Diversity Horror

“It was better, for now, if Redemption thought he was saving someone else; everyone’s always braver when they think they’re the hero.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Pet

“You want many things, you are full of want, carved out of it, made from it, yes. But the truth does not care about what you want; the truth is what it is. It is not moved by want, it is not a blade of grass to be bent by the wind of your hopes and desires.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Pet

“The first step to seeing is seeing that there are things you do not see, it said. Jam paused and frowned. I don’t understand. The creature sighed and rustled its fur a little. If you do not know there are things you do not see, it said, then you will not see them because you do not expect them to be there. You think you see everything, so you think everything you see is all there is to be seen.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Pet

“Some of us see ourselves as people born with a unique birth defect, one that can be “cured” by the intervention of the medical profession, and think of that journey in terms of physical transition. Some of us see ourselves as people who want to celebrate the fantasy aspects of gender, who want to enjoy the sense of escape and joy and eros that embracing an alter ego sometimes provides. Some of us see ourselves as people who reject the medical community and who are less interested in winding up at one gender destination or another than in the journey itself, a voyage that may or may not have a clear end point. Some of us hope to free ourselves from the binary poles of gender, want a personal and political liberation from the tyranny of culturally defined gender markers, and wish to express ourselves as we please, anywhere along the wide spectrum.”
― Laura Erickson-Schroth, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community