Monica Meneghetti
she/her
Monica Meneghetti (she/her) is the author of What the Mouth Wants: A Memoir of Food, Love and Belonging (Lambda finalist & Bi Book Award winner), translator of the Québecois novel The Fifth: A Love(s) Story (2022 ReLit Award finalist) and of Italian adventure memoir The Call of the Ice (Banff Mountain Book Award finalist).
Excerpt from "I'm queer and Italian-Canadian - coming out was twice as hard" (Globe and Mail, 2018) by Monica Meneghetti.
"The derogatory Italian words for “gay” scroll through my mind. Finocchio, orecchione, culatino. I learned these words in childhood, complete with derogatory gesture. But what are the slurs that apply to me? I don’t know if there even are any. Maybe my ilk do not merit even an insult.
We queer children of immigrants have gained more than the privilege of living in a place where some of our rights are protected. We also have the dubious honour of coming out in multiple cultures. If we must weather slurs in more than one language, we also reclaim more slurs than everyone else. We even get to reclaim gestures. I suppose that’s something."