Essay written April 2000, edited April 2006 Oddly enough—as much of a repressive force as religion has become in our society in recent decades—I

The oldest of four children, Graham was raised primarily in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother was nineteen and her father, a liberal Presbyterian minister, was

Essay written Sept., 2004. Although I was born in France, following my father’s death from cancer, my mother returned with me to her hometown

“It was all men talking about the war…” Misha Cohen was raised in Coral Gables, Florida and identifies as a Sephardic Jew. Her father

“Everybody was bending gender a little bit…” Raised in a middle class, suburban family outside of Washington D.C., Holly Boswell was assigned a male

“She’s a ‘vegetarian,’ or he’s very ‘musical’…” The daughter of an Army officer, Ann Matter’s “international childhood” was spent in Germany, Central America, and,

“We were the best musicians…” Raised in a middle class, Jewish, suburban family, Roger Goodman remembers a childhood “filled with monstrosity.” His family maintained a

Francois Clemmons was raised in Youngstown, Ohio, in a predominantly black community. His father worked in the steel mills and his mother sang in

Essay written May 2006 I grew up as an only child in suburbs of Chicago and Detroit. By the time I was in kindergarten

Essay written July, 2004. My Oberlin story from the early 1960’s is about how typical it was then to deny one’s nontraditional sexual orientation,