Zara’s Relationship with GO: She Was Actually My Basic | GO Magazine

The 1st time I picked up a gorgeously homosexual backup of GO mag I found myself a spindly freshman in senior high school. It actually was early 2000s and I ended up being residing a small sleepy community one hour outside Manhattan. Becoming the earnest
lesbian teenager
that I happened to be (as well as in various ways nevertheless am), I invested the majority of my time locked in my room, dutifully memorizing Ani Difranco lyrics and re-watching the movie ”
Bound
” on VHS. About this specific day, I’d decided to jump a train to “the metropolis” for a short minute of suburban reprieve.

I was stomping round the East Village within my Dr. Martin shoes (as displaced teenagers regarding the very early 2000s happened to be wont to do) Bikini destroy cranked to full-volume back at my Discman, once I happened into a no-name restaurant in the spot of 8th and St. Marks. I came across myself magnetically attracted to a pile of cool-looking magazines, keeping judge on a communal dining table. We clumsily got the very first one my personal fingertips grazed and made my personal solution to a lone armchair put away when you look at the rear spot associated with the shop. Within thirty moments of leafing through pages, the tornado that incessantly swirled through my personal teenager head, ended up being suddenly waiting zenfully nevertheless. I found myself transfixed by all of these photos of women! Women who appeared as if the coolest ladies I got ever put my personal 15-year-old sight upon! Many of the ladies had hair cropped near their unique minds while some had very long cascading swells. A few of the females rocked tattered jeans although some happened to be draped in expensive-looking coats. Despite their particular huge difference in window-dressing the females that were caught on these shiny mag pages, radiated this amazing power that thought strangely…familiar if you ask me? That is when it dawned on me personally.

They are lesbians. Just like me.

I invested another a long time, curled up in a strange coffeeshop, consuming choose an untamed strength I’d never ever reached prior to. I gazed within pictures among these out gay ladies shamelessly clutching arms and proclaiming their own fascination with their particular partners, while I had been struck with an alarmingly positive idea:

Guess what happens Zara? You will be okay. You’re life isn’t will be a horrible just because you’re a dyke. That it is going to be pretty freaking awesome.

While GO pleasantly acknowledged
the actual challenges
of being a lesbian, the magazine was not based around the terror from it all. GO was my very first subjection to the “other side” on the gay world. Along side it that extended beyond the “it’s a hardcore life, kid, but we you” garble that permanently tumbled from the mouths of well-meaning grown-ups. The medial side where gay ladies didn’t have to endure inside the cruel, cool globe, but could in fact thrive. Have
brilliant professions
. Attend
fabulous functions
. Belong
unapologetic love!
For the first time previously, I found myselfnot just okay with becoming gay. I became excited about becoming homosexual! How happy was we to get part of these a badass neighborhood?

Whenever I began working at GO, it decided coming house. In my experience, GO has been a steady stone in an ever more unsteady world. Whatever the bevy of political hurricanes raging outdoors, GO provides stayed the sanctuary we could collectively examine into. A secure, powerful, haven, teeming with family members. ‘Cause we’re all a family. GO audience, the staff, the city most importantly… we are all connected by anything in the same manner powerful as blood. Identity. Sexuality. Energy when confronted with hardship. So before you decide to flip through this month’s issue, let me formally welcome you home, fam.

Xoxo,

Zara

This can be a two-part Editor’s page,
study Amy’s letter here
.