I’m soooo homesick for my two-week study abroad trip to Helsinki, Finland a month ago. I miss going on my phone on different islands. I miss taking Ubers in the city known for the best public transit in the world. I miss going out to eat for breakfast, coffee, lunch, coffee, dinner, dessert, and drinks every single day. But most of all, I miss being the worst person in an entire country. While I aspire to be the most annoying guy in every municipality, there’s tough competition in Chicago. People watch YouTube videos out loud on the bus. People live in the Loop. People pay $400 for improv classes.

In Finlandia, I was the anti-hero of an introvert’s paradise. Don’t get me wrong, autism Mecca had its appeal to me too. I loved how every public space was so silent that even in the gay clubs I had no need for my Loop earplugs. All communication is almost brutally straightforward and small talk is outlawed. I had no notes but the good people of Finland had many notes for me. Jaakko warned me that my expressiveness might make the local news for a crazy person on the loose. He also said I look like Deagol from Lorde of the Rings when I was dressed up for a night out. But who am I to question my Finnish classmate/biological son/loaner of a sleeping bag when my OCD got so bad that I refused to sleep directly on my hotel bedding. In my defense, I found hairs everywhere in the room, including those of the pubic variety!

Jaakko unfortunately had no recommendations for queer spaces in Helsinki, which he explained was because there’s such a monoculture that subcultures don’t really exist. The Finnish language has ONLY gender neutral pronouns. It’s ranked as one of the the most socially and politically progressive nations. And Tom of Finland is from Finland, little known fact. However, I have been militantly trained in finding gay events. I searched Instagram for gay bars, restaurants, shops, stick-and-poke tattoo artists, etc. I looked through their followings for drag and pop-up party accounts. I checked the profiles of people tagging those locations then scanned their posts and comments. I even got clocked by an Uber driver who wanted to know if I was “gaysexual” and also if I was “gay top or gay bottom” before I asked his advice on gay clubs.

Thankfully, my research project was fruit(y)ful. First I found Hercules, a multi-story gay club with a live DJ who took requests. I and my new best friends from study abroad, Sarah and Mia, got on an elevated surface and Hannah Horvath’d to Dancing on My Own by Robyn. Sarah then fell off said elevated surface and bruised her knee so, so enormously that she got out of a walking tour by showing her battle wound to our professors. Doctors say she is expected to make a full recovery.

Next, I found Struts, a queer cocktail bar where I want my ashes to be scattered. On our first visit, I met a triad of lesbians who took us to late night karaoke, which is randomly a bigger thing in Finland than Japan. At karaoke, one of the lesbians held my head back while throwing a salmiakki shot down my throat. For those unfamiliar, it is a Finnish favorite black licorice vodka, and it tastes like cough medicine gone bad. Finland hasn’t heard of sugar or anything yet, so we can’t really blame them.

On another visit to Struts, I did karaoke at the bar itself while study abroad bestie Ash chugged beers trying to get drunk enough to sing. I was completely upstaged by all of the musical theater gays, who sang almost entirely pop songs in English too. Every country is running laps around the United States in their multilingual skills. Like I got fluent in Finnish because nobody talks and I learned all 5 words that are needed conversationally. But the rest of y’all, it’s embarrassing how little you know!

I also experienced the authentic Finnish sauna. Back home, I call it “trans awareness day” when I take my shirt off at hot yoga, only to be greeted with “have a great day ladies!” as I leave a trail of sweat out the front door. I was nervous to go to the women’s sauna with Isabella, the insanely hot lesbian burlesque dancer I met at Struts. She reassured me that everyone minds their business in Finland, and they did. We ran in and out of the sauna, the showers, and the front patio all afternoon, tipsy and happy. It was difficult to mansplain to her the experience of a sauna at the YMCA in the U.S. And although the Finns are immune to any stigma or sexuality associated with nudity, I died of secondhand shame when Jaakko said he’s seen his “worst enemy’s penis.” Even a white man yogi such as myself couldn’t take this culture shock.

But gay and trans folks are the same everywhere, as I saw at Trans Library Helsinki. I got free food and made buttons and cried about my utopian future being a very real present in this beautiful country. Some day I will have my thoughts collected enough to explain what this institution meant to me, but today is not that day, because the deadline for my study abroad reflection essay is midnight today. Let me know in the comments if I should just turn this article in!

Moi moi,

Darah

The queer community is united in their struggle against the construct of time. For years, terminology like “running on gay time” has been a colloquial language for the issue of all queer people being chronically late. This further restricts the timeframe in which gays and lesbians can gather, due to the new limitations on lesbian activity after dinnertime.

As a transsexual individual who identifies as gay in all directions, the implications of this legal change are not yet clear. On some nights, I can fall asleep by 6pm and sleep through the night. On others, I am able to make it until 2am or 3am when there is a postgame meal to be shared with my gay guy compatriots.

My neurodivergence adds another dimension of intersectionality. For example, time blindness makes me say things like “I’ll just shower quickly in the Uber, while I make dinner.” This is entirely out of my control as a symptom of my mental illness. I am in the process of trialing multiple psychiatric medications, in the hopes I can at least reply to Instagram DMs I receive from my beloved friends and family. Leaving the house after bedtime is a goal further down the line for someone like me.

There is a lot unknown about the future impacts of queer legislation. Stay tuned and stay freaky. As always, I’m your local transfag lesboy reporter Darah Spar.

Thank you for all the love and support while I took a hiatus from my highly lucrative Substack publication. I needed to put my health first but now I’m back and ready to give it my all. And yes, I’ve seen all the fan edits of me and Fiona Dourif. As far as I know, we’re just friends. ;)

I want to fill you in on what I’ve been up to in the past few months. First, I did enough bloodwork to feed a coven of vampires. Months later, I got a diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis, by the brilliant doctors at the first rheumatology office that had an opening. I also have sleep apnea, which was diagnosed in 2021 and I have not treated it since.

It was time to act my age, which is 65+ years old in the physical sense. I started medication for arthritis and got a mouth guard refitted for sleep apnea. I signed a legal agreement with my PR agent Anthony Dominguez, to not be seen publicly after 1am. I returned to my original inspiration of writing notes app poetry and sending screenshots to my nonbinary lesbian cousin Ava.

I’m sure you have seen the headlines, but I want you to hear it from me. In my latest public appearance, a lesbian couple’s joint birthday party, I made a common mistake. As I twote, I “introduced myself to someone at a party tonight and realized mid conversation they have Been inside me.” This got 37k likes and counting.

But more importantly, I hope it raises awareness about the serious disability of prosopagnosia, aka face blindness. In a public service announcement by my good friend Keke Palmer, she shared her struggles in solidarity with me. “I hate to say it - I hope I don’t sound ridiculous - I don’t know who this man is. I mean, he could be walking down the street, I wouldn’t know a thing... sorry to this man.”

I have a long way to go on my health journey. I want to someday recognize all of my lovers. The doctors say it’s possible, but not likely. I hope to beat those odds.

I’ve even taken up alternative medicine. No, not like RFK Jr. I’ve transformed my healing process by becoming a white man who’s too into yoga, and the one gay guy at SoulCycle with his faghags. I can’t even tell you what Beyoncé’s Renaissance Album No Skips SoulCycle has done for me. It brought my physical age from 80 down to 65, among countless other health benefits.

I would never lie to my Darahlings. It hasn’t been easy. I risk drowning in my own sweat in every hot yoga class. I have become one with the fearsome Lululemonistas of the greater Wicker Park area. The Lululemon in me sees and honors the Lululemon in you.

With gratitude and love,

Darah

When I was hired at age 16 for $8/hour by a manager who spoke in incoherent mumbles, I was thrilled. Every single one of my coworkers was a beautiful teenage boy hired by their friend’s dad who owned the store. (Half of the boys were future D1 athletes, and customers frequently complained that they were charged the same price for my noticeably smaller ice cream scoops, because I was an anorexic teenage girl.) Gaymously, I’d recently come to the terrifying realization that I was bisexual. Here was a chance to retreat to the comfort of heterosexuality after my first ever homoerotic friendship had phenomenally rocked my shit. Stream Triple Dog Dare by Lucy Dacus.

If you can believe it, dear reader, my little plan did not end well for me. First of all, not only am I still lesbianic, but I am randomly also a transsexual. I do like men, although in a Grindr way. Second of all, I was unsuccessful in dating even a single one of those boys. I truly attempted to date all of them in succession, except for a boy I only encountered once, who went on to become the boyfriend of my college best friend Aurie over four years later.

I honestly can’t remember the order in which I went about this, because it’s been a decade since I wreaked havoc on Ben, Jerry, and all their cute friends. My middle sister Alyssa has a near perfect memory so maybe she’ll let us know in the comments, if she has time between teaching abroad and applying for her doctorate. Anyway, in my most memorable attempt at forcing true love, I asked crush #174 to hang out. Unfortunately, he replied that he thought of me as “a work friend." Oh! Not even a friend, a work friend. I had agreed to model for my friend’s photography class at the exact moment I received that fateful text, and I didn’t want to bail but I could not pull off a poker face. Pictures attached below.

Thankfully, some of the boys were willing to be seen with me off the clock. For example, I went bowling with crush #34 and in my sheer panic I stepped over the line onto the greased bowling lane, and completely wiped out. Enooormous bruise. He sent me a video of himself singing shirtless in the car, immediately before sending a picture of himself back at college with his girlfriend kissing him on the cheek. Right, right. Scientists are working around the clock to determine was that my first date, then?

I fear this whole experience set the tone for me dating-wise, because a whole gender later I’m just as willing to humiliate myself in a nightmarish romantic scenario. Oh, and I can only wonder what those boys said about me to each other. In a sense, my dream of being of romantic significance at Ben & Jerry’s came true!

As king of the open DMs, I got an offer from a potential sugar mommy that I instantly agreed to try out. They said no nudes, etc. and my ignorant ass was like yes, makes total sense they would be sending me money for free. I deserve it!!!! :)

There was (of course) a catch, which was that they expected me to send back a portion of the money. Even to recent grad me, that sounded a bit weird. So I devised a brilliant plan: accept the money as a one time payment, then block them without sending any money back. They sent me a virtual check, I deposited it at my bank, and the transaction showed on my account. Forget Ocean’s Eleven, I was Ocean’s One.

After I blocked them on Insta, I received a threatening email saying they had contacted the FBI, etc. Ok Detective Fierce! It was clear to me that whatever their secret plan was to evade taxes (or whatever I assumed, if I even thought about it) had been foiled by a Mastermind by Taylor Swift.

Then Navy Federal Credit Union revoked my mobile deposit privileges for “cashing” a “fake check” and sent me an “overdraft fee” for “spending money” I didn’t “have”. Clocked me! It turns out my sugar-less sugar mommy had planned for me to send her my money, thinking I had a check processing in my account from her, only to be left broker than before. You probably pieced this together before Sherlock Holmes over here.

The lesson I learned, aspiring sugar babies, is that if something sounds too good to be true it probably is! And don’t spend a check that hasn’t cleared. Also don’t rent a BASEMENT APARTMENT for $1600 in the swamp hell that is our nation’s capital. Fuck DC, Chicago forever, scissor ya later xoxo.

When God was making 2000s gays, he forgot to give me the microchip that comes up with a funny pop culture reference costume. More than anything, I want to be good at Halloween. I can rally for any other theme on a second’s notice. I own enough clothes to outfit everyone and their polycule. For some reason, Halloween eludes me.

Being in such a wishy-washy mood is not an adequate excuse for the aforementioned gay guys. The party must go on. My #1 gay guy Anthony and I frequently debate the lesbian/gay social divide. Lesbians are stereotypically in the house, crocheting a gift for their partner of three days. Gay guys are in Boystown double-fisting vodka crans, which are usually 99% vodka and 1% cran. Not an ideal ratio for a chronic UTI haver like myself!

Now, as a trans myself, I understand all categories are fake and all identities are fluid. In da clerb, we all gay guys. And I’m already gay on my dad’s side and lesbian on my mom’s, so I flirt with both craft nights and club nights. I just have a bedtime, which gay guys have an allergic reaction to hearing.

So, I have no memorable costume. I have no intentions of staying out past midnight, when I will turn into a pumpkin. And yet, I’m in the mood to have the greatest night of my life ever, no pressure. What’s a girl (adult trans man) to do?

Sometimes in life, you move to the great nation of Chicago, Illinois and end up trying poly (again). My first brush with EDM (or whatever they call it) was in college, when I was technically in an open relationship. Ultimately, neither of us touched anyone else’s peepee, which I realized was what I wanted from it. And so it surprised no one more than me when I decided to study abroad in Poly for Summer 2024.

Let me set the scene... it was Brat Summer and I wanted to be a 365 party boy, but I don’t do drugs. I needed a way to up the ante and painting a happy trail on myself with glitter wasn’t cutting it anymore. Most importantly, I was working 7 days a week in June ‘24 to pay for top surgery so I was overwhelmed by financial stress and medical anxiety. As is the premise of many romcoms, I wanted to have sex with no strings attached, so I intentionally pursued people who I wouldn’t date. Also, it was my first time being the emotionally unavailable one, and it was a treat. Now I get why you all love to Do That to me. <3

I’m a daredevil in the name of sex and romance. Besides, I was a “girl” in semi-rural Virginia when I was a rolypoly the first time, so it seemed like a fun experiment to dabble in the T4T world. Famously, testosterone had hit me like a ton of bricks. Aka I was bricked up starting month 4 on T, Winter ‘23, when I downloaded Grindr and tried strapping and hosting and pulling a wine cork out with a kitchen knife. After becoming experienced in the devil-may-care ways of the tfag, I had newfound sexual confidence in my changing body.

As the city warmed up, so did I. (The spirit of Carrie Bradshaw possessed me to say that.) I started meeting strangers out at parties and getting pushed up against a wall for the first time since my anthropology field work going to frats as a freshman Justice Studies major. I’m only half joking— thank you to those buffoons for informing my paper on dismantling structural gender violence at a PhD level conference where I presented at age 19!

Reader, I must confess something. In the end, I committed to poly for approximately 72 hours total. That guy who was stuck in a canyon and had to saw his own arm off lasted longer than me. I gave it a college try, I swear. Before I attached to the third or fourth ‘cule I’d been invited into, I started seeing multiple people myself. As a serial monogamista, I usually can’t even make gay eye contact with others when I’m crushing on someone. I was riding high on being horny enough to slut it up romantic-style. (I was also riding high on double-ended dildos, but that’s besides the point.) And my transmasc poly therapist (oh I’m sure) had advised I read Polysecure, so I felt like I was doing my emotional homework. I had not read it, but I was planning to read it!!!

Alas, I fear not everyone is made for poly. In fact, not so secretly, I believe most people are not cut out for it. I am among the masses and it lead me to my scientific conclusion: one must be horny about feeling jealous/being cucked to really enjoy a poly life. Because I am not!

If you are only doing it from some imagined moral high ground of being anti-establishment, good luck babe….. Now, I urge you to learn from my mistakes and think long and hard about whether you need to be poly to be sexually satisfied or maybe just buy a new sex toy. I highly recommend Early to Bed in Andersonville. No matter what you do, reader: chin up and lez out!

Sincerely yours,

Darah

It is with a heavy heart that we report Taylor Swift’s new album is shit from a butt. I will be sitting shiva for the next week if any members of my Gaylor congregation would like to join me. As a community, we are in shock that her first time singing openly about lesbian sex is a Charli XCX diss track. I’m a Charli’s Angel on my mom’s side, so I want to provide an interfaith perspective. In my home, we believe lezzing out is a cause for celebration regardless of the occasion. Hate sex is accepted. If we uphold that love is love, then hate is hate.

However, we do not condone the use of “big dick” language in an Olivia Rodrigo diss track. We stand with O Rod in this catastrophe. Our hearts are broken for all of the divas targeted by such vicious word salad on The Flop of a Shitgirl. No one deserves to have a bad song written about them. Only good diss tracks.

We don’t have answers. It will take a long time to recover, but we take courage in the work of our tireless Gaylor first responders. Finding meaning in lyrics such as “She came out/I said you’re living my dream” demonstrates our people’s unwavering faith in these uncertain times. Stay strong, scissor on.

Your fearless Kaylor,

Darah

Class, today’s lesson is about transference. If you have ever thought “maybe my therapist would Want me if we didn’t meet in this context”, then you probably have it. But I think I have you beat. In the beautiful web of Chicago T4T, I have accidentally fucked my therapist’s FWB. All adventurous women do.

You might be wondering, what happened next? Did you ghost your therapist after joining their polycule? No, no, no. I immediately told my entire workplace about the sitch and tweeted an early 2000s image of Selena Gomez (see attached below) and that was healing enough.

This isn’t to say I’m immune to shame. In fact, I feel guilty for existing every day of my life. However, when everything brings you immense shame, nothing brings you immense shame. Wait… that’s so true. (By Gracie Abrams, it’s catchy and you know it.)

In the unc stage of my 20s, I have been embracing all life experiences as something to bring me closer to understanding the human experience. For so long, I believed I had to say something novel for my viewpoint to matter. Now, I see the beauty in shared contexts. I am comforted and inspired by the stories of queer and trans elders.

So, while you may not have flopped in the creative ways I have, I hope you can relate to the insane gay person behind it all. Subscribe to keep up with the Spardashians!

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