Alex-Quan Pham

two women courtesy of fiction of reality I Guess By Now I Thought I’d Be Done With Shame but I opened my coat to prove a point and kept coming home with colds. I thought I was done stuffing fists in my mouth to mute the sound. Done lying about what trails my throat had charted. I practiced looking tall men in the eye, spoke loudly, pronounced every ‘R.’ I chopped wood at midnight. I left the shower and kept singing. I sang about my body like I was proud. I was proud.

Rookie is an online magazine and book series for teenagers. Each month, a different editorial theme drives the writing, photography, and artwork that we publish. Learn more about us here , and find out how to submit your work here ! How did empathy, of all things, become something I hate? I used to think empathy was the all-purpose cleaner for social ills. I thought that if I could just muster up enough compassion and care for others, I could solve any conflict.

I find it funny that at one point in my life I tried so hard to be attracted to cis women, and then I thought I liked cis men, and now I have a crush on pretty much everyone. Much of what I had believed about gender and sexuality has evolved in line with my personal experiences and my identity – at one point in time, Alex was a gay cis man, and now they are a queer trans femme.