Gift economies are vital to our survival and our healing. A gift economy is a network of people joined by gift-giving ties—the exchange of goods or services without money. In a gift economy, the giving of a gift places an obligation upon the recipient to give a gift of their own.

Sexual orientation sometimes gets defined solely by who you enjoy sleeping with. Rather than reduce queer identity down to something about sex or body parts, I want to recognize it as the huge, beautiful, expansive, all-encompassing experience of being in the world it is. So I’m going to focus on what I love about being gay that has nothing to do with actual gay relationships. And it’s still a long, fun list.

When I was in grad school, we studied the history of the field of mental health. What nobody told me, however, is how often I would be sharing that history with clients as a clinical intervention. Historical context matters. I want to summarize that history, not as an academic exercise, but in a way that will shed light on so many of our journeys to healing and wholeness, and that will hopefully inspire compassion for ourselves, those we love, and even those we can’t stand.