My name is Nikola Italo. Well, that’s not my real name, but in many ways, that’s me. I am Nikola when I write, when I tell stories. I was Nikola when I discovered what being a feminist means. Now I am one.

First of all, I love the term “Queer”. There is something unifying and inclusive about it. It covers a lot of ground. In the past year, I’ve really taken to identifying as queer vs. gay or lesbian. I hear it often in the music scene especially.

“She talked for an hour or so. Told me everything. How everyone got divided. Everything got very complicated. Identities clashed. First came the men, then gay men, then trans men, then trans women, then women, then lesbian women, bisexuals (they really had it ugly, nobody ever believed they were even a thing), asexuals, metrosexuals, non-binary, queer. Riots, protests, violence in all possible ways and forms.”

“My bandmates assured me that no one in the straight cis-male crowd would care, and if they did, fuck them, selamba je. Even if I lost everything else, I would still have my core group of friends who accepted me as my handsome self.”

The ambience shifts. What looked like a stilted high school dance – stagnant bodies strewn awkwardly across a dance floor – now feels like an Ivy League dining club. The white male old heads all know each other and group off.