letter from the editor
simone person
A photo of a light-skinned Black femme with dark shoulder-length curly hair; they are wearing matte dark brown lipstick, black winged eyeliner, and a thick curled line of black eyeliner above their eyelids’ crease. They are standing in front of a blank white wall, unsmiling, and holding a brown tabby cat with green eyes and a blue collar who is looking off to the side, away from the camera.
Survival was never a choice for many of us. Growing up working poor, we kept going because bills needed to be paid, kids needed to be fed, and if we didn’t, it wouldn’t get done. There wasn’t a safety net; we only ever had each other. Survival is a different word for community—broke people passing around the same $20 until payday comes, opening our homes to each other, turning play cousins into something realer than blood. As I’ve gotten older and grown into my identities of queer, femme, fat, disabled, and trans, survival has grown with me to be an act of love for myself, for others. I survive not because I have no other option, but because I believe in the future—a future where all of us marginalized see every dawn, where we come back home at night, where we are warm and safe and thriving. This issue, our first accepting non-themed submissions, explores the vastness of survival, each glorious refraction a path into the future. This is also my last issue as managing editor and editor for the mane attraction, afrodisiac, and fat + furious. Addie and Sarah reached out to me to join just femme & dandy at a time when survival felt impossible, and helped me find ways back to my writing, to myself. Working with the just femme & dandy team, reading all of your incredible submissions, and building up our social media channels (2k+ on Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!) has been a dream. I’m so grateful for this community, and I’m thrilled to watch it continue to grow.
Simone Person
managing editor
just femme & dandy
January 2023