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Danté! Come down stairs and party dudeee!" My brother screams franticly from my doorway; my duvet unable to mask his begging - his voice a mixture of drunken glee and intoxication. Well... there's still enough room under the blankets if you want to lay in here with me." He pats the spot next to him. Did he just invite me to sleep in my own bed? Some people maintain that one cannot remember events or thoughts from ages as early as four or five. I know that one can and does if the occurrence is distinctly affecting.
Several months ago, I took a trip with a longtime, close friend. We are both gay men and have traveled many times together over the years with few problems and a hell of a lot of fun. My friend can be high-maintenance but I am pretty low-key and we've managed to work out our different styles and to enjoy ourselves. Well that's just stupid." He mutters from above me, the bed dipping as he pulls the duvet off of him and rolls his legs over. He's glorious - his body is chiseled like the Greek sculptures - toned with a incredible smoothness. I seal my eyes as they attempt to drop lower; looking at something they shouldn't. Such trips were always a challenge. First, because we all worked odd jobs with odd hours. Second, because none of us owned a car and the nearest movie theater was 40 minutes from our rural Maine town. And, for me, because though I had known these boys since preschool, I had gone away every September for the last four years to a prep school. And also because now at 17 I was, for the first time in my life, a boy. Well I'll warm you up then." His arm wraps around my shoulder, pulling me into his chest - our bodies intertwined with the tight embrace. His chest feels like warmth; like comfort; like protection. But there’s still a long way to go, which is why we’re grateful for each new trans narrative that enters the canon — particularly in the form of fiction, an obviously massive category in which trans authors have long been excluded from the mainstream. Charming yet incisive YA like Kacen Callender’s Felix Ever After and Aiden Thomas’s Cemetery Boys are setting trends and redefining expectations for YA readers and writers everywhere. Meanwhile literary novels like Binnie’s Nevada are a breath of fresh air in a convention-bound genre, shedding light on the trans experience while remaining accessible and entertaining to cis readers as well. Where can you read more stories by trans authors?
The Best LGBTQ+ Short Stories
Last year when DH and I were going on vacation, we stopped at a rest area along a busy interstate highway. It was almost deserted, broad daylight and just outside of a medium-sized town. While I was in the ladies’ room, a woman came in with her kids – including a boy who appeared to be around nine. I came out of my stall and almost walked into him! When the boy began to turn from red to blue and he was flailing his little arms frantically Matt finally let go. The first time getting raped wasn't a thing you should be unconscious for. No, he and his little brother would make him into the slut he really was, he should remember this day. I’ve written about this before, but I sent my (6? 7?) year old son into a men’s room alone at a baseball stadium in Vancouver, BC. Totally unremarkable for him, in fact, I sent him there from his seat, since I trusted him to be able to find it on his own. This was really disturbing for my friend who also had her own son with her (he was maybe 6 months younger than mine). Her M.O. was to take her boy into the ladies’ with her. I refused to do this with mine, and since he was 4 or 5 I’d been sending him into the men’s room, wherever we were.
Scarlet red bobbing up and down through the trees attached to a figure concealed in the darkness. My horror intensified when I saw that this figure was not alone. It was being trailed by another pair of blood red eyes emitting a sinister light that latched onto something inside leaving me powerless to react. The eyes were other worldly, and combined with the incessant whispering, had me wholly hypnotized, mesmerized, and frozen in place as the lights marched ever closer to the tent. Then a third pair of eyes materialized followed by a fourth pursuing a clear cut path toward where I was standing. What I felt next snapped me out of it. I screamed at the top of my lungs as the hands grabbed me by the shoulders. Stepping out of the shower, I dry myself and pull on my change of clothes - primed and ready for sleep - finally. I knew I was gay at age five. That is, I had feelings, desires, compulsions, and attractions that I still had at 11 and would then recognize as homosexuality. I vividly remember the feelings. I well remember the story I’m about to relate.
AwesomeDude Authors
First, while I don’t like to feel I need to cover up more than I want for anyone, when a little boy is present I do cover up more than when a little girl is present. Gender differences die hard (maybe never?). It was a secret. It was my secret, mine alone to know, mine to keep. There would be consequences were anyone else to find out. I feared that I would get such a hiding as no unrepentant, English-public-school-sixth-former ever had. This was bad. I was never going to get into Heaven. I lift my duvet and roll into my blankets, enwrapping myself in the cool side of the bed. I starfish and trail my arms slowly over my soft cotton duvets. My hand hits something - someone - my eyes snapping open as my comfort and ease is shattered.
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