All Boys Aren't Blue

by George M. Johnson

I think the majority fear becoming the minority, and so they will do anything and everything to protect their power.

Any community that has been taught that anyone not “straight” is dangerous, is in itself a danger to LGBTQIAP+ people.

Navigating in a space that questions your humanity isn’t really living at all. It’s existing. We all deserve more than just the ability to exist.

The audacity of society to infuse “manhood” into a child’s life.

American history is truly the greatest fable ever written.

I rarely felt afraid to speak up in Catholic school. And I honestly don’t know why, other than feeling that if I didn’t, then who would? Maybe it was partly teenage rebellion, but it was more likely the beginnings of the activist that I am today.

“The first person you are ever an activist for is yourself.”

Knowledge is truly your sharpest weapon in a world hell-bent on telling you stories that are simply not true.

Black babies are born into oppression despite any additional marginalizations.

You saw that I was gay, but that it was only one piece of me. You have always done an amazing job of seeing me as fully human—something I wish others in our community learned to do better.

“I love all of my grandkids, but I love each of you differently. Because you each need different things.”

Elevating a community viewed as below you to having the same equity and equality harms no one but the oppressor.

There is truly something to be said about the fact that you sometimes can’t see yourself if you can’t see other people like you existing, thriving, working.

But because of you, I knew that I existed.

Being queer is a journey. One that is ever changing as identities that were once in the dark come to light.

Growing up with transgender people in our family was a norm for us, but an experience I haven’t heard from many others. Nanny and my mother often say it just runs in our family.

It’s the hardest lesson we all have to learn about love and loss. No one’s days are infinite, and I can’t keep anyone here forever.

Love who you want to love and do it unapologetically, including that face you see every day in the mirror.

We see coming-out stories all the time. Some for the better, many for the worse. What we don’t get to see is what led up to that moment. How many times a person tried to push past that barrier to get to that point.

Notice my confusion in how strong I was in some moments and how weak I was in others, because that is what coming out truly is. It is not a final thing. It’s something that is ever occurring. You are always having to come out somewhere. Every new job. Every new city you live in. Every new person you meet, you are likely having to explain your identity.

Meaning, people were going to call me gay whether I accepted it or not. Some of us are pressured into acceptance of an identity before we are fully ready to accept it ourselves.

It was a performance, an extension of how Black folks always created their own spaces when denied access to society by white culture. We weren’t allowed in white Greek fraternities and sororities, so we not only created our own but made it our own, too.

There is so much danger in not providing proper education about sex to kids, especially for those who are having sex outside of the heteronormative boxes.

My greatest fear is that queer teens will be left to trial and error in their sexual experience.

There was a death that occurred within me, too. A death that many of us suffer when we lose someone who loved us unconditionally.

I saw what it looked like for people to be “slowly dying” because they never got to live in their authentic selves.

Time waits for no one, and for Black queer people, there are too many trying to steal the little bit of time we have. So, live your life.