Ali Belfiore

“Trans people are reduced to our ability to fit some imagined but collectively reinforced standards of gender. The extent to which we meet these standards, however, does nothing to guarantee our safety, even more so for trans people of color as these standards are carved out of whiteness. Those who “pass” are either treated as the token of desirable (read: palatable) transness or accused of betrayal when they don’t introduce themselves with a declaration of their transness; those who do not “pass” are attacked for the transgression of some imagined gender code of conduct; and those whose transness is not adequately visually flagged are delegitimized, deemed “not trans enough.” Dr. Génessier serves as the police of this imagined gender code of conduct in Eyes Without a Face, the paternalistic enforcer of a single merit of belonging.”
― Joe Vallese, It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

“I sometimes think the fundamental disconnect with civilians is that they think a war is an event, something neatly bounded on either end by dates. What anyone who’s lived through one can tell you is that it’s actually a place. You’re there and the. You leave, but places don’t stop existing just because you aren’t looking at them.”
― T. Kingfisher

“I definitely come from the kind of people whose response to "Hey man, I'm pretty bummed out" is "Shut up, there's nothing wrong with you." Or how about "You just sleep all the time because you're lazy." Like, if it isn't broken or hemorrhaging, you need to bury it under these dollar-store snack foods and work it out by your fucking self. OH, OKAY, COOL.”
― Samantha Irby, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.

“As long as I am subjected to this unconsented reading of my body, I will desire nothing more than facelessness. I think of Christiane, whose father insists she wears the mask around the house so she gets used to it rather than taking it upon himself to accept and celebrate her face as is. It is violent to ask trans people to mask ourselves so it is easier for others to “understand” us, and this is not understanding at all. An effort to understand trans people looks like giving us space to tell our own stories to outnumber the stories that highlight trans tragedy and monstrosity, so that we may see many versions of ourselves reflected in the world. The power in a reflection is not in the simple fact of seeing a physical replication of ourselves but of knowing that there is more of us beyond that. That we are both here and there, expanding past the signifiers of our bodies.”
― Joe Vallese, It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror