Recently, Elyssa Taperro of Only Fragments commented on my post, “Allegiances, Language, and Space,” in which I wrote about my ongoing wrestling matches with the notion of compassionate language and safe spaces. I thought she had some really important things to say about the question of identity policing and asked if she’d mind writing a guest blog (the first one ever!) for My Beautiful Machine on the topic.

The result is this lovely, thoughtful, and beautifully-written post, “Opening the Gates of Queer,” for which I am immensely grateful (and which also really uplifted what had turned into a rather tough day for me). It really needs no further introduction: this piece stands on its own.