Latest Stories

Most recently published stories in Pride.

You're Too .......
Bald Head! I remember hearing those words in class. It was my second week at the high school in New Jersey. I was so young and naive that I did not understand the meaning of the term and thought that this boy was calling me bald headed. I responded that he needed to look at himself since he had no hair whatsoever. I later learned that the term Bald Head meant basically I was being told that I was too European and part of the establishment. I was so hurt by those words but I was not sure why they hurt so deeply.
By Cora4 years ago in Pride
The Echoing Voices of those Before Me
Growing up, I was always a little bit different. On the playground, I used to run with my friend Cheyenne. We weren't just running though. We were running from boys. It was all for fun but teachers didn't see it that way.
By Orion Prince4 years ago in Pride
As High As A Priest
Welcome back to my trip through the Tarot from a LGBTQIA+ perspective! If you're new here, click on these links to check out the story so far on the Fool, the Magician, the High Priestess, the Empress, and the Emperor.
By Steph Cole4 years ago in Pride
By Any Other Name
I still remember the first diary that I picked up in my adolescence. It was cheaply made, probably some sort of dollar store variety, big box store clearance item. The church I went to had a particularly capitalistic way of ensuring continued pleasant behavior from their children. Certain tasks and behaviors were rewarded with poker chip “coins” that could be exchanged for different rewards in the Sunday school “store.” When I saw that notebook, pink, holographic hard covered, and perfectly well bound, I knew it had to be mine. I saved up my raised hands, my stacked chairs, my Bible verses flawlessly memorized, until I was able to make the exchange I so desperately wanted to make.
By Kit Olsen4 years ago in Pride
As An Enby in a Violently Gendered Society:
When I was a kid I was always fascinated by dress-up. It was fun to put on boy's clothing and pretend to be a boy. When I was younger, it was just assumed by everyone I'd grow up to be a "tomboy". I never thought we needed these terms at all. As a kid, one doesn't really understand the ripple effects that gender has on society. I was disadvantaged from birth by being born female in a patriarchy. Gender meant nothing more, when I was a kid, than how you were born. How you were born, that's how you were meant to stay.
By choreomania4 years ago in Pride
The Rainbow Barn Owl
I lay here in the loft, breathing small white puffs that turn softly to wisps in the cold night air. They lay long, and distinct across the pin pricked blanket of blackness that is the night sky until the warmth that was within me becomes one with the frosty atmosphere and disappears. I wait in utter stillness. I imagine your wings opening wide for the first flight of evening, immense and strong, able to lift such a large animal into the air, but also agile; able to dive when your keen eyes spot some unlucky prey and make a swift, soft, and precise landing, and I wish you could fly farther, Dear Barn Owl.
By Ashleigh Miller4 years ago in Pride
Q-TIP that S@#T!!!!
It was a disheartening January/February in 2019 when the Jussie Smollett “incident’ added to frictions in the Chicago Police Department and communities. I have beloved family members and friends who are part of the LGBTQ community. Smollett’s guilty verdict in December 2021 of felony disorderly conduct for staging a fake hate crime seemed to have set strides towards LGBTQ acceptance back 10 years hypothetically.
By Tii Danjel4 years ago in Pride
Dark Sheep
I always considered myself the unwilling beneficiary of a generational curse. My mother was a habitual adulterer and my father was never above not being treated like he was ever above any of my mother’s less-than antics. He was simple and complacent and my mother was malicious and narcissistic. The mix was toxic and bread an involuntary toxicity within me as their offspring.
By A. Nom4 years ago in Pride
A sense of Clarity
It's strange "coming out", especially when, at least to myself, I was never "in" per se. I've never really subscribed to the whole notion of coming out as I never felt that it was anyone else's business but my own, who or how I dated. Ultimately because deep down I always knew; I always knew that I held an attraction for both the opposite and same-sex, and everthing both inbetween and outside of, and I always knew (at least since I was around the age of 12) that I never felt comfortable as a girl, as a woman.
By Jester Hewitt4 years ago in Pride
Eclipse
She was poetry, the gentle whisper of sweet melodies hummed under candlelight. The gentle flickering embers of a fireplace on a cold winter's night and her skin the freshest driven snow. She was angelic - dancing in the rain, an enigma - An unspoken promise. Her hair was raven, long, soft, and free-flowing. It hung down over her face, hiding an uncompromisable beauty - that could never fade, ever glowing. Her eyes were the stars. The deepest pools grey, cold, icy - glass. Ones that could see through you.
By Abbie Redpath4 years ago in Pride
What it's like being a queer, autistic, adhd, mom
You read that title correctly. It's a mouthful, I know. I get major imposter syndrome anytime I occupy space in any of these arenas. It wasn't till covidgate 2020 when I, along with the rest of the world, turned to TikTok. Whether for dissociation, education, dance challenges, or humor(the best medicine for a pandemic sized sadness), TikTok had it all. That's how I realized I was ADHD. Throw off every stereotypical, meme- worthy idea you have about ADHD because it is SO much more than an issue with holding attention. That's why, when I suddenly started seeing creators talk about their ADHD, I was like, "Holy Crap! That's me!" I had simultaneously found my people(Thanks TikTok algorithm) and discovered a new, more vulnerable version if myself. And that was just the tip of the iceberg my friends.
By Sam Hawk4 years ago in Pride
Could gender BE any more confusing? *exasperated sigh*
Why does gender make no freaking sense to me? I swear - when I try to think about it - my brain powers off and I am left to press (more like impatiently jab at) the power button over and over with no success. Only a dark, blank, screen staring back at me.
By mouse fairy4 years ago in Pride