Emily St. James is a writer and critic whose work has appeared in Vox, The A.V. Club, and the New York Times. She is the co-creator of the podcast Arden and a writer on the TV series Yellowjackets.
It felt a little like the bird was following me around the upper floor of my parents' home. I would walk past a window, and there it would be -- thonk -- flinging itself at the glass, for reasons unknown. Red has always been my favorite color, so when
Every so often, on main, I'll tweet something that sparks an energetic response from the many, many energetic white dudes who follow me. They are argumentative. They want to debate. I never, ever want to do this. I want to monologue in peace. Don't get me
When I was 4, I loved to play dress-up. My mom had a bunch of weird old clothes she had saved from her and my father's '60s and '70s wardrobes, and I would wrap myself in them and pretend I was somebody else. My mom had
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I had a fight, a big one. It wasn't a marriage ending fight, and I knew it at the time. But it was a fight where I needed to do something to act out, to show how wronged I felt,
The Y chromosome looks insignificant when lined up next to the other chromosomes. It's a little nubbin of a thing, an afterthought that has nevertheless rewritten human history. In actuality, most of its work is done in the womb, shaping the sex organs of babies assigned male at
A couple of weeks ago, a friend was discussing with me an idea they had encountered from Hank Green, the novelist, vlogger, and all-around internet cool dude. The idea is that fame, as it were, has tiers. Five of them, to be specific. The lowest tier -- tier one --
Last year, the best book I read was Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville. This is likely not a statement that will surprise you, but I was surprised by how true it was. I expected the book to be great. I didn't quite expect it to be so great that
There may be no time when any human being becomes aware of how much male privilege they have than right when they are about to lose it. And there may be no time when any human being becomes so reckless with that privilege than when they know that every use
Today, I saw something on Twitter that really made me mad. Posted by Erik Weinstein, who works at Thiel Capital, it was part of a string of tweets he made that were designed as a so-called "scientific" pushback against Twitter's new regulations that make it easier
"Do you always get in a car like that?" she asked. "I don't know," I said. "I guess?" "I thought maybe you'd started trying to copy how women get into cars! It just seemed so feminine." And I
On the ceiling of my childhood bedroom are glow in the dark stars, which I placed there well over 25 years ago. I've always thought they looked a little like a pirate, thrusting his hook hand into the air, cursing Peter Pan. My wife thinks they take the
The idea I see shared a lot in trans discussion spaces is that wanting determines destiny in some way. Because I want badly to be a woman, I am a woman, by this line of thinking, even as I write this while cloaked in the guise of a seemingly typical