Stellar Nursery follows trans/nonbinary poet and artist K.G. Strayer's struggle for bodily autonomy. From abortion to top surgery, colliding galaxies to cellular division, Strayer's lyric prose explores what it means to move through the modern world in a contentious body.
The state-mandated "counseling" packet Strayer receives a week before their abortion in 2014 describes the embryo in relation to coins-the height of a nickel, the diameter of a dime. Meant to make them picture holding it in their hands. Instead, Strayer's imagination conjures a whole galaxy in its place-a star being born.
Years later in 2022, Roe V. Wade is overturned. The decision is a catalyst that sets in motion explosive consequences in Strayer's personal life, and their access to life-saving top surgery hangs in the balance.
Strayer's memoir is a heartfelt account of the layered ways our struggles against fascism converge in the context of lived experience.
To meet the world fully embodied-is that a choice we can all make equally?