It’s coming up on Pride Week here in Aotearoa, so I thought I might speak a bit on what it means to me to be part of the 2SLGBTTQIA+ community. For those who have known me for a while, you’ve seen me come out several times over the years. If you’re new here, then you probably know that I identify as queer. For me, “queer” encompasses multiple aspects of who I am: my gender fluidity and my attraction to all genders, but also my political views and how I see myself fitting into this world (by way of often feeling like I don’t fit in at all). 

Being queer means that I have lived against the grain of society. It means that I have, after a long time, realized that I don’t fit into anyone’s box and I don’t want to try to anymore. Being queer means that I will fight for my right, and everyone else’s right, to live expansively—to be free from the chains of bigotry so prevalent in capitalist societies. None of us are free until we are all free. I believe that whole-heartedly. My liberation as a queer person is tied up in your liberation as a Black person, or your liberation as a disabled person, or your liberation as an Indigenous person, or your liberation as a lower class person, and so on. 

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When I was in high school, I started to question things. I realized I was attracted to girls at my school, and I also realized that the religion I grew up with wasn’t right for me. I started to see how our politicians were failing us, especially when it came to the environment. But when I was in high school, I was entrenched in people-pleasing. I carried that into my early twenties until I finally began taking serious steps to live my own life and stop trying so hard to be liked by everyone else. As I gradually began unraveling the shawl I had knit around me to protect myself from the world and show them what I thought they wanted to see, I slowly began to find myself. Under all those carefully constructed layers was a person I had kept hidden away for far too long. 

Please understand that this is very much an ongoing process. If you have ever dealt with making yourself small so as not to cause too much disruption in the lives of others, then you may know what I’m talking about. It is difficult to undo our training. It is hard for me to let go of all the ways that I was socialized to be a good little girl, and to instead embrace something new and expansive. Something that serves me better, and will hopefully serve others better too, but something that also causes strain in my relationships. It’s not easy to choose a path of resistance, to cause my friends and family stress by simply trying to exist in the way that is most true and right for myself. I was assigned female at birth, and I played that role well for a long time, but it meant constantly being at odds with myself and it has never been enough to encompass what I feel inside. I am a river spirit that is trying to fit inside a human body. I have to reconcile with the body I was given, learning to find gratitude for it while also accepting that it does not reflect what I feel inside. This is what it means to me to be non-binary, gender-fluid, gender non-conforming. This is why I use they/them pronouns—not because they feel perfectly correct, but because it moves me away from what I was labeled with and closer to the truth of what I experience within. 

As I said at the start, Pride Week is coming up. I’m very grateful to have found some amazing people in Ōtautahi that I meet with almost every week. After being isolated from the queer community I once had in Denver, it’s been critical for me to find a new community here where I can be myself and seek support when I need it. This week, we get to celebrate. We get to show up, loud and proud, supporting one another and showing the world that we are not afraid to exist, as much as they may try to terrorize us. 

Whether you are out, questioning, or not out yet, I want you to know that I am here for you. I will always be your cheerleader. I want you to know that it’s okay to come out as many times as you need until your find what’s right. It’s okay for your identities to shift as change as you grow. It’s okay for you to make people uncomfortable. You’ve spent long enough trying to make everyone else happy and okay—what about you? 

It’s okay for you to make people uncomfortable.

You’ve spent long enough trying to make everyone else happy and okay—what about you?