#growingupqueer

Me, a confused 12 y old lesbian just trying to make friends with them : wierd flex but ok

I want to get a tattoo of this or at least carry around a bunch of business cards with this written on them to give out when people wanna spout their ignorant BS at me. #growingupqueer #lgbtq #gayproblems https://www.instagram.com/p/B7ZodwkJ1-k/?igshid=10ab6xrr4npst

To the different ones, the weirdos, the misfits, others, you are never alone.

Does anyone else notice the slightest of smirk on my face? This photo was taken in the city, close to the street, and the moment the camera snapped, a car full of boys drove by screaming “Faggot, Queer” etc. I am so used to these kinds of things, that I have learned to brush it off with a smirk. But the truth is I will always remember the first time it happened. I still think about how all of the blood rushed from my face one second and then back to my cheeks in the next. It was 6th grade, in the middle of no where, Georgia. I was in fourth period, chorus class, and another class mate exclaimed out loud that I sing like a girl and then asked me if I was a faggot, after auditioning in front of the entire class for a solo in the Christmas performance! My nerves were so bad already after worrying all day about that audition, only to be humiliated after it was over. I was so upset that I couldn’t speak, the only thing I could do was walk away, but as I started to leave the class room my teacher asked me where I was going. I turned around and shouted “I’m going home! I am wasting my time here with jerks like him!” She told the student who called me a fag to apologize, but before he could open his mouth I shouted “Are you kidding? I don’t want his fake ass apology!” Then I left and walked home. I walked home every day any ways and Chorus was my last class, so I literally just went home, and cried. When those boys called me a faggot today, it didn’t devastate me or make me cry. Instead it reminded me of my old self, my delicate and childlike self that couldn’t take the sting of bigotry. Though I can’t change the past, I can be present, by being a glimmer of hope for so many others who may be going through what I did growing up. No matter what stage of your life, no matter how thick your skin is… Words leave marks, open wounds and resurface old memories. But in these moments we have a choice to change, be different, be better! It took me years to not be hurt or offended by bigotry, but it took even longer for me to convert that negative energy into something positive. For anyone out there who might be needing to read this, like I needed it that day in chorus class… Do not give up. Do not be afraid to cry. Do not pretend to be someone else. You are allowed to shine & you are allowed to flourish. Xoxo -Elliott Alexzander

“I’m talking about the trans woman of color journey. I’d never seen a book like that, so that’s why I wrote it. I wanted to tell the real story of a North Carolinian child all the way up to the present day of what it took for me to get here, to tell the story of what it’s like to be transgender and what it’s like to feel like there’s no one there else but the girls around you as your family. I wrote the book to educate and enlighten people about what it is to be a trans woman of color, to show people there are transgender people who have made it...I don’t normally agree with the mainstream. First of all I’m not white, I am educated and but I am a black educated trans woman. While the LGBT movement is fighting a cause, I have to look out for the women on the street. I feel they are not getting the respect they deserve" -Toni Newman, author of the important memoir "I Rise" . . . #toninewman #irise #memoir #translivesmatter #blacktranslivesmatter #growingupqueer #transstories #transwomeninfilm #herstory #caldocumentary #callingalllesbians (at San Francisco, California)