yall this is literally so cute wtf

The Nib ( @thenib ) is doing a whole month of queer comics and I was honored to contribute this one! You can read all of the other comics I’ve done for them here, and here is my comic from last year’s Pride Month. You can find more of my comics, including my Genderqueer series, on instagram and you can support me on patreon or on ko-fi if you’d like to help me keep making this work :) 

The fae smiled, sharply: “Give me your name, child.”

“Uhhhhh. Stick.”

“What.”

“Does Leaf work better? I’m just kinda looking around this clearing. Look, I’m trans, I haven’t decided on one yet, I’m throwing some spaghetti at the wall, you know how it is.”

Fae are born with features sharp and narrow, yet this one seems to soften as Moss looks at it. Its grin— sharp, teeth gleaming, its eyes— cutting, searching, the jut and pull of its jaw enough to scratch glass. It does not blink. Branch does not blink. It softens.

“I said, give me your name, child.”

“I still haven’t picked one,” Grass defends, even now still hoping for a way out of a faeries deal.

“No. But your parents did. Give me your name, child, and it shall no longer be yours. The entity of your name shall no longer exist, and you will be free for whichever name you choose— Leaf, or Stick, or Lichen.”

“…oh.” says Petal, and in the next moment a name falls from their lips. It is not their name. It never has been. The fae is sharp and cutting and witty, that moment of softness an imagined slight.

“Very well, child. Be warned of mushroom circles, should you lose your name again.”

“Okay,” Mushroom smiles, and the Fae pulls itself away from their reality in a swirl of feathers and silk.

When they go home for the first time in two months, their mother frets over them in a way she had not since they were a child, and she calls them by no name at all.

Goddamn.  This is my favorite version of ‘faeries take your name’, that’s it, we can all go home now.

Finding love as a transgender person

Marianne Oakes has shared an amazing collection of transgender love stories over at GenderGP. 

Here are a few of them. 

Marianne wrote:

The myth that trans people struggle to find love is damaging to our future generations, if trans youth or worse still, their parents believe this, then the impact can be loss of hope. My experience is pretty much like all the lovely comments here, let’s stop the myth, xx

More here!

These stories help so much. Not just because of the trans people find love just like everyone else, which is an important message on its own, but because there are some stories of other people who didn’t know since they were kids and this is so fucking reassuring!!!

So my boyfriend came out as trans last night and I realized something… back when we first started dating we identified as lesbians, then I came out as trans and consequently realized I’m bisexual, and now I’m in a gay relationship. So what I’m trying to say is that I have actually been LGBT as a singular person. Every single acronym. I have ascended and reached gay nirvana

Every time something like this comes up we yell “plot twist!”

(no seriously, me coming out as nonbinary turned into the major plot twist of my marriage.)