Tris Mamone

Let’s face it: call outs sucks, no matter what it's about. It doesn’t help if you are in any way either mentally ill or neurodivergent.

There was no room for fallibility or even a gray scale of good and bad — perfection was the only option. Dogmatic perfectionism nearly killed me!

Alcohol was the antidepressant I felt I always wanted. There was no need to step back, breathe, count to ten, or do any other self-soothing techniques.

Growing up I thought autism was just for folks like Rain Man, but my friends helped me realize that autism is a spectrum.

Masculinity always felt like a pair of shoes that didn’t fit quite right.

It got to the incredibly toxic point, with my activist community, where I seriously considered walking away from activism for good.

It’s both comforting and disturbing knowing that my experiences navigating as a non-binary person are not unique. This is non-binary invisibility.

When I look up at the stars at night, I feel such a deep connection that I want to know more about where I came from. This is spirituality!

When marginalized people respond to hateful speech with more speech, they often risk their physical safety — not just their comfort. Free speech is complex.