#ProtectKnoxille was a safety campaign I designed, with a nod to organizing, promoting, and recognizing safe and inclusive spaces in Knoxville, TN circa 2016.
Many restaurants, therapists, and retail shops, especially in the downtown area of Knoxville proudly displayed these stickers in their establishments to let, especially the Trans community, know they were amongst friends.
I just read an article courteous of SheWired.com called “Are we Writers or are we Gay Writers?” and it made me think.
Up until the last few months, I have never considered myself to be a gay writers, or lesbian writer, or anything other than a writer who happens to be gay.
I’m actually a fairly heterosexual male tucked away contently in a females body. I don’t like the term “Gay”, especially since the heterosexual homophobes have taken the word Gay and created something derogatory with it. It is also impart because I like to be more of an individual rather than fit neatly into some little umbrellic label, I do at times prefer to call myself Queer.
There is something about this entire label system that really sickens me after a certain point. I mean, I understand that as human beings our brains like to categorize information and neatly organize it all. But at the same time, I do believe I’m more than just an object of data to be stored in your hard disk and categorized by a biological de-fragmentation system.
Most people upon meeting me notice something, well different. I’m dripping with androgyny. I’m deep, well seasoned, well read, appearingly well educated, and not very easily intimidated. I am something other than them. All of them.
I belong to no one other than the universe and no one belongs to me. I don’t demand stereotypes and labels for all of my peers. I accept them as they are, no strings attached. I open my heart up for anyone who opens their heart up for me.
I’ve been told its a disorder that I have. I believe if that makes me disorderly then I’m glad I’m not ordinary or orderly. I don’t need to be like everyone else in order to be happy. I actually like knowing there is no one else quite like me out there. I do however, wish that instead of the whole world demanding conformity of one another, we begin to collectively celebrate the fact that there are things we can all learn from each other.
That’s what I like the most about surrounding myself with people that are different. They intrigue me. I study them like a detective studies case files and I learn what makes them tick. I learn what makes them happy and what hurts them the most. It also helps me to reaffirm that no matter how different we may be on the surface, we are all completely the same inside. There is one common thread that makes us tick, drives us insane, shapes who we are, can turn our worlds upside down and inside out and that’s love. Without it, we die as simply and as complexly as you could possibly imagine.
To attempt to block any persons fundamental need for love, whether trying to refuse a human being the right to marry based on sex, sexuality, race, age, or what it is wrong. There is no greater right than the right to love and it’s about time that the citizens of this planet learn to embrace that and stop hating each other so freely when love is just as free and ten times more effective.
