We’re Queer, We’re Peers, We Literally Work Here

What more can we say about Pride Month that won’t turn into its own essay? On the anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting, the words trickle out like cracks in a water tower. There is a sea inside of us that will consume us. But the walls surrounding it have been built so strong. Have been seen as so necessary.

How do you celebrate knowing that you are in danger even in those small pockets of safeness you carve out for yourself? This week we briefly discussed the LGBTQ+ silence hidden behind a rainbow flag. For a group so stereotyped as raucous, as loud, as every color you could imagine and some you could not, so much is done to drown out our voices.

There is a body count to our truth. There is a price for our joy.

And so, what we do here means a great deal.

This month, we will leverage the LGBTQ+ web contributors, staff members, and instructors all month (and all year) long, create scholarships for the community, and donate proceeds from book sales on Catapult.co made June 22-24th to the Ali Forney Center. Meet the people responsible for who we are:

Alexis Aceves Garcia

What fictional character(s) shaped who you are today?

Link from Zelda shaped me the most because they played sweet ocarina tunes, saved queer women, and battled evil with gemstones. I’m pretty good at two of those things, I will let you guess which ones.

Some notable mentions include Franklin the turtle, the Brave Little Toaster, Arthur the aardvark, and Piglet. Basically very small, smart, scared animals/objects that also had a lot of courage built up somewhere inside of them and had good taste in fashion and snacks.

Bike riding over bridges, writing poetry, reading poetry, performing poetry, making my friends laugh, the moon, pedicures, shaving my head every two weeks, ASTROLOGY, self-discovery, radical vulnerability, empathy, dark chocolate covered almonds, wholesome memes, dancing on the beach at night, listening to Astrud Gilberto on my balcony, singing Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin, my Mom, my Abuelita’s spaghetti carbonara, calling my cousin Baby Josh even though he’s ten, my partner’s laugh, our children Ruff Ruff and Goofy Guy, sarcasm, trans joy, my barber, giving queers my money, the smell of lavender, waking up and smiling for my ancestors.

If you had a time machine and you could go back 5 years, what would you tell past you?

1. YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE.

2. THE WORD YOU’RE LOOKING FOR IS “BOUNDARIES”.

3. GO TO THE BARBERSHOP & ASK FOR A SKIN FADE, SEE HOW YR LIFE CHANGES.

4. BUY MORE PLANTS.

5. STOP GOING TO STRAIGHT CIS BARS. IF THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO TVs, LEAVE.

6. KEEP WRITING.

About Alexis:

Alexis Aceves Garcia is a genderqueer Latinx Poet based in Queens, New York. Their pronouns are caballero, they/them, she/her. You can find them on Twitter & Instagram as @loveloaf_.

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Mallory Soto

What fictional character(s) shaped who you are today?

This makes me feel so odd as an editor, because I’m about to drop a bunch of really nerdy non-booky characters.

Sailor Moon

I didn’t appreciate Sailor Moon enough growing up. She was clumsy and lazy and didn’t want to fight her actual villains, and I read her as weak when she’s not. Sailor Moon’s greatest power was love—she loved her friends with an unmatched ferocity, and she befriended more villains than she defeated—and it takes so much for that to be your strength. I carry one of Sailor Moon’s lockets around and it shouldn’t be, but it is a reminder that I can be a better person.

Kermit the Frog

Kermit the Frog is my model for kindness. As a kid, because he bridged over from Sesame Street to The Muppet Show, I believed so fervently that he gave up a career as a TV journalist to open a theater to make sure all of his oddball friends had jobs. He was a director who loved what he did and made a family out of all of these characters who were otherwise shunned, and together, they made something funny, and beautiful, that brought joy to the world. When I think about what I want out of being alive, it always boils down to that idea. If that’s not queer love—if that’s not at the core of the narrative—I don’t know what else is.

Gomez Addams

One of the most loving, kind men to ever grace a TV, who baby-Mal always read as kind of bisexual and latinx (your mileage may vary).

What brings you JOY?

The hand gestures people make when they’re excited, really good jokes that make people laugh so hard they can’t breathe, those moments, however fleeting, when you can tell someone is at peace in their own skin. That face Tamagotchis make when they’ve successfully pooped. Every kind of egg.

If you had a time machine and you could go back 5 years, what would you tell past you?

I wouldn’t promise that things get better, because I don’t think she’d believe me. I would tell her there are people she wouldn’t trade meeting for the world, even for the fleeting moments they’re in her life. That in moments she can’t be happy, she can always be useful, because learning to be useful is easier than learning to love yourself. Because not knowing how to love yourself doesn’t mean you can’t love other people, or this place. I would tell her she stops working retail. That there are a lot more books in her future. That a thigh gap will matter a tiny, tiny bit less every day. That, actually, Batman movies from here on out get really really bad.

About Mallory:

Mallory Soto is a short story writer from the Bronx. She is Catapult’s Web Editorial Assistant, knows three magic tricks, and has named every pigeon she has ever met. She is a “notorious bisexual” and “some kind of Puerto Rican, right?” You can follow her on Twitter at @apapertrail.

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