des.

TW: aggressive language with potentially traumatic past usage for readers, traumatic life events

I know this is a bit late, but this was something far too meaningful to me not to share. 

Growing up queer, I was faced with an onslaught of names, labels, and bullying… their words were intended to silence me, but have instead made me the person I am today. Those words of hate became a thing of beauty, and that to me is the heart of pride.

  Paris is Burning documents the Harlem ball culture of the mid-to-late 80′s. The ball scene was a crucial portion of queer history that rose to prominence in the early 1920′s in large part due to a necessity for community and family in lieu of compounding intersectionality. 

  The film opens with the legendary drag queen Pepper LaBeija speaking to this experience that I feel accurately represents the discrimination and disadvantages wrought by such intersectionality. 

  “I remember my dad said, ‘You have three strikes against you in this world. Every black man has two - that they’re just black… and they’re male. But you’re black and you’re male and you’re gay. You’re gonna have a hard fucking time.’ Then he said, ‘If you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna have to be stronger than you ever imagined.’”

Call Me Des -

Desdemona was a character taken from Shakespeare’s Othello, ostracized by her family for who she chose to love. That story encapsulates so much of what I consider to be an incredibly common queer narrative and is especially analogous to my own journey of self discovery and expression. From that thinking came my drag persona who helped me in sorting through what gender meant within the context of my life. Gender is performative and seeing just how superficial a construct it was made me realize I could no longer comfortably identify myself within the gender binary.

The acronym LGBTQIA+ acts as an umbrella term to many sexual and gender minorities, but I personally feel it important to remember that this is a colloquial representation of a far wider spectrum. It increases visibility and awareness, but one ought not feel confined to the labels therein. I am many things, but regardless of those things, most importantly, I am human.