Wisconsin Shirt Quotes

Chemistry From the middle Dutch boele, which means lover, bully was a term of endearment in the sixteenth century, which meant that a feudal lord could take the hand of his love under the apple trees in spring and exclaim: my bully, feeling adrenaline flood his body as his heart rate tripled and his palms began to release water mixed with urea, ammonia, salt. Essentially, he could feel what I felt over four centuries later when Ian Starkey called me a fag. I was fourteen, and the next day he kicked me twice, spat in my face, took my glasses and wouldn't give them back. And the whole time sweat glands were developing in our armpits and genitals, and our adrenals were releasing corticosteroids, and something about testosterone was why, though I hated him, I kept imagining him with his shirt off. True, Ian Starkey knew how to hurt me, but I doubt he knew why he was doing it or that we feel pain when neurons in the brain convert an electrical signal to a chemical signal and back again, which is also what allows us to feel a kiss or my brain to take strange comfort imagining all the boys of the world leaning into the strong arms of their tormentors in spring under the apple blossoms, saying I forgive you, saying: I can never forgive you, saying, my enemy, my bully, my love.

I remember walking to a group for trans men and getting the most withering looks. I hadn't even opened my mouth. But I was the only one in a flannel shirt. Everyone else was decked out in the height of androgynous fashion. I was just wearing that because it was cold out. But I still felt unwelcome. 'Queer' fashion is supposed to be the opposite of 'straight' fashion...we create a code only we can understand; a look we can feel proud of because we got to choose it, not them. When you can be in real danger if you guess wrong about whether someone's queer, it makes sense to have our own language...but sometimes it's winter in Wisconsin and you get left out in the cold.