LGBTQ rights – Writers Resist

Trans Joy: A Selfie in Five Parts

By Dameien Nathaniel

1.
2007 and I have gotten my first flip phone.
We are hanging out after the after school
art club, and Alyssa has just informed me
that this cell phone can take photos.
You just have to open it, access the camera,
hold the phone at arm’s length, and do your best,
since you can’t see yourself on the screen.
My hair is dirty blond, my clothes
are ripped hand-me-downs from my sisters,
and my arms are covered by sleeves that cover
wristbands so no one can see the Band-Aids.

2.
2011 and I’m a little late to the smartphone game.
I bought it just so I could talk to my new crush.
I haven’t yet figured out how to send him photos,
but taking them is the same as before,
it’s just made a little easier with mirrors.
So bathroom selfie, posed and using
the reflection to see if I look good. Just enough
clothing to hide my thighs, arms still needing
to be covered for the same reason, a little bit
of cleavage, and the currently popular duck face.

3.
2013 and my new phone has a forward-facing camera.
My hair is the shortest it has ever been,
but that doesn’t scare boys away, somehow it interests
the girls though. I have just downloaded SnapChat
and I appreciate that no one gets to see
these photos for more than three seconds. Pose
in front of the dorm bathroom mirror, pose at the
dorm welcome desk while working, pose lying
in my dorm bed, every one with a peace sign
blocking my face. My friends ask me for wya photos.
Strangers find me and ask for nudes.

4.
2018 and this phone has hit the ground so many times,
I’m amazed it still works with all the cracks.
One photo in the hotel room, smiling, hiding
that I’m shaking. The second in hospital gown
with an IV in my arm, sent to SnapChat with the caption
see you all in a few hours. The third taken
in my mother’s car on the drive home.
I’m posing in sunglasses, an exaggerated pout,
and using my free hand to pull my shirt down
just enough to show off the surgical binder. I caption this
Well, that’s a huge weight off my chest.

5.
2023 and I don’t know why this phone needs
four cameras, but it was the cheapest option.
I haven’t been blond since 2008, and I haven’t
covered cuts with Band-Aids since 2013. I tried
the selfie-a-day challenge and never stopped,
but most of them stay in my private albums.
A smile at the zoo with friends, a cute outfit
in the mirror before work, a bubble bath with
wine and music, a funny hat on a Tuesday,
a picture of myself standing in front of a cliff–
and a memory where I no longer want to jump.

Poet’s note: An accompaniment to this piece, titled “Unalive Yourself” was published by Mobius: The Journal of Social Change in May of 2024.

Dameien Nathaniel is a queer, trans, autistic poet from the Northeast United States. They are currently pursuing their MFA in poetry from Arcadia University, with their work centering around themes of trauma, loss, mental health, and queer identity. Dameien can be found performing at open mics and slams throughout New England.

Photo courtesy of Dameien Nathaniel.

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Make a Splash

By Ell Cee

Artist statement

As a queer person and artist, I’ve been struggling with the constant legislative attacks against the queer community echoing across America. So what’s at the heart of my piece, Make A Splash? Honestly? This is me looking into the eyes of homophobic politicians, homophobic people, and those who just sit neutrally on the fence and let it happen, and licking my sapphic lips at them. This is me bending over and spanking my ass in their general direction, while winking mischievously. With Make a Splash I wanted to celebrate and relish queer joy. I wanted vibrant colors, rainbow vibes, womxn intentionally and joyously existing as sexual beings. I wanted to celebrate the bodies of womxn. I wanted to be very open about what this piece was. I loved the image of a blue jeans model from the 80s bending over and looking at the camera. I put the kicking legs of cabaret dancers around the edges. I put a cut open, ripe, luscious strawberry surrounded by lips. I put winking-eye photos that almost look like Polaroids everywhere, echoing through the piece. I included lush greenery at her feet and last but not least, tickets to ride placed between her legs. And of course, the cherry on top of it all: the caption I created in the top right corner that reads, “Great Lady WITH HER OWN AGENDA.”

Ell Cee (They/She) is a lifelong artist as well as a member of the LGBTQIA2S, genderqueer, and disabled communities. They create one-of-a-kind pieces whose vibrancy and glow inspire joy. Ell uses recycled materials in much of their art, such as cardboard boxes, packaging materials, repurposed labels, and even discarded library books. Her art ranges across mediums: from watercolor markers, highlighting elements, paints, pencil, photography, mixed-media, hand lettering, to pen & ink, and high resolution image conversion processes. Find Ell’s art online at https://linktr.ee/EllCeeTheArtist and @EllCeeTheArtist on Instagram.

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Wrong Rainbow

By L. Acadia

Describing our droomhuis for Dutch class, my
worksheet filled with my dream house’s garden:
Hollyhocks, hydrangea higher than I,
wrought iron table for morning coffee,
serenading birds, frogs ringing a pond.
My love wrote an interior my mind
couldn’t fit: puppy-claw impervious
tile floors, dormer bedroom, dinner-party
primed kitchen, postprandial dancing space.

Years later, we recall the exercise,
tossing balkon, keuken, venster, fit now
to a dream house: open-plan high-ceilinged
flat—wood beams leading the gaze towards mountains,
snug loft for out-of-town or drunken friends,
green balcony, community garden,
busses to work: a millennial dream.

Rooftop looking out to summer salons
poetry, perhaps acoustic guitar.
Headlights flooding the street below create
a waterfall of light, mist spraying to stars.

We call our droomhuis “Jesus house” for the
forest of crosses, scandalous portraits
of unfashionably long-haired white men with
palm-wounds. The seller greets us cordially,
his wife places hands over their kids’ chests,
as though guarding their hearts from our inter-
racial lesbianism’s tick’ling daggers.

When they ghosted our offer, we enquired
through a new realtor. The Jesus house dad
asked, “are your clients a normal couple?”
Nee.

L. Acadia is a lit professor at National Taiwan University and member of the Taipei Poetry Collective, with poetry in Autostraddle, New Orleans Review, Strange Horizons, trampset, and elsewhere. Twitter and Instagram: @acadialogue

Image credit: Jim Choate via a Creative Commons license.

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Two Poems by Nancy Squires

As the Waters Rise

O God, look down
On all our drowned.
Hear us, we beg—
We’re on our knees.
Sorry, so sorry
About the trees,

The polar bears, the birds,
The bees; the icebergs
Gone, the thirsty lawns,
Plastic gyres, redwood
Pyres and all the many,
many cars. The eclipsed stars

We never see. Our Father
In Heaven, we pray
To Thee: Give us
This day.
We promise, oh we swear
On a stack of extinctions

We will repair
Our awful ways
And lead us not into oblivion
Although we can’t pretend
We had no clue. Save us
Now—before
Amen.

It’s No Use, Ron DeSantis

Before Marie Kondo-ing
I had a pile of beads
in a drawer, cheap baubles
from Gay Prides past:
Chicago, where the crowd spilled
into Halsted, slowing the procession
to a crawl; New York,
where drag queens rode the floats
in headdresses three feet tall
just like Carnival; and Boston,
many years—the one
where Kevin was The Little Mermaid
on the Disney float—his costume
(which he stitched himself),
perfection and his makeup,
animated glam. That woman on the Harley
who dyed her mohawk rainbow
every year, and the time
Sally spotted her coworker
coming down the route—
she was surprised to see him
in a wine-colored corset.
No beads
from Lansing, Michigan,
my first Pride—not
a parade but a march
and what got thrown
at us were insults, curses, glares
from people holding signs
that said God hated us.
So let’s say gay
and everything else
there is to say.
I should’ve kept that pile
of shiny plastic beads—
not sure if it was joy
they sparked but something—
Kevin reclining up there
amongst the other Disney folk
his shimmery mermaid tail
sparkling in the morning sun.
Say it: gay.
All the livelong day.
She and he and them
and they: we
aren’t going back
inside the boxes.

Nancy Squires is a writer, lawyer, and freelance copy editor. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Dunes Review, Split Rock Review, and Blueline Magazine. She grew up, and currently resides, in Michigan.

Photo credit: Linda De Volder via a Creative Commons license.

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