Category: Uncategorized

  • My Request For My Son (A Poem For My Son)

    My Request For My Son (A Poem For My Son)

    oh my sonthey will mock youand try to stop youand block your magicthey will twist your beautybut it is your dutyto do more than laugh and cry awaythe ugly words they will say. oh my sonthey will tell you to obeyas it will keep the bullets awaybecause it won’t. they will…

  • Throwback Thursday: Landing in Orlando

    Throwback Thursday: Landing in Orlando

    july 29, 2016:angel said “there are rainbows everywhere.” i looked around and saw that we were in fact surrounded by rainbows. the site of the bright colors is moving. at first but then you remember these rainbows are not because rain but because immense lost and pain..yesterday, after landing in…

  • How To Survive A Plague…Again: A Instagram Conversation

    How To Survive A Plague…Again: A Instagram Conversation

    On Thursday, March 26, 2020, Louie of Gran Varones will be joined by frequent GV contributor and co-founder of the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative Abdul-Aliy Muhammad will have a live and public conversation on what is it like to be Black, Queer and HIV positive in a time when…

  • La Cura Podcast Featuring Gran Varones Founder, louie ortiz-fonseca

    La Cura Podcast Featuring Gran Varones Founder, louie ortiz-fonseca

    i am so happy to share this episode of Mijente‘s la cura podcast. i enjoyed chatting with podcast host francisca about gran varones, storytelling and growing up in the 1990s. y’all should check it out!

  • My Dear Aunt Blanca

    My Dear Aunt Blanca

    blanca was the youngest of all my aunts. people called her sunshine because of her brightly dyed blonde hair. she was the tallest and most statuesque. she was also the most adventurous. looking back, she was probably the most hopeful. people thought she was naive. she just believed in the…

  • Tiffany | Fort Lauderdale, Fl

    Tiffany | Fort Lauderdale, Fl

    My sex positivity journey is still occurring! That’s my lesson. I couldn’t rely on the adults in my life to guide me or tell me how to date or navigate love because they were accustomed to traditional ways of mass toxicity when it comes to sex & love. (Sex) and…

  • June | Philadelphia, PA

    June | Philadelphia, PA

    I have always tried to inform people what it life was like behind bars as a transgender latina and as a hiv positive trans latina. people think that we are supported and we are not. we have to survive on our own in there just like we have to when…

  • THROWBACK |My Brother Nicholas

    THROWBACK |My Brother Nicholas

    today would have been my brother’s 40th birthday. growing up with mother struggling with addiction often meant that christmas and birthdays were no different from tuesdays and thursdays. so we never learned how to celebrate occasions but nicholas and i spent those days together alone as we got older. i…

  • Carlos, A Day With HIV

    Carlos, A Day With HIV

    What is in a day with HIV? #adaywithhiv looks different for everyone. For some it can mean stressing over medication. It can be an internal abyss of fear of disclosure. It can be trying to find housing. It can be trying to find a job. It can be internalizing all…

  • for my mother

    for my mother

    i don’t have video of my mother laughing. the sound of her laugh exists only now in my mind. every year, i fear that i will forget the sound of her raucous laugh. afraid that my memory will instead recall laughs that are similar to my mother’s in place of…

  • Article: Kikis With Louie: fighting a stigma

    Article: Kikis With Louie: fighting a stigma

    Kikis With Louie: fighting a stigma this is one of my fave write ups about kikis with louie. it also helped that i was interviewed by a queer person of color.

  • throwback: Julio Salgado

    throwback: Julio Salgado

    1996, somewhere in hollywood, ca with my tio chicho. he was the first gay man i ever met. i never came out to him but in his own way he introduced me to the concept of family and queerness. it is because of him that my own family didn’t have…