4 min Read Now
In Bulgaria the Enemy is “Gender”
When a translator borrowed the term “gender” from English, the Bulgarian conservative right found a new word to weaponize.
Language
4 min Watch Now
Names
The fifth video from the album Travesti Biológica celebrates the cultural turn when we claim terms that once were used to oppress.
6 min Read Now
Lesben, Schwuchtel, and Creative Punctuation: Queer(ing) the German Language
The emergence of queer terminology in a language as gendered as German calls for creative appropriation and disruptive recombination.
7 min Read Now
Unmute: Scattered Thoughts on Zoom Fatigue
Our definitions of “Zoom fatigue” are as varied as our symptoms—from anxiety to loathing to fits of laughter and primal screams. Neta Alexander offers differing perspectives on this new fatigue that has forced its way into our lexicon.
5 min Read Now
For What It’s Worth
Wandering the streets of San Francisco, browsing the city’s bookshelves, a writer reflects on twenty years of literary and artistic influence, navigating an increasingly unfamiliar landscape in New York City.
6 min Read Now
Queer Transgression & Belonging: Lesbian / Lesbijką / Lezbianke / Mishkev-zokhernitse
Finally becoming comfortable saying “I am a lesbian” in Poland, Zohar Weiman-Kelman unpacks layers of meaning in the Yiddish words for queer identity.
55 min Read Now
Goat Literature: A Future PoL
Trained to be producers and consumers in a marketplace of literature, most writers don’t know how to be citizens of a polity. In the concluding essay of the Polity of Literature series the editor, Matthew Stadler, proposes an experiment to help us: The GOAT PoL (The Geopolitical Open Atlas of The Polity of Literature).
39 min Read Now
The Rise and Future of a Queer Polity of Literature in Six Scenes (part two)
In part two, the purposes and ambitions of queer literature change in the ‘80s with the rise of AIDS and a punishing, homophobic backlash. These cultural conditions birthed a new political awareness—one that linked queer communities to other historically marginalized and oppressed people.
9 min Read Now
أيّ ساعة العربي؟ — What time does the Arabic start?
Moving back to Beirut after years abroad, Omar Mismar chats with a young barista to discover a new generation of local queer language.
28 min Read Now
The Rise and Future of a Queer Polity of Literature in Six Scenes (part one)
In part one of this candid personal memoir, Michael Bronski recalls the birth, life, and future of a queer polity of literature, circa 1964 to 1980.
41 min Read Now
Words Lost and Found
On a short trip to document the Aramaic revival, Ben Shields gets lost in a story from which there seems to be no escape.
5 min Read Now
From Kyzteke to Kumsa: Queer identity in the Kyrgyz language
Tracing the linguistic roots of queer Kyrgyz words, Temir Kalbaev describes their evolution in media and academia from pejorative slur to human rights activism.