Friend of the Gutter Sara Century writes a beautiful piece about being saved (and not saved) by the X-Men at The Gutter Review. “Being queer was like being an X-Man. You discover something about yourself and it makes the people around you upset, even violent. You can’t change it and maybe you struggle with it, but you’ll come to see it as a blessing in the end. It will transform how the world interacts with you. There is something irreconcilable between you and the ways things are supposed to be. You are a challenge to it, and it needs to be challenged.

Being queer is nothing like being an X-Man. It’s all so scary and uncertain, and no mentor comes out of the fog to save you. Your community might just as easily choose to tear you to pieces as support you. When there is a threat, people scatter, and many even side with the enemy. Your opponents don’t see the error of their ways. Your family doesn’t love you deep down in the end.”

Read more here.