Jackie Domenus caught my attention when I read an early draft of their essay, “Of Dogs and Men,” in a writers’ workshop. I’ve been waiting for the chance to read more of their work, and the wait is finally over: their debut, No Offense (ELJ Editions, 2025), includes the essay that made me first fall in love with their writing.
Dealing with their coming out in 2014, No Offense: A Memoir in Essays blends personal experience with cultural critique to examine messages Domenus received, both in their personal life and in the collective, about queer and trans lives from the 1990s to the present day. Perhaps the most admirable quality of the book is its bold blending of narratives; Domenus plays with point of view, from hermit crab essays to borrowed forms, like how-to guides and quiz results, displaying unique dexterity as a writer. These essays are incredibly raw and honest, and, at a time when queer and trans lives continue to be under constant attack, are also urgent and important. It’s little wonder that No Offense is on the radar of several literary influencers because of its brave and necessary examination of the harm caused by micro and macro aggressions in our heteronormative society.
I was able to catch up with Domenus via Google Docs, where we discussed queer representation, point of view, and their process of putting together this collection.
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The Rumpus: You have an entire essay, “The Answers: A Reflection on Four Years of Hell” that deals with the first Trump Presidential term. Now we’ve entered another. At what point in the publishing process did you consider this might be the case?
Jackie Domenus: While I knew there was a strong possibility there might be a second Trump presidency, I don’t think I necessarily considered it in relation to publishing No Offense until he was officially elected. I was finalizing details of the book with my publisher and beginning to plan for a book tour [and] interviews at the same time, so the reality of “Oh-shit-I-wrote-a-whole-book-because-of-this-and-now-it’s-about-to-start-over-again-but-much-worse” sort of slapped me in the face.
In a lot of ways, writing this book was a means of processing the effects of the first Trump presidency, having “come out” as queer around the same time he started campaigning. While some of the essays in the book directly address politics, like the one you mentioned, a lot of the moments and conversations in these essays are not explicitly political, but they’re intrinsically influenced in some way by the political climate of that first era. Basically, the whole point of drawing attention to these “micro” or “subtle” moments [of aggression] is to show they’re not so small. They happen because of the macro—the outright homophobia and transphobia being spewed at the national level by politicians.
Rumpus: You also use cultural criticism, pointing out the problematic messaging about being queer in films and TV shows that you watched when you were younger. Was that blending of personal experience with commentary always present?
Domenus: It has certainly been present ever since I started writing creative nonfiction. One of—if not my biggest—influences for essay writing was Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, who does such a masterful job of narrating the personal essay and analyzing culture. Some of the essays in No Offense come from my earliest attempts at creative nonfiction. From the jump, it felt like I couldn’t possibly write about my sexuality or gender without also writing about aspects of pop culture, which have impacted those things, in one way or another. So, whether that’s my obsession with Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2 as a young kid or watching the make out scene from Jennifer’s Body eight hundred times on YouTube as a closeted teenager, there are pieces of pop culture that feel too intertwined with my identity to leave them out of this book.
Rumpus: At what point did you realize these essays were part of a larger work?
Domenus: There was a moment in grad school, probably around 2018, where I sort of zoomed out to look at everything I had written and everything I was working on. It became very clear, very quickly, that almost all the essays I had finished or even started had to do with comments or questions I had encountered in relation to my sexuality and gender. My brain had obviously latched onto those moments and needed time and space to analyze them, to dig a little deeper, which was done through writing. Once I recognized this thread of microaggressions, I realized there was potential for a larger work. I am someone who thrives off of having a specific theme or idea in mind so that I can outline, organize my thoughts, and write toward it. Recognizing a central thread gave me a shape to start fitting these essays into. I am terrible at freewriting, journaling, or just writing to see where it takes me. I need a clear goal.
Rumpus: Once you had that goal of the collection, how was the process of putting it together? Did the book always have its smooth and effortless flow?
Domenus: It did not feel that smooth as I was putting it together! Once I had the common thread and a goal in mind, drafting the essays was somewhat smooth. Revising them—figuring out what was missing and deciding on an order—those parts were more difficult. Because I worked on these essays over the course of like six years, the thing I struggled with most, in revision, was my own point-of-view. My identity had continued to evolve. When I first began writing, the perspective I wrote from in some of my earliest pieces was a femme-presenting cis lesbian. That point-of-view was so vastly different from the person I’ve become: masc-presenting, gender nonconforming. There were several times throughout revision where I contemplated writing or completely scrapping some of those early essays that spoke to my identity as a femme lesbian, like the piece about my wife and I constantly being mistaken for best friends while wedding planning. That sort of thing would never happen now because I am no longer straight-passing. Ultimately, I decided to honor the experiences I had as that version of myself. That’s why I added the foreword, addressing that exact point. I also realized that in order to honor my evolved identity, I needed to write more about gender, so that’s why the essays at the end of the book feel more gender-heavy. When it came time to decide on an order, I did the chaotic thing where I put the essay titles and timeframes on Post-it notes and rearranged them a hundred times until I found some sort of flow, somewhat chronologically.
Rumpus: I loved the note in the foreword about the gifts of creative nonfiction: “. . . [W]e get to capture our experience and analysis of certain moments and memories, building an archive of who we once were as our identities evolve, as we continuously learn and grow.” You acknowledge the privilege that earlier version of you was afforded and honor the validity of her experiences. Was it difficult to strike this balance?
Domenus: I think it was more difficult, morally, than it was writing-wise. Because again, a big part of me asked, “Is it fair to complain about the struggles of being straight-passing, or about sexism against cis women, when I now understand firsthand how many hardships trans folks, or visibly queer people deal with?” Many of the essays were already written by that point, so it was less about the writing and more of an ongoing internal battle of whether I should bother striking that balance or if I should start over completely. So, getting to a point where I was able to acknowledge the importance of these different points of view and experiences and commit to honoring them was certainly not easy. Once I was at peace with that, the rest sort of came naturally.
Rumpus: “Don’t Ruin the Holidays: A Guide for Mothers-in-Law” uses the second-person point-of-view, which I found to be especially poignant. How did you settle on this?
Domenus: I’m a huge fan of second person point-of-view. The one writing hill I will always die on is that second-person point-of-view is effective, when used intentionally, despite the bad rap it gets. I think “borrowed form” or “hermit crab” essays are especially effective for queer and trans narratives. For “Don’t Ruin the Holidays,” I chose to write it in the second person and as a how-to guide because, honestly, the topic was something I was hurt and angry about. If I had approached it in a more traditional, first person point of view memoir style, it would have read as a boring litany of complaints about my mother-in-law, with no narrative arc, because there wasn’t one in real life. These are unresolved issues. Writing [those experiences] as a how-to guide gave me a clear-cut form in which I could explore these moments that had deeply affected me—[moments] that didn’t necessarily have an arc or a resolution, like a traditional narrative might. Writing it in second person allowed me to be more direct, as if I had an opportunity to speak to this person and tell them how to be better. It also allowed for it to feel more universal, like it could be a guide for any queer person whose in-law had made them feel shitty.
Rumpus: Another essay that uses the borrowed form is, “What Does Your Halloween Costume Say About Your Gender?: Quiz Results.” Is the quiz another form that’s effective for queer and trans narratives?
Domenus: There’s a misconception that memoir has to have a clear arc: a beginning, a middle, and an end. For queer and trans writers, our narratives are usually not traditional or linear. We might not have a typical “denouement,” where we can tie off the piece with a pretty bow. For instance, with the Halloween essay you mentioned, I knew there was something to explore about my experience of gender as it pertained to my costumes over the years, but I also knew it needed something more like a list form than a traditional memoir form. I knew the question I was asking myself, when I wanted to start writing, was, “What did my Halloween costumes say about my gender?” I took that question and paired it with the form of those teen magazine quizzes from the 2000s. Those little quizzes were always aimed at preteen and teenage girls who were trying to figure something out about themselves. A lot of the Halloween costumes in the essay are ones I wore in the 2000s, so it felt like a perfect match. I think experimenting with already existing forms of writing gives queer and trans folks a chance to fit non-traditional narratives into non-traditional, exciting shapes. It gives us a chance to redefine memoir or the personal essay.
Rumpus: The blend of the two is, in a sense, a queering of form. This book is called A Memoir in Essays. Did you ever consider writing a regular memoir or essay collection, or were you always drawn to this blending?
Domenus: To be honest, I didn’t even know what it was until I was literally starting to pitch/submit. I went back and forth so much at that point on whether it should be classified as an essay collection or a memoir that eventually I had to kind of give in to the fact that it was both. When I gave myself the space to think of it as “a memoir in essays,” it clicked. It felt like what it was meant to be, the whole time. Which was so fitting because, like you said, it’s a way to challenge “traditional” genres and queer the narrative.
Rumpus: Classification aside, you’re writing from lived experiences. You mentioned having a moral challenge with writing this book. How did you reconcile writing about people in your life, knowing there might be ramifications? Did you struggle with this at all?
Domenus: Oh, of course. I obviously can’t speak for all creative nonfiction writers, but I think a lot of folks who write memoir are no longer connected to the family members, past friends, exes, et cetera they write about. I am very much still connected to most of the people in the essays in No Offense. My approach was this: if an essay extensively mentioned a close family member or friend who I still care about and who I still maintain a relationship with, I shared it with them ahead of submitting. I’m thinking of “A Closet, A Box, A Home” which has some very personal scenes with my mom, who remains my best friend to this day. I’m thinking of “The Body You Keep,” which mentions some dark moments my wife experienced due to mental illness. I am lucky in that the people in my life understand that writing is how I process things and that sometimes, my experience of a moment might be different than theirs, but it’s okay for me to write from my perspective. There are certainly some people from my past relationships and sexual encounters mentioned in the book who I no longer keep in contact with and who I hope never get their hands on a copy, but that’s purely out of awkwardness.
Rumpus: In the essay “The Body You Keep,” you give raw, honest accounts of mental illness, your relationship with your wife, and the most important relationship we have: with ourselves. This essay beautifully ties the book’s themes together. Was this written by way of happy accident or magical moments, when everything clicks in place perfectly, or did that thematic crescendo come with a lot of trial and error?
Domenus: It was a little of both. I find endings to be the most difficult part of writing, always. Before revising “The Body You Keep” in a way that fit No Offense, I had no idea how to end the book. I think maybe the Halloween costume essay was the ending originally? Either way, I remember feeling like the book’s ending was inadequate, so in that way, there was frustration and trial and error. “The Body You Keep” was an entirely different essay in its earliest forms and was not even remotely related to the themes in No Offense. It was originally just about eating disorders, Demi Lovato’s [Simply Complicated] documentary, and my wife’s relation to both of those things. Which is to say, I ignored my own body while writing a piece about bodies. When I realized I had done that, upon rereading the essay, that’s where the happy accident/magical moment came in. It was a perfect opportunity to grapple with my relationship to my own body, gender dysphoria, et cetera. Demi Lovato had since come out as nonbinary as well, so I was able to conveniently weave that in.
My wife and I had been through so much in our relationship, from the time I started writing the book. As I said before, my identity had changed so much as well, so completely revising “The Body You Keep” allowed me to address those things head on. But it also allowed me to end the book on a note of continual personal evolution and fluidity, which is kind of the point—not just of the book but of my life at this point too.
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Author photograph courtesy of Jackie Domenus
