For the past few years, I lived under the name Astrid Belle: a girl in New York with an affection for lace lingerie and a habit of returning, almost ritually, to The Met. In early 2024, I decided to begin again. I started hormones, and in doing so, I let Astrid go and made room…

“What lingerie would you like these days? Would I still let you buy me something? Is there anything in particular I have my eye on?” These are questions I’ve been getting with some regularity, and I find I don’t mind them. There is a quiet tenderness in being asked what you by new and old…

There is a particular pleasure in choosing the music you have sex to. It is one of the small, deliberate acts of taste that nobody really sees, and yet it shapes the whole of an evening. Lately I have been keeping a playlist for exactly this purpose, assembled slowly and with some care. It leans…