"When I was at church, they taught me something else/If you preach hate at the service, those words aren’t anointed"

My latest column for more! magazine is out now, on the shelves of yr nearest reputable newsagents and featuring K-Stew's smug mug on the front cover. This week: finding your tribe, rites of passage (goodbye tresses, hello generic lesbian haircut) and the joys of gay clubbing.

Writing this column has been an interesting exercise so far. I've been out for 8/9 years, and the experiences of those years has allowed me to write (relatively) freely about the pleasures and trials of being queer with (relatively) little qualms about who will be reading them. As I celebrate my queer coming-of-age in this column, writing gaily about strap-ons and losing my lez v-card, I'm very aware, on a personal level, that others do not enjoy the same freedoms. I guess the coming-out story might sometimes feel like a hackneyed narrative for seasoned queers. Some of us would rather be busy getting on with the important stuff then picking over a process that should, in a decent world, be as incidental as puberty. If, like me, you came out years ago, facing only mild, curious surprise and fond acknowledgement from yr loved ones, its easy to forget how terrifying this ordeal this can be for those of us who don't have the acceptance of our families, those of us who labour under an impossibly conditional kind of love. I'm thinking a lot about chosen families this week, and the beautiful, brave strength of queers who have had to adapt and transform our collective idea of 'family' in order to ensure loving, supportive structures are there to embrace us when the old, traditional ones fail. How inventive and wonderful we are.

And here's that Macklemore track again, because its pertinant to the above and all I can listen to at the moment.