years after Glee, Ryan Murphy’s repertoire has demonstrated very little deviation from his signature style. American Horror Story is known primarily for being a stomach-churning shock fest; Scream Queens is a campy, critically unimpressive satire that doesn’t hold back when it comes to the skeletons of sorority life. To succeed with Glee’s return, Ryan Murphy can’t just rely on scaling-up the diversity to accommodate audiences who are far more used to seeing a gay character here, a Black character there. But if Murphy does include, for example, a transmasculine character who is actively, medically transitioning, then he will have to do so with a degree of sensitivity and responsibility that the original Glee lacked — and that his remaining body of work has failed to achieve.

Moreover, the presence of politics is something that Murphy will not be able to ignore. In 2026, it’s impossible to write a bigoted, politically incorrect character like the iconic Sue Sylvester without the implication that she is a Trump supporter. Conflict motivated by race, religion, ethnicity, or immigration status is unavoidable in the new Glee, but the average audience will no longer be comforted by the fantasy that these things are solvable through a musical performance. It’s equally discomforting to imagine a painfully white remix of Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us as an appeal to these modern discourses — even worse to speculate upon the neoliberal horrors that Ryan Murphy can invoke with access to the entire Hamilton soundtrack.

Like many iconic pieces of past media, Glee’s success was tied inextricably to the intersection of politics, culture, and technology where it resided. Excavated from that, and reintroduced to a hostile environment — and it’s far more likely that the Glee reboot will be eaten alive.

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About the Author

Elliott Robinson is a queer author, journalist, poet, and teacher located in central Indiana. He received a B.A. in English from Butler University, which is where he first encountered Matthew’s Place, and his work has been published in the Butler Collegian as well as in several editions of Manuscripts Literary Magazine. Elliott is extremely passionate about LGBTQ+ advocacy and volunteer work, and he strives to use his talents as a writer and educator for the betterment of his community.

Return of the ‘Gleek’ was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve been thinking a lot about hope lately. It’s hard to find sometimes, and then when I do find it, it’s easy for it to slip away in one of so many different ways. There’s the obvious ones, like a new catastrophe on the news or a new threat to our communities. (Worth noting here: trans rights are on the ballot in many states next week; meanwhile, genocide is ongoing in Palestine despite the supposed ceasefire. There are so many battles to fight.)

Then there’s the less concrete ways that hope feels tenuous: it can feel risky to have it, or even wrong. Risky because these are dangerous times; what if we get complacent and then get hurt? And wrong because, well, look around: who are we to have hope? But we cannot end the conversation there.

To be sure, we all carry a responsibility to do more, love more, fight harder, get justice. We must. But we mustn’t wait for the perfect liberation to come before we seek it for ourselves. That’s something I’ve learned in growing up as a trans girl, scared, and trying to become a trans woman, loved and loving and still scared but also hopeful, nonetheless.

There are a lot of reasons to feel and live and move this way — to try, at least. There are too many reasons to write them all, but I’d like to give you some, and so here is how I will:

Recently, I was blessed to be in a room with one of my favorite poets, Franny Choi. She was at the Odyssey Bookstop here in Western Massachusetts, reading from her new essay collection, We Radiant Things. I purchased the gorgeous, powerful book at her event, and was soon enchanted by the form which one of its essays took. The essay was called “Notes Toward an Essay on The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi,” and it was just that: a list of notes, not formed into traditional essay prose but made an essay of their own. Here, I’ll take inspiration from Choi’s approach — allowing this collection of ideas to be the essay it needs to be, as is. May this be a guidebook, a starting point, or merely a moment of light. From my reading and writing and listening of late, here are some Notes Toward an Essay on Hope.

• Hopelessness can feel noble. I see the pain of people I love near and far and think, “the only right way to go forward is to scream.” And indeed, we must strategically organize ourselves in ways that demand our screaming out for justice. But that is not all we must do. When I find myself slipping into thinking driven by self-absorbed guilt about white and settler privilege, internalized transmisogyny, a certain Gen Z nihilism, or some other deceivingly self-centered, unproductive force, I try and remember a few of the words that guide me strongest: “We must model the liberation we are seeking.” Raquel Willis said this, also at the Odyssey Bookshop, a few years ago. She was in conversation with my mentor and constant inspiration, Kijua Sanders-McMurtry. And she gave me, gave all of us there that day, a gift. She showed us what hope means for liberation — how it makes itself possible. If we are to hope for a world more hopeful, we must simply begin.
• To return for a moment to this essay’s formal inspiration, Franny Choi offers a gift, also, in her literatures of utopian dystopia (or perhaps the inverse). Her poetry collection The World Keeps Ending and the World Goes On is a window into the kinds of futurity that might be forged from hopeless times. I urge you to pick up a copy along with her new essay collection, or check the poems out from your library. These poems are quite heavy, and may not inspire hope directly, but I have found that they help me process the pain all around us and see it for what it is. There is a kind of hope in that sense of understanding. There are also hopeful moments in poems like “Coalitional Cento” and “Dispatches from a Future Great-Great-Granddaughter.”

A couple further highlights:

• In the epigraph to Part II of the book, Choi quotes Grace M. Cho, who teaches us something important about the impulse to find a new sense of despair each day: “This sense of impending catastrophe is an illusion, however, because the trauma never quite arrives. It never arrives because it has already happened.”
• In “Dispatches from a Future Great-Great-Granddaughter,” Choi writes in closing: “Dear Great-Great-Grandsomeone, // Under a graphless sky, I’m writing to say: thank you for healing / what you could; for passing down what you couldn’t. // I’m plentituding what I can; what I can’t, I let tunnel me / like roughage, like a “bullet,” like a slur I won’t daycare. // What you gave me isn’t wisdom, and I have no wisdom in return, / just handfuls of lifestock: Every day, a sky is. // Miles are. We sing, entangled, and the root-world answers, / and together we’re making. Something of it / Something // of all those questions you left.”

These are words to dream by.

• My favorite essay is the titular piece in Kai Cheng Thom’s collection, I Hope We Choose Love. In her essay of the same name, Thom lays out a vision for “loving justice.” She, too, takes up the form of a list, noting certain hopes and needs for the world she imagines.
• The list, and the essay with it, ends as follows: “we must love ourselves. we must encourage love — love that is radical, love that digs deep. love that asks the hard questions, that is ready to listen to the whole story and keep loving anyway. love for the survivors, love for the perpetrators, love for the survivors who have perpetrated and the perpetrators who have survived. love for the community that has failed us all. we live in poison. the planet is dying. we can choose to consume each other or we can choose love. even in the midst of despair, there is always a choice. i hope we choose love.”

These are also words to dream by.

• Lately, I’ve been experiencing dissonant relationships with the punitive, dominant kinds of (in)justice against which Thom is writing here. I’m seeing people I care about discard others far too lightly, unable to hold love for people who cause harm. And at once, I have been finding myself more and more drawn to repair, to nuance, to holding each other in this world of poison. In this rift, there is hopelessness and hope alike. I choose to believe, though, that Thom’s aspirations will come into being one relationship and one move to repair at a time. May we begin to forge the community we all need, for and with one another.
• Alongside Thom, Audre Lorde is one of my strongest guiding lights in the dark of our world. To read her poem “A Litany for Survival” continues to remind me why and how we keep fighting, loving, and being. If you have never read it, please do. If you have, it’s always a good time to read it again.

Always: It is better to speak.

• Over the course of writing this essay, I traveled to and from Ridgewood, Queens, a haven of trans culture and arts in New York City. I was there seeing friends and for a concert, the debut album release show of a band I love, Tommy Lefroy. This ended up being among the most beautiful live music I’ve ever been a part of, in large part due to the poetic, lyrical resonance between their music and the themes of this essay. The band is not made up of a man named Tommy, but rather two women, Wynter and Tessa. As young women grappling with disaster capitalism, war, and genocide, the two songwriters and I share a lot in common. I am working on a whole separate essay unpacking their work and its impact on my sense of hope, but here, I just want to offer a couple moving lyrics, and an invitation for you to go listen. Much of this writing was done with the title track, “The Precariat,” on loop in my earbuds.

Lyrics:

• From “Turbulence Over Canada”: “There is a moment / Quickly closing / Still overflowing / Unencumbered by anything / That was close enough / God-willed, glimpse of us”
• From “God Made Michigan”: “I’ll be a good friend / If I am the last thing standing at the end / Take whatever you can, I won’t flinch / I’ll bear my resemblance too / I can’t get it out of my head / All the people I chose / Just because they reminded me of you”
• From “Vacuum”: “I had nothing / Then I found you”

Resonance from a prior EP:

• From “Disbelief”: “Sometimes / As an exercise, I think / ‘Everything is gonna be alright’ / Sometimes / I can hang my disbelief / With the sheets on the laundry line / Leave it out overnight to dry / Sometimes”

And finally, words from the album release notes:

• “Thank you for being here, this means it’s not too late.”

I say the same to you, dear reader.

• While most of these notes have taken up art and media created by others, one of the most essential factors in my renewed sense of hope lately has come in the form of conversation, alongside some art I’ve made inspired by it. My dear friend Liliana is so often the person I turn to when in the throes of existential concern. AI apocalypse in the news again? Call Liliana. Politics scaring me? Talk it through with Liliana. Looking for joy and love in the face of despair? Have dinner, or watch a sunset, or just be somewhere together, with Liliana. This is friendship, and friendship is so much of the way forward as I see it.
• To remember and embody the possibility which friendship holds, to bring it with me as I move through the world, I have been making more art. The title image for this piece showed you a linocut print I made, based on a cherished photo of a cherished moment — Liliana and I on a hill, watching a sunset. My happy place. Below is an image of the many misprints, works-in-progress, and half-way points in my process. In a way, these creations feel even more resonant than the final product. As representations of art in the making, they embody possibility: the knowing that what we have is beautiful, that what we’re working toward is even moreso, and that these in-between moments along the path toward liberation — perhaps they are the most beautiful of all.

• Finally, a reminder: none of these words are meant as license to get complacent. They are license only to fight harder, from a deeper place which is made possible only if we invest in ourselves, our communities, our love, our hope: our possibility effervescent and forever.
• And finally, one more: I really do hope we choose love.

About the Author

Lily Elle Rood is a poet, essayist, and organizer based in Western Massachusetts. Her poetry can be found in Luna Luna Magazine, slips slips, and electric pink. As an activist and public speaker, Lily’s voice has been heard from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and outside the U.S. Supreme Court. She loves spending time with her Memere and cooking meals for chosen family. Read more of Lily’s work at bit.ly/lilyelle.

Notes Toward an Essay on Hope was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Title IX” mentioned, but what is it actually? “Title IX” is a federal civil rights law that is part of the 1972 Education Amendments. Specifically, Title IX relates to protections from sex-based discrimination within educational settings. This includes athletics, as well as education. Title IX covers all aspects of education in the United States, so long as the educational institution receives any kind of federal funding. This includes K–12 schools, as well as colleges and universities. Title IX focuses on ensuring gender equality for students in schools in all areas of study and extracurriculars. This means that there is equal access to athletic programs, opportunities, and equipment, as well as equal access to all areas of education, including technology. Title IX also protects students from sexual harassment and misconduct and requires that schools investigate any reports of assault, violence, harassment, or other misconduct.

One of the challenges of Title IX is that presidential administrations can shift the functionality of Title IX. Title IX began in the 1970s to ensure equal access for girls and women in sports. The scope of Title IX has expanded over the decades to offer additional educational protections. For example, during President Obama’s terms in office, his administration expanded protections to include sexual assault under Title IX.

LGBTQ+ Students and Title IX

In 2024, the Biden administration explicitly extended sex-discrimination protections under Title IX to specifically include sexual orientation and gender identity. This allowed for expanded protection of LGBTQ+ students in K–12 schools, as well as at colleges across the country. This marked a significant and positive step toward protecting LGBTQ+ students of all ages, including those attending colleges and universities. Unfortunately, this year, as part of the current administration’s organized efforts to dismantle protections for LGBTQ+ people, the expansion of Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity was dismantled limiting protections for LGBTQ+ people. Title IX now includes only a very narrow definition of sex, based on transphobia and biological essentialism, that excludes transgender people. This is part of a broader narrowing of Title IX protections, including limiting the ways that sexual assault could be addressed during the Trump administration. As we move into the midterm elections and look ahead to the next presidential election, it’s important to remember that Title IX protections are not guaranteed. They are at the mercy of each presidential administration, which can change and enforce these protections through the Department of Education and the Office of Civil Rights.

In the last month, Cornell has been in national and international news following the filing of a lawsuit against the university and seven fraternity members. A woman identified in court proceedings as “Jane Doe” is suing after reporting that she was sexually assaulted. In the court documents, Jane Doe alleges that she was incapacitated at the Chi Phi fraternity house and forced to engage in sexual acts without her consent by members of the fraternity in 2024. The allegations in this case are horrific. The case also includes evidence that a group chat existed in which 57 men in the Chi Phi fraternity were notified of discussions about the alleged assault. None of them reportedly contacted the police or intervened.

The court proceedings allege that the university failed to appropriately handle the assault. Title IX requires colleges and universities to investigate reports of sexual harassment and violence within the scope of their responsibilities, separately from any criminal justice investigation that may also be taking place. As part of the discussion surrounding the Cornell case, many have argued that the punishment didn’t fit the crime or come close to addressing campus safety concerns. Some students were ultimately expelled, but others connected to the incident were required to write essays instead of being removed from the campus environment. The shocking nature of the incident, along with what many people see as the university’s failure to protect students or properly intervene when violence occurs, has raised serious concerns about campus safety and accountability.

The Cornell news has been shocking, upsetting, and triggering to many people, regardless of their connection to the university or even to higher education. There is an open letter signed by 209 members of the Cornell faculty that shares concerns, horror, and outrage about how these issues were handled. The faculty members believe that students’ concerns went unaddressed or were inadequately addressed by the administration, and they are aligning themselves with students rather than with the administration.

The news about this incident and the way it was handled has, sparked renewed attention to student safety, sexual assault in our society, particularly on college campuses, and the need to ensure that survivors are heard and believed when they come forward. If you are feeling triggered or scared about Cornell or anything else happening in the news, please know that you are not alone. Reach out to friends, supportive family, faculty advisors, and counselors for support and to connect with resources on your campus. You can also get support from RAAIN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline 800–656-HOPE.

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About the Author

Sassafras Patterdale’s novels and nonfiction books have been honored by organizations ranging from the American Library Association to the Lambda Literary Foundation and the Dog Writers Association of America. Sassafras’ work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, and numerous other newspapers and magazines. Sassafras has taught queer writing courses and workshops at LitReactor, the NYC Center For Fiction and at colleges, conferences, and LGBTQ youth centers across the country. You can find more of Sassafras’ written works, including an edited collection exploring LGBTQ+ youth homelessness entitled Kicked Out, at www.SassafrasLowrey.com.

Cornell, Title IX, and Understanding Student Impact was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dancing With The Stars is one of the most popular reality television shows airing right now. This is the first season I have tuned into the show because I’ll support Olympic gold medalist and bi-con Amber Glenn in anything she does. I was also excited to see two women — Sarah Jane Nader and Hailey Bills — compete together on the show, although that excitement was crushed after they were eliminated in the first week of the competition.

Dancing With The Stars is an ABC reality competition show where celebrities compete against each other in a series of ballroom dances. Each celebrity is paired with a pro dancer who teaches them a new style of ballroom dancing each week. The celebrities are usually a mix of tv personalities, athletes, and entertainers. There are always a couple of reality tv stars on Dancing With The Stars. RuPaul’s Drag Race is one of the biggest reality competition shows and the contestants on the show accumulate massive fandoms. Despite this, only one Drag Race queen has been featured on the show, and she is far from the best the show has to offer.

While I would love to see these queens on Dancing With The Stars, the show’s fans are not always welcoming to people of color or queer people. But this is my wishlist, and I’d like to imagine a world in which these queens could compete on this show without facing disgusting comments from fans. So without further ado, here are some of the queens I would love to see on future seasons of Dancing With The Stars.

Bob The Drag Queen

Bob The Drag Queen has already been on a reality competition show outside of Drag Race — The Traitors. And I would love to see her murder on the dance floor. I have no idea how she would do on the show, but I know I would have a fun time watching her. Also, out of all the queens on this list, Bob is probably the most likely to be invited on Dancing With The Stars. She’s well-known, liked and respected, and she is a top-notch entertainer. She also is a dedicated performer, and I believe she could do really well on the show.

Also, I’d love to hear her and fellow queen Monét X Change — who would also be great on the show — spill the backstage tea on Sibling Rivalry.

Jinkx Monsoon

Jinkx Monsoon, like most of the queens on this list, is booked and busy. She is a Broadway and West End star whose career only seems to be on the rise. However, if she ever wanted to return to the realm of reality tv, I would love to see her on Dancing With The Stars. Jinkx is not known for her ability to dance. She can learn choreography and she is not bad at it, but Dancing With The Stars likes to have stars that have been criticized for their dancing in the past. It gives the star a chip on their shoulder, and invests the audience in their growth as a dancer. Jinkx has the perfect backstory for Dancing With The Stars and she is just delightful to watch in anything she is in. I know she would charm the judges and fans of Dancing With The Stars audience.

Sasha Colby

The reason I made this list is because I need to see Sasha Colby win the Mirrorball. She has dance and choreography experience, but it is not necessarily in the ballroom. She is a professional who knows when to take things seriously and when to have fun. It is hard not to be awed by her whenever sheperforms. She has that ‘it’ factor that is so compelling to watch, and I have no doubt she would be absolutely mesmerizing on the dance floor. She just knows how to move and I would love to see her be the fierce leading lady she was meant to be. I’d also love to see her drag daughter, the fabulous Kerri Colby compete on Dancing With The Stars, but unlike with Drag Race, I think Sasha should be the first one in her family to compete on this franchise.

Trixie Mattel

Do I think Trixie Mattel would ever go on Dancing With The Stars? Not really. However, I want to see it. She is delightfully self-deprecating, but she is also determined and a consummate professional, so I think she has the ability to do well. She would probably have to do the show out of drag, given the average size of her wigs. But I think that could really work in her favor. You want contestants to step out of their comfort zone, to be vulnerable when they step out onto the stage. And I think it would be really interesting to see Trixie do that.

Angeria Paris VanMicheals

Angeria Paris VanMichaels is the winner of All Stars Season 9 and is one of my favorite drag queens. She is also not known for her dance-ability. Her lipsyncs on drag race are killer because of her expressions not her dance moves. Like Jinkx Monsoon, I think that would only make her appearance on Dancing With The Stars more interesting to watch.

Angeria also has a can-do attitude and a drive to succeed. She approached every challenge on her season of drag race with a willingness to learn and the belief that she could master any task she set her mind to. I’d love to see her learn new dances from week-to-week and I think she’d be great tv.

Jujubee

If you are a Drag Race fan, you’ve seen the memes about Jujubee being in every season and franchise of Drag Race franchise. I think it’s time for her to expand her filmography. Jujubee should be on every reality competition show and gameshow. Jujubee is the life of the party whenever she appears on my television screen. I don’t care that she’s competed on Drag Race a million times, she’s always a blast. I’d love to see her go on Dancing With The Stars and add a new skill to arsenal. She’s incredibly talented, funny, and charismatic, and I just think watching her dance from week to week would be some really fun television.

Aja

Aja is one of the best dancers and lip-sync assassins to grace RuPaul’ s Drag Race. I’ve loved seeing her growth throughout her time on Drag Race. She is such a dynamic performer and her Youtube series teaching other queens to vogue is excellent.

I would love to see her learn a different kind of ballroom dance. And I’d love for her to be paired with someone who would incorporate voguing into their choreography. I’d love to see the fusion of two kinds of ballroom dance, and I think Aja would be the perfect person to pull it off.

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About the Author

Anne Gregg is a musician and writer from Northwest Indiana currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing at The Ohio State University. She is also a neurotic, horror-obsessed lesbian who loves all things queer, campy, and whimsically macabre. She loves dissecting queer media and believes, with all her heart, that Regina George from the hit 2004 comedy Mean Girls is a lesbian.

7 Drag Race Contestants Who Should Be on Dancing With The Stars was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I tell you what, I went to the same Walgreens three times on Thursday. I went in the morning to take the front of the pharmacy line, ten minutes before it was meant to open. The pharmacist, some eleven minutes later, told me I should come back in a bit — my prescription wasn’t ready yet.

So I walked to Spanish class, where my comprehension was slim but workable. That walk was beautiful, actually — the leaves aren’t dead yet, they’re just a splattering of red and orange and yellow, and a swath of green still. It’s the prettiest our quad will get before Chicago winter bears down on us.

Class finished, and I went back down the street to Walgreens. I traded the pharmacist an invaluable $57 for a hand-sized pump bottle of drugs, which I would find, upon returning home, was no different from hand sanitizer in neither sight nor smell. It was sort of funny to use. To smear this clear, sharpie-smelling gel on my shoulders knowing that it’s meant to permanently change my physical composition over time. It was overwhelming because I’d been waiting for it, but underwhelming because…it was still just laced hand sanitizer, as opposed to an instant trick.

And then I washed my hands as if they were radioactive, had lunch, and then went to work a short shift in the office. It’s sort of underwhelming in that regard, too — no one knows you’ve embarked on this steroid adventure unless you tell them directly. That, or you don’t see them for a while, and then they’ll be caught by surprise the next time your voice has dropped an octave. I didn’t tell anyone in the office, but I was certainly in a good mood.

I worked on my economics midterm, worked on some student articles I needed to publish, chatted about miscellaneous things with one of my coworkers for those typical campus job periods where you have nothing to do. I stayed there for four hours, and then I headed back home. I was home, I cleaned, I did my laundry, I cooked, and then I left again to hang out with friends — I was with them until two in the morning, at which point I’d had an 18-hour day. Certainly long past my bedtime and even more so because I haven’t stayed up a consecutive 18 hours in a very long time (re: power naps, or otherwise dozing off).

So I sat between two other gay men while calling my sibling and telling them about how they ought to visit me. Just before that I’d made them watch as my hockey team so generously blessed me with a 7-goal game. I went to Walgreens for the last time that day and got us some drinks. And I laid in my friend’s lap while the other played a sampling of covers on their guitar. And then we walked home, where the streets were quieter than I’d ever experienced in the city.

And then I went to bed, after telling a dozen people about my day, my laced hand sanitizer achievement, and I marvelled, actually, at how perfect a day it had been. I just stayed up and on, all day. Sun beaming and the whole package.

And I think it’s sort of remarkable that that Thursday would’ve been virtually impossible a year(ish) earlier. We can run it back — the testosterone filled at the pharmacy would never have been ordered, and the appointment where it was prescribed would’ve never been scheduled. Not because anyone was actually restraining me, but predominantly because I was afraid of what they might do if I went for it.

The classes I’ve been going to — I wouldn’t have been at this school if I hadn’t struggled so much to get out of my last home. And the apartment I come home to, I live there with two other trans people. There’s a pride flag that always hangs behind my door — my first flag, actually — handed down to me from another brother (it had been his first, too). And the friends that I spent my entire night with, queer as can be, were people I hardly knew a year ago.

In most cases, I could end this story and leave it as a kind of optimistic hope. Which, for the record, I would not be opposed to. I think hope is necessary to everything we do. But, in this case, like so many other things in my life, I’m thinking about the people involved more than I am the actual hope of the plot. The journey rather than the destination, or some other.

So, I’m thinking about how transness has defined every crevice of my life. How it’s wholly shaped the selection of people I spoke to on Thursday. The reason I’ve been able to start testosterone, to live with other queer people, to openly hang a pride flag, to really live at all is because I left my family house back in July. I turned my life upside down just a few months ago doing that — where I’ve exchanged some historic family trauma and pain for a different kind of struggle, with growing pain. But the important part there is that I’m growing, and doing so in the direction that feels the most genuine to me.

So my life turned upside down. I haven’t seen my parents, grandmother, or brother since the summer, and I’ve sort of patched together a messy quilt to work with. I stayed with someone who I consider a surrogate mother to me, crashing on her couch for a week while all the possessions I had there with me littered the living room floor — two suitcases, a box of books, various grocery tote bags that I panic-packed after things came to a head with my parents. After that week, I went and lived with my best friend, Liam, for six weeks until I went back to school — I stayed in his parents’ guest room in the basement, and I made a home for myself in that place as I juggled a horrible array of finances, transportation issues, school issues, and so much more. I was trans, so my life turned upside down.

And in the midst of that (on-going) journey was a perfect sampling of kindness and friendship that came up for me. In fact, I’ve reflected more on the people around me and I’m a little confused as to how some of my friendships have proven to punch far above their weight level. Liam asks me a lot about how it was ever possible for us to be best friends. Not the least because our relationship wasn’t all that great for a while. My answer for the longevity part of the question is my own stubbornness — I didn’t give up on the scraps that we had and I in fact ignored a lot of those issues. But we turned out okay.

That said, I can’t really explain why he’s the one I always end up drifting to when I want comfort. Especially because for the majority of our knowing each other, he was pretty useless in the comfort department. I could say that he’s good listener, which he is. That, or because our personalities complement each other a lot — he’s much more of an introvert and much less concerned about strict rules or getting hurt. I’m about as loud as a normal person can be, and I’m type A a lot of the time. Or maybe he’s just been around a long time, and we’ve sort of conformed to each other to where this friendship is the best just because of that.

Thing is, I can say a lot of the same thing about a dozen other people in my life. Hell, there’s people in my life who beat him out in those categories. But he’s my best friend. Now, I’ve never really had a stance on whether soulmates are a real thing — but given everything, I think I was meant to fight over him and make him my friend. It certainly did not seem meant to be but we made it so.

I met some new friends recently, too. Mostly, there’s Leo, who confuses me in a similar way Liam does — there’s a lot of characteristics there that I’d say I’ve found in other friends too, but we click particularly well together. Well, I think. It’s just been three weeks, but it’s nice to have — maybe it’s just that my therapist told me to open up to new people, and that it’s just a refreshment. But I think it’s nice. We’ve made pie (well, he made it and I ate it), cornbread, and soup, and hopped around the city for various activities. And in a way, whatever we have seems exceedingly simple.

The opposite of a new friend, there’s Nathaniel. We’ll have known each other for seven years come next May — basically a third of my conscious life. I told him today that I always seem to go through weeks-long phases of texting the same 2–3 people incessantly before it rotates for whatever reason (having a class together, seeing each other more often, whatever it is). But that’s never applied to him. I’ve always talked to him the same consistent amount over the years. I talked to him the same amount when I was a sophomore in high school, before I could drive and my entire life happened within a ten minute radius of my house and school as I did these past few weeks as I’ve moved into my own place, under my own name, started hormone therapy, worked two(ish) jobs, cooked and cleaned after myself.

I’m inclined now to say that perhaps the thing that draws me to these people is their consistency. Many of my siblings are the same way, even though I don’t have the range to include them all here. Liam’s never let up on how much shit he gives me in any given situation. Leo’s new, but that helps — mostly because I want to think, as new friends, there’s not a lot to lose — so I want to assume that there’s nothing to really be thrown in the air there. And Nathaniel’s been around since I knew I was trans. And after losing every other consistent, assured thing in my life in just a few months, and going through drastic changes at random intervals, maybe the refreshing part is that these folks are always the same. They have crises too, of course — but I think there’s a sense of calm there. There’s a kind of quiet in the storm that I always love my friends for.

It’s funny, then, to think that I am increasingly embracing my queerness more and more everyday — very much bleeding beyond the norms and getting myself into all kinds of uncomfortable confrontations with the world around me — and the part of my life that’s helped me do this most is the anchors around me.

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About the Author

Theo Tran is a college student from Denver, Colorado, though he is studying in Chicago. He is a first-generation Vietnamese American, and identifies as both transgender and gay. Theo is deeply passionate about history and the social sciences, which has fueled his participation in grassroots organizing at the local level. Theo joined Matthew’s Place after designing stage lights for his school’s production of The Laramie Project, where like so many, he resonated profoundly with Matthew’s story and the foundation’s mission: to erase hate. He plans to become a teacher in the future, and has experience in political organizing. You can reach out to Theo at tkpr.tran@gmail.com for any questions, comments, or just to have a chat!

Walgreens, Change, and Anchors was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What is HIV?

Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or more commonly known as HIV, is a sexually transmitted disease that attacks the cells in the immune system. Once it has progressed, it transitions into AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), which is the deadliest stage of the infection. HIV is a sexually transmitted disease, which means it can be transmitted through bodily fluids and sexual activity. If you or someone you know suspects they have HIV, either see your nearest doctor for testing or order a test online.

When Should I Get STD Testing?

For STIs like HIV, a person can go for a long time without experiencing any symptoms, but they can still be passed to other partners and lead to worse complications if left untreated. Open communication with your partners about sexual health is important to avoid the spreading of STI’s. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends routine screening for certain groups even without symptoms, including annual chlamydia and gonorrhea screening for sexually active women under the age of 25, routine HIV testing for everyone ages 13 to 64, and more frequent testing for people with new or multiple partners, or those who do not consistently use protection. Individuals taking PrEP may need testing every three to six months, according to the latest CDC guidelines, which shows how often different groups should get tested.

How Can I Get Tested?

Visiting a clinic for testing isn’t always the most accessible option for different individuals. But through Testing.com, you can order tests to send your sample to a lab near you with no doctor’s visit or referral needed beforehand. Besides online testing, there’s also clinics/community health programs that offer free and confidential STD testing. Through Testing.com, you can access instructions on how to order STD tests online, what to expect, how to take them, and how to send them in for results.

What Happens During A Test?

Before your test, make it known what infections you’re screening for. It’s important to take the test specific to the infection to narrow down the risk factors. The majority of testing services will allow you to select tests online or through a healthcare provider before visiting a lab, and when you do go in, bring paperwork/test requisition, a valid ID, and insurance information (if applicable).

During the test, it’s considered straightforward and quick. You may give a blood sample (for HIV , syphilis, hepatitis), a urine sample (for chlamydia and gonorrhea), or a swab from the throat, genitals or other exposed sites, depending on the tests you’ve selected and your exposure history.

Afterwards, once your samples are collected, they’re sent to a laboratory for analysis. Results are usually available in a few days through a secure online portal or directly from your provider, though the time frame can vary. If any test comes back positive, follow up with a healthcare professional for diagnosis confirmation, treatment, and counseling on notifying partners. If results are negative but you tested soon after a possible exposure, your provider may recommend retesting after the appropriate window period to ensure accuracy.For further information about testing sites in your state, the prices of different tests, or FAQ, visit https://www.testing.com/std-testing/.

About the Author

Cami is a sophomore in college from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. She’s an art student focused on photography and filmmaking, using it to capture both social issues and cultural experiences. In her free time, she enjoys hunting for trinkets, watching movies, and writing. Writing and reading from small journalists helped her find “Matthew’s Place,” where she could raise awareness to issues that intersect between the Latine community and LGBTQ community, advocating for people like her.

HIV/AIDs Resources and Awareness was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve seen Alex Strangelove sitting in my Netflix queue for years, but I never actually sat down to watch it. My roommate warned me going in that it was going to be cheesy, but I didn’t realize just how cheesy we were talking.

Still, there’s something inherently comforting about a cheesy teen rom-com. Visually and tonally, it immediately reminded me of Heartstopper and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before — right down to those playful sketched hearts animating across the screen early on. And to lean all the way into the cheese factor: the main character’s actual last name is Truelove. Alex Truelove.

Beneath the tropes and the melodrama, though, the film tapped into an emotional experience that felt surprisingly grounded and personal.

The film kicks off with Alex genuinely believing he’s straight. He gets paired with a girl in class, Claire; they become inseparable best friends, and naturally, one thing leads to another until they share a first kiss. Right on cue for a rom-com, Alex panics: “Did we just ruin the friendship?” — and then immediately jumps to talking about marriage in the next scene.

Now, I can get attached quickly, but that was a bit much. At the same time, I recognized what he was doing: he was trying to build a safe, predictable world for himself.

I had a girlfriend back in middle school, and I went through a very similar mindset. I really thought I liked her. I wanted to hang out, I genuinely enjoyed our time together, and because of that, my sexuality felt very confusing. I actually identified as bisexual for six years of my life. When everything around you in media and culture models straight relationships as the default, it’s remarkably easy to convince yourself that’s who you are. You can care about someone, enjoy spending time with them, and even enjoy kissing them, while still having no idea that it isn’t fulfilling you completely.

Naturally, tension builds. By month eight of dating, they haven’t had sex, and Alex hasn’t brought it up or seemed to desire it. Claire busting his chops on it in front of Alex’s friends makes complete sense. When Alex tries to psych himself up for their big night, overthinking and practicing every detail, it transcends standard teenage awkwardness. He wasn’t acting out of organic desire; he was going through the motions because of external pressure from his friends, his partner, and his own expectations.

Then comes Elliott.

To me, Alex’s sudden shift toward having feelings for a guy felt a bit abrupt, but that suddenness is reality for people who don’t connect the dots until later. I was someone who recognized attractions to guys relatively early, but I didn’t fully understand what it meant until friends started coming out around sixth grade. When people would casually throw out that I was gay before that, my instinct was to dismiss it immediately.

The movie includes a flashback of Alex being bullied as a young kid for being “gay,” and I had very similar moments in early elementary school. An accusation like that doesn’t instantly make you examine your identity when you’re that young — it just makes you wildly uncomfortable and eager to reject the label. Alex wasn’t being homophobic; he was just defensive against something that terrified him.

Where Alex loses some grace is how he handles the situation once Elliott enters the picture.

Elliott is definitely forward. Even if it’s unspoken, his lingering looks and the palpable tension are very much driven by him, and he doesn’t fully respect that Alex has a girlfriend. That said, Alex met him halfway from the moment they crossed paths, so Elliott wasn’t delusional.

But Alex should never have kissed Elliott just to “test the waters” and figure himself out. Experimenting at the expense of someone else’s feelings leaves collateral damage. I was shocked Alex tried to follow through with Claire immediately after.

When things do not turn out well, Alex eventually tells Claire that he’s gay. This is obviously a lot for Claire to process; I’d be wondering, “Was this whole relationship not real?” My heart broke for her. But she is strong, and she ends up remarkably graceful, even helping push Alex and Elliott together at the end at prom.

Being visibly out and taking a guy to prom is genuinely terrifying to me, and Alex initially expresses discomfort. I have felt powerful when I’ve been on public dates with guys, but there is also an underlying sense of fear just because I’m gay. When Alex sees that he hurts Elliot because of this, he lets his love for Elliot triumph, running back to him and kissing him on the dance floor. It is a great moment. Alex’s core group of friends cheer him on without batting an eye, giving the story the warmth it needed.

Alex really did love Claire. He just misinterpreted the line between deep platonic devotion and romantic desire.

Coming-out stories often focus on a protagonist who already knows they are queer and is dealing with social rejection, their first relationship, or navigating the closet. Alex Strangelove takes a different angle: it’s about someone who genuinely believed they were straight, only to. have their entire self-concept unravel in real time. That kind of internal confusion is frequently overlooked, but it’s an experience a lot of people live through.

If you’re looking for a breezy, slightly ridiculous, 90-minute film to throw on with friends, it’s worth the watch. It’s dramatic, sweet, and unapologetically cheesy.

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About the Author

Daniel Simpson, born and raised in New Jersey, studies Business and Theatre at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!). He is the Media Coordinator for the Be A Friend Project, an international nonprofit focused on Bullying Prevention and Kindness Activism. When not working or studying, you can find Daniel performing, cooking, staying active, or going on an adventure with family or friends.

My Review of Netflix’s Alex Strangelove was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There is a phrase I hear far too often: “My vote doesn’t matter.” I can understand where it comes from. American politics can make you feel small. You can march, call representatives, donate, post, argue, volunteer, and watch the same problems survive yet another election cycle. You can look at the candidates on your ballot and feel like none of them represent you perfectly. Eventually, frustration turns into something more dangerous than anger: apathy. In a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, 35% of nonvoters said a major reason they stayed home was that they did not think their vote would make a difference. Another 31% cited simply not liking politics. I understand both feelings, but neither changes the basic reality that someone is going to win these elections. The only question is who gets a say in deciding.

Voting is not an endorsement of every decision a candidate has ever made, and it is certainly not a declaration that the political system works perfectly. It is a tool. Sometimes it is a frustrating, insufficient tool, but refusing to use it does not make the tool disappear. It simply leaves it in somebody else’s hands. This November, every one of the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives is up for election, along with roughly one-third of the Senate. Those races will determinewhich parties control Congress for the next two years and, consequently, who writes legislation, controls committees, conducts oversight, confirms certain appointments and decides what bills receive a vote. That is before we even get to governors, state legislatures, judges, school boards, ballot measures and local offices that can have a much more immediate effect on our daily lives. You do not have to believe government is perfect to recognize that the people occupying those offices have power.

Staying Home Is Still a Choice

The strange thing about American elections is that the people who participate are not necessarily representative of everyone who has to live with the result. Pew’s analysis of the 2024 election found that citizens under 30 represented about 20% of the age-eligible population but only 15% of voters. Nonvoters were also younger, had lower incomes and were less likely to have attended college than voters. Across the 2018, 2020 and 2022 national elections, Pew found that only 37% of eligible adult citizens voted in all three. That means political power does not simply reflect what Americans believe; it reflects which Americans consistently turn those beliefs into ballots.

This matters even more during midterms. Presidential elections receive enormous attention, but Congress does not disappear between presidential races. Neither do state legislatures, city governments or school boards. Turnout was about 66% of the voting-eligible population in the 2020 presidential election, according to Pew’s analysis, compared with 46% in the 2022 midterms. That 2022 number was actually historically strong for a midterm, exceeding every midterm turnout rate since 1970 except 2018, which reached 49%. Yet we are still talking about elections in which enormous numbers of eligible Americans do not participate. When fewer people vote, those who do show up have proportionally more influence over the result.

That is why I struggle with the argument that voting is pointless because change is too slow. Voting was never supposed to be the only form of civic participation. Protest matters. Organizing matters. Unions, advocacy groups, mutual aid, journalism, public comment, contacting elected officials and simply taking care of the people around you all matter. But those things do not make voting obsolete; they work alongside it. If you spend years demanding change but ignore the process that determines who gets the legal authority to enact much of that change, you are leaving an enormous part of the equation untouched. A ballot will not fix everything. Neither will a protest sign, a donation, a petition or a phonecall. Democracy has never offered us one magic lever to pull. It asks us to keep doing all that we can.

Change Is Usually Boring Before It Is Historic

We also have a bad habit of remembering political change only after it becomes dramatic. History gets compressed into speeches, court decisions, marches and election nights, while the thousands of smaller actions that made those moments possible disappear from the story. Change is often painfully ordinary while it is happening. Someone registers voters. Someone attends a city council meeting. Someone knocks on doors. Someone learns what an obscure office on the ballot actually does. Someone votes in an election that does not have a presidential candidate at the top. Then they do it again two years later.

That consistency matters because American elections can be extraordinarily close, but the larger point is not that your individual ballot will always be the deciding vote. It probably will not be. The point is that millions of individual decisions become turnout, and turnout changes outcomes. Pew’s validated-voter analysis of 2024 found that 89% of people who had voted for Donald Trump in 2020 voted again in 2024, compared with 85% of 2020 Biden voters. Pew specifically identifies turnout as an important factor in understanding why electoraloutcomes change from one cycle to another. Elections are not conducted among some theoretical version of “the American people.” They are conducted among the Americans who actually cast ballots.

And if you are unhappy with your choices, voting is not the end of your responsibility. Pay attention to primaries. Learn who represents you before they become a national headline. Look at local candidates. Support people you want to see on future ballots. Hold the person you voted for accountable after they win. Politics should not be something we remember every four years when presidential advertisements begin flooding our televisions. The officials making decisions about education, housing, public transportation, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ protections, taxes, policing, libraries and countless other parts of our lives are being elected whether we pay attention to those races or not.

Start Here

The 2026 midterm election is November 3, and registration rules and deadlines vary by state. The easiest national starting point is Vote.gov, the federal government’s voter-registration portal. Select your state and it will direct you to the appropriate registration process. USAGov also maintains information on registration and state requirements and notes that, with the exception of North Dakota, states require voter registration and may set deadlines as much as a month before an election. If you think you are already registered, check anyway — especially if you have recently moved.

I cannot promise that casting a ballot will give you the result you want. Sometimes you will vote and lose. Sometimes your candidate will win and disappoint you. Sometimes change will move at a pace that feels insulting compared with the urgency of the problem. But cynicism is not the same thing as power. Giving up your vote because the system has disappointed you does not punish the system; it removes your voice from one of the few moments when the government is explicitly required to ask for it. V ote, then keep going. Organize. Protest. Volunteer. Call. Donate. Speak up. Take care of your community. Demand better candidates and better government. Change has never depended on one action alone, but it has always depended on people deciding that doing something is better than surrendering the decision to everyone else.

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About the Author

William Sampson is a Junior at Timber Creek High School. He is active in his theater department, acting in numerous productions such as White Christmas, Kodachrome, The Laramie Project, and the Beaux’s Strategem. He is also an active member in Scouting America, and co-owns a non-profit theater company called Scratch Theater Co, working towards enriching theater education for youth in the DFW area.

Go Vote was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about poetry.

For context, I’m applying for a competitive graduate fellowship that would allow me to study any subject at an international university. In my application, my choice for a 1-year master’s program is to study the practice and history of poetry; I have to explain why.

To be sure, part of the reason why I want to dedicate a year of my life to poetry is because I have a personal affection for the art form. I love reading poems, writing poems, and thinking about poems. They can be sweet and devastating, sometimes all at once. They’re also like puzzles for my brain, with how they use words in unexpected ways and defy conventions of grammatical prose.

But if I just thought poems were fun, I wouldn’t be asking a prestigious fellowship to fund my study of the form. No, I have to believe that poetry really can impact the world. And believe I do.

Most people, as far as I’m aware, do not read poems as part of their regular literary diet. I wrote recently for Matthew’s Place about the literacy crisis we face; some folks aren’t reading for pleasure at all. But even those who enjoy novels or read the news daily are not necessarily inclined to pick up difficult, flowery verse in book or magazine form. This, of course, makes it tricky to see the social impact and value of poetry. If few people are reading it, how much of a difference can it really make?

Here’s the thing: poetry, unlike some more technical and businesslike kinds of writing, is an art. Painters, sculptors, and poets share far more in common than they differ, as far as the kinds of practices we employ and the impact we hope our art might make. And the arts, I believe, are essential. (Check out another of my past essays for this blog, “Art as Resistance, Together.”) As fascism bears down on communities around the world, art is a way to push back. Yes, we need to win new governments and demand better economies. Yes, our energies must go into protests and movement-building and mutual aid. And still, we must find time and space to make art. It is essential for our movements to have outlets for possibility models and freedom dreams, as the multi-disciplinary artist Tourmaline has beautifully argued. Poetry can be one such place for hope.

I do hope that more young people will consider taking up poetry as part of their media diet. It can offer real solace, and if you can get past some of the barriers to entry posed by new and different kinds of language, you might find yourself with a new passion and practice. For me, this looks like reading poems when I might otherwise scroll on social media. Just recently, I figured out how to set up a “shortcut” on my phone, creating a home-screen button that leads to a PDF of poems I downloaded from my school’s library. This way, when I feel that mindless urge to open the app I just closed or read stressful news stories for the second time in an hour, I have somewhere more purposeful to turn, instead. For others, this can look like picking up just a single book of poems, to try and get your feet wet. Several of my friends and family members have recently done this with the work of Mary Oliver, a lovely poet whose works about the outdoors are truly calming and awe-inspiring at once. She’s a great poet to start with. Or, ask your local librarian or book-loving friend for a recommendation that’s easy to try out.

At the same time, if poetry remains something that a small segment of the population enjoys regularly, that’s okay with me too. Most of us don’t study paintings every day or see sculptures as often as we see new Instagram posts from our friends. Still, the cultures they constitute have resonance that runs deeper in our society. While poems may not make it to museum walls, they are quietly impacting our languages and our ways of viewing the world. And after all, that seems pretty impactful to me.

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About the Author

Lily Elle Rood (she/her) is an emerging writer, activist, and scholar. As a public speaker and trans rights advocate, her voice has been heard from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, outside the U.S. Supreme Court, and at the Human Rights Campaign Headquarters. Lately, you can find her writing essays, poetry, and fiction for her ongoing project, transp(r)ose.

The Case for Poetry was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

​There’s really no tasteful way to say that the anniversary of my first testosterone injection lands on September 11th. A little over a year ago, I sat in a stunningly beige room and learned how to draw up 0.1 milligrams of testosterone from a little bottle, how to pinch the fleshiest part of my lower belly and drive the needle in just so, a roughly 45 degree angle.

​There’s no shortage of literature about the side effects of testosterone — not to mention the laws that require gender clinics to schedule a 90-minute consultation solely dedicated to making absolutely sure you’re aware of these side effects before they consider writing a prescription. But not everything about testosterone is capable of being condensed into doctors’ appointments and AMA-approved listicles online. In my opinion, the most valuable information about HRT always comes from people who have undergone it firsthand. And having officially joined those ranks twelve months ago, I feel a moral obligation to pass on some of the lesser-known aspects of this experience on to any queer folks who might benefit from it.

​Number 1:

Whether out of embarrassment or subconscious self-censorship, I’ve seen few trans men talk about one of the most significant and often detrimental side effects from testosterone: vaginal atrophy. Vaginal tissue is meant to be elastic by nature, but only because of estrogen. As the body’s estrogen production becomes replaced by testosterone during the course of HRT, the vaginal tissue can lose this elasticity. In short, a body part that was once capable of stretching wide enough to allow the expulsion of an entire baby may no longer be able to accommodate sexual penetration or even tampons. If someone isn’t aware of these changes, an excess of friction can lead to microscopic abrasions inside the vagina, causing bleeding, pain, or itchiness.

​There are a variety of treatment options to address the issue of vaginal atrophy, such as estrogen cream that can be applied to the area, or estrogen tablets that can be inserted directly into the vagina. But let’s face it: even in the medical world, genitalia continues to be a veritable minefield of a topic. And as trans men, a pivotal experience of both women and transsexual individuals is the mystification of our own bodies. Pain during insertion — particularly when that insertion occurs during sex — is often ignored, downplayed, or contorted to suit a systemically oppressive narrative. Vaginal atrophy itself doesn’t have to be especially detrimental — but acknowledging it can often require overcoming barriers that many people just aren’t prepared for during their HRT journey.

​Number 2

As a strong opponent against bioessentialism, I’ve always objected to that hyper-masculine, cliched adage of “men don’t cry.” And I’ve always believed that, if men do appear to cry less often, it’s solely due to social conditioning and patriarchal pressure. Surely the favorite verbal weapon of the alt-right, traditional gender role advocates can’t be based in any kind of reality … can it?

​To be frank, I was no stranger to crying when I was a woman. During my first few months of HRT, I continued to be consistently tear-prone — bursting into such violent sobs during an episode of Alice in Borderland that my girlfriend became genuinely concerned, misting up when flashback-Naruto sits on a swing and monologues for the dozenth time — and then, one day, it was like someone just turned the faucet off. I still felt all the appropriate emotions at the appropriate moments, but the tears simply stopped coming.

​There’s no part of me that believes I fell for some patriarchal propaganda during the past twelve months of my transition. I was a weepy woman, and I confidently thought that I’d be an equally weepy man. The only conclusion, then, is that there is something about testosterone which affects one’s ability to cry, and I am just the latest victim of it.

​Number 3

Possibly this final side effect is not important or even recognizable to anyone but me. Possibly I was just taken aback by the sheer scope of testosterone’s effects in the human body; its ability to change everything from muscle mass and fat distribution to appetite and sleep quality. But either way —

​You know how, when you finally come out as a trans person and fully accept that part of yourself, suddenly you start looking back and realizing just how many blatantly obvious signs that you wanted to be a guy all along. Things like choosing Mulan as your favorite Disney movie, emotionally grafting onto My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, and having full-fledged meltdowns while getting ready for school because your hair is too long and your clothes don’t look right. In my case, one of these indicators was an aesthetic fixation on certain aspects of the male physical form — or, in less creepy terms, an extended delusion that I was attracted to men while, in most cases, I was really just jealous of how they looked.

​It was such small, stupid things. Things that weren’t even exclusive to men because sexual dimorphism exists and physical appearance is a spectrum, but that I still wanted. Like an Adam’s apple, rounded biceps, veiny forearms. A visible protrusion of collarbone extending to the apex of the shoulder. I had honestly just assumed that such imperceptible things were out of reach even for testosterone, that they were a consequence of bone structure and genetics and other immutable things. But then it happened. I looked at a photo taken on a digital camera of myself at the bar one night — and I saw that line of collarbone.

​In other words: there are things that testosterone will change about your body, that you didn’t even know could be changed. And maybe these changes are unimportant to most people. They must be, since no one ever really mentions them. But in the pursuit of de-mystifying the HRT experience, I think it’s worth including the little things, too.

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About the Author

Elliott Robinson is a queer author, journalist, poet, and teacher located in central Indiana. He received a B.A. in English from Butler University, which is where he first encountered Matthew’s Place, and his work has been published in the Butler Collegian as well as in several editions of Manuscripts Literary Magazine. Elliott is extremely passionate about LGBTQ+ advocacy and volunteer work, and he strives to use his talents as a writer and educator for the betterment of his community.

Three effects of testosterone that you might not know about. was originally published in Matthew’s Place on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.