Jackson, MS
"I'm about to be twenty two and you know what, I never heard of these black queer folks who have done amazing work until now, Audre Lorde or like Alice Walker , and access to them…it’s just not here. I am originally from Kosciusko which is a town of 7,000 people. It’s where I came from and you don’t read The Color Purple there, even now sometimes I feel like I am out here all by myself.
So, I used to be very hyper masculine...I was exploring and trying to figure it out, and figure me out. I realized that I was becoming toxic in those ways and that was a transformation for me. It was a place that I transcended. I needed to take a look at what it was I was upholding and for who. We're so fragile as human beings, like I could go over there and bust my head right now, but we are also incredibly powerful..um, malleable too though. What we can create, what we can speak into existence, and how we can heal. Healing is so very powerful. I just began seeking healing these past two months. I needed a reset button because I felt like I have been sleep walking for the past two years. I kept trying to place myself into a box when attempting to fulfill higher educational goals. I was constantly navigating how to exist in these spaces. That's been really hard cause I've been getting cut from every direction. I was like "Fuck it. I'm going to just be me and take care of myself and get what I need." If I need to be a pioneer for that in Mississippi then that's fine cause' somebody has to do it. I feel like the power that we all have, as non-binary and trans people, is freedom. We're some of the most powerful beings in the way that we exist and the way that we continue to exist. We keep spreading this spectrum and there is no box. There will be time when there will be no constrictions. There is fear but at the same time there is a lot of freedom. I can move wherever I want to. I can move how I want to. I can say whatever I want to. Fuck respectability politics, I am going to be me."