1:22pm June 2, 2014

You exist, you matter, even if part of the world doesn’t think either of those things are true.

If you once were straight, and have chosen to be gay, and remain gay.

If you once were trans, and found one day, through no fault or decision of your own, that you were no longer trans, but your decades of being trans make it hard to call yourself cis and have people understand what you mean (because cis is understood to mean born cis, not mysteriously became cis at the age of 45).

If your IQ is so much higher or lower than people expect of you upon interacting with you, that they make insulting remarks about how it’s “obviously not your real IQ”.

If you can’t, even when you try, contain certain of your experiences of the world under any psychiatric diagnosis. And instead choose to use words like insane, crazy, mad, or lunatic. Because they, unlike clinical language, don’t confine your experiences to diagnostic criteria or symptoms.

And so many others. People whose experiences I’m afraid to name for fear of backlash alone.

I know you’re out there. Lots of people know you’re out there. People like us might get crap in the mainstream circles of the communities that are supposed to be there for us. But there are other places. We can make other places. We can make places outside the walls. We can make places that aren’t dependent on all sharing one trait. We can make places where we don’t all have to believe the same things about ourselves or each other or anything else. We can make places based on all kinds of things. We don’t have to struggle alone.

Notes: