I Am: Black and Queer

How Access to Queer Rhetoric Changed My Life

I have never quite…“fit”, but the yearning desire to belong has constantly woven itself throughout my being.

Society seemed to have such beautiful boxes, all distinct and labeled, ready to shuffle us into neat and orderly categories. It was as simple as ticking off an identifier, or declaring yourself.

I am ______________.

The act of defining oneself cannot be thoroughly attempted without having access to the proper language. And what we insert in that space, and the way we choose to represent that assertion, depends upon the language we possess.

I had plenty of rhetoric that adequately represented one side of myself: I am black.

Blackness. Beautiful strength made of resilient bodies, hearts, and minds that fought long before I was born for rights I now have today. Wordsmiths and poets, writers and singers, lovers, ordinary people with dreams and hopes. United and divided. Not without flaw, but perfect in that imperfect way communities come to be in a world structured by -isms.

But the other half of me? That was harder to define, in part because I lacked the necessary rhetoric to express what it meant to… be that.

What it meant the first time I kissed her unabashedly, out of sight of the rest of our classmates, in a pink bathroom stall that was coated in morning sunlight. What it meant each time we stole away to be together, even though we were only supposed to be learning how to better kiss boys by practicing with one another. What it meant that it didn’t mean that for me and her. Or, at least, for me.

What it meant to fancy both John and Jane. Independently. Simultaneously. Not because I was greedy, or because I couldn’t make up my mind. But because both John and Jane were people with meaningful intricacies, and because I saw things I loved in each. And because John and Jane weren’t just bound by their sex; because they could be many things, or nothing, all at once. Because learning the contours of their bodies was like reading a kind of poetry that only existed within them, their atoms and molecules coalescing in a cadence that shook the world whenever they shared themselves with someone. Because, together, our bodies meant something more powerful than words could adequately express. Because it was a feeling that you didn’t name, couldn’t name. It was ritual, a kind of religion that you had to feel and be and do to understand.

Where could I find a word for all that? What word could properly express what it meant to be a black girl with a sexuality that wasn’t explicitly “hetero”, supported in the social circles I inhabited, or condoned by the church my family attended?

Queer.

When I found this word, it seemed strange, gnarled. And, paired with my blackness, I thought it might lead to my ostracization

But it fit.

So I unfurled it, laid it underneath the sunlight of my spirit, and watched it grow within myself. I took my time testing and tasting the word on my tongue, tried it out for size with only my closest friend as witness to this newfound identity.

Slowly, I began to share it. Only in small and safe pieces, usually with other queer-identified persons. Then in triumphant declarations that empowered me. And though I can use beautiful metaphors to refer to this period of growth in my life, it was certainly anything but. This current moment of reflection was hard won, and fraught with the rejection, judgment, and ostracizing that I feared so deeply.

But…I am black, and I am queer.

I live at the intersection of these identities, and I no longer possess the desire to find some allusive box that represents whatever this means. And though I wish that that young girl, coated in morning sunlight and stealing precious moments, had known this then, I’m so happy to know who I am now. And I’m thankful that I found the appropriate language to define all of the intricacies that make up my experience in this world, and to be surrounded by loving people who share in this understanding.