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Rites of passage: Calvin “Panel” remarks from 2009
In 2009, I was invited to speak on a panel of queer students at Calvin University. The annual event, known simply as “Panel” amongst LGBTQ students on campus, was almost a rite of passage for us: a way to show that you’d dutifully wrestled with your identity, and had come out the other side jaded,…
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True or false?
I was 17. I should have been thinking about my summer plans, college in the fall. Instead, I found myself in my senior Bible class, staring down the gates of hell.
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Non-binary, but he/him is fine
I spent 30 years looking in the mirror trying to find myself, trying to make sense of myself. Or rather, trying to make sense of how I fit in—perhaps the most terribly cliché of human pursuits—and largely finding that I don’t. (I’m a medievalist for a reason.) Along the way, I played some good roles,…
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This is my voice
I spent the final four months of undergrad at York St. John’s University, where I took a creative writing module. I honestly don’t remember any of it very well, apart from two gems from the instructor: First, that I had been using “per se” incorrectly my whole life. (Thanks.) And second, in response to a…
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In Reflection: A Year of Self-Discovery in Wales
I spent the first twenty-odd years of my life doing everything I could to hide myself. Talk to just about any queer person over the age of twenty-five, and they probably have a similar story. It wasn’t until my late teens that I started tottering toward self-acceptance. Unfortunately, my first relationship put this journey on…
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Conversation with Max, November 2015
Toward the end of 2015, I recorded a conversation with my adopted mom, Max, about her work helping to organize the response to the AIDS epidemic in Lansing, Michigan. I always rued not having saved a copy of the blog for myself. But look what I found digging through my inbox.