Jessica DeWitt

“I had a room to myself as a kid, but my mother was always quick to point out that it wasn't my room, it was her room and I was merely permitted to occupy it. Her point, of course, was that my parents had earned everything and I was merely borrowing the space, and while this is technically true I cannot help but marvel at the singular damage of this dark idea: That my existence as a child was a kind of debt and nothing, no matter how small, was mine. That no space was truly private; anything of mine could be forfeited at someone else's whim.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“People judge gender non-conformity because they are insecure about their identities. If they weren’t, then gender variance wouldn’t be so heavily policed.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“Gender non-conforming people are not opportunisitic; we are oppressed.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“problem. But maybe we aren’t the problem; maybe the whole gender system is.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary