LEUR Issue 01

issue 01

Curator

Champagne

Director Devin Rogers

Ambassador Lauren Duhon

Ashley Ann Estave

Editors

Kaci Yoder

Parsley

Ell Tate Tullier

Bailey

Patin

Guillory

Woods

Gonzales

Garcia

Guilfoyle

Fernanda Pina

Curator’s Note :

I’ve always wished there was a place where those like me could be free. Free to express their true authentic selves.

I’ve always wished there was a place where those like me could share. Share pieces of them. Share pieces of their art.

Their art is an expression of who they are. Their art embodies their voice. Their art speaks.

Their art speaks to those, at those, for those; Those who feel they have no voice.

With this space we remind them of their voice. With this space we allow their voices to be heard, seen, read, felt.

With this space we listen, together.

Only then when we take the time to listen, to really listen, is when we will learn, we will grow, we will love,

them.

Welcome to issue 01 of Leur Magazine!

Inside you will find the names of the people who have contributed to this first digital issue of Leur Magazine. These people represent the diversity and versatlity of our queer community here in the South. Some of our contributors are gay, some identify elsewhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, some are straight allies, and some don’t even know who they are yet. The point of this magazine is to provide a platform of self-expression without the strict means of label limitations from gendernorms, heteronormativity, masculinity, and stereotypes. We want to be a resource and a voice for the queer community here in the South, especially here in the deep south where it is more common for gay hate crimes to take place due to the strict and supressed nature of southern masculinity and religion. Only with education can you make people see things in a new perspective. Only then with a new perspective, can you inspire change. Here at Leur, we plan to inspire change and education through art.

Art is fluid, multi-faceted, organic, subjective, and just like us, art is human. Own your art. Let your art speak for you. The art you will read about in issue 01 captures happy moments between loving couples who have finally gotten the legal right to marry. You will read about a local aspiring fashion designer who decided to move out of his Spanish Town apartment with dreams for the big city. You will see fine art phography done by a local deaf photographer, who uses his art to capture the vulnerability and self-confidence of the naked body, as well as a local gay photographer who uses photography to help illustrate his battle with gender and racial identity. In this issue, you will also find an essay on aromanticism, a short-and-sweet short story about gay love, letters of support to LGBT friends, bisexual poetry, and more.

Charles Champagne Creative Curator

The main thing I have to say about this wedding was that their bond and their connection and attraction for each other was stronger than some of the straight couples I photograph.

Sometimes we will photograph weddings where the groom doesnt even pay a lot of attention to the bride and instead is there for a party. Or where the groom just wants to get to his friends and instead doesn’t want to spend the time taking photos with his bride when he knows that she really wants to do that. And thats fine, everyone is different.

However, at this wedding these two had such a bond and connection that it made photographing them so special. You could literally feel their love for each other through the photographs and that’s something that is rare, believe it or not. They didn’t care that I was there or that a camera was staring at them. Instead, they only cared that it was the two of them together in that moment.

When people tell me that they dont believe in same-sex marriage, I don’t say anything but I only laugh a little on the inside. Same-sex marriage is very much real and this wedding was no different. It was so incredibly real and an honor to be able to photograph such a strong and loving connection.

- Stephanie Fayetteville, AR

Ashley Ell

on finding my sexuality in elementary school:

i. she was fiery red hair and the neatest handwriting I’d ever saw I memorized the curve of an S and the round fullness of an O the way fluorescent lights reflected off of each strand of her hair like sunshine Stephanie

I told myself that I wanted to be like her.

ii. her hair shined black in a cramped classroom, skin as pale as moonlight a distinct nose and long face with a smile that showed all of her teeth Patty I told myself that I wanted to be like her.

ii. their names were joanna, natalie, jamie I told myself I wanted to be like them.

iv. I lied. it was more than that. I never questioned it because we were girls and you never told me that it was okay because good little christian girls don’t have those kind of thoughts.

a letter to a younger me:

when her palm grazes the small of your back and your skin turns into a furnace, do not call a repairman when you sign your letters love you like a sister do not pretend that you mean what you say, this is a dangerous game

when you curl into corners of your sixth grade classroom and awkwardly admire the other girls with long black hair and pale skin, it’s okay and you’re not too young to have these feelings when you find a best friend who fits this description like a glove, keep her

when your heart decides that there’s room for two, rearrange the furniture and make it work because they’re both worth it

when sunday sermons scream fire and brimstone about filthy sinners, recognize that your name is folded into every verse but one day you will break free and glass shatters under pressure, let it happen when you sneak a peek at your uncles dirty magazines and your eyes zero in on the women, do not consult a doctor because your brain is not sick

dear younger me, I’m sorry they never told you that it’s okay to love both and yourself as well.

You know what I love?

I love, photographing love.

When I shoot love, I see two people getting along, laughing at each other’s jokes and silly faces. When I shoot love, I capture their stories and witness just how wonderful their love can be. I see them being their authentic selves.

I capture that. I love that.

Through my research for my first LGBT engagement session, I realized photographing two men wasn’t any different than a man and a woman. Reason being, it’s all about showcasing the true love between two people in any circumstance. I had an absolute blast working with Michael and Clay this year and I look forward to signing on new LGBT clients!

As a part of the Baton Rouge LGBT community of artists, I’m energized by seeing so much support and encouragement from our city. I’m excited to see our community grow and bring new endeavors for all of us in this city.

-

Eric Garcia

Baton Rouge, LA

Les Patin

Fashion Designer

In October of 2014, I moved out of my Spanish Town apartment and went home. I was unhappy, and I knew I wasn’t reaching my full potential or following my creative pursuits enough. Home was a place I could be grounded. Also, for me, home is my grandmother’s house. She’s a go-getter, a businesswoman and a creative in her own right. She also has a large sewing studio in her backyard (it’s called The Shop).

Being endlessly curious and also endlessly frustrated that I didn’t have direct access to the clothing brands I like, I asked her to teach me to sew. After a few pieces, I fell head first into it, exploring the endless possibilities. I quickly found that I didn’t like using patterns created by other people, and that I’d have more freedom if I learned to create my own. So, I did.

When Ashley Monaghan and Andi Eaton of the Southern Coalition of Fashion and Design (SCFD) asked me to show my clothes in the fall of 2015, I hurriedly made a website and a line was born. In fact, I owe a lot to those two girls for making my clothes a thing.

Model: Julie Garza

In January of 2016, I moved to Brooklyn. I realized I needed more of a challenge, and I knew New York would provide that. It hasn’t disappointed. But I’m in love with Brooklyn and its people, its food, its nightlife, its graffiti, its style.

So now, I’m looking to develop clothes that would work for both Brooklynites and New Orleans folks alike. I want to make clothes without pretension, clothes that are affordable and effortlessly cool, w. Clothes for me, are about that. They’re part of the person’s story, helping an individual reveal their whole self, elevating their self-expression, if you will.

When people are confident in what they wear, and confident enough to shine their true selves outwardly, that’s what it’s all about, I think. That’s style, that’s fashion.

Being a part of the LGBT community, I think it’s important to create clothes that are unique, effortless and cool. We’ve struggled for a lot of things, but there are also a lot of tastemakers in our community. It was important for me to create things that spoke to both men and women, riding the line of the gender binary, and, in a way, rejecting it. My clothes aren’t out-of-the-box creations. They’re simple pieces, basic essentials, made to be parts of a person’s story. But they’re for everyone.

Chaicharoen

What inspired you to start the Tub Time With Tate project?

“I grew up in a bathtub basically. Mom used to have a hot bath ready and waiting for me when I would wake up in the mornings before school. I just love the sanctuary that a tub is to me—you can just lay there, think about things, dream, ponder on life, feel things, not feel things and many other various things. Six or so years ago, I took a selfie of myself in the bathtub and jokingly hashtagged: #tubtimewithtate. Somehow that stuck, and people started expressing interest in wanting to hop in a tub for me.”

What does this project mean to you?

“It means a lot to me. I understand it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s okay with me. For me, it’s been a way to put a focus on my fine art dreams. I work professionally as a photographer doing weddings, families, seniors and pretty much what I call “money jobs”. I have enjoyed doing them for years and working with my wonderful clients to get them captured memories, but I’ve always gravitated towards imagery involving nudes—and once my Tub Time With Tate started getting more official, I found myself appreciating the art form of photography once again like I did when I first started out as a young teen. It has definitely evolved into something bigger than I ever thought it’d be over the last five years of shooting it—but it makes me so happy that I have a specific audience who enjoys the fine art I create via the TTWT series.”

What do you look for in your subjects?

“I’m always looking for subjects who genuinely enjoy the work I create. I do not have a specific set of criteria other than you must be naked and open to being possibly vulnerable. You are being part of a creation that the world will eventually see. That itself can be scary to one who isn’t in front of the camera much, much less naked.

At the beginning, I started out allowing people to leave underwear on—but after a year or so, it just wasn’t “authentic” enough because the subject wasn’t really 100 percent opening themselves to me and my vision. That is definitely on me though, I should have been strong enough to say, if you’re not comfortable in being naked and vulnerable, then it wasn’t an art process they should be part of. Those who left their underwear on are part of my journey, and how I saw the series evolve for the better. A major part of that is putting their trust in me and what I’ve created.”

In what ways do you think this series can help shed a light on sexuality and self-identity?

“First and foremost, I always hope the subject I shoot really enjoys the actual process of being in front of my camera, which I know can be daunting for those who aren’t used to doing that sort of thing. I aim to gather a more diverse array of gender, race and body type. I go back and forth about how to describe the series, because it’s evolving so much day by day.

I have definitely shot more men than women for the series, and a high percentage of them are gay with “the perfect body”. That is perfectly fine with me—but definitely not my goal—for it to become branded as just that. It’s a human study, and I welcome all types. I welcome all viewers to look at the Tub Time With Tate art series as something to appreciate the nude body as an art form. I often won’t turn down anyone who wants to join the series, it’s just a matter of making it happen with scheduling and timing.

Nudity in art is often a controversial subject, which I always thought was so odd. I think it’s such a beautiful way to add a layer to our country who puts more acceptance in violence over a nude body. Body positivity is one thing I’m working on my own self not having “that perfect body.” To challenge myself I’ve done a shoot for another artist in my underwear. I have plans to collaborate with a few more in NYC where we have a second place to live. I’m a big believer in supporting an artist, and if I expect people to support me—I need to make myself vulnerable to what they create, even it it includes me in the nude. I want to be part of the change where nudity in America becomes something celebrated, not hidden or shamed.”

or, I’m an Aromantic, but I Still Love You Madly

“My name is AshleyRose. I’ve been bisexual since around the age of 12 (thanks, Xena/Hercules TV shows), lost my virginity at 16, at which point I would say I also became polyamorous. I was raised by a single mother who was single by choice (mostly), and she did a pretty darn great job. Part of the reason I think I grew to question monogamy as strongly as I do is because my mom presented such a wonderful example of how a single person can live their best life. She’s my hero. This one goes out to my mom, who would probably be very embarrassed that I even mentioned my childhood in this essay.

I’ve been labeled a lot of different things by other people in my life, sometimes people who thought they were helping, sometimes by people who just wanted to make me easier to digest, so I can be a little distrustful of anything that tries to fence me in. I loathe the need to label everything and put everyone into predetermined boxes, but I’m also learning the value of choosing how and when I want to categorize myself. Community building, y’all. Recently, on the eve of my 25th year, I stumbled across the definition for a new thing: aromanticism. I was immediately struck by how much the definition sounded like the part of myself that previously didn’t fit into any of the other boxes I’d tried to jump into. Aromanticism allowed me to account for the part of myself that’s capable of becoming completely and utterly devoted to a person for a brief or extended amount of time, while never really craving the idea of introducing them to my mom, or building a secret wedding scrapbook that I hide under my bed.

Definition: An aromantic is a person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others.

Where romantic people have an emotional need to be with another person in a romantic relationship, aromantics are often satisfied with friendships and other non-romantic relationships. What distinguishes romantic relationships from a non-romantic relationships can vary diversely, but often includes physical connection (holding hands, cuddling, etc.). The aromantic attribute is usually considered to be innate and not a personal choice, just as the lack of sexual attraction is innate to asexuals. It is important to note that aromantics do not lack emotional/personal connection, but simply have no instinctual need to develop connections of a romantic nature. Aromantics can have needs for just as much empathetic support as romantics, but these needs can be fulfilled in a platonic way. It is possible for an aromantic individual to be involved in, and enjoy, a devoted relationship with another person, but these relations are often closer friendships, naturally reflecting the closeness of the two individuals and not a purposely initiated monogamous separation as is often found in romantic couples. Aromantics may experience squishes which are the aromantic or platonic equivalent of a romantic crush. When an aromatic gets into a relationship that’s more than friends—but less than romantic—that is known as a queerplatonic relationship. Like all romantic identities aromatics can be of any sexual orientation.

I care. A lot. Some might say too much. I’ve always been very giving of myself at times, and completely reticent at others. My propensity towards poly has often been diminished as me “not willing to be vulnerable,” and while I always shrugged it off because I knew it wasn’t true, it was hard for me to shake it completely because I didn’t

have an answer other than “...nuh uh! I tell people stuff! I’m here for you!” Aromanticism leaves me room to be more intimate and vulnerable in all of my relationships, because I’m not “saving” that for any specific person/ circumstance. It’s what allows me to have frank sexual conversations with my friends, because I care about them deeply enough to want to know and be involved in that aspect of their lives, without expecting retribution or immediate reciprocation. I’m also capricious. I know this about myself. I dive in too strongly and frequently have to hold myself back from treating new relationships the way I treat new TV shows and fandoms.

MUST PROCURE ALL INFORMATION

IMMEDIATELY MUST DECIDE PLACEMENT IN EMOTIONAL HIERARCHY WITHIN ONE WEEK OTHERWISE RELATIONSHIP IS NULL.

I realize now that’s unhealthy, impractical, and also a bad way to watch television.

There’s been a freedom in accepting that I’m aromantic. It’s given me the confidence to go into new relationships and say “hello, I have NO IDEA where this is going to go, but I have to tell you right off the bat, these are the things that it is not in my nature to provide you.” I recently was in a queerplatonic relationship for a few months, during which I realized I was aromantic. A lot of people think that polyamorous people just float around boning everything until their genitals dry up, and then they switch to tantra, but that is not the case. The most relatable thing about polyamorous/aromantic relationships is THAT they end. The goal isn’t to solve the traditional relationship trajectory and allow everyone to be together forever and ever, it’s more to admit that there are multiple available paths, and sometimes those paths reach the same destinationdeciding that two people aren’t as compatible as they initially thought.

My first Squishy, as he continues to be called, had never been in an aromantic relationship before. Neither had I, for all intents and purposes. I presented him with the definition at the start of the conversation as a means of explaining to him how I was feeling about how things were progressing. We’d been sleeping together for a bit, I actually had a threesome with he and his ex as a sort of “goodbye excursion” before she moved, and we’d been friends on each other’s periphery for awhile. As time went on, it seemed as though both of us were attempting to fill each other’s needs through mind-reading and operating on what we

*should* be doing and how our relationship looked to the outside world. I can’t speak for him, but I started feeling a little trapped. In a common but unfortunate move, I convinced myself that this was what people meant when they said I was incapable of being vulnerable and I “put up and shut up” until I was so annoyed and frustrated I couldn’t take it anymore. The first conversation was rough. There was crying, long awkward pauses, and a lot of “How do we fix this?” With no real answer in sight. He felt I was being a little too clingy and slightly overbearing. I felt that I didn’t have any time to myself and I felt obligated to take care of him. Neither of us were really happy and neither of us had really noticed the shift in the other. We took a few days, came back together, and realized that it fundamentally wasn’t working. What I wanted and what he wanted were two different things. We’re still working out what form our relationship takes now, but it was one of the most fruitful “breakup” conversations I’d ever had.

The journey to sexual adulthood and fulfillment is long.

It has winds and bends and u-turns and, to give a possibly overly local reference, potholes. There have been times where I’ve gotten stuck, only to realize I was digging my way through a tunnel and when I came back up for air I realized I had progressed when everything seemed dark and stagnant. There have also been times where I’ve patted myself on the back for my self-actualization and maturity, only to realize that there was a good bit of selfishness and a complete lack of humility on my part. I’ve found great joy in separating love and romance for myself, but I know that’s not the path for everyone. Whatever it takes, whatever your brand of relationship, lean in. Explore it, tear it down, build it back up, and give it everything you’ve got. If you need me, I’ve got cupcakes and a fairly broad shoulder to cry upon. We’re all in this together.

AshleyRose Bailey

I photograph as a means of survival.

Sometimes I am the subject.

Other times I am the prop,

Sometimes I am both.

Whatever I am, my blackness lives close to death, far away from femininity. I am searching for me, fearlessly behind my lens, on the surface of the image, Guided by my history and the creative process.

I took his hand and led him from the car. Slipping his fingers in between mine, we began walking down to the river side. Adoring his lips with each word he formed when he spoke back to me. Making small conversation as he quizzed me of this delightful event that was taking place.

Confusion was written on his face, but happiness spoke in the sound of his voice.

“What are we doing here?” he wondered.

I was just laughing on the inside. To see him so curious, anxious like a child on Christmas morning. That in itself was a gift to me. He was adorable, and I was nervous. My heart pounded the sound of a thousand army men about to face war. Loud and fierce.

The dirt road that led to the river side was lined with lit candles, glowing our pathway during the gorgeous pink sunset. God himself painted that sky, perfect for lovers. I could feel the nerves were beginning to set in his hands as they trembled. Short shakes, rattled between our fingers.

I wanted nothing more, but to pull him close and hold him, but I couldn’t. He needed to feel every emotion.

“Dreams are made of these moments,” he looked over at me with tear filled eyes.

“I’m glad it’s not a dream anymore,” I told him smiling back.

He looked stunning in his pressed pink button-up shirt that overlapped his blue jeans. Wearing Chuck’s, converse style

shoes, that added this sexy adorable flare. His appearance was young and stylish. His hair neatly styled for this occasion. He stopped in the middle of the dirt road tugging me back.

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on or not?” he continued..

”I love you, but just a little further.”

I pulled on his hand suggesting him to continue walking. The dawn was still fading before us, and the illumination of the candles burned brighter. Making our way to the bottom of the dirt road, there sat a small wooden table, circular, and made for two by the rivers edge. A small marble stone vase sat in the middle, filled with sunflowers, politely adding complement to the scenery. Shortly behind us stood the most beautiful oak tree you had ever seen. Its limbs grew wild in every direction. Five hundred mason jars hung from hemp ropes, gently held thousands of fireflies. The tree possessed magic with its gaze. Green illumination of fire engulfed the wild oak with each passing fade of the sun’s light. Pulling back one of the chairs from the circular table, I offered him a seat.

“For the handsome prince,” I said with the deepest love for him.

“Such the gentleman you are,” he couldn’t help but to express back to me.

I took my place in the chair directly across from him and had a seat, grabbing his hand once more I embraced his in mine.

“I can’t believe thi...” I interrupted him.

“It’s been two years today since you came into my life, and each minute has been incredible. From the first second I knew you, I knew it would be something special, the way you made my heart skip just a little more with each beat. I began singing in the shower again. Still awful, but the songs aren’t so heartbreaking anymore. You’ve been a friend, companion, and a lover. You could have had so many people in this life. Some that possessed so much better features and qualities than me, yet you chose to stay by my side. Your dedication to my happiness has been noticed, and I miss you more and more each day that we are apart for the shortest of minutes. I was going to write you some silly poem, but the words wouldn’t form. At least not in any way that could truly express how I felt. Only my actions could. Which leads us here tonight.”

I stopped for a moment...

... letting go of his hand, and removed myself from the wooden chair. I walked over to his side, dropping down to one knee as my right hand slid down into my pant pocket. Pulling his hand back into my left I continued,

“Jackson Montgomery,” I said while pulling out a ring.

“Will you so ever do me the honor of spending the rest of your life and continue to love me for the rest of my days? I can’t promise you riches or a perfect life, but I can offer you one of love.”

The tears dropped from my chin and watered the grass under our feet.

“I knew from the very moment I laid eyes on you that I wanted you in my life,” he said. “Whether as a friend or something more, I knew you were meant to be here close to me. For the first time in years, I found someone who tried to understand me, talk to me, and learn with me. It didn’t take long though...” he stopped for a moment and began to weep.

“...It didn’t take long though to figure out that you were meant to be in my life forever.” he finished after gaining some composure to speak. I stood up to meet him with an embrace. All I could do was just hold him as we cried together.

“So was that a yes??” I said in his ear.

“Yes!” he said back to me.

I pulled back from our embrace and pressed my lips against his.

“Thank you!” I slipped in mid-kiss.

“Thank you for loving me.”

Cody Guilfoyle

Hi! I’m Cody. I am a freelance photographer currently living in NYC. I identify myself as gay. I use Instagram to document my life. I use it to show people how I see the world or how i want them to see a particular moment.

Guilfoyle@codyguilfoyle

to : my LGBTQA+ squad

Over eighty percent of my friends identify as a part of the LGBTQ community. When I say “friends,” I don’t mean my Facebook friends or people that I know but don’t really talk to. When I say “friends,” I mean the people I would drop anything for. I mean the people who are family to me.

When I was a freshman in college I lost all of my friends but one. Every person I hung out with stopped talking to me, and I have never felt so alone. The one friend who stuck by my side was a homosexual male. With his love and support, I quickly gained an entirely new group of friends. Most of them are gay. Being one of the only heterosexual people around, I never once felt singled out. They were so accepting of me. The friends I have made love me and accept me for who I am, with all of my quirks and my dark sense of humor. The love these people have knows no bounds.

As a straight female, I feel most comfortable around gay people, honestly. As most of my friends have been persecuted for the way they were born, they have a limitless compassion inside of their hearts that is nothing short of astounding. Their ability to empathize with my feelings of being outcast by my former friends helped me heal and begin my life again.

I have watched as one of my friends’ parents completely disowned him for coming out to them. My best friend in the entire world has parents who refuse to accept that he is gay. My former roommate felt so insecure about being gay that she drowned her feelings in drugs and alcohol. My friends are the strongest people I know. They encounter so much hate because of their love. I will never know the pain they experience, but I will always support their right to live and love as they choose.

I wrote this article to say to all of my LGTBQA squad, THANK YOU! Thank you all for taking me in and making me feel like I belong. In a world that has so much hate, I find nothing but love in you all. I am forever grateful for the LGBTQA community.

in gratitude, Chelsey Gonzales

Baton

they always want to tame the Wilde ones: string me up and stand me in the town square cover me with scarlet letters and sin for all to see call me the terrible things you mutter about me under your breath tell your children I’m the devil tell them not to look in my eyes because they might just see something they don’t like desecrate my grave and give me no peace after death drag my name through the mud for centuries after my soul departs take my words and tear them apart like I never loved at all all of this all of this because I learned to love outside the box all of this because I learned to love others as I could never love myself as I loved the air in my lungs the heart in my chest & when you utter my name I hope it burns

Ashley Ell

Leur Louisiane is a local photography blog extension of Leur Magazine that aims to capture the various colorful stories of the LGBTQA+ spectrum

Sydney + Ryan

Ryan

So tell me something about Ryan.

Sydney: “Ryan is from Pearl River, Louisiana and what is very interesting about her is that she grew up very religious. She grew up baptist evangelizing to people. She really didn’t consider the fact of being gay until she was 21 and in college. Thats where it finally clicked for her. Her journey with her religion and her sexuality is very interesting to me. It was around the same time where she realized that she wasn’t a religious person and realized that she was a gay person. Though they weren’t things that happened together simultaneously for her, which is kind of bizarre. Since then she has started removing the mantle of “I’m a religious person” and started embracing that “I am a gay person”. It’s almost like she is equally enthusiastic about being gay as she was about being an evangelical christian. I always ask her about how she feels about that, but for her it was a very natural transition. It was something that was holding her back and now she is embracing something that will help her move forward.

Ryan, did you find it necessary to step back from religion in order to find yourself and accept your sexuality?

“Well, no, not really. I kind of gave up religion. Like Sydney said, I am from Pearl River, and bless my heart I just thought that Jesus was the only way, and then I got to LSU as an international studies major and learned that buddhists believe what they believe in as firmly as I do, and so do muslims, jews, hindus, everyone. So if they believe that as much as I do and there is ‘x’ amount of people who believe what they believe, who is right? Are we all wrong? The more I would ask myself that, the more I would tell myself that we were just all wrong. However, I also think religion is good, because it gives people fulfillment and purpose in life.

I never thought about sexuality before college that much. Once I gave up religion, I realized that the physical intimacy I wanted and needed was for a female. So religion didn’t have a whole lot to do with me realizing I was gay, my first sexual feelings just happened to be for a woman and then I was able to make that connection, “Oh, I’m gay, this makes sense”. I do believe in a higher power though, I don’t know what they’re doing up there, but I don’t want to piss them off.

What is it like for you to be non-straight conforming?

Sydney: We all grow up in a very heteronormative society, and all of our influences in everything we read and watch is reinforcing this image of a marriage between a male and female, a 2.5 kid household. and when you are part of the LGBTQA+ community, you’re the ultimate other. When you have that feeling of “I am other”, and you accept that feeling, you are able to almost shed the mantle of heteronormativity. Once you do that, you realize it’s really anyone’s game. You begin to call into question everything you believe in, like marriage and societal systems. You begin to tell yourself, “this doesn’t make sense for me, so why do I continue to do it?”

Recognizing myself as LGBT allowed me to say that my relationship can be exactly how I define it. It can be monogamous, we can live together, we can live in two separate countries. Your relationship can be whatever you define it as, and is not bound by any rules that you don’t determine.

It kind of bothers me that gays and lesbians tend to follow this structured path into increasing their intimacy. We’re engaged, married, children, house, car, whatever, it’s a very linear journey. As someone in the LGBT community, the blueprint doesn’t exist for us. There is no book that tells me exactly how to be in a lesbian relationship, there is no book that I can read that will tell me how to date women. I mean, there are books that have tried. It’s just such an individualized experience, and that’s beautiful. Realizing that helped me grow as a person. Everything that I thought i had to do, or had to be apart of, I was able to transcend in a way and figure out what exactly I wanted to do. I want a relationship with communication, where we have boundaries, where the person respects that I don’t want to have kids. I want someone that can just simply be on the same page as myself. There is something unique about being LGBT. Once you identify that way it opens up a whole new sense of freedom. Freedom from the system, society, heteronormativity, etc. Again, it’s beautiful, but it’s hard. Hard because there is comfort in that normalcy. Normalcy feels good to people. There is something that is very confrontational about being gay, because you are rejecting that said normalcy, it’s rebellion.

I tell my straight friends that their relationship can be what they want it to be. I tell them that your straight relationship doesn’t have to follow that pattern either. We can all be happy and all meet our goals. We can all do our own thing, and it’s no fucking big deal. It was hard for me to identify the way I identify. For a long time I identified as bisexual. It was truly how I felt. I was very much interested in men, interested in women, slept with both back and forth. But now that I am in this relationship with a girl, people always ask me, “Did Ryan make you gay? Did she flip you?”

Ryan: “On the opposite side of that, straight women would be talking about attractive men and then look to us and say, “oh, y’all wouldn’t be interested in that right?” We would just be like, no, we see beauty, we can recognize beauty. We just don’t want to date them or sleep with them.

Sydney: That’s the thing, sexuality is nuance. As I’ve gotten older and realized what I wanted in a relationship, I can recognize that I am still sexually attracted to both men and women, but I do not want a relationship with a man. I’m just not interested. That is kind of where I am now personally. I pretty much identify now as queer, gay if you’re a thirsty straight boy asking

How has your journey in self exploration of sexual identity changed throughout the years?

Sydney: I was very much a person who identified as bisexual, and was also very vocal about it. I wanted there to be some representation for bisexuals, because there isn’t any. I’m still very passionate about bisexuality too.

Ryan: I think it’s a comfortable transition for a lot of homosexual people to use the label of ‘bisexual’ when they are first coming out. It’s a weird comfort for them that is almost natural when you’re still figuring out who you are. It’s just a natural step to take. It just sucks for those people who truly do identify as bisexual, because a lot of people don’t believe in them and take them seriously, they are told that it’s just a part of a phase.

Sydney: I sometimes find myself wondering if I do still truly identify as bisexual, I just don’t know. It’s a journey that i am on. You know, I will shout out the editor and chief, Riese Bernard, of Autostraddle. She posted an article years ago that I wish I would have read sooner basically on her identifying as bisexual, and how strong her love for those men really were. She kind of described it as saying “ I identify as a lesbian, and queer, and bisexual all together, because they all represent me, none of them were lies, and they are all who I am.” I may identify as gay now, but I was in love with those men I dated in the past and I’m not going to deny that part of me.

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