The Bad Gay Shouts out the Background.

Maybe even you.

To the undercover agents of change, the unseen activists and social shifters: thank you.

If you've ever been the first in your family to do something that deeply impacts the quality of your life, you're an activist. If you've ever been the first of your friends to change your language to better suit the respect due to humanity, to wear what you want, eat what you need or read books for the sake of their stories, you're an activist.

If you tell your story out loud—even the ugly parts, you're an activist.

If you have learned that sometimes shutting the fuck up and letting people express themselves without a shred of eloquence; encouraging people to stutter and ignore the en vogue terms that the most privileged of us love to make up and own [the same way our bodies and minds have historically been made up and owned], you're an activist.

If you've ever held the hand of a boi in a room full of men and known that whatever was happening to the egos swirling around you was powerful and possibly dangerous but you kept holding because that's what love is—that's what love does, you're an activist. 

If being radical gets asses kicked around your way, so you just settle with being honest--that's real and that's activism.

If you, feminine as your wiles, feel every reason to publicly honor the sexuality that brands you a defector from the woman you're “supposed to be”; if you put love of bodies like yours on the forefront of your politics, never forgetting to never let people forget: you are what it looks like to be queer—you're an activist.

Understaning how flaunting fluidity can be as problematic as ignoring it; that coming out isn't a public service, it's a personal decision; speaking out is as powerful as looking at hatred in the eyes and making sure it knows to keep quiet. The real-life balance. You're an activist.

If after realizing that it has become okay to shame female-identified masculinity into androgyny, you have kept the roughness around your edges, the bass in your voice, the weight and loyalty to your pure butchness without apology, you're an activist.

The system benefits you but it does not benefit everyone. You who eats daily, who can call friends from a bed in a home in the throes of boredom, who have never actually been called a name, who fly home for holidays and take trips for the virtue of exploration—you who cruise through under and over grad programs, whiz past the papers and 'facts' that build up ebony towers (never quite ivory, but towers all the same),

all of us and you who seem to always be on the conducting end of research, the leader of action...if you understand how blessed your life is and seek less of its pitfalls while exalting it's possibilities, you are an activist.

If you give and spread your wealth into spaces and places who need it, doing so consciously and without guilt, you're an activist.

If you, queer body, don't limit yourself to the already-polished and refined corners of your community, if you're willing to show up where its too hot, gritty, a little inconvenient—because there is life budding in those spaces too, you're an activist.

 If for you, terms and -isms don't apply because you are too busy working and living and providing to keep up with the latest in synonyms for 'being alive' and respect is all you seek and what you give,

who can ignore the noise of who's who in the scene cause the scene don't seem to see you anyway, focus on staying healthy and keeping the rent paid, you too are an activist.

There is always more work to do. There are always more systems to dismantle, more quos and quotas to challenge. Just as there are the bodies and voices who hurl themselves to the forefront in the great battle between Us and Them, there are people playing it back. People who understand liberation as being able to be, without being remarkable.

People who survive and make that revolutionary. You too.

In Power, 

TBG

--

Morgan is the Head Writer for BBH, check out her website here or follow her @momannwill.

A Down Day

Written by: Akwaeke Z Emezi

My apartment’s a mess, there are magazine cutouts scattered over the futon and floor, smears of paint on my fingers and hoodie, I’ve counter-productively stripped my house of chocolate. I’ve been back in the country for a week, 23 hours of my sleep were Nyquil-induced, and my head hurts. I tried describing how I feel over text message earlier. Weird. Lonely. Anti-social. Tired. Anxious. Unsettled. Later, I figured it out.

I’m depressed. That, in itself, is nothing new, I’ve been diagnosed with major depression for a while now, I’m registered with my school because it’s apparently a psychological disability, but it still took me a while to decipher this shitty feeling. I’d be scoring pretty high on that form they make me fill out every time I went to the therapist’s office- the one that asks you how you’re eating and sleeping and how much of a damn you give.

Speaking of therapists, I had to go meet with my new one yesterday. I didn’t want to be there. I have a bad track record with therapists, usually bailing after the fourth visit. My last therapist was my favorite, I saw her for an entire semester and we threw expletives around the office, laughed and used sarcasm like it was going out of style. She read my blog and threatened me with stalking if I ever missed a session right on my first visit (“I have friends in queer places!”). I felt like she gave a damn, you know. I spoke to her over the phone, she met my brother...then my school insurance kicked me out of the short term therapy option and I was hurtled into this new therapist’s office. My former therapist put time and effort into making this match, pointing out that she knows I don’t like people (neither does she), so she found a doctor that she likes. Ergo, I will like her, too. Except the new one’s not the old one and I was anxious, with a Nyquil hangover, soothing myself in my head and imagining my alter egos holding my hand, crouching on my shoulder, anything to not feel alone and insane. We fell into awkward silences as I avoided her eye and answered in monosyllables. I did not want to be there. But at the end of the session, I explained that it was very hard for me to open up to a new therapist, that I was exhausted, and I apologized. She said “Yes, I can tell you don’t like talking to therapists (other than your last one), you don’t like talking about yourself and you don’t like answering vague questions”.

That’s about right. The thing is, I could come up with a thousand reasons to ditch this therapist and not go back- we don’t click, I don’t need therapy anymore, she’s not my old therapist, her office is out of the way, I don’t like her. Then I hear my old therapist’s voice in my head, and she says- that’s bullshit. You’re just making excuses. I see through you. I forgot, I’ve made a commitment to treating my depression, and sometimes that means distinguishing between the good voice in my head and the bad voice. The latter is the one that hates therapy and being out of control or out of our comfort zone, that tells me no one cares and not to bother texting anybody because it’s not a big deal and they’ve got their own problems to deal with, you know? It’s the same voice that whispered thoughts of how easy it would be to drop by the liquor store and pick up a small bottle of tequila, add it to my prescription of muscle relaxants and subtract it down my throat, because then we would sleep, you know? That kind of sleep where the cats playing and the loud upstairs neighbours don’t wake you up, where you just drift away into darkness. My idea of heaven has always been an eternal sleep and deep black, please, no celebrations, I’m so tired.

I realized a few months ago that that bad little voice wants me dead. I think the good voice is going to sound a lot like my old therapist.

Anyway, now, when I talk about having been suicidal or talk to others who have been, I repeat the warning- you cannot trust yourself. Because, really, part of you wants you dead and will slowly erode your resistances and your arguments until that happens. If you don’t hold on to the good voice that mentions, in passing, maybe you should reach out and let someone know what’s going on, you could lose. You bet your life on it.

Maybe that’s just me. But I did commit to getting better, which means I take St. John’s Wort at least twice a day, I’m really careful about how much I put into my schedule and I take lots of precautions to make sure I’m happy. It may even come across as selfish, but I put my happiness first because before I committed to getting better, I committed myself into a psych ward so that I wouldn’t kill myself. Being happy is literally a matter of life and death for me, and actually, I end up feeling not unhappy, which means alive, which is good enough for now. It was either try harder, die, or just be miserable ad infinitum.

I’ve blogged and written and talked about my mental health, and I believe in breaking the silence that forms around mental health in our community. I refused anti-depressants because I’m terrified of side effects and I wasn’t afraid enough of dying to try them. I think people who risk the side effects anyway are unspeakably brave.Which reminds me, there’s an article by Bassey Ikpi in the Huffington Post, which I recommend everyone check out promptly. You know, I enjoy the days when I feel okay, when I don’t feel like cutting or dying or scarily, like nothing. It feels good to just feel, even if it’s nothing spectacular. I stay and I wait and I work because I hope that one day I will feel spectacular for most of my days. Until then, I have to accept that there will be bad days.

On those days, I just focus on getting through to the next day. Then the one after that. Rinse, lather, repeat. Ad infinitum.

About the author: Born and bred in the south of Nigeria, Akwaeke Z Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil free love advocate, genderqueer Nutri-C addict, and natural hair aficionado. In the space where parathas and palm oil meet, she dances reverence to dope beats and follows the Christ. As a queer bard, blogger and performer, Z infects a message of self-awareness laced thoroughly with love and bravery, believing that only in knowing and accepting oneself utterly can we truly be free. A current Brooklynite, they adore traveling and beautiful people, and are constantly pushing for a life free of fear and full of marvelous. 

My preferred pronouns are she/he/they. Mix it up. Surprise me. 

Akwaeke Z Emezi
Drag King| Bard| Blogger| Milliner
www.akwaekeemezi.com