Writing Prompt

Writing Prompt: Diversity

What does “diversity” mean to you?

Logan Silkwood

Follow

Published in

Queerly Trans

5 min readFeb 9, 2022

--

Note: Welcome to Logan’s Corner! This writing prompt is free for everyone, but if you want to support me and your fellow writers when you join Medium to read all of these amazing writings for $5/month, join here at no additional charge.

“Holy sh**, I’m a minority!”

She had just come to the realization that I also recently came to as a white dude who has now been assigned on multiple occasions to be the face of “diversity” for different audiences of people.

I am pretty suspicious that I may have even been a “diversity hire” at my current job, as ridiculous as that would be, given that I’m a white dude.

I’m also the owner of a little badge on my Medium profile that says I’m a “Top Writer” in “Diversity”, meaning that:

I use “Standard” Midwestern American English grammar in my writing (that accent you see used frequently on CNN).
I tag “Diversity” a lot.
Someone somewhere read one of my writings and said “yep, that guy seems pretty diverse to me!”

I plan to write about this, but I really want to hear how you feel about being referred to as “diverse”.

As queer trans people, we’re seen as being of “diverse” experience.

For some readers, this is nothing new. For those who belong to another marginalized subculture at other intersections (i.e. race, multilingualism, disability), the idea of having diverse experience is something that has been a lifelong thing with major ramifications in daily life that have happened for as long as you can remember.

Some queer trans people reading our writing prompts are experiencing this for the very first time.

Some queerly trans people reading this right now are invisibly part of a diverse experience of life. You may be experiencing various impacts of being trans and queer while still in the closet. You may never have considered yourself “diverse” at all.

Some people reading this may be neither queer nor trans, but have a bunch of relevant stuff to say on this topic. We want to hear from you, too.

Whether you have always been visibly “diverse”, are just now learning that you’re “diverse”, or are invisibly “diverse”, we want to hear from all of you.

What does “diversity” mean to those of “diverse” experience?

Here are some questions that you may or may not answer in your writing:

How does being othered affect how you see the world and the systems that you are a part of or impacted by?
How do you feel about this word, “diverse”?
How do you feel when you are referred to in this way, if you’ve ever been referred to as part of a “diverse” population?
What do you wish you could have said to people who called you, “diverse”?
What have your experiences been with this word and the attitudes surrounding it?
How has this label impacted you positively or negatively?

Here is my response to this prompt:

Wait a Minute…I’m the Face of Diversity for Y’all?

Something has surely gone terribly wrong here

medium.com

Here are a few FAQ’s I’ve been getting as your friendly neighborhood writing challenge enthusiast!

1. I just wrote a response. What do I do now?

You have 2 options. You can do one or both:

Option A: If you want KP_the_writer to consider publishing your response, be sure to subscribe for Queerly Trans, go to this post, and carefully read everything. It is especially important to read this quote at the bottom:

“If you are Queerly Trans and would like to write for us, please ensure you have read the above and agree to follow the guidelines, then, comment on this post with your user ID thingy — the one that starts with @.”

After you’ve commented on that “Write for Us” post, KP_the_writer will formally add you as a writer. The qualifications are as follows:

“I won’t be gatekeeping your trans-ness! You are trans enough. In other words, you decide if you qualify as a Queerly Trans writer.”

***Important note: Queerly Trans can only accept drafts! If the work is already published, it cannot be added. At that point, Option B remains!

Option B: You just want me to come clap/comment for you and link your writing here to celebrate your awesome writing prowess!

If you want me to come clap for and promote your response, regardless of whether you published with us, be sure to tag me by mentioning me somewhere in your writing using the @ symbol immediately next to “logansilkwood”.

This will send me a notification to run over, read your writing, link it to this writing prompt, clap, comment, and promote it on Twitter to attract other readers to your work.

2. I wrote and published a brilliant response, but I forgot to tag you or you seem to be ignoring me because you forgot to turn on your notifications again! Darn you, Logan! You’ve foiled me again! What happens now?

Mea culpa, if this is my fault. If you still want me to come clap/comment for you, link your response here, and promote your queerly trans work for free, leave a link to your work in the comments of this prompt, so I can find it easily!

3. I’m not really Queerly Trans, but I love this writing prompt! Can I still write a response and get you to read it?

Do you feel some personal connection to a “diverse community”, whatever that means to you? Sure! Tag me, and I’ll run over and see what it’s about!

4. I want you to read my writing, but I don’t want you to promote it or link it to your writing prompt.

No worries! Just let me know this or any other preference in a comment, a tag, a private message here, or a private message on Twitter. My Twitter handle is @logan_silkwood. Feel free to follow me there, while you’re at it! Note that the private messages on the Medium can be a bit finicky, so it can take me a little time to find them sometimes.

5. I wrote something before that fits this prompt perfectly! Can I share it with you?

Sure! Just link no more than 3 such posts in the comments, and I will still clap/comment, and promote it.

If you would like part of your membership fees to support me at no additional cost to you, sign up here or click on the membership link of your favorite writer to support them!

Thank you for participating in this week’s writing prompt! Need more writing prompts to quench your endless need to write? Here is a list, along with a link to read more of my work: