Happy Pride!
A picture of butterfly tattoo in the bi flag colors on a woman’s arm. Curtesy of my camera roll.
Published on 6/30/2026
Happy Pride Month! As June comes to an end, let's remember our history and continue to fight for our future in a time when America is becoming increasingly hostile. This year feels particularly heavy. Not only has support for our community declined, but our civil rights, work conditions, mental and physical health care, and access to LGBTQ+ books are in precarious positions nationally too. The good news though is that, for now, the Michigan legislature is upholding the majority of pro-LGBTQ+ laws.
Our stories outlive moral panics through social networks, self-expression, and art. Our voices matter. To celebrate Pride here is a list of stories that showcase bi women's creativity and resilience.
A shelf of rainbow colored books. Credit: Stock Images
Non-Fiction
Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Dr. Julia Shaw
Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
Actually, Nevermind by Taylor Tomlinson
Fiction
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (lesbian Honorable mention)
Is this a Cry for Help? by Emily Austen (lesbian honorable mention)
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
The Last Witch in Edinburgh by Marielle Thompson
Fiancé Farce and The Devil she Knows by Alexandria’s Bellefluer
I Kissed a Girl by Janette Alexander
Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
Love in Focus by Lyla Lee
Little Fish by Casey Plett
Woman of Tomorrow (a supergirl comic)
Charlie Morningstar from Hazbin Hotel. Credit: Google
TV Shows
Twila from Ponies
Charlie Morningstar from Hazbin Hotel
Maze and Eve (and Lucifer) from Lucifer
Harley Quinn the animated series
Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn 99
Pluribus (lesbian honorable mention)
The Bisexual
Agatha All Along
Supergirl (the movie)
A microphone surrounded by spotty lights. Credit: Stock Images
Music
Ignorance by Paramore (straight honorable mention)
Natural Born Sinner by In this Moment
Complicated by Avril Lavigne (straight honorable mention)
American Idiot by Greenday
Good Luck Babe by Chapelle Roan (lesbian honorable mention)
Ouija by Shaaba
Cheers to being us!
A small, lit candle. Credit: Stock images
Two of my origional poems
To Bury a Story
A rotten tale, old as civilization
A government, a girl, and a pen
Try to bury her stories under grave dirt and moral panic
Before the ink reaches it’s paper home
For the strangers she once saw as friends
The country she once felt she belonged in
Now look upon her as if she is a monster
A Frankenstein’s creature
For daring to love
Because men who steal money and start careless bloody wars
Told her neighbors that she is a plague
Wrong
Perverted
Deviant
Defiant
And her neighbors, who are now strangers, believed
Oh, how they believed
For they burned her great-grandmother’s stories
Decades ago
Their memories are small
But she writes words like candles on misty autumn nights
For the lost
The unwritten
The crumpled
To find their way home
To survive
In whispers between friends, in loud joyous protests
In satirical remarks from late-night hosts
Survival
In a hidden coffee shop sharing a cinnamon roll with her forbidden lover
In laughter with family who always gift her books like contraband candy
Because when you try to bury a story, a heart
It does not die
Only grows thorns to prick the ones who suffocated it
A hand holding an apple. Credit: Stock images
Secondhand Smoke Otherwise Known as Religious Trauma
A piece of her always sought approval
Permission to be
Permission to do
Permission to speak
Permission to learn
Permission to love
Permission
Permission
Permission
A tether tying her to the expectations of a tiny world she wants to leave
A world of shoulds
She waits and waits for society to release its suffocating need for her to be “innocent”
A good, quiet girl
A girl who never kisses girls
Who never flirts with boys
Who never says “fuck you” to the Christians’ god
Who never boldly declares herself a communist
Who never dares to resurrect her family’s Jewish traditions
Who never wears skirts with hems above her knees, shoulders covered, skin ink-free
Who hides her deafness like it’s a contagion
The kind of girl who shuns alcohol like it’s dirty poison and goes to church on Sunday
But she is not a chaste, pure girl
Though she spent so long trying to be
Played by conformists rules
Convinced if she did the world would finally love her
Now she’s 21 and kisses women
And flirts with men
Gives the Christian god the middle finger
She’s still a communist, she’s read sociology textbooks
She celebrates Chanukah, bakes hamantaschen for Purim from an old family recipe
She wears short dresses
And has a butterfly tattoo
She uses ASL when she can
Indulges in the occasional Angry Orchard
and she’s never gone to church in her life
Maybe she’s Lilith or the Devil’s daughter
Rebel, rule breaker
Like her parents
Proudly flouting norms, challenging morality
Now she ignores the tiny voice in her head that screams “don’t”
It’s the voice of her grandparents
The voice of her sister and her sister’s boyfriend
The voice of her uncles and cousins
The voice of bosses, classmates, neighbors, and politicians
Unnatural the voices call her
Their condemnation does not matter anymore, but
Shame is a powerful chain
Potent as an addiction
Lingers like secondhand smoke
Take your pick, your cost of assimilation
Guilt made her swallow her ambition
Her desires
Her chutzpah
After every no from the world above she realizes
America’s sanctimonious attitudes and bigotry?
That’s the real sin
Free of heavenly permission she doesn’t know where to begin
A picture of pink flowers against a blue sky. Curtesy of my camera roll.
