Intersections Aren’t Always Straight

The Sanctuary’s refurbished crimson walls hold tonight’s particular tension like a bass drum holding rhythm—present, persistent, impossible to ignore. I slide onto my usual stool, body screaming its nightly chorus of titanium plates and pinched nerves, watching Miguel’s hands already reaching for the bourbon before I fully settle.

What’s calling tonight, Mom? His voice carries that childlike smoky quality, wedding ring catching light as he selects a bottle.

Surprise me. Something that tastes like truth feels—complicated and burning.

He pours three fingers of Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, liquid amber catching track lighting like captured sunset. The first sip coats my tongue with caramel and char, vanilla sweetness cut by oak tannins sharp enough to make philosophy taste concrete. Behind me, Genesis bleeds “Land of Confusion” through speakers while conversations layer like sedimentary rock—each voice adding weight to the evening’s foundation.

Phoenix perches on a barstool near the stage, purple and gold hair electric under fresh lighting, ruby ring glinting as they gesture animatedly at River. Their girlfriend leans against them in forest green scrubs, exhaustion and devotion painted across features in equal measure. Ezra claims their beanbag throne, blue hair a punk rock aurora borealis, nose still slightly crooked from John’s backhand—permanent reminder written in cartilage.

Della emerges from the kitchen carrying plates of blackened catfish that smell like defiance made edible, her voice cutting through Phil Collins with aggressive affection. Eat something besides bourbon and guilt, Wendy. I made extra because I knew you’d forget food exists again.

Keira materializes beside me like she’s calibrated to my emotional frequency, settling into the adjacent stool without touching but with presence that speaks louder than contact. She opens her book—something dense about cybersecurity protocols—but I know she’s absorbing every word spoken around us.

The basement door opens, admitting cold November air and a figure who pauses in the threshold like someone standing at the edge of a cliff deciding whether to jump.

Miguel? The voice carries uncertainty thick as the autumn fog outside. Is this… I saw the rainbow sticker. The sign said family only but I don’t—

You’re in the right place. Miguel’s tone shifts to pure welcome, the vocal equivalent of opening arms. Come on in. What can I get you?

The person who enters moves with careful precision, every step measured like they’re navigating a minefield of potential rejection. They’re a person of color—deep brown skin catching light as they shed their coat—wearing layers that suggest both fashion sense and strategic armor. Femme presentation without apology, curves and edges in conversation beneath flowing fabrics. Their eyes scan the room with the particular intensity of someone cataloging exits and potential threats simultaneously.

I’m Onyx, they offer, voice barely above conversational volume. I’ve been… I walk past here sometimes. Heard music. Saw people who looked like maybe they’d understand what it means to exist between categories.

Categories are bullshit anyway, Della announces, setting down her spatula with authority. You want categories? I got appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Everything else is just people trying to sort what doesn’t need sorting.

Onyx’s laugh sounds rusty, like machinery remembering how to function after long disuse. What I want is to stop feeling like I’m performing identity for audiences who don’t speak my language. I’m Black, I’m trans, I’m nonbinary but femme-presenting, I’m pan but lean sapphic, and every fucking space I enter wants me to pick which marginalization matters most for their particular brand of activism.

Sit, I gesture to the stool beside Keira. That performance exhaustion? We’ve all got PhDs in that particular torture.

Miguel pours without asking—red wine that breathes complexity, full-bodied enough to suggest he’s reading Onyx’s needs through some bartender sixth sense. They accept the glass with trembling fingers, take a sip that looks like communion.

I write poetry, Onyx continues, words gaining momentum like confession picking up speed. Awful, bloody, visceral poetry about what it means to live in a body the world treats as battleground. About being too Black for queer spaces and too queer for Black spaces and too femme for trans spaces and too trans for sapphic spaces until I’m just… scattered. Pieces of identity that don’t fit together the way people want them to.

Read us something, Ezra calls from their beanbag throne, piercings glinting with genuine interest.

Oh god no. Onyx’s laugh cracks like ice breaking. It’s terrible. I cried myself to sleep two nights ago worrying about people without shelter, then wrote sixteen pages about how privilege and poverty interlock in bodies marked by race and gender variance. Nobody needs that inflicted on them.

Bullshit. Remy appears from the shadows near the pool table, cigarette dangling like promise of fire. Sixteen pages means you got something to say worth hearing, cher. We don’t need polished. We need true.

The basement fills with murmured agreement. Bubba nods from his sentinel position by the windows, mountain of muscle and memory offering silent support. Phoenix slides off their stool, crosses to where Onyx sits with the careful approach of someone who recognizes fellow survivor.

I’m Phoenix. They/them. My parents kicked me out three months ago for being non-binary and queer. I found family here because people showed up for intersections—not despite them, not ranking which part of me mattered most, but understanding that you can’t separate being trans from being young from being broke from being afraid. Your intersections aren’t complications. They’re completeness.

I transitioned late, Onyx whispers, fingers tight around wine glass stem. Thirty-eight years performing manhood for survival, then another five navigating being visible as trans woman, then realizing even that wasn’t quite right because gender for me exists in this femme space that isn’t binary but isn’t neutral either. I missed experiences. Sapphic exploration in my twenties, chosen family forming naturally instead of desperately, the chance to exist without calculating every interaction’s danger level based on which intersection might trigger violence today.

Missed experiences don’t mean lost futures. Della’s voice carries steel wrapped in empathy. I spent twenty years married to men performing straightness before I understood that lesbian wasn’t betrayal—it was homecoming. You think I don’t mourn missing Pride in my twenties? Don’t grieve all those years I could’ve been kissing women instead of faking orgasms with men who treated me like convenience store? But sitting in grief means missing right fucking now.

Miguel refreshes Onyx’s wine, his own trans masculine presence offering wordless solidarity. We’re all late to something. I transitioned at twenty-one but didn’t understand partnership dynamics until Della taught me that marriage isn’t about performing gender correctly—it’s about showing up authentically even when authenticity looks messy.

“The Spirit of Radio” bleeds into “Tom Sawyer,” Rush providing soundtrack to confession as Onyx’s shoulders gradually lower from defensive position toward something approaching relaxation.

I want t4t relationship, they admit, voice raw with longing. Want to explore sexuality with someone who understands that desire gets complicated when your body’s been battleground, when touching requires trust built from shared experience of being touched wrong by world that doesn’t see you as human. But I’m scared to put myself out there. Scared that even in trans spaces, being Black and femme and nonbinary means existing in margins of margins.

Fear’s got good reasons. Grubby speaks rarely but when they do, words carry weight of being erased systematically by every institution designed to acknowledge human existence. Being intersex taught me that margins of margins is where most of us actually live. But margins also mean edges—places where things meet, transform, create something new from friction.

Keira sets down her book, first words she’s spoken all evening cutting through philosophical abstraction with surgical precision. You’re already putting yourself out there. You walked through that door. That’s the hardest part—choosing visibility when invisibility feels safer.

I live in my head, Onyx counters, but without heat. Spend hours imagining experiences I’ll never have, relationships I’m too afraid to pursue, community I don’t know how to claim. I’m a walking tear duct who cries about strangers’ suffering while being too terrified to show up for my own joy.

Empathy without action becomes self-flagellation. Miranda’s voice carries particular poetry, trans maternal wisdom wrapped in MILF energy and hard-won knowledge. You cry for the unsheltered? Good. Means your heart works. Now channel that into showing up—for them, for yourself, for the community you’re claiming right this moment by being here.

The basement falls quiet except for Genesis fading into The Police, “Message in a Bottle” providing ironic commentary on isolation seeking connection.

What if I’m too much? Onyx’s question cracks like adolescent voice finding new register. Too Black for white trans spaces, too trans for Black spaces, too emotional for people who value stoicism, too queer for straight folks and too complicated for queers who want simple narratives about identity and liberation?

Then you’re exactly right for us. My titanium-plated spine straightens despite sciatic nerve screaming protest. This basement exists because every person here is too much for somewhere else. Too queer, too trans, too broke, too traumatized, too honest about what survival costs. We don’t do simple narratives. We do complicated truths.

I write about being fetishized, Onyx continues, wine and welcome loosening confession further. About how being Black trans femme sapphic means existing in crosshairs of multiple objectifications. White queers exoticize my Blackness. Straight Black folks treat my transness as betrayal of racial solidarity. Chasers reduce my trans body to pornographic fantasy. Cis lesbians question my belonging in sapphic spaces. Every identity marker becomes ammunition for someone’s dehumanization.

Fuck them. Ezra’s blue hair catches light as they bounce upright, youthful fury cutting through exhaustion. Fuck every person who treats your existence like it requires their approval. You’re not too complicated—they’re too lazy to understand that people contain multitudes without contradiction.

Poet agrees. Brandon appears from the corner where he’s been scribbling in his notebook, successful writer energy mixing with gin and tonic exhaustion. Whitman said ‘I contain multitudes’ but he was cishet white dude so it sounded revolutionary instead of defensive. When we say it, it becomes justification instead of declaration. But justification implies needing permission. You don’t.

Della bangs spatula against counter, aggressive affection demanding attention. Onyx. Listen to me. You want chosen queer family? You’re looking at it. You want t4t relationship possibilities? Half this basement is trans in various configurations. You want sapphic community? We got more lesbian energy than fucking Lilith Fair. You want space where intersectional identity isn’t problem requiring explanation but reality requiring accommodation? Welcome the fuck home.

Onyx’s face crumples, tears flowing like they’ve been held back by dam finally breaking. I don’t know how to do this. How to belong without performing. How to exist without calculating which parts of me are safe to reveal when.

You start by staying. Phoenix hands them napkin, Sage’s intricate art decorating the paper—mandalas incorporating symbols from different decades of queer liberation history, different cultural traditions of gender variance, visual representation of intersections creating beauty instead of conflict. You stay for one drink. Then maybe you come back Thursday. Then maybe Thursday becomes structure instead of exception. Belonging isn’t achievement requiring perfect performance—it’s infrastructure requiring participation.

Miguel pours fresh bourbon, Woodford Reserve joining Onyx’s wine on the bar top. The rich scent mingles with Della’s cooking, with cigarette smoke from Remy’s corner, with the particular basement atmosphere that smells like safety earned through collective refusal to abandon each other.

I’m terrified, Onyx whispers.

Good. My voice carries every scar earned through choosing visibility despite consequences. Terror means you’re alive. Means you still believe joy is possible enough to fear losing it. Means you haven’t given up on finding people who see all your intersections and think ‘that’s the complete picture’ instead of ‘that’s too complicated to bother with.’

Tell us about the poetry, Keira suggests, practical wisdom cutting through emotional intensity. Not reading it if you’re not ready. Just what you write about. What makes it bloody and awful and worth sixteen pages about privilege and poverty.

Onyx breathes deep, wine glass steadying between both hands. I write about existing in body marked by race before I understood it carried weight. About being Black kid learning that skin meant assumptions, limitations, danger from people wearing badges and benevolence equally. About transitioning and realizing that white trans narrative is default, that resources assume whiteness, that even trans community replicates racial hierarchies while claiming progressive politics. About being femme in transness when masculinity gets validated as ‘really trans’ while femininity gets questioned as performance. About wanting sapphic love but fearing that even queer women who date trans folks still carry unconscious preferences for whiteness, for binary presentation, for simple stories about gender that don’t include nonbinary complexity.

The basement absorbs this testimony like sanctuary absorbs confession—holding it, honoring it, offering no easy solutions but absolute witness.

That’s not awful poetry, Bubba rumbles from his window position, deep voice carrying decades of southern survival. That’s documentation. Someone needs to write down what it costs to exist between categories in world that profits from sorting people into digestible narratives. Might as well be you.

I cried about the unsheltered because I know what it means to feel homeless in your own body, Onyx continues. To carry identity that doesn’t fit anywhere safely. To navigate systems designed for people whose intersections create privilege instead of peril. Being Black and trans and nonbinary and femme and sapphic means every fucking institution I encounter—medical, legal, social, romantic—requires translation of myself into language that erases something essential. So yeah, I cry about people without shelter because I know what it means to have no place that holds all of who you are simultaneously.

You got place now. Remy exhales smoke like sage blessing. Might be basement bar with crackling speakers and plastic cups. Might not look like belonging you imagined. But we hold all of who you are because we’re all walking contradictions to someone’s narrow definitions.

The music shifts to Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here” filling space between words with melancholy recognition of absence and presence intertwined. My chest tightens—this song belonged to Saturday mornings with Gizmo, grocery runs soundtracked by her enormous voice belting lyrics about trading souls and cages. I blink against tears, missing my daughter with grief approaching physical pain.

You okay, Mom? Miguel’s question carries gentle concern.

This song. I gesture vaguely at speakers. Gizmo and I used to sing it. Before transition destroyed trust between us. Before my authenticity became her abandonment. She’s three states away studying psychology, navigating university trans issues while I watch helplessly from distance built from broken promises and necessary truth-telling.

Intersection of trans parent and estranged child, Onyx observes quietly. Another place where identity creates loss alongside liberation.

Every authentic choice costs something. My bourbon tastes like regret and necessity mixed equally. Doesn’t mean the choice was wrong. Means the world punishes honesty about who we are, then blames us for the consequences of their punishment.

Onyx nods, understanding flowing wordlessly between survivors of similar mathematics—calculating costs of visibility, weighing authenticity against safety, choosing truth even when truth destroys relationships built on acceptable lies.

I want what you all have, they admit. This community. This chosen family. This space where intersections aren’t problems but just… reality. But I don’t know how to claim it without feeling like I’m performing worthiness instead of existing.

Stop performing. Della’s command carries maternal ferocity. Just exist. Keep showing up. Bring your awful poetry and your empathy and your terror and your complexity. We’ll hold it. That’s what sanctuary means—not that you arrive perfect, but that you arrive completely and we make space for all of it.

The evening continues, conversations layering as more people arrive. Leila bursts through the door bringing political fury about new legislative attacks on trans healthcare access, voice pitched high with righteous anger. Julie settles at the bar mixing Diet Coke with Jameson, seventy-one years of hard-won wisdom observing Onyx with approval suggesting elder queer recognizing younger version of herself. Lisa asks pragmatic questions about how Onyx navigates being both Black and trans in medical spaces, comparing notes about late-blooming queer identity with someone whose late blooming included additional layers of complexity.

Phoenix and Onyx gravitate toward each other, two nonbinary people comparing notes about existing outside binary while world insists on categorization. River joins them, rotating pronouns and nurse wisdom offering practical advice about finding trans-friendly healthcare providers who understand intersectional needs.

The thing about margins, Grubby offers during lull in conversation, rare words carrying weight of systematic erasure, is that they’re also thresholds. Places between categories become places where transformation happens. You’re not failing to fit existing boxes—you’re creating new geography entirely.

New geography requires maps, Brandon adds, writer’s hands gesturing as he speaks. Your poetry? That’s cartography. Documenting terrain that doesn’t exist in official atlases because people with power refuse to acknowledge the landscape.

I always wanted this. Onyx’s voice cracks with accumulated longing. Chosen queer family that holds all my identities simultaneously without ranking which matters most. But I was too scared to put myself out there because every space I’ve entered required leaving parts of myself at the door.

No doors here. Miguel gestures at the basement’s warm crimson walls, refurbished space breathing with intentional design. Well, one door. But it’s marked ‘Family Only’ and you already walked through it. That makes you ours now if you want claiming.

I want claiming. The words emerge as sob and laughter simultaneously. I want to stop living in my head imagining experiences and start living them. Want to explore sapphic love with someone who understands that desire gets complicated by trauma. Want to write poetry without apologizing for its bloodiness. Want to cry about injustice and have that empathy channeled into action instead of paralysis. Want to belong without performing worthiness.

Then stay, Keira suggests simply, first extended advice she’s offered all evening. For tonight, just stay. Thursday, come back. Keep showing up until showing up feels like structure instead of audition. Belonging isn’t achievement—it’s repetition of presence until presence becomes home.

Onyx nods, tears flowing freely now, wine glass empty but hands no longer trembling. Around us, the Sanctuary pulses with life—conversations layering, music bleeding between decades, food emerging from kitchen carrying aggressive love in every bite. This basement exists as pocket universe where marginalized souls shed daily armor, where intersection of identities becomes richness instead of complication, where the simple act of breathing freely feels like revolution.

I watch Onyx settle into their stool with gradually relaxing shoulders, watch Phoenix claim them as fellow traveler, watch the community absorb one more person who exists between categories the world insists should be separate. My titanium spine aches, sciatic nerve screaming electric fire, but my heart feels fuller than it has in weeks.

This is what sanctuary means—not that you arrive perfect, but that you arrive completely and we make space for all of it.

The bourbon tastes like truth feels—complicated and burning and absolutely necessary.

“We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.” — James Baldwin

James Baldwin understood intimately what it costs to exist at intersections of marginalized identities—Black, queer, artist in America that demanded he choose which oppression to prioritize. His words remind us that the world inverts safety, punishing love while rewarding violence. Onyx walked through the Sanctuary’s door carrying the accumulated weight of living between categories, performing identity for audiences speaking different languages of exclusion. But Baldwin’s wisdom suggests that hiding love, hiding authentic self, hiding the complicated truth of intersectional existence—this violence happens in broad daylight, normalized as protection when it’s actually oppression. The Sanctuary offers counter-narrative: a space where love practiced openly, where intersections celebrated rather than ranked, where the bloody awful poetry of existing between margins becomes documentation instead of justification. Sometimes revolution looks like basement bar where plastic cups hold sacred meaning, where showing up completely matters more than arriving perfectly, where chosen family forms from collective refusal to hide who we are to make others comfortable with our existence.

This time of year, it’s SO hard to stay in control of your health.

Holiday travel (and meals!), big family gatherings, dark and cold days, it’s easy to skip that workout, sleep in later than you should, or have just one more cookie.

That’s why you need a daily health habit that’s easy to stick with.

Meet AG1: With just one quick scoop every morning, you’ll get over 75 ingredients that help support your immune health, gut health, energy, and close nutrient gaps in your diet.

Right now is the best time to get started - with every new subscription, they are giving away $126 in free gifts for the holidays.

Give AG1 a try today and take control of your health this holiday season.

Give AG1 a try today