Diversity Horror

“Some of the things you know are not true, it said. You have to learn that things might not be real, even if they look familiar.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Pet

“I was twelve when I told my parents that I would much rather find a princess than a prince. They had gone into a state of panic, from which they emerged with a renewed sense of determination. They told me that in order to survive I would have to hide how I felt. I was never very good at it, and the weight of that mask grows heavier with each passing year. I want nothing more than to cast it aside.”
― Kalynn Bayron, Cinderella Is Dead

“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

“Every family has a myth for the young to inherit–an undocumented fable passed between mouths, a grave illness to be contracted–as if the very words were a blight to infect the youth with and let them know they’re now welcome to the fold.”
― Eric LaRocca, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke