Voices

It isn’t until I actually sat down and thought about it that I realized that the badass feminist babe I am today is predominantly the creation of a mixed bag of women I’ve encountered in my life.

It was in my second year of college that a girl expressed sexual interest in me. It took me a month to realize that what I thought were hangouts were actually dates. It took me another month to realize I wanted them to be dates. As I realized I wanted her to like me, I slipped back into my old routine — my makeup got more advanced and my hair was always straightened. I still thought that to be attractive, I had to be as feminine as possible. I’d been a hardcore ally for a decade at that point, but had no idea about the politics of beauty within the queer community; I thought I was stepping back into my old role.

I used to think that I would only be happy if I came as close to being “neurotypical” as possible. I thought that I needed to be cured to live a whole, fulfilling life (which is one of the downsides of the medicalization of our struggles, but that’s a story for another day).

I made the decision to come out of the mental illness closet and face the world without fear or shame. My son will grow up in a house that doesn’t stigmatize mental illness, but instead, strives to understand it.

You held a cap gun to my head on the bus ride home from school, threatening to shoot me, day after day. I know you couldn't have known that I had something similar happening at home.

I have a confession: Until recently, I didn’t even know what “patriarchal society” meant. Yeah, I’m one of those feminists who grew up believing I didn’t need feminism.

It’s International Women’s Day, which means we get an entire day to celebrate the accomplishments of the millions of women in the world.

There were pills for the pain, but there was nothing that could help me forget that my boyfriend didn’t truly care about me. I couldn’t swallow a drug and turn my partner into someone who not only wanted to take my pain away, but believed that I was in pain at all. There wasn’t a prescription a doctor could write that would make my despair believable. There wasn’t a cure for my boyfriend’s apathy.