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![Willow Wilson sits on a chair in her living room on Friday, April 5, 2024, at her apartment in Columbia. When Wilson was selecting her name, she said she originally had nearly 100 names to choose from on a Word document. For a while, Wilson said she almost committed to the name “Rumor” because it had a “cool, sultry” and “femme fatale” feel. “But I eventually settled on the Willow just because I think Willow Wilson is such a distinctive name,” Wilson said. “It's kind of like [a] Peter Parker, Clark Kent kind of vibe. … Not to sound too egotistical, but that is a very main character name, and I kind of liked that. And I liked that it was very earthy and crunchy and kind of, you know, hippie, a little bit. So, I think Willow was kind of like, where I was like, ‘Yeah, I like that: Willow Wilson.’ That definitely sounds like a lady who's about town and making the most of her life.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a50fa5a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1750x975+0+0/resize/280x156!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F41%2F05%2F730cbb9e4211a4e6e37f185c7caf%2F20240405-bas-queer-joy-willow-wilson-0019.jpg)
Willow Wilson is a transgender woman in her mid-20s and spoke about the process of learning and unlearning how to be a woman during her transition. -
Annalise Caul & Moe Warren: "My queer journey was more like defeating the case of the supposed-tos."Annalise Caul and Moe Warren are both students at the University of Missouri and have been friends since high school. Moe is trans masculine and non-binary and Annalise is an asexual woman. They spoke about how their friendship and their understanding of their own identities has flourished since high school. -
Journalists around the world are remembering Cokie Roberts for her decades of service to the journalism profession. The legendary reporter and political…
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![Willow Wilson sits on a chair in her living room on Friday, April 5, 2024, at her apartment in Columbia. When Wilson was selecting her name, she said she originally had nearly 100 names to choose from on a Word document. For a while, Wilson said she almost committed to the name “Rumor” because it had a “cool, sultry” and “femme fatale” feel. “But I eventually settled on the Willow just because I think Willow Wilson is such a distinctive name,” Wilson said. “It's kind of like [a] Peter Parker, Clark Kent kind of vibe. … Not to sound too egotistical, but that is a very main character name, and I kind of liked that. And I liked that it was very earthy and crunchy and kind of, you know, hippie, a little bit. So, I think Willow was kind of like, where I was like, ‘Yeah, I like that: Willow Wilson.’ That definitely sounds like a lady who's about town and making the most of her life.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/bcc3008/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1750x975+0+0/resize/560x312!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F41%2F05%2F730cbb9e4211a4e6e37f185c7caf%2F20240405-bas-queer-joy-willow-wilson-0019.jpg)
