I was looking at her while she was talking, thinking to myself that I’m a stranger in this woman’s eyes. She’s looking at me but she doesn't see me. … - Leslie Feinberg

“I saw a devilish thing,” Spanish colonialist Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca wrote in the sixteenth century: “Sinful, heinous, perverted, nefarious, abominable, unnatural, disgusting, lewd"—the language used by the colonizers to describe the acceptance of sex/gender diversity, and of same-sex love most accurately described the viewer, not the viewed. And these sensational reports about Two-Spirit people were used to further "justify" genocide, the theft of Native land and resources, and destruction of their cultures and religions.

If the music stopped and it was the cops at the door, someone plugged the music back in and we switched dance partners. Us in our suits and ties paired off with our drag queen sisters in their dresses and pumps. Hard to remember that it was illegal then for two women or two men to sway to music together. When the music ended, the butches bowed, our femme partners curtsied, and we returned to our seats, our lovers, and our drinks to await our fates.

For all our lives, we've always … seen ourselves refracted through other people's prisms. We've always heard people analyze us, describe what our feelings are, what our thoughts are. How about talking about why Jesse Helms needs some therapy?