Category: Personal Stories

SOUP: Queer Pain, Queer Resilience

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By Jen Harris

Forever a trigger warning re: sexual and physical assault

I need to write about how hard it has been for me to be Queer.

The trauma of my Midwest queer experience rattles in me, generational and cellular. I am devastated by the danger I placed myself in in order to feel safe. How many nights did I drive shitty cars and shitty people around, trying to find an exit or a safe parking lot or enough change for a motel room? How many cigarettes have I smoked and how many lies have I told? How much survival sex did I have with women who wouldn’t acknowledge me during the day, but filled me full of food and drugs at night? How many scraps did I accept in place of true meaning and connection? At what point did I lose touch with my worth? Did I ever know it to begin with? Is it something you nurture or is it inherent? Is it something you believe in? Is it annual or perennial? How much sunlight and water does it need? How long can it live in the tundra before damaged, irreparable?

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SOUP: Can I Get a Witness?

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A low-simmer column about queerness, identity, and growing the fuck up 

By Jen Harris
Photos by Justina Kellner

When I was a child, there was no such thing as choice.

I know you don’t believe me. I know you want to argue with me right off the bat. Perfect. Hi. Hello. Welcome. I’m Jen. I’m queer. A nonbinary womxn. A lesbian. I’m 35AF, and I know saying that proves it. This is my first time here, so I figured a proper introduction would be… qualifying. It’s like when someone writes a letter to a celebrity (in this case, you are the celebrity) and they (I) start it with, “I have never written a letter like this before in my life.”

Often, that’s true.

It’s true for me, now. I’ve never been 35 before. I’ve never written a column about the queer experience. I don’t feel proficient for this task. For one thing, I bought a television a month ago, and it’s still leaning against the wall. I don’t know who’s popular or what matters to the masses. I don’t know any vacation hot spots, and I certainly don’t have the 411 on lesbian engagement dating apps. I’m taking a break from s-e-x… sooooo……

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I Publicly Came Forward with my Assailant: One Year Later

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By Hannah Strader

Last March, I was sitting peacefully on my balcony at 7:40 A.M., enjoying unseasonably nice weather and a warm cup of coffee. As I always do, I was running through my Instagram feed and catching up with notifications. Moments later, I was triggered and had to set down my phone.

Planet Comicon was coming up, and on the guest list was DC and Marvel writer Jai Nitz. The man twice my age who forcibly kissed me, held me trapped against his body, and relentlessly asked me to kiss him or touch him or have sex with him. I met him in one of my journalism classes at Kansas University, where he was invited to speak as a guest. 

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