MLK Periodic Sentence: Queers For Fears
Warning! Mentions of queerphobia and use of the t-slur.
WHEN you hear the bitter slew of apprehensive words from your own family just for being unique, not wanting to adhere to stale traditional norms; WHEN you choke down on your own words because touching on anything about queerness near your extended family can cause your grandmother to suffer from a heart attack; WHEN you're strolling on a sidewalk, only to be shot with glares and jeers from people's mouths for showing your true colours; WHEN people purposefully broach your deadname and call you a "tranny" just to get a rise out of you; WHEN a door shuts on interests, or hell anything at all, you want to partake in because it's "for this or that gender only"; WHEN you're given the cold shoulder from public services or barred from utilising restrooms or locker rooms because a bunch of old men sitting in some parliamentary building said so; WHEN you can't host a wedding to marry and feel your lifelong partner's lips because lesbians and gay men aren't allowed to join hands declared by evangelicals; WHEN the news delivers that your best friend was brutally murdered the same night you came home because of a queerphobic hate crime; WHEN you are marked on the list of social groups to be eradicated because extremists publicly utter threats from their hollow souls of wanting you dead - THEN you will understand what it's like to be a queer individual struggling to get by, day by day.