Sovereign Empire

“Women are women regardless of sex And men are men in the same respects You can be both or a mix of the two Or you can be neither if that’s what suits you But people are people whatever their parts Because what really matters is inside our hearts”

don’t question someone else’s labels.  TRUST that they’ve done that already.  if they ask you for advice, fine, but DO NOT go in swinging.  don’t go up to a straight trans man and ask why he doesn’t identify as a lesbian.  don’t talk to non-binary people and tell them that their identity is a sham if they don’t transition.  don’t ask bi people when they’re going to pick a side.  don’t assume that someone who is ace is just repulsed by their own internalized homophobia.

like just… have respect for your fellow lgbtq+ folks because there are so few of us in an OCEAN of hetero-cisnormativity.  we don’t have to chip away at each other until only the Cardinal Few remain.  there is no reason that we can’t have space for the people who question, the people who change their minds, the people who dip a toe in and pull back out.  i am HERE for those people, just as much as i am HERE for the people who can write a dissertation on their attraction and knew from the moment they were born that they were Hella Gay.  

there is nothing simple about self-discovery and frankly, i’m not here on this earth long enough to scrutinize my fellow marginalized peoples.  there’s no reason to do that shit.  it does not, in fact, hurt queer people to be wholly accepting of any wayward identity.  non-dysphoric?  demi-gray-ace as hell?  don’t care, as long as you’re fighting on my side, because i’m fighting on yours.

“Crazy Dion” Diamond at one of his sit-ins as a teenager in Arlington, VA. June 10, 1960

he did these sit-ins by himself. like idk about you, but i always thought of sit-ins as organized by groups, what kind of bravery does it take, man

he didn’t tell anyone about it, like he was no glory-seeker about this. his parents didn’t even know until reporters started calling them up like “hey, did you know your son is in jail?

when someone called the cops he’d skedaddle out the back door although he was sent to prison multiple times

the last time he got arrested was in Baton Rouge, and the cops were so sick of him that they told inmates they’d put in a good word for anyone who gave Diamond a hard time. (the inmates didn’t take the bait.)

he’s still alive!

Also love is real.

You know what made me figure out that I’m trans though? Gender euphoria. The minute I got called a ‘sir’ is the moment that I realized, “shit this feels right.” And at that point I realized that I could no longer deny the fact that I’m not a woman and that I couldn’t keep living as one.