With protests up and down the country continuing to illustrate a cry for change, my sleepy and minutely populated hometown became alert and open to the notion of reform.
Discussions with friends turning into more of an education than any school experience ever had to offer, a collective realisation that the issue of suppression has been normalised for as long as we can remember.
Even though I recognise this, I am still very much a part of these processes. I can live comfortably knowing that I will never be denied an opportunity because of my ethnicity unlike my black friends that have walked the same rural path as me. I will never be denied the right to openly live as a queer woman even a fraction as much as that of someone with black skin.
Growing up, my sexuality was often diminished and left pushed to the back of the tangle of my pre-pubescent brain by no one other than myself. Thoughts that hadn’t occurred to me as any more than just a fascination or phased feelings that would eventually pass.
I couldn’t tell you about that one euphoric realisation that I was gay, because I don’t think it ever happened. Years spent pursuing my perceived heterosexuality on the basement floor of a sticky nightclub, convincing myself that my sexual path was as linear as the men I attracted. I guess I always knew that whatever and whenever I became comfortable enough to explore these flustered feelings, I would be completely validated in my own circles.
Not to diminish the undeniable struggles of many fighting their own internal battle, but I’ve never felt an overwhelming pressure to define my own identity, perhaps because that sense of self and community has been handed to me on a rainbow platter as a fully represented white woman.
The normative idea of queer is undeniably a white person. The portrayals of struggle and discrimination are often seen through that of a vision of white, which is far removed from those who battled for change on the front line all those years ago.
Last year marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, some of the key figures to ignite this societal revolution were black transgender women. Yet those same communities who kick-started the liberation are still as oppressed as generations before. Thinking back, every step of my own journey has been shaped by white representation. Every on-screen depiction characterised as ‘simply gay or lesbian,’ completely dismissing the fluidity of gender and sexuality.
Yet the most common characteristic among most media portrayals is the fact that they are all usually white. It seems easy to celebrate the freedom I have within the LGBTQ+ community without recognising the historical figures that started it all. I’ve been guilty of it, but I recognise that I am in a position to enact change and make more of a conscious effort to know my shit.
I read a quote recently from Layla Saad, author of the workbook Me and White Supremacy in which she said, that white privilege means that you don’t have to think of yourself as white. You think of yourself as a person. It’s such a statement and one that made me want to understand more about my position not only within society but also that of the LGBTQ+ community.
She goes on to say that from a very young age she was made aware of the fact that she wasn’t part of the “dominant culture” and always saw herself as other. I can’t even begin to understand how that must feel, to subconsciously be made aware of a thing that separates you from being perceived as “normal.”
It’s true in the sense that I’ve never once considered myself as a race per se, in the same way, that I don’t identify myself as anything other than a woman. That’s white privilege, and I’m painfully aware of the power I have and how I have abused that by deciding to stay silent for so long. Saad goes onto say that it isn’t comfortable for white people to admit that they are safe because someone else is unsafe, and that we “benefit from structural oppression in a very real way.”
I recognise that historically I am part of a community that has been scarily oppressed for so long, stories of LGBTQ+ friends marginalised to the darkest ends of depression. But never because of the colour of their skin. I can’t say my own experiences have been easy in terms of my out and proud moment; feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness still finding ways to crack through the porcelain exterior.
My girlfriend and I are in a place of complete comfort and have pushed through any discrimination we may have faced, but I’m fearful not to become complacent of the position I still hold within society.
This is not a short-lived fight that will be over-and-done. It’s a show-up, speak up and speak loud kind of deal. White supremacy is a systematic issue that has taken the lives of so many since the beginning of time.
I long for people to feel the same blissful comfort as I do, but that can’t be done until I fight to dismantle every fiber of the same corrupt system that allowed me here in the first place.
