“I don’t want the only option for committed relationships to be reserved for a two-person sexual and romantic partnership . . . I want to belong to a community that embraces more options.”

One evening in March 2024, I attended a cabaret fundraiser presented by the Common Woman Chorus, a Durham, North Carolina LBGTQ+ choir, and hosted by local drag queen Stormie Daie. Dressed in fancy sequined gowns or T-shirts and jeans, members of the choir sang everything from the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody” to Saturday Night Live’s “Tampon Farm,” and capped the evening with Cass Elliot’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music.” The choir defines itself as “a treble chorus made up of woman-identifying, gender-nonconforming, and transgender individuals” and “an LBGTQ+ centered space and a place for queer joy,” while Stormie Daie bills herself as the “Thunderous Black Enby Queen of Durham, NC.” During the performance, Daie introduced one of the performers as asexual and explained, “We value diversity here.”