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Today, I told myself that I'm human. I also said some things that, in the past, have felt incredibly forced. I claimed pride in my humanity.

I am black, born into an Afro-Caribbean family from Trinidad and Tobago. I faced a lot of racial strife in my life, growing up in the southeastern United States and being a naïve black kid who browsed the internet unsupervised far too much. I have had fellow black students tell me that I don't act "black enough". I have had white "friends" in high school who called me slurs, and I gave them the "pass" and didn't think it was a big deal and said "Oh come on! We're just joking!". Despite that claim, years later, I'm feeling like I'm subhuman for being this way.

I am a transfeminine enby (shorthand for non-binary) and bi/pansexual. Queerphobia started among the people I grew up under the assumption that I could trust them. I was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic household. Before coming out, my folks told me that anyone who engages in queer behavior such as a same-gender relationship or gender transition is automatically damned to hell. Being a trans youth around the time when "SJW Cringe Compilations" popped up on every single corner of social media made me feel as if my sense of gender made my very existence wrong. Being a non-binary person made me feel like a laughing stock, even among some trans people, the loud minority that held more exclusionary views. I lost my family upon coming out, keeping very little contact even with the family members who are still a part of my life to some degree. I was disowned, and my own father told me things so harsh and dehumanizing. The little pushback that anyone in my family gave made me feel like he was justified in doing so and that I deserved it. I was isolated and didn't have enough "chosen family" to tell me otherwise.

I am autistic and have ADHD. My psychiatrist tried to convey this to my parents when I was a teenager. They still didn't understand or take time to be considerate of the struggles of neurodivergent people. I failed to break the idea that I was "broken" or "less than", and sometimes just the professional noting that on a piece of paper was something I could look back at and feel immense shame over.

In the nature of intersectionality, all of these interacted with one another. Being black and queer made me witness anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the black community as well as racist sentiment in the LGBTQ+ community. My family's culture and religion made them pseudoscientifically deny things like neurodivergence being real, often from a "God doesn't make mistakes. Just get over it!" type of angle. All of this shaped me into a miserable entity that felt like I was decaying in a corner simply because I existed as someone who isn't "white and normal", as I've stated in the original post.

Today, in interacting with a friend of mine who has been a great help to me, I was able to tell them that I am human, not despite me being these things, but because of these things embodying the beautiful variations that the human experience can manifest as. What is this notion of being "white and normal" I kept emphasizing? Why must being "normal" be an aspect of being "human"? I asked my self these questions, and I came to realize that, in telling these things to my friend, I was unlocking my sense of humanity. He is so happy that I did it. He is a transmasculine and non-binary leftist that has been able to support me and empathize with these struggles like no one else, even though he himself is white.

It felt like this black history month has been a biopic on my internalized bigotry in a way. It started feeling intense, and then it concluded with me finally grasping that I am not only human with all of these things considered, but I am proud of it.

I am proud to be black. I am proud to be queer. I am proud to be neurodivergent, and that's what pride is all about. Pride is recognizing the struggles you may have gone through on the basis of these traits but not letting these struggles let you contribute to the struggling yourself. Despite what people have told me to invalidate me, I am not going to let the invalidation tell me that I am wrong or less than for being this way.

I am human, and no matter how much I may differ from an outdated conception of the "ideal human" in society, that will not change. I am capable, and these things are just a part of me, a part of me that say nothing about my character.

I'm so much more. I'm a musician, an artist, a comedy fan, a reader, a coffee drinker, and a lover of peace, kindness, and empathy. Nothing about me being black, queer, or neurodivergent makes any of these things null.

To wrap up, I just want to issue a small thank you to Hexbear. All of you have shown me that people who care about those who have gone through the intersectional struggles I have are not as rare as my cynical mind has led me to believe.

Anyone reading this, take care, and have a great night. I will make sure I do too.

No matter who you are, you're all lovely.

❤️🩷🧡💛💚💙🩵💜🤎🖤🩶🤍