hey people, I have an essay on traveling through place and gender in bklyn boihood’s long-awaited anthology Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity! Published by Riverdale Ave Books, edited by Morgan Mo Willis (of bklyn boihood) with an intro by Toshi Reagon + cover art by Mickalene Thomas, OTXY is filled with stories, confessions, essays, poetry and letters from QTPOCs around the world for whom masculinity has played a role in shaping their lived identities.
My story, called Low Visibility, starts out like this:
In the morning, our plane began to curl downward like a rebellious strand of hair gone straight. I looked out over the cloudscape, a heavy swell of shadows that had been sucked up into the sky, swirling with the corals and blues of the sunrise, and wondered about the other side of turbulence. Having passed through the dysphoria of landing, where your belly’s lost in some buoyant limbo, what would touchdown finally feel like? I wanted to skip alla that. I wanted to be someone, somewhere –clearly defined.
Yes, traveling as a non-cisgender person is some shit. Purchase the book here and support QTPOC writers!
