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

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

“Gender diversity is a natural attribute of human expression, not an illness that needs to be fixed.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“Imagine everyone you encounter all day long telling you that you are not real and that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Being constantly invalidated takes a toll: 40 percent of trans and gender non-conforming people have attempted suicide.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary