Existence is resistance

I am queer. 

I am a transgender person. I’m nonbinary transmasculine. I’m gay but also asexual and aromantic. 

I’m polyamorous and believe in consensual non-monogamy as well as in a universally expansive definition or application of the term “marriage” as a union that can be formed/undertaken between two or more adult persons who care for each other, of any sex, gender, or sexual orientation (and that “care” can be platonic, doesn’t necessarily have to be sexual or romantic).

I am “pro-choice” where that choice entails anything and everything regarding one’s own body: contraceptives, abortion, hormonal therapy, gender-affirming surgery, euthanasia. 

I grew up in a family where almost every single thing I just mentioned about my identity and beliefs was considered wrong or, worse, “sick”, “to be fixed”, “to be cured”, to be changed or avoided. My mother and sister would tolerate gay couples in a patronizing way while also saying they would never allow them to adopt children; they were less gracious about lesbians. My father straight out said “homosexuality is against nature”, quoting the Bible (or, at least, some Catholic interpretation thereof). Marriage could strictly be only between “a man and a woman”. Transgender didn’t even exist (or wasn’t considered).

And now I’m living in a country where more than half of the population sees everything I am & believe in as monstrous — or, at least, endorses an individual who ignites hatred and encourages violence against anything and everyone who’s “different” or “other”. In a country where evidently more than half the population wants to be led by a man who, among other things, endorses limiting other people’s freedom of choice over their own bodies, over their own lives.

Let’s not forget history, horrifying events that are barely a few decades in the past, ongoing horrors in some unfortunate parts of the world even today against anyone who’s “different” or “other”. 

In other times and in some places even today I could not choose the gender-marker on my documents, I could not walk into the men’s room, simply because someone looked between my legs when I was born and decided I was a “girl”. But I will continue to use the men’s room, if I want to, and I will continue to put that Pride flag on my locker — in the men’s changing room — at the climbing gym. 

I am queer and I am here.

We are queer and we are here. Our simple existence is resistance.