I would be a horrible girlfriend at this point in my life, because I’m both needy and unavailable.

You know, I always think of myself as sort of ready for every criticism.

I actually didn't enjoy being a child particularly at all even though I had nice parents in a comfortable place to live. Just because I was too confused in generating too many answers for myself that just scared me more.

But I want to tell my stories, more than that, I have to in order to stay sane.

Like Summer Sisters comforted me just because I was like, okay things I've seen with my own eyes are not so terrible, and even though I knew adult gay people and had absolutely no issue with it. And I just couldn't articulate what made me so uncomfortable about the space that I shared with my friends becoming a sexual space. And it was very healing for me to read that, and feel like it was a part of other friendships, even fictional friendships I admire.

I'm really lucky because my sister is a real activist soul and also hyper-intellectualized in this way that's really allowed me to wrap my mind around some of the bigger intellectual concepts and really understand the language around identity in the gender nonconforming community.

I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.