We Cannot Fight for Assimilation

Queerness asks you to crack your heart open like a pomegranate or coconut-- to share the love, joy, and hurt that spills from your open heart, teaching each other to survive together.

The first queer pride was on the one-year anniversary of Stonewall, and then, our elders clenched their fists with the anger of 167 arrested and with pride in their still-unshaken rebellion.

We’ve forgotten how to hold that spirit, fostering more hate for each other than love and commanding our communities to assimilate-- be palatable and happy that we're allowed to be at all-- exactly what our elders opposed and fought.

We say the first pride was a riot, forgetting what that really means-- forgetting Stonewall and the Cooper Do-nuts Riot and the Black Cat Protests and the Patch Riot and the Picket at Whitehall Street Induction Center and Dewey's Lunch Counter Sit-In and Compton's Cafeteria Riot. 

We forget, and so instead, we fill the shoes of the Mattachine Society-- tasting a hint of acceptance and fear losing it, embracing assimilation and abandoning-- no, berating-- the fight for collective gay liberation.

It’s been 50 years, now, so we must remember again and never stop hearing the echoes of protests and the roars of victories-- never stop letting the whispers and shouts of those who fought before us and those who fight beside us guide our futures.

We have fought to be our full, messy selves, and we cannot shut ourselves into boxes again. Queerness must be liberatory, not limiting.

Queerness must let us spill our pomegranate seeds and coconut water with smiles and elaborate makeup and battle jackets and bright hair and weird names-- bring us together in pride, pain, vulnerability, and solidarity.

We must fight for our communities and for the communities we hold in our hearts. We must see each other's full selves-- guts and thoughts spilled-- and love them fiercely, letting our love know no boundaries.