More Than Surviving
Being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 3 years old meant I never knew a life without the disease. I thought my experience was universal until one day in the third grade. As my best friend and I ran laps during recess, I was stunned by her effortless endurance. When I asked her how she […]
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Arriving, Finally, As My Chosen Name
I had recently cut my hair short for the first time. At school, a male friend saw me and said, “You look like a boy,” and it felt validating, especially coming from a boy. Then, it started to click that maybe I wasn’t the girl I thought I was. A few nights later, I sat […]
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Movie Review: Moonlight
Moonlight is about a character I’ve never seen in a movie—a gay thug who is big, bad, and scary, but who expresses his feelings. Instead of a monster, the movie shows a drug dealer as a human being. His name is Chiron, and he lives in a poor part of Miami, Florida. The movie is […]
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The Long Journey Home
Names have been changed. When I was a 5-year-old boy in Mexico, I had a red sweater with a hood. I loved to put it on my head and pretend that it was my long, beautiful hair. I looked like a girl even with short hair. In kindergarten, during recess, boys chased me in the […]
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