The spark that made me start this blog in 2008 was visibility.
When I was 22 I started meeting people who identified as queer, fat and/or femmes. It was incredibly liberating for me because I had spent so much of my life being ashamed of those parts of myself and trying to hide them.
Knowing people who located themselves in those identities made it possible for me to see my life on the other side of shame.
I called my blog QueerFatFemme because at the time there weren’t a lot of queer fat femmes who were out and visible and I thought my story could help people. Even straight thin normies who just needed to “get to know” someone who was queer and could help them understand how to neutralize how they saw their bodies and worthiness. I’ve been pretty public on the internet since 2002!
I’ve learned and grown so much since that time. I’ve moved away from social identifiers like queer fat and femme as primary identification and understand I’m so much more than those things. I see identity politics more like a healing space on the way to full embodiment and self-acceptance.
In order to even get to that place I had to heal enough to feel my own sense of safety and soothing inside myself. Once you’re really rooted in who you are and your inherent worthiness, it matters less and less what you are, if that makes sense.
There are other aspects of me I have needed to accept and love in a similar way coming out of the closet and embracing my fat body and flamboyant gender were difficult. Coming out as psychic. Being open about my struggles with mental health under capitalism. Using plant medicine for healing and fun.
I find myself totally nonchalant about how people feel about my body, my sexuality and my gender presentation but still a little scared about not being accepted for the ways I connect spiritually. I’m a divine feminine goddess loving witch who also loves Jesus a lot. (For me Jesus seems like a they/them radical fairy chosen sibling of mine who revolutionarily stood in solidarity with poor folks, lepers, sex workers and everyone, speaking truth to pseudo power. I lean into the teachings of Jesus as a model for how to love everyone.)
Standing in my truth is a way I bust up the lies I tell myself to “keep myself safe” by keeping myself small. I know because I have gone through something someone else out there probably has, too. My story will help somebody.
In these times where my trans and nonbinary siblings, friends and lovers are under a strategic attack by right wing fascists–standing in my truth is very necessary for changing the world.
“The present call for erasure of ‘transgenderism’ is literally a stage (and not an early stage) on the 10 steps of genocide against Transgender persons. I really hope that people look closely at these agendas and compare the policies to those of Nazi Germany.”–Karl Tatgenhorst
I think a lot about queer visibility because I think a lot about Taylor Alison Swift.
I’m not going to opine about her sexuality because I think it’s 1. rude 2. inappropriate to comment on someone else’s body, sexuality or gender presentation and 3. dangerous. I know there’s an argument that it’s public commentary on her body of art work and if that’s what you need to tell yourself to make it okay that’s cool. I’m on the side of everyone is doing their coming out at their own pace.
I also could not give you a neutral opinion about Taylor Alison Swift’s sexuality because I, like many people, have a crush on her. I had a romantic dream about her in December after her 33rd birthday and can’t shake it.
When her Lavender Haze video came out and she chose to cast a trans man as her love interest I pondered the premise of many so-called “Gaylor” tik toks about how that was a definitive coming out moment and I beg to differ.
I think casting a trans man lead was an excellent and affective LGBTQ+ ally move to leverage her influence to advance trans acceptance. It was not coming out. We love to see this in 2023 and more please from other influential creators!
I thought about Lil Nas X who said on twitter in 2021 in response to someone tweeting about how he was being fake gay and he said the following:
Belonging is a human need. Shame is not a true emotion it’s actually taught to us by people and systems as a way to control us. (Shame is usually a cover for guilt, humiliation, embarrassment, etc and we need to investigate what the shame is hiding so we can transmute our TRUE emotion.)
By holding hostage our belonging to our conformity, shame keeps us easy to control.
The relief I felt after I came out in 1998 and almost all of my friends and family accepted me was incredibly freeing. Being myself wholly and completely, coming out again and again as I reveal newer parts of who I am in opposition to compulsory heterosexuality and monogamy, makes me feel braver and braver and makes me a better artist. All good art requires emotional risk.
Recently I came out to myself as polyamorous. Even though I’ve been practicing non monogamy most of my adult life, I’ve resisted thinking I desired to love more than one person at a time. I think I was just trying to keep myself “safe” by being “normal” and more like monogamy than my wild heart actually wants.
What became clear to me at the top of 2023 is that I have frequently been holding love feelings for multiple people at a time, I was just lying to myself about how valid those feelings were. I don’t want to live a life where I lie to myself.
I want to feel free.
I briefly considered not being “out” about polyamory and skirting around talking about it like I did with my cannabis use for a few years or my psychic gifts as I figured them out. I decided within a few minutes I wasn’t going to do that and came out on my Instagram stories.
I have no stake in the game of whether Taylor Alison Swift comes out or not. I actually read her Lavender Haze video as a sad girl depression grief piece about what it’s like to fake it on the outside and at home need to be brooding and melancholy. But also when I use the term Lavender like for my Lavender Line Dancing classes for senior queer people, I mean Lavender in the gay way.
Only Taylor Alison Swift really knows what she means! Thousands of tik tok opinions don’t change that.
I hope she makes choices that are in alignment with what makes her the best artist she can be. I’ve spent a lot of time studying her astrological birth chart and she has a strong imprint to continue to make on the world.
I think her art helps save lives in a different way than if she ever chose to come out. We all play a part in making the world safe(r) for other people walking a path behind us. And for those of us who choose to leverage influence with our personal visibility as a marginalized identity we save lives in different ways than someone who kind of hangs out in a glass closet a lot as an artistic choice.
Additionally I hope that someday I’ll get to go on a date with her and take her dancing in the woods with me because I think her Moon in Cancer Mars in Scorpio and Venus in Aquarius are such a fun match for my Moon and Venus in Scorpio and Mars in Capricorn. And I think it would be so joyous to read Octavia Butler together lying in the moss on the forest floor and discuss our dreams for the world.
Since I’m never waiting for a potential suitor to call me back, in the meantime I’ll do what I’ve always done and continue to create passionate art from my personal experience in this world, in an effort to make self-acceptance, self love and healing a little easier for someone out there.
I’ll be publishing this blog regularly (hoping for 4-5 times a week, school newspaper regularity) in the coming months because the culture war part of this civil war is already happening and I want to make a difference in whatever way I can.
I want you to remember that because Bevin did the scary self-acceptance, you can, too. And I want you to know that your life is valuable and to quote Kate Bornstein (whose work has literally saved my life), do whatever you need to do to stay alive just don’t be mean.
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