Qstack Readers Select | August 2025
Queer Substack favorites - from Robin Taylor of That Trans Friend You Didn't Know You Needed and SmallStack
Welcome back to Qstack Readers Select, a bi-monthly, curated selection of queer Substacks—chosen by Qstack readers—highlighting and celebrating the enormous talent of our queer writers.
Previous Editions:
For this edition, truly has selected five newsletter writers who display ongoing commitment to the queer community and great writing.
While we’ve got Robin at the podium…
Qstack offers our heartiest congratulations on the publication of the first Small Robin Press book You Are Enough: A Small Anthology!
Robin’s plans to start not one but two small presses—Small Robin Press and —to publish work coming out of Substack is amazing, generous, splendid, encouraging, commendable, ambitious … all the adjectives, really. We look forward to seeing what comes next.
Beautifully done, dear editors and contributors to this inspiring work!
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And Congratulations to all the honorees for this edition of Qstack Readers Select! Thank you for all you do—you are seen, and most appreciated. ~ MTF
Once upon a time, when Qstack was still just a dream Mr. Troy Ford had mentioned in a Substack note, I felt this insane ripple of envy. I wanted to create a cool queer community for all of us, and he beat me to it! Turns out, Troy has done some amazing things I would never have thought of, and I’m forever grateful for him and all of you for becoming such a great home for creators and readers alike.
Realizing that I still had my own unique ability to inspire community growth and interaction, I launched
just over a year ago. Our focus was in promoting and supporting writers with small audiences (under 1000 subscribers), and along the way we discovered just how many incredibly cool writers, artists, and creators existed all around us. That’s exactly what I hoped would happen. I struggled so much in the beginning of writing my own newsletter as TransFriend, content in many ways to have a small audience but constantly feeling like I could not keep pace with all the fast-growing stacks around me, that I knew I couldn’t be the only person to feel like the system was rigged against me.Queer creators, in particular, really do need community to succeed and express our visibility in safe ways. I hope newer folx showing up on Substack today get to Qstack first so that they can see the vibrant, loving group that’s been fostered here, and what better way than to share my own list of favorites with everyone!?
This is my moment to rave about my exceptionally well-curated feed of talented queer writers on Substack, and I’m not holding back. Is this a complete list? Definitely not! Check back with me in a week and my subscription list will be even bigger than it is today. But we wouldn’t be so sparkly and gorgeous without this group of creators, some of whom really set the tone for humor, sincerity, and heart-felt community care.
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People with Inconvenient Truths about Transphobes (PITT)
Have you ever been faced with an internet bully who was really good at trolling, but you just didn’t know how to push back on their talking points? Or maybe you have that one relative who is “just asking questions” around the holiday dinner table, and you wish you knew how to stand up for yourself and your community without feeling terrified? PITT is in your corner! This is The Place to understand all the pitfalls and fallacies of anti-trans rhetoric, and you can get entertainment along the way!
Jokes aside, sometimes we need the support of a smarter sibling to guide us through debate team, which is how it feels to face anti-trans talking points in this day and age. Real references with proper citations, evidence-based information, debunking, deconstructing, and just enough tongue-in-cheek to keep things fun is what PITT is all about.
From Supporting Transgender Youth Is About Love, Not Politics
The true threat to parent-child relationships isn't a child being transgender or seeking gender-affirming care - it's the rejection, invalidation and emotional blackmail from their own parents when they do.
Extensive research has consistently found that family support is one of the most critical factors in mental health outcomes for transgender youth:
→ Transgender teens who are rejected by their families are 8.4 times more likely to attempt suicide, 5.9 times more likely to have high levels of depression, 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs, and 3.4 times more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors compared to transgender youth with accepting families.
→ Even having a family that is ambivalent, rather than rejecting, cuts the risk of suicide attempts in half compared to highly rejecting families. Having a very accepting family further reduces that risk.
→ Transgender youth who have socially transitioned and are supported in their identities have developmentally normative levels of depression and only minimal elevations in anxiety.
So if you are a parent who wants to preserve a loving relationship with your child, the solution is simple - love and accept them for who they are, even if that doesn't align with your expectations or beliefs. Don't disown them, misgender them, try to block their access to affirming care, or engage in other rejecting and abusive behaviors. Those are the things that will drive your child away, not their identity. Maybe acceptance is a bridge too far right away, so why not just respect them until you can accept them?
Ace Dad Advice | Cody Daigle-Orians
There is simply no way that there will ever be enough writing or discussion about asexual, aromantic, and agender people, identities, or topics, so when I stumbled across
last year, gracious was I happy! Here is someone who cares deeply enough about this aspect of our queer community to host a regular Q&A for anything you need to know, and they do it with a profound respect for the person asking those tough questions.Cody also shows up with a ton of authenticity about the process of learning and building community which is best done by being ourselves without shame and by holding the door open for others to join us, no matter how or why they showed up. It’s not easy to admit you don’t know something about your own queer community, and the misinformation about ace, aro, and agender lives is everywhere.
From "I'm angry with my body for not wanting sex."
We have to treat our relationship with our body just like any other relationship in our lives. The same rules apply. To be in a good relationship … means active, empathetic listening. It means hearing where boundaries are and respecting those boundaries. It means honesty and respect. It means recognizing what makes your partner who and what they are, and honoring that. It’s what we expect from our partners. So why, when it’s our own body, would we approach it any differently? If your body says, “No,” treat it with the same respect you would your partner or your friend.
You wouldn’t force your boyfriend or girlfriend to get intimate. Why would you do that to your own body?
You owe it to yourself to listen to your body and honor what it wants, even if what it wants subverts the expectations of your partner, societal expectations, or even the expectations you place on it yourself. You shouldn’t stand in judgement of what your body says feels good. You shouldn’t stand in judgement of what it says doesn’t. Pushing against your body is a fight you won’t win. You can’t force pleasure. You can’t force performance. Your best bet, always, is to let your body take the lead.
Queer Science Lab | ev nichols, phd (she/they)
Since drafting this article, Queer Science Lab made the decision to leave Substack. You can find all their articles and subscribe in their new home at: https://queersciencelab.beehiiv.com/
I should admit that I’m a huge science nerd. While my own background is in environmental and agricultural science, I’m also fascinated by studies, statistics, peer-reviewed journal articles, and deep-dives into what all of those data points mean. Ev, from Queer Science Lab, never disappoints. Her work also doesn’t rest on her audience’s understanding of complex scientific phenomena, she gets that we come from diverse backgrounds, and so she speaks to us like a friend having a chat over a perfect-temp beverage. And then she helps that data make sense in light of cultural and political happenings.
Also, as a trans person and the father of a trans kiddo, I’ve seen a number of great posts by Ev covering topics around gender affirming care for minors. This is a tough time to be a family raising a trans child, and I genuinely value seeing accurate science around topics that have been leveraged to create public distrust and anxiety elsewhere.
But the real reason I love reading Ev’s writing so much is because of her profound humanity. You can see what I mean right here…
From What remains of bodily autonomy?
Last Wednesday, I woke up early and felt a pang of anxiety when the link to the Skrmetti decision appeared. I hadn’t gotten out of bed yet, and it was a bad sign that Chief Justice Roberts authored it. A six justice majority legitimized Tennessee’s ban on affirming care for trans youth, another blow to the right to make health and medical decisions for oneself.
The majority opinion in Skrmetti, which carefully avoided citing Dobbs, is rather broad. One legal historian called it “very narrow, except for the gaping hole at the center of it.” It allows the American government to restrict any medical treatment, particularly when “uncertainty” exists about the practice.
The possibilities are endless and devastating for all of us.
O Caftan My Caftan | Krista Burton
Come on, the world is too damn serious all the time, and I need a break. Where better to get one than with
at O Caftan My Caftan?! This is the spot for funny stories about learning to drive the Zamboni machine at the local ice rink, or all the ways Krista turns into a feral, eat-it-over-the-sink bachelor when her husband is away on a business trip, or—most importantly—Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations!Listen, I don’t wear scented anything. But I should. Krista understands what I need, and she makes me laugh while I’m learning about “blistering patchouli” and “diesel leather perfume,” which is every bit a foreign language and flavor for a white-bread-mac-and-cheese guy like me. But I *want* to wear the scents she writes about just to have the experience that lives in her prose-driven details.
From Incredibly Specific Queer Perfume Recommendations: Scent for a Top and Scent for a Whole New Life
What if we went in an entirely different direction, ANON? What if we went less sexy!!! and became the human equivalent of snuggling? What if we removed every edge and instead went for sweetness, for softness, for gentle-by-design?
I think we’d land right about here. ANON, Messy Sexy Just Rolled Out of Bed is not only a wonderfully fluffy and fun fragrance composed by Dominique Ropion, one of my favorite perfumers of all time, but it also smells playfully sweet and uncomplicated, and has such a dumb name.
Or does it?
Is it possible that the name on this perfume is actually brainy? That everything about Messy Sexy Just Rolled Out of Bed is calculated and smart, an on-purpose bimbo of a scent that knows that the hardest thing to be is vulnerable?
Maybe! Or maybe this is just a really lovely, pitch-perfect vanilla musk—cozy, soft, satisfying, and not-too-sweet. In fact, MSJROB has a thread of salt running through it, tempering the toffee and amber and vanilla. There’s also a cleanness to it; the musk has been laundered until it’s cottony and smooth, like white flannel sheets washed dozens of times. MSJROB is made to be curled up with, ANON, and that silly name?
…think of it as a reminder that it’s OK to be messy and sexy and soft. We all contain multitudes—especially you, right now.
Gathering | River Selby (they/them)
It happens rarely that we find a writer who knows just how to reach deep into our hidden, visceral spaces and pull out the words we didn’t know belonged to us, and then brazenly paste them into a revealing essay that scrapes at our scabs and bruises. Painful? Sometimes. Profoundly important? Always. I struggle to describe what it is to read River’s work, and the only thing I can really say is to go there and find out for yourself.
River writes about their life and journeys and experiences, about love and loss, about family, about the complexity of healing and knowing you’re still broken somehow, and they do it with sincerity and a poetic grasp of language-as-artform.
They are also the author of “Hotshot,” which is available for order right now, and which I also think you should buy and support and shout about all over the place. And if you can imagine writing a super-niche memoir about being a wildfire fighter and then suddenly discovering that another author was publishing a book about almost exactly the same thing, how would you react?
From Turning a Writer's Worst Fear into an Opportunity for Connection
Many years ago, I remember a time period when several books about the same subject debuted, and a friend commented that this was his worst nightmare. “Imagine,” he said, “Working on something for so long, only to have someone else write about the same thing; to have to compete for attention.” I agreed. It sounded terrible. This is generally how our culture works– not only in art, but in everything. America is all about homogeneity. Large companies gobble up smaller ones. We have a two party system, a few options for internet and cell service, a few big publishers, a handful of “bestseller” Substacks. Everything is hierachical, because we can’t seem to appreciate nuance or subtle difference. Every McDonalds looks the same, every Whopper tastes the same. So if you happen to release a book that looks like another book in the same season, you might be fucked.
Or not.
 | A guest post by
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It was a lot of fun putting together this Qstack Readers Select. This is a wonderful way to share and celebrate our vibrant community. And also, thanks for showcasing Small Robin Press's brand new book, Troy! We're so excited to be part of the publishing world.
I love the consistently consummate curation of queer creations in these Readers Select posts...so many gems in here, thank you both! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜