Issue 2 - Summer 2026

The INQUEERY team selected this piece by Nasta Martyn almost unanimously. We felt drawn to what we perceived as biblically accurate angel eyes and to the striking red throughout the wings. Similar to what our EIC said about the cover photo, we felt that this work draws attention to religious trauma and the voyeuristic tendencies of an almighty God, one who we're told watches over us and judges our every move. While the claw tears away at one face, another turns towards the eyes, facing the mirror, the truth. It's a gorgeous and affecting piece that we're honored to showcase in the magazine.

Nasta Martyn is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design. The first personal exhibition ""My soul is like a wild hawk"" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection ""The 50 Best Short Stories"", and her poem was published in the collection of poetry ""The wonders of winter"

November and the moon

hangs fat and orange.

The ghost unwilts, a sallow angel. How strange

we are, she says, we without speech, dreaming,

our hands living raw. Awake among

forgotten faces, forces watching

with lidded eyes,

the creatures who know

I bruised them trying to sew

into the hole dug in my pie crust skin.

Carter Hudson attends the University of Nebraska at Omaha where he majors in English literature and minors in Spanish. He’s originally from western Nebraska, and he enjoys writing and reading about queer and trans themes. Two of his poems can be found published in the Spring 2025 edition of Foothills magazine.

Ash Halle (they/he) is a Las Vegas based multimedia artist dedicated to bringing whimsy and authenticity to the art world.

Would you help me learn my body?

‘Cause you’ve got more experience

in women’s skin in any sense.

I’d make it yours as recompense.

Would you help me learn my body

by telling me about your own?

Those basic things you’ve always known

would dazzle me more than gemstones.

Would you help me learn my body?

I know it seems a little late,

but up till now I’ve had to wait 

for a version I didn’t hate.

Would you help me learn my body?

‘Cause I’m still making peace with this.

Changing brightened the abyss,

but there’s still tension in the bliss.

Would you help me learn my body?

Because you’re the one I copied.

Judith Lalone (she/they) is proudly demisexual and genderqueer. Her poetry, which centers on translating minor moments into obscure observations, has appeared in various collections under different pseudonyms. She holds an MA in creative writing. Her psyche resides in Mississippi on the Singing River.

I am fat. My husband is transmasc. Both of us spent summers battling heat exhaustion, refusing to take off our winter garb for something more weather appropriate and by extension, more revealing. When your physical form is your biggest insecurity, there is no hiding it from others. Even in my Lane Bryant business casual tops and heavy cardigans, I knew everyone could tell how large my body was. My biggest fear was being called exactly what I was. Fat.

My elementary years were spent in basketball shorts, sporty t-shirts, and headbands anchored to my already receding hairline. Sporty girl pattern baldness, if you will. I knew my life would be better if I was a boy, which made me feel like a gender traitor. I loved being a girl, but a man can be anything and be desired. Even fat. My perception of fat men was largely informed by seeing fat male actors with the most beautiful wives. Their fatness a running joke for which I am sure they suffered, but they were still objects of desire.

My husband is unapologetically himself. It’s as though his identity couldn’t help but escape, even in small acts of gender defiance. 

At 8 he went to a ballet class. The other 8-year-olds adorned in pearlescent pinks, neat buns, and tiaras. He wore a red cutoff tank like a scarlet letter and Nike basketball shorts that hung below his knees. His tiara, a pre-wrap headband that glued his unbrushed hair back. Everyone could tell he was the wrong kind of girl. They were right in a sense; he wasn’t a girl.

Knowing who you are and becoming who you are are two different things entirely. I knew I was fat. He knew he was not a girl. That didn’t change the impending doom of being found out at any moment. The self-surveillance as a young child creates an unwelcome guest that whispers at every stare,

They can tell.

Conversations swirl around our existence from throats coated with vitriol. 

Who we are and what we look like are a series of choices. Our bodies evident of sin. Our existence emblematic of greed. Of gluttony.

We are false prophets playing God with our bodies. 

In our Christian nation, so much of what is viscerally hated can be tied to the perception of sin. When you wear your sin, others take note. You are someone to be angry at. A symbol of everything wrong in the world. Life was better when people like you didn’t exist. Of course, we know you have always existed. And always will. 

The world is volatile for trans people. The deep-seated malice they are subject to is unfathomable for me. I don’t say this to minimize the experience of living in a fat body, but it’s an important note. They will try to kill me through medical neglect or the next miracle weight loss drug that induces horrors on the body. For my husband, the vitriol is not shrouded in plausible deniability; it’s next door, in legislature, online.

It is unfathomable to us both that our bodies are loathed by so many. Despite the lifelong rhetoric that we would never be truly desired, we found profound partnership in each other. Together we lie, expansive bodies cuddled into the center of our queen-sized bed.

We will spend the rest of our lives together desired, loved, and all the while being trans and fat. 

Photo by Noah Good

Skyler DB (she/they) writes from the shadowy space under your bed. The quest for justice rules both her real life and her works of fiction. Their non-fiction centers around their identities as a fat, queer woman. Her work has been published in Junk Drawer.

You can find her existing in the Scorpionic liminal space between being known and unknown.

Presently

I cannot prove these things.

There are no sources to pull,

no evidence to present. 

But I know—I know—I know— 

       I was drowned in a previous life and

       forged swords in another and

       loved a woman and a man at once  and

       defended myself to deaf ears and

       marched to vote (as I do, again, now) and

       stalked dragons across the sky and

       died alone, with my family, alone, holding a stranger, 

       and died and died and died and lived (me, ∞)

I can trace every part of me

back through void and aether 

and do you know how disappointing it is

to only be able to show you

this small percentage of me?

The Turning

PE shorts on the ground—

      I lowered my entire body

      to pick them up

in that time, two more were hit

by my “friend”

the New Girl

the Lonely Girl

we laughed over anime and boys

She laughed now

spinning

spinning

to find more attention shorts

lucky

  she hadn’t pulled my underwear too

         even luckier I wasn’t on my period,

         no diaper pads with wings

         no blood

         no granny panties

         which the boys would mock

         for the rest of the year

burning from the heat

I sat down on the concrete

      (the only way to be safe)

and realized the way She

and her “friends”

tied knots in their oversized shirts

made reciprocation or reconciliation

impossible

Jeanie Ngo is a Vietnamese American writer based in San Francisco. Her plays have been produced at Bindlestiff Studio, SFSU, Exit Theatre, Stage Werx, B8 Theatre, Brava Theater, Strut, Potrero Stage, and PianoFight. She has also written “MÓN QUÀ YÊU THƯƠNG”, an Asia Entertainment Christmas special. Her short stories and poetry have been published in "Transfer 109", "Quiet Lightning", "Blue Rivers", "Five Fleas Itchy Poetry", "The Mayfly", "Sick Of Being Sick", "Bloodroot", "Lilith’s Diaries", "Pointed Circle", "Nyctophilia Variations", and "barbara". She’s also appeared as a featured poet for the Abrams Claghorn Gallery, Black Bird Bookstore, the Durham East Regional Library, and Lit Crawl.

Hefner is a queer autodidact Appalachian artist currently working on a Butch4Butch painting series. Known prior for their celebrity portraits, and queer doodle series, Hefner hopes their current series can shed light on the overlooked experiences of butch4butch life, love, and trauma.

It’s funny how the same land that feeds a nation nurtures our beliefs: Monsanto is bad, the best pizza comes from a warmer at Casey’s, the gays are going to hell. In the Ozarks, conviction is raised as reliably as cattle and broiler chickens. It is passed hand to hand at church potlucks and county fairs, in truck cabs and beauty shops, in the hush after a slur lands and nobody rushes to correct it. And just like a diseased flock or infected herd, sometimes those beliefs need to be culled so something healthier can live.

When I was in seventh grade, my mother sat me down and asked if I was gay.

I can’t remember the room anymore, only the feeling of being called into it. In memory, the house is all lamplight and evening stillness, the particular hush that settles over the home after supper, when the dishes are done and everyone has drifted to their corners. Momma asked the question gently, as if she were asking whether I had broken something and wanted to tell the truth before she found the pieces herself.

“Are you gay?”

I said no.

She studied my face for a moment, then asked if I was sure, because “I’m okay with it, even though God isn’t.”

I have replayed that sentence so many times it no longer feels like a memory but scripture. At thirteen, it landed in me as two things at once: a blessing and a wound. I felt shame so sudden that I could not have named its source. Shame because the question itself made me feel perceived in a way that left me nowhere to hide. Shame because if my mother had thought to ask, then maybe there was already something in me I was blind to.

But underneath it was relief, small and bright and unmistakable. My mother was trying, in the only language she had for it, to tell me that if I turned out to be one of those people, she would not throw me away.

This is one of the particular violences of growing up queer in the Ozarks: you learn the consequences before you learn the vocabulary. Before I knew what I was, I knew what I was not supposed to be. I knew the air changed around words like dyke and faggot and the cautionary tone adults used when they talked about homosexuals. I knew queerness arrived in our corner of Missouri not as a possibility but as a threat, something muttered in church foyers, spat from pickup trucks, folded into sermons about the end times.

When I was fourteen, my father said, “Gays don’t deserve to breathe the same air as me.”

I don’t remember what sparked it. Maybe something on television, maybe a joke, maybe a story about someone in town. I want there to have been some dramatic offense to justify the scale of the hatred, but there wasn’t. Or if there was, it has been erased by the force of the sentence itself. It arrived casually, a truth so obvious to the speaker it requires no defense.

I was already practicing the art of disappearing inside myself. I tucked his words away with every other warning about the cost of being known. That is what queer children in conservative places become experts in: archiving danger. The lesson is always the same, even when the wording changes: if this is what they think of people like you, imagine what they will think of you once they know.

For a long time, I mistook concealment for safety.

In high school, I tried to come out as bisexual, though “tried” is the operative word. I said it aloud and watched it land with all the heft of a paper airplane. I don’t think anyone believed me. Maybe they thought it was a phase, or a bid for attention, or one of those things girls say when they want to seem interesting. Maybe I didn’t fully believe it myself, not because I wasn’t drawn to girls, but because bisexual still sounded less terminal than lesbian. It implied options. It implied I might still choose the easier life if I wanted to badly enough.

But desire has a way of surfacing no matter how often you press it under.

My first kiss with a girl happened when I was eighteen, with my high school best friend. It tasted like hot Cheetos, vanilla ChapStick, and cheap cigarettes. I can still feel the awkward angle of our mouths and the stunned silence after. It was not cinematic. It was messy and teenage and perfect in the way only certain firsts can be. It tasted like trespass and relief.

We have matching tattoos now, she and I. She’s engaged to her sweetheart, and I am chronically single, which feels exactly like the sort of epilogue our eighteen-year-old selves would appreciate. But when I think of her, I think first of that kiss, not because it was grand or even especially romantic, but because it made denial harder. Once you know what recognition feels like in your own body, it becomes difficult to keep calling it confusion.

Still, I tried.

I did what many women before me have done when desire and fear became impossible to distinguish: I chose the life that looked survivable from the outside. I married a man.

I love my ex-husband, which is one of the complications I resist sanding down for the sake of a cleaner narrative. I did not marry him as a disguise or a calculated lie. I married him because care and habit and hope can build something that looks, from a certain angle, very much like certainty. I married him because heterosexuality is a powerful current, especially in a place where it is treated not as one possibility among many but as the organizing principle of adult life. Marriage, children, maybe a little house with a yard and enough money left over for school clothes and a vacation every few years. The script was so familiar I could recite it in my sleep. I kept thinking if I followed it faithfully enough, the rest of me might quiet down.

Instead, the opposite happened. The life I had built around silence began to buckle under the strain of carrying it.

I came out to my husband first and offered to stay, as if queerness were a logistical problem we might solve with enough patience and compromise. A few months later, he asked if I wanted a divorce.

Even now, that question feels gentler than it had any right to be.

We cohabitated for years after we separated, which sounds impossible until you account for money, a child, and the strange afterlife of love. There are kinds of intimacy that survive the death of marriage: grocery lists, school pickups, the mutual memorization of a child’s routines, the practical tenderness of two people who once built a life together and are not sure how to dismantle it without injuring everyone inside. We were still family, just not the family we had promised to be.

During that time, he walked in on me having sex with a woman for the first time.

There are moments that refuse to become anecdotes no matter how many years pass, and that is one of them. He was hurt. She was furious. I was full of shame so immediate it felt like a reflex. Shame at being seen. Shame at causing pain. Shame at the indignity of being caught in a body that was, for once, trying to tell the truth. Shame, too, because some old part of me still believed lesbian sex was something illicit and ugly, something that would always look sordid under the wrong light.

What I remember most clearly is not the logistics of the scene but the emotional geometry of it: his grief, her anger, my humiliation, all of us trapped in the cramped architecture of a life that no longer fit the people living inside it. That is the thing no one tells you about coming out late, or after marriage, or in a place where you have already spent years pretending to be someone else: the truth does not arrive clean. It arrives dragging collateral behind it.

And yet the story keeps changing.

Today, my ex-husband is one of my fiercest allies. He has brought our daughter to watch me perform at Pride. He has held me while I cried over heartbreak that had nothing to do with him. He has witnessed me becoming myself and, rather than treating that self as evidence of his own failure, made room for her in the architecture of our family. If you had told the version of me who kissed her best friend in secret, or the version of me who sat rigid with shame in her mother’s living room, that one of the steadiest forms of support in her queer adulthood would come from the man she once married in an effort to outrun herself, she would have laughed in your face.

The hardest part of telling this story is admitting that queerness was never the only thing I was negotiating. Desire was one piece of it. Gender was another.

I have short hair now. I dress in a way that makes sense to me and almost nobody else from my hometown. I do not perform femininity well because I do not experience it as home. Dresses feel like costumes. Makeup feels like drag in reverse. There is a particular discomfort in being praised for looking beautiful in a way that makes you feel absent from your own body, as if everyone else is admiring a person you had to abandon in order to be admired. I know how to do it. That is not the same as wanting to.

What I wanted, though I did not have language for it then, was the relief of being read as something other than woman in the narrow, rural, heterosexual sense. There is comfort for me in being perceived as “the man,” not because I want to be one exactly, but because masculinity has always felt less performative. In the Ozarks, where womanhood was tethered to prettiness, softness, and availability to men, that comfort was its own quiet transgression. Short hair was not just short hair. Refusing dresses was not just a preference. Every deviation from femininity was read as commentary, even before I understood what I was saying.

Coming out, then, was never one moment of confession. It was a long series of negotiations between terror and desire, disclosure and denial, visibility and consequence. It was saying one thing at thirteen and another at eighteen and another at twenty-three, each version only slightly closer to the truth than the last. It was trying on labels like loose boards on a bridge, testing which one might hold my weight. It was learning, over and over, that safety is not the same thing as freedom.

When I was twenty-three, a few weeks before my father found out I was divorcing my husband, I asked him whether he still meant what he had said all those years before. Whether he still believed gay people didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as him.

I wish I could tell you there was a clean resolution. That he apologized. That some hidden softness surfaced at last and made me feel chosen. But family stories rarely grant us that kind of symmetry. What I remember is the fact of the asking. The audacity of it. The girl who had once sat silent in the passenger seat had become a woman willing to look her father in the face and demand an accounting. There is power in that, even when the answer disappoints you.

I used to think coming out would sever my relationship to home. Instead, it complicated it beyond repair.

I still love the Ozarks. I love the heavy green smell of August, the cold shock of creek water around my ankles, the way gravel crunches under tires in a long driveway. I love thrift-store Pyrex and church-basement casseroles and the instinct to wave at strangers on country roads. I love the stubborn competence of rural women, the kind who can can tomatoes, pull a calf, stretch a week’s groceries into ten days, and still show up with a pie when someone dies. I love the cadence of Ozarks speech, the way a sentence can sound like both an invitation and a warning depending on who is speaking.

I also know what the place asked of me in exchange for belonging. Silence.

Femininity. Plausible deniability. It wanted me legible in a way I could never quite be.

It wanted me to call self-erasure compromise and maturity and faithfulness. It wanted me to believe that the price of being loved was being less visible.

That is what I am still trying to cull: not the land, not even the people, but the rot in what I was taught to call love. The belief that queerness is exile. The belief that my mother’s acceptance had to arrive with a God-shaped disclaimer, or that my father’s contempt was simply the cost of being his daughter. The belief that masculinity belongs only to men, or that my comfort in it makes me a failed woman instead of a more honest one. The belief that there is one correct way to belong to a place.

I know now that coming out did not kill my roots. If anything, it made me more honest about the place that raised me and the woman I became in spite of it, because of it, and in defiance of it. I survived the field that grew me. I learned to call myself by my own name. The land that raised me taught me plenty about culling: how sometimes you cut away what is sick to save what can still live. I think of that now when I think of home, and faith, and the girl I was before I had language for myself. Not everything I inherited was meant to keep. 

Some of it had to be slaughtered before I could stay alive.

Chris Johnston (they/she) is a poet, essayist, and multidisciplinary writer whose work explores identity, belonging, queerness, resilience, and the quiet transformations of everyday life. They have been engaged in the arts and writing for as long as they can remember, with their first publication appearing in A Celebration of Poets (2008). Writing under the pen name Piper Canon, their work is also available through Writer's Cafe. As C.S. Johnston, they have completed several collections of poetry and prose, including their forthcoming debut collection, Lavender and Lilies (release date to be announced).More of their writing can be found at www.csjohnston-writes.com and on Instagram at @mx.chris.cross.

In a literary space bursting with queernormative worlds and side characters that check every box on the “stereotypical gay” tropes list, it’s important to lift up the authors doing it right. Queerness should not be a characteristic for cis authors to include that gives them a pat on the back. No, we need to decenter the authors who aren’t authentic in their diverse representations.

There are SO MANY amazing, queer authors publishing beautiful narratives, and I’m tired of seeing white women get that spotlight all to themselves. So, in no particular order, here are five books that need to be on your radar immediately. 

1. Kink, edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell

Published in 2021, I rarely see this book on people’s shelves. A collection of short stories all written by critically acclaimed queer authors, this compilation explores kink in a thoughtful, intentional way. These stories aren’t meant solely to entertain, they’re meant to make you think about the intersectionality of kink and queerness.

2. Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill

For a debut novel, this one knocked the wind out of me. Disorienting and beautiful, the reader follows a young woman as she navigates a patriarchal cult. Nicole is taught that the mushroom growths on her body are unnatural, and that she must change herself to conform to her husband’s standard of beauty. The feelings of oppression in her marital home are palpable, and you’ll be crying for her escape.

Cranehill deftly maneuvers her characters through this suffocating, heteronormative landscape by means of exploring bodies in secret. In a narrative that feels poetic, I encourage you to let the story take you. There is no getting a handle on this.

3. CRAWL by Max Delsohn

Another short story collection AND by a debut author, CRAWL is a series of vignettes taking place in Seattle in the early 2000’s. Featuring all transmasc characters, Delsohn covers identity exploration, sexual assault, relationships of all sorts as they move through beaches, gay bars, pop punk concerts, and bath houses. 

This collection not only made me feel seen as a baby queer exploring their identity, it also gave me a heavy feeling of nostalgia. As a 2000’s kid, I remember navigating many of these scenarios while not knowing I was queer. Looking back…that closet was made of glass, and denying my identity did not make these experiences less homoerotic. 

4. Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan

If you are anything like me and grew up loving the semi-fucked up fairytales, you need to read Fruiting Bodies immediately. Half Grimm-style fairytales, half queer, this short story collection will leave you feeling emotionally hollowed out at times. While I personally didn’t think all of the stories were complete bangers, the strong stories were STRONG! For folks who have complicated relationships with their parents, or had an emotional support classic author, these stories are for you.

5. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

This book and the resulting trilogy has a chokehold on me. N.K. Jemisin won a Hugo Award for every single book in this trilogy, and it’s clear to see why it is so critically acclaimed.

While I wouldn’t necessarily call this a capital Q Queer book, Jemisin is the blueprint for queernormative writing. Her characters are trans, polyamorous, and multiple levels of neurodivergent. At no point does Jemisin make any of these a character’s sole personality. They are queer, and that’s just how it is. 

I think the gripe I have with most cis authors writing queer characters is that they make it their whole identity and not just a part of the character. I’m queer, and I don’t need to see every character be loud about their queerness. Sometimes the most authentic portrayal is through subtlety.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for letting me share these stories with you. If you decide to read one or a few of these, drop me a DM so we can discuss further. 

Sydney McGraw (She/They) is your friendly neighborhood bookworm. They love yapping about debut authors' books and narratives outside her lived experience. You can typically find them blasting punk music on a nature trail or curled up on the couch with their husband and two cats. If you've got a weird story to share, you should probably let her know! 

@sydsbooked on Instagram and Tiktok. 

As I approached the doors of the Shirley Tyree Theatre at the Union for Contemporary Arts, I was greeted by Eric Lawson’s deep, yet bubbly voice and his open arms.

“Andres! How are you?”

His husband (and the director of the show), Anthony Dupree-Holmes, quickly enveloped me, too. Aside from social media, I hadn’t seen either of the men in the flesh in almost year, so when I heard about the upcoming show “Frydaddies,” I knew I had to reach out.

The men guided me to a private dressing room where we could talk without disruptions. Of course, if you know the theater world, you already know that actors, stagehands, and friends found themselves bouncing in and out to ask questions, say hi, and get the tea on our little meeting. The energy radiating from the entire group was warm and inviting. It felt more like when I was young and my cousins and I would filter in and out of my grandma's house like we owned the place. It became evident through this interview that their bond went beyond that of cast and crew and towards something more familial, especially for the writer and director.

“It’s not our first time (working together)” Lawson shared, “It’s a fun reminder of our ability to set boundaries.” Dupree-Holmes hummed in agreement before Lawson continued, “Mostly me. Because as a writer, you don’t have control over how the theater presents your work.”

Dupree-Holmes, director, turned to his husband, “but there are times you’ve spoken up and I was like ‘that wasn’t my vision, but you’re completely right, it does need to be like that.’ So, yes, it’s definitely a balance.”

The couple are both lifelong performers with a deep passion for the arts. They've poured countless hours into their personal crafts as well as the creative community within their city. Despite these efforts, they both felt as though the love was rarely returned. It's no secret that Black artists have been severely neglected in Omaha, Nebraska, which was a driving force behind Lawson’s decision to write “Frydaddies.”

“A lot of white artists get a great backdrop to show what they do and we, most of the times, just have to fit into these white backdrops to show our chops.” Because of this, Lawson wanted to create a show that allowed Black artists the same opportunity as their white counterparts.

The cast echoed these sentiments. Mar Toussaint, who plays Ray Brown, shared with me that “this is a look inside of Black, queer men’s lives.” He explained that in general (but especially in Nebraska) there is a lack of representation when it comes to Black men finding love and he felt honored to be a part of a show that highlighted that very thing.

It wasn’t enough to just hear about the show, I had to see it for myself.

It didn’t disappoint. *Warning: Mild Spoilers Ahead*

The opening night felt more like a family gathering then a show. Lakesha Green, Executive Director of the Union, cracked jokes as she introduced the performance and audience members shot back with witty remarks as if it were a call and response. Lawson and Dupree-Holmes thanked the crowd with a humble, earnest energy before the lights were dimmed and the real show began.

The cast is absolutely magnetic. Jared, played by Aaron Ellis, and Keith, played by Prentiss Matthews III, lead the show with palpable chemistry. Their messy connection is relatable and deeply human. It put the stale, sometimes resentment laden wounds of a long-term relationship on display while still centering the love that bound them in the first place.

The supporting cast did much more than support. Purris Stilton as both Lady and Wayne Whitehead added dramatic flair with her over the top, yet perfectly tailored mannerisms and creative choices. Mykel, played by Corbin Griffin, embodied the feisty, ride or die friend beautifully. He frequently stole scenes with his boisterous humor and sharp reads.

The script itself was balanced in its approach of heavier topics, like code switching and racial injustice. 

In her first song, "Bougie is Best," Dani Cleveland's character BB (Kevin's boss and voice of reason) pushes back on the idea of completely surrendering one’s identity for the sake of success while also acknowledging that sometimes, you have to play the game to win.

Then there’s Antwan, played by Kevin Jones, who is one of Jared’s closest friends. The two characters are both actors vying for roles in the growing city of Omaha. When Wayne Whitehead comes in with a new play, they both go up for the part and, as you might expect, drama ensues. This storyline addresses the internal struggle of celebrating your friends accomplishments in the midst of personal disappointment. In the age of social media, these feelings are all too common. Lawson aimed to steer away from the demonization of jealousy and chose to write the conflict between these friends with care.

Mar Toussaint spiced things up as the semi-cancelled, B-list rebound, Ray Brown, who comforts Jared after his breakup with Keith. Ray comes with his own complication, though, and his internalized homophobia kills the connection.

And you know we can’t talk about the show without talking about the music. Produced by Eric “E Rawq” Lawson featuring “Dre Ellynton” Brown and Alisa “A Mone” Moore, the “Frydaddies” score is living rent free in my mind days after the show. And the vocals, oof, the VOCALS. Each solo had heads bobbing in the crowd and feet tapping on the floor. My personal favorite is for sure the group piece where the chemistry and magnetism of the cast is palpable.

The show ends with some ties severed while others are bound tighter than before. As Holmes described in our meeting, this show is a love letter to Omaha but also to the chosen family he and Lawson have built together. The two want the musical to remind all of us in the Queer community that it’s okay to be a mess, to make mistakes, to try again. After all,

Real love is deep fried with hot sauce on the side.

TLDR: I cackled my way through half of the show, and the songs are now earworms that have been on replay in my mind ever since. I wholeheartedly believe that “Frydaddies” can and will be touring across the country in no time.

Frydaddies runs until August 23^rd, 2026. Peep it while you can!

Andrés Di Bauer (he/they) is a poet and fiction writer from the Great Plains. As a latine, transgender man, his lived experience profoundly influences his writing and has emboldened him to prioritize diverse perspectives through his medium. He finds himself most interested in detailing the beauty and horrors of the physical world. Their work has been displayed in the Joslyn Art Museum ‘After Hours’ Exhibition and published in magazines such as The Orange Rose and Junk Drawer. They're currently pursuing their BFA in Creative Writing at The University of Nebraska-Omaha. Andres is the Managing Editor for INQUEERY Magazine.

You can follow his creative journey on instagram @andresdb.writing

Groombrides In the Heart of the State

Deep in the chamber’s chamber--- in a country /that remembers fear--- the boot--- the local thug / with authority and swag--- pen and paper cruelty / as benign and straight as a mouth holding a pistol–/ two lovers--- dear for dear--- aligned--- latticed and sturdy /as a country garden--- dears marrying each Each / night their soup--- a feast--- each feast--- a celebration / of their names--- their softness to each--- like green / curling vines--- a curling cat’s tail--- a bright rainstorm / in early spring When they hold hands / the muscles of mean shake--- when they kiss / the state declares an emergency— two dears / –engendering flesh with desire / Their joy--- a lyre--- / fingers upon the neck / breath upon breath

A Bell Ringing

Phobia

When I wore suffering on the inside

I was my enemy—now—I wear my joy

on the outside and my enemy lends me 

their suffering wearing a snarl—claiming 

their hate is my own hate—not theirs—alone

Cassandra Whitaker (she/they) is a trans writer from rural Virginia. Whit's work has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Conjunctions, Shenandoah, Lambda Literary Review, and other places. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf was published by Jackleg Press in 2025.

The day continued as normal. One order after another. Milk. Bread. Soup. Cold medicine. 

She noticed how often people ordered soup, and not the good ready to eat kind- almost always the condensed ‘add water’ type. She couldn’t help but make a face of disgust. 

By the afternoon, she was exhausted. Not physically, but emotionally and mentally. She wanted nothing more than to go home and yet at the same time, she dreaded the mere thought of it. 

When she came out of the grocery store later, pushing a cart that insisted on pulling to the left, and was filled with more groceries than she could afford in a month, she saw the scratch right away. It ran deep along the passenger door, long and ugly. For a second, she just stood there, staring at it, like maybe it would explain itself. 

Then she saw the piece of paper under the wiper. 

“Ugh, no,” she said, and then louder, “No, no, no!” 

She crouched running her hand along the deep groove, standing back up, she looked around the parking lot. Too many people but no one was watching, no one looked guilty, no one was waiting to apologize. 

She grabbed the paper.

 Sorry for hitting your car. 

She turned the piece of paper over, blank. She barked out a laugh, sharp and humorless. “That’s it? No damn information, just an apology?!” 

She crumpled the note and threw it onto the passenger seat. It landed next to the Sharpie she tossed over there this morning. After loading the trunk with groceries, she sat behind the wheel longer than she should have, hands resting uselessly in her lap until the app buzzed notifying her the order would be late if she didn’t leave now.

Her drop was only fifteen minutes away. After that she drove without a plan. Let herself get caught in traffic. That was how she ended up stopped in front of a crowd filling the street. 

People were shouting. Signs were raised. Cardboard. Poster board. Words she couldn’t read fast enough. Everyone was walking towards some unknown destination. 

Tabitha pulled over a couple streets away and shut off the car. She didn’t know what exactly they were protesting. But from the other protests she had been to and seen on social media lately, she knew that the outrage varied from person to person. 

All caring a different message for the same reason. 

She grabbed an empty paper bag from the backseat and the Sharpie from the seat next to her. She wrote without thinking. 

PROTECT OUR KIDS, NOT YOUR POLITICS! 

The letters were lopsided, the paper bag flimsy. It was a sad excuse for a sign, but it was sadder that there had to be a protest in the first place. 

She jogged back to the crowd and stood with them for a while. A couple of people were wandering through passing out water, another person was passing out fliers. Someone bumped her shoulder and apologized, someone else stepped on her foot and said nothing. It felt good to be close to people who weren’t pretending everything was fine. 

Then it wasn’t.

Someone shoved past her. A man yelled. Somewhere glass shattered. A sound sharp and loud echoed off the building walls around her. More screamed at the sound of the gunshot, everyone started pushing and shoving to get somewhere safe. 

Her sign ripped, her heart jumping into her throat as she took off running in the direction of her car. Her lungs burned, her legs ached, the world blurred past her. She didn’t stop until she was back in her car, doors locked, hands shaking on the wheel. Cop cars flew past her towards the square where she stood moments ago in peace. 

When she got home, the house was quiet in the way it always was now. She kicked off her shoes and hung her keys on the hook. Triple checking that all three locks were securing the door behind her. She walked into the kitchen without thinking. The drawing was still on the fridge. Old. Faded. The corners curled and soft. A house. A sun. Two stick figures holding hands with wide smiles and matching hair. Thick black lines from a Sharpie her daughter had loved marking on everything with. Next to it was the funeral pamphlet. Same spot. Same smiling picture. Same name that still didn’t feel real. 

Seven. Forever seven. Tabitha stood there, one hand on the fridge, feeling it hum. She didn’t cry. She didn’t talk. She just stood and breathed. After a minute, she reached into her pocket and felt the Sharpie there.

“I’m still here,” she said quietly to no one. 

Then she turned off the kitchen light and went to bed. 

little alien noise tuesday 

faint nymph clank 

in the washing 

machine gentle as 

the crying shitting 

machine who buys 

a diet coke from 

the whirring and 

warring panic 

beast rectangular 

prism fantastic 

who is also a 

vending machine 

who is also a 

soundsystem but 

please recall the 

girls softening. 

she heard that 

wounded alien get 

worked up and 

worked down and 

she built a little 

temple. pain is a 

femme and the 

boy is outside. 

railing against 

new apocalypto 

songs subtle 

which are forced 

on us like sugar. 

the addict is like a 

permanent child.

things i told other kids 

                 dubstep ecstasies Burn Down The Whole Thing 

 watch 

              from a lawn chair 

                                 doll-drowned rooftop 

              not a patio 

                       we are slanted 

                                 and above it all 

beyond 

              and there is no heaven 

                       i haven’t met 

                                           you 

                                                yet 

             and there are no angels 

                       i haven’t recovered 

                                                with

                                                     you 

                                                           in

                                                              years 

paying the cover 

they used to write articles about giving dolls coke 

they used to write articles 

they used to give dolls coke 

paying the cover 

they used to make short films about clinics for those early in transition they used to make short films 

they used to have clinics 

paying the cover 

we used to have zines before nazis 

we used to have zines 

we used to have nazis but they were chill about it 

paying the cover 

now they aren’t chill 

and the coke is back 

and they gave it to me 

paying the cover 

and there was ketamine and 

there was spironolactone and 

dehydrated urine 

paying the cover 

i have to pee so bad 

i can not write any more articles 

and it’s not because i have to pee 

it’s because i’m free!

Evelyn Hadassah Kronfeld is a Baltimore-based writer and zine-maker addressing trans femme cultural production, sobriety, and intimacy.

*both poems visual formats differ slightly from the original submission

In dark solitude I call to you

By daybreak my old friend has joined, Wakeel

My most trusted companion. 

I depend on you.

I pour my heart into you.

Still this dread persists

You invite another,

Weeping, 

I hear Sakina,

At my side,

calling my name gently. 

Madiina Ssali (They/She) is a queer Black Muslim forged from the firefly depths of Texas. They are a lover of zodiacs, film, history, and the stories that can’t be found in an archive. A wonderer of sorts and seemingly unrooted, you never know where you might catch Mads. Keep an eye out.

On June 28th, 2026, a queer person launched a brick towards our Editor-in-Chief and photographer, Noah Good. 

No, this isn't clickbait (but it's also not as bad as it sounds).

To commemorate the 1969 Stonewall Riots, the Nebraska organization Free Pride organized a brick throwing competition at their event by the same name. In the heart of Elmwood Park, an eager line of the Omaha LGBTQIA+ community formed behind the carefully measured and marked brick-throwing alley set up by Mutual Aid Omaha, one of the several local groups that helped out with the event. 

The goal was simple: whoever threw their brick the furthest won. Once waivers were signed and expectations were set, bricks began to fling. One brick chose chaos, as they're known to do, and made a beeline for Noah’s head. Luckily, it missed and Noah was immediately crowned with a hard hat for the rest of their photoshoot. 

The first Free Pride took place in June of 2023. It takes place in both Omaha and Lincoln, though we only attended the Omaha event. The founding members have elected to keep their identities private, but took the time to share with me the history & drive behind this now annual event. 

“The first year it was just 5 friends gathered around a coffee table with an idea for a free and safe space, with no cops, no corps, just us.” H told me.

As I wandered with my Editor-in-Chief, Noah Good, throughout the different tents, I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. Even as a veteran of the city's Gay Shit ™, I was astounded by the gravitational pull of this shared joy. I mean, I know that Omaha is the blue dot in a sea of red, but if you spend most of your days surrounded by bigots, it’s easy to forget that there are others out there looking for their people, too.

An hour before the event, I almost bailed. It had been a stressful few weeks and I wanted nothing more than to take a nap, but the guilt of ~journalistic integrity~ lifted me from my bed and away from my AC. I’m grateful I did. Despite the heat, I found that the more time we spent soaking in the scene or chatting with vendors and attendees, the more the therapeutic properties of a free third space healed me. 

M, another founding member of Free Pride, shared similar sentiments about the affects of the event, “I've seen community feel supported and safe during tumultuous times in this country." 

Another member going by R added, "A lot of queer and trans folk are homeless. Nobody should have to pay to experience Pride, yet we live in a country that constantly tells us that if you're not a consumer, you're a criminal.”

It's true. Pride is yet another place capitalism has permeated with its greed. And before some bootlicker attempts to derail the conversation, yes, we’re all well aware that performers, venues, and vendors all come with a cost. Still, when the cost is community, when members of the family are left on the other side of the door, it should sound a deafening alarm to pause and reflect. 

“We know that rainbow capitalism will not save us.” R writes. 

From our picnic blanket, Noah and I watched as people sifted through racks at the Trans Liberation Coalition’s free clothing swap while others pocketed zines from the Omaha DSA. We saw punks with neon green mohawks and chokers line up next to clean cut queers in the line for fruit and potato salad. 

To no one's surprise, my midwestern ass found myself drawn to the grill where free and fresh burgers were being flipped. It was there that I met Anthony Rogers-Wright who'd been tabling with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. During our conversation, he shared a fun fact about our city’s name.

“For the Omaha people, the indigenous people, the word Omaha means the people who go against the current.”

I can’t think of a better name for a city that resists the archaic beliefs of the state it exists within. For the Midwest gays who’ve lived in both discomfort and the simple joys that no coastal queer could ever understand. For those in the community committed to change. 

So, yes, a gay person threw a brick at our Editor-in-Chief at Free Pride and it's become one of our fondest memories of this summer.

You can get updates on future Free Pride events by following @freepride402

Photos shot by Noah Good

M. Pennell was born in Grand Island, Nebraska and now lives in Omaha. They are queer and have a cat named Harriet. They have had a variety of newspaper articles published and a comic in the UNO Gateway. Email them at mpennell011@gmail.com

I see social interactions as pointless. I’m basically like a teenager cringing at what they perceive as their embarrassing older parents when it comes to even the thought of having to go out and interact with other humans, especially when it involves alcohol. So after choosing and going to investigate the social scene at a local gay bar, I was not at all prepared to leave that night with my opinions completely reversed and craving to go back for more the next week. 

My biggest hurdle, putting myself out there, but here, I was immediately invited in and included, everybody was a new friend, offering conversation and to buy drinks. One of the biggest things, nobody was there to judge you, everybody was there to have a good time, and the best advice I got all night was “the answer is, just laugh” when one of the regulars who had taken me under his wing for the night could tell how uncomfortable I was getting, since for me being there was out of my element. Even after they unexpectedly had to leave, it took merely a couple of seconds before that chair was sat in by someone else and the ritual of small talk began again. 

By the end of the night I think I could honestly say my sense of self-esteem had been somewhat raised and my opinions completely changed. I truly have never felt so genuinely fulfilled and energized by a social environment. Before that night, I would have never been convinced that going out to a bar as “worth it” and now all I can think about is when I am able to get back there next.

Me(a)t Frank the Dildo, available in all of the colors of the rainbow... and then some, he spends his time waiting at the back shelf, in his special little spot for the next time his services are needed. Although he's usually hoping to be forgotten about back there, the few times he's required to make an appearance, everyone knows he will at least be able to put on a reliable performance. Watch out though as he can become quite the hermit at times, and definitely make sure to proceed with caution when handling, he bites!

I don't think I've read a poem, 

really, 

until I've tasted at least a piece of it 

rolled the author's words over my sometimes-clever tongue 

felt how the weight of their meaning rests on my palate 

slid their careful contemplations around the insides of my cheeks 

slowly knocked my head back to feel how this gift sits in my stomach, 

 my belly, 

 the center of me. 

Their words become a part of me 

in the way of nutrients 

of process 

of living. 

Sometimes when I hear a good line 

I will, surreptitiously, 

sneak a bite, 

nibble, 

savor it for a moment. 

Invariably I will lose all the detail 

the complexity of the language 

the full depth of the metaphors 

but that morsel 

will come with me. 

Maybe in a note, 

or maybe just in the way of flavor or smell. 

The way that when you hear it again, 

you know for sure

that this has been a part of you before and it has come back to you. 

What a garden to feast from. 

What an orchard to grow fat on. 

What a belly I wear.

Nathan B. Wise is a spoken word poet, event-runner, and storyteller. He can be found most months competing in the Omaha Poetry Slam, helping produce events for the local scene, or delighting in the depth of talent on offer here. Outside of his work in Omaha, he also serves as the Comptroller of the BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam. To his writing, Nathan brings an eclectic wealth of knowledge and experiences, drawing from his degree in physics, his passion for communication, and his love of community. In sharing his work, he hopes that he can give people something they're missing, even if in the tiniest of ways. It's those impacts, small though they may be, that sustain him as a creator.

Founder, Ananda Omaha

500 RYT Trauma-Informed Yoga

There is a quiet kind of courage that rarely gets celebrated. Not the courage of being loud or certain, but the courage to tell yourself the truth.

In yoga philosophy, that practice is called svādhyāya (svahd-YAH-yah), one of the five Niyamas — inner observances that help cultivate a more honest relationship with ourselves.

Sva means self.

Adhyāya means study.

Together, they become the study of the self. Not to fix yourself, prove yourself, or become someone else, but simply to understand the landscape you carry within you.

For many queer + trans people, self-study carries a particular tenderness. Identities become subjects of conversation, bodies become politicized, and entire lives are often filtered through assumptions that originated outside of one’s own autonomy. Svādhyāya offers an invitation to gently discern which stories are truly one’s own, and which were inherited through a world that too often speaks before listening.

In that landscape, svādhyāya offers a different invitation. Rather than asking, Who does the world believe this person to be? it gently wonders, What remains beneath expectation? Beneath performance? Beneath protection?

There is no demand for immediate answers. Some questions unfold over months. Others over decades. Some continue unfolding over an entire lifetime. That unfolding is the practice itself.

Awareness Before Change

Much of modern wellness is centered on transformation—before-and-after stories, breakthrough moments, dramatic revelations. Yoga invites a different rhythm. It begins by paying attention: noticing a familiar emotional response before it takes over, realizing the jaw has been clenched for hours, or recognizing an old narrative quietly shaping the present.

To know oneself deeply is to become familiar with the inner landscape — not just the joys and strengths, but the fears, longings, habits, values, and ways of moving through the world. It becomes easier to recognize what feels nourishing and what doesn’t, what belongs and what never truly did.

Rather than living on autopilot or reacting from old conditioning, life begins to emerge through conscious relationship with oneself.

Authentic growth begins with the willingness to know ourselves honestly. The triggers, the glimmers, the patterns, the places that feel expansive, and the places that still ache. That is the heart of svādhyāya.

Before anything can change, it must first be witnessed. These moments mark the beginning of relationship — noticing without immediately judging, observing without rushing to solve, and witnessing with honesty instead of shame.

Honoring Safety in Svādhyāya

Self-study is not an invitation to push beyond capacity. The nervous system has its own pace, and it rarely responds well to force.

If reflection begins to feel overwhelming, know there is wisdom in pausing. Setting down the journal, feeling both feet against the floor, shaking out the hands, lengthening the exhale. Looking around the room until the present moment returns. Returning to the body before returning to the mind.

Growth does not require distress, and insight does not require intensity. The deepest change often arrives when awareness and safety exist together.

Returning to Presence

Presence is where svādhyāya becomes a lived practice. It is the quiet decision to pause before reacting, to listen before assuming, to rest before pushing through, or to notice what the body has been communicating all along. These moments may seem ordinary, but over time they transform the relationship with oneself.

The nervous system becomes a guide rather than something to battle against. Tension, numbness, ease, joy, grief, curiosity, or resistance are no longer problems to solve, but information to receive with compassion. Each moment of awareness becomes an opportunity to respond with greater intention instead of habit.

Little by little, presence begins to replace autopilot. Life is no longer lived solely through inherited expectations or unconscious patterns, but through an ongoing relationship with oneself. This is the sacred return — not arriving somewhere new, but remembering the wisdom that has been present all along.

A Gentle Practice

3-Minute Grounding Prāṇāyāma

Sit or stand comfortably.

Inhale for a count of four.

Hold for a count of two.

Exhale slowly through the mouth for a count of six.

Repeat for six full cycles, noticing the body soften and the mind begin to settle.

Somatic Awareness

Roll the shoulders slowly five times forward and five times backward.

Shake out the hands and feet.

Notice areas of the body that feel tight, heavy, spacious, warm, or light. Simply observe without trying to change anything.

A Sacred Return

Svādhyāya is less about discovering someone new than remembering the person who has been present all along. It is the quiet practice of returning — after self-abandonment, after shame, after survival, after the world insisted on a story that never fit.

For queer + trans communities, whose identities have so often been named, categorized, or defined by others, there is something quietly radical about becoming the primary witness to one’s own life.

Each compassionate pause. Each moment of curiosity. Each breath that makes space for truth instead of performance.

This is svādhyāya. This is the sacred return. 

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