All Boys Aren't Blue

by George M. Johnson

I did what I always did with most things I didn’t want to deal with—buried it.

I understand now that my Blackness is self-defined and that to use the n-word or not use the n-word is my choice. But it shouldn’t be based on the comfort of those who constantly seek to invalidate me. I understand now that there is no such thing as “a respectable negro” in the eyes of society, nor was I ever made to be one.

That being different didn’t mean something was wrong with me, but that something was wrong with my cultural environment, which forced me to live my life as something I wasn’t.

That the things I had been chasing were all just a myth to turn me into something, someone I didn’t want to be.

Therapy is still very much a taboo subject in the Black community. Those who are seen as having issues with their mental health face a lot of stigma and discrimination because mental health is often conflated with mental illness.

We did what we always did as a family—we loved on each other even harder.

To go years without smiling in pictures, rarely being questioned why, leaves me to wonder how many signs of trauma we miss or ignore in Black children.

Oddly enough, many of us connect with each other through trauma and pain: broken people finding other broken people in the hopes of fixing one another.

trauma has a funny way of showing up in our lives during the moments when we least expect it.

she is allowing herself to work through the process of healing rather than be burdened by the weight of holding the trauma in.

It’s necessary that we do the work to unpack our shit. It’s time for the world to let queer Black boys unpack their shit. Smile, Black boys.

I had agency—the power to control my narrative—and this was a moment where I was choosing to do what I felt was best for me, no questions asked. As a child who so rarely got to choose his path, in a society that expected me to check off a particular box about my identity, this was one choice I was able to make.

Agency—a word I didn’t know when I was that young—is a guiding principle that I wish we taught young kids about more. Rather than saying, “You are wearing this,” I hope more adults will ask, “What would you like to wear?” And then have a conversation about those choices. When we see our children not conforming to the societal standards of heterosexuality or we see them gravitating to things of the “opposite gender,” I would love for us to ask the deeper questions about who and what they are.

The most important thing to realize is that you have the agency to make decisions that are in your best interest. The power to push back against society and even those in your own home. It is unfortunate that we live in a world where owning your agency could be met with rejection, disrespect, or even violence—especially for those owning their queer identity from a young age.

There are moments even now when I’m simply not sure of my mannerisms, femininity, and more. Are they derived from mirroring the Black women in my life, or are they naturally me, or a mix of both? I know that it doesn’t matter. And that regardless of how my mannerisms come across, they are natural to me. I just like to think about all the ways I came to be me.

Unfortunately, the creativity of children often comes under fire when it doesn’t meet the acceptable standard of gender performance. Meaning, had a girl created this term, it likely wouldn’t have caused as much of a fuss with anyone. But the fact that “Honeychild” was created by a boy elicited grave concerns.

When you are a child that is different, there always seems to be a “something.” You can’t switch, you can’t say that, you can’t act this way. There is always a something that must be erased—and with it, a piece of you. The fear of being that vulnerable again outweighs the happiness that comes with being who you are, and so you agree to erase that something.

as if my being who I was would change who others were.

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.

You sometimes don’t know you exist until you realize someone like you existed before.

American history is truly the greatest fable ever written.

Even today, institutions are still having “the first Black person to…” And it means something.

Symbolism gives folks hope. But I’ve come to learn that symbolism is a threat to actual change—it’s a chance for those in power to say, “Look how far you have come” rather than admitting, “Look how long we’ve stopped you from getting here.”

Saying that something was “a norm” of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves—or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.

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

Black kids drown at roughly three times the rate of white kids due to a lack of resources, both tangible and cultural, as well as racism. It’s interesting how many things in this country white kids do as a given but Black kids continue to struggle with for generations. Black folks have always had a complicated connection to water, and even a fear of it dating back to our enslavement.

Everything is connected, and it often requires someone breaking a stigma or pattern in order to change the trajectory of a family.

You have always done an amazing job of seeing me as fully human—something I wish others in our community learned to do better.

She was my grandmother, of course, but more importantly, she was always my friend.

I had my books. I had my homework. I had myself and I was isolated.

She had also seen the damage that happens when children who are “different” aren’t nurtured and loved the same way other kids are. When she says, “I love each of you differently,” she doesn’t mean I love you less, she means I love you whole, and as you are.

Although the national rate of homelessness for LGBTQIAP+ youth is near 40 percent, the rate in my family has always been 0 percent. How could one family get so right what the world has gotten so wrong?