Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
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This Is What It's Like To Be Queer And Muslim In The Aftermath Of Orlando – by Anupa Mistry, The Fader
“My love for another man isn’t about violence: it’s rooted in, what I consider, a transformative love. So I reject that interpretation of the Qu’ran. But you grow up in a world that tells you there’s something wrong or amiss about queer sexualities.”
Kim Kardashian West Has A Few Things To Get Off Her Chest – by Caity Weaver, GQ
“Someone who lives the American Dream is not, strictly speaking, an American hero. They're just someone who turned less into more. And who among us could have taken Kim's tools—murder, a sex tape, spray tanner, and an ass that simply refuses to quit—and accomplished more?”
For Musicians, More Access Means More Vulnerability – by Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times
“Music history is dotted with stories of stalkers and dangerous fanatics, like those that killed John Lennon, the singer Selena and the Pantera guitarist Darrell Abbott. But as record sales have fallen, increasing musicians’ economic reliance on live shows, extra face time with fans at meet-and-greets, merchandise tables and autograph signings have become more routine.”
What the Orlando Nightclub Pulse Meant to Me As A Queer Teen - by Morgan Cohn, The Cut
“Hostages were hiding in the women’s bathroom. The same bathroom where I had thrown up on my 19th birthday. The same bathroom where I made out with a Disney cast member. There were dead bodies on my dance floor. There were people bleeding next to the bushes that our drunk friends used to fall into, laughing. There was terror in a place that felt like home.”
Kiwi Artist Coco Solid Battles The "Cruel Hijinks of Imperialism" With Rap, Writing and Cartoons – by Hannah Butterworth, i-D
“I'm just totally disinterested in that kind of gender stuff, I see myself oscillating somewhere between Lil Kim and Kim Deal. Femininity is game and masculinity is a game, I throw the coins up every day and don't know which way they're going to fall. The same goes with my queer identity, it's just dependent on context.”
I’ve been called a born-again Māori – by Nadine Millar, E-Tangata
“To lose an indigenous language is to lose something essential. Language is the filter through which we make sense of the world. It provides the invisible threads that connect us to the people around us. Without it, we navigate, to some extent, in the dark. But we don't stop being Māori, just because we don't speak Māori.”