Her name was Gloria. She always sat a few pews in front of me and my family at Sunday service. As the music from the church band swept across the congregation, her arms would rise, her eyes would close, and a peaceful smile would grace her face.…
It's the most wonderful time of the year…or so they say. Packages are wrapped, lights are hung, and holiday songs fill the airwaves. People are making plans to gather together with both their given and chosen families. Whether you celebrate Yule, Hanukkah, Christmas, or Kwanza, this is a time of year that builds many bridges between who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. It’s a season of faith, family, and truth—a combination that can be…
Imagine that you find yourself attracted to someone. Imagine the urgency with which they occupy your thoughts, the impulse of being drawn to them. And yet all the while, you remain incapable of vocalizing the force that belies your attraction to them. How did we become entangled like this? To desire another is to be left speechless with nothing to rely on but the language of want, a language that becomes imperfectly processed through the body. Moving between snow-covered dreamscapes…
By Aubrey F. Burghardt The Zócalo, or main square in central Mexico City, has long served as a gathering place. The plaza was once a well-known ritualistic mecca in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, and acted as a cultural hub of sorts, a safe haven for smaller communities within the larger population. In the Spring Branch neighborhood of Houston, Texas, another Zócalo exists—a luxury-living apartment complex that not only provides communal housing but a homestead of cultural and creative energy as…
In 2019, Good Morning America found itself embroiled in a scandal after co-host Laura Spencer appeared to mock the United Kingdom’s Prince George for taking ballet classes. That stigma—the notion of what boys should or shouldn’t do—is all too familiar to Houston-based dancer Otis Berry, who works to extinguish it with every kick.…
What does it mean to be non-binary? Does non-binary identity look a certain way? Dr. Laura McGuire answers these questions—and shares their personal story of coming out as non-binary—in this month's Asking for a Friend.…
Houston-native Dr. Kaden J. Stanley comes from a family that greatly values higher education. He spent his childhood cheering for his North Carolinian parents’ Atlantic Coast Conference basketball teams and dreamed of, one day, becoming a Duke Blue Devil himself. In the sixth grade, Stanley and his parents agreed that he would continue his schooling at a college preparatory academy. The school he would attend from sixth through twelfth grade was, as Stanley describes, southern Baptist and radically fundamentalist—Senator Ted…
The nights are getting longer, and drinks are beginning to shift from pumpkin to peppermint. The temperature is dipping down into cold weather (and then up, and then down again, because Texas). That can only mean one thing—the season of cheesy Hallmark-esque holiday movies is now upon us. This year, everyone who is tired of the same rehashed heteronormative storylines has a reason to rejoice! Let It Snow, which debuted on Netflix earlier in November, has an absolutely adorable queer…
Abortion is a polarizing issue, but every person who can conceive a child is worthy and capable of making the private decision whether or not to have the procedure. Historically, the anti-abortion crusade has been heavily targeted toward cisgender women. Yet, cisgender women are not the only people who can get pregnant or receive an abortion—many transgender men, intersex, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people can too.…
The Holy Roman Empire can often be difficult to talk about in sweeping terms because of its decentralized nature. But in 1530, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (also known as the Lex Carolina), would mark the first body of German criminal law and attempt to unite the various principalities and kingdoms in the Empire. It also set the foundation for the prosecution of queer identity and life.…
