The Black Flamingo

by Dean Atta

“No, my mummy buys her own dresses.”

You are a full human being. It’s never as simple as being half and half.

Rowan looks like if Ed Sheeran was handsome.

FOUL

“You know that it’s a sin?” says Faith. Yes, I know. But I say nothing.

DAISY: He’s just a show-off. He loves attention MICHAEL: And I love him! DAISY:

What’s it like to not know your father but still know yourself?

I’ve already looked at Attitude’s website on my phone, but when Mum hands me the physical copy, I feel like she’s giving me her blessing.

They interrupt our joy. Our history. Our progress. They know they can’t stop us unless they kill us but they can’t kill us all, so you’re living your life and suddenly interrupted by white fear or suspicion. They fear sharing anything. Our success is a threat.”

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

I know trans and gender-nonconforming people started our movements, won our freedoms. I’m a man and I want to be a free one.

“We don’t have to know each other to show each other love.”

I come from being given permission to dream but choosing to wake up instead. I come from wherever I lay my head. I come from unanswered questions and unread books, unnoticed effort and undelivered apologies and thanks. I come from who I trust and who I have left.

I come from my own pen but I see people torn apart like paper, each a story or poem that never made it into a book.

I’m always surrounded by men and their banter and their anger and their hurt, and sometimes I just want to hug them, you know, invite them to open up.”

Men are sandcastles made out of pebbles and the bucket is patriarchy: if you remove it, we fear we won’t be able to hold ourselves together, we pour in cement to fill the gaps to make ourselves concrete constructions.

“You both need to understand the black woman, black man, black trans person is always last to be thought of as attractive in this white supremacist society.

When a black person says they’re only into white people, that’s internalized racism. When a white person says they’re only into black people, that’s fetishization, which is also a form of racism.

To have a loving family is to feel afraid and yet believe you are going to be all right.

“He is me, who I have been, who I am, who I hope to become. Someone fabulous, wild, and strong. With or without a costume on.”

Be in control, even if you plan to make it look like chaos. Read the room. Be shady but not bitchy. Don’t punch or kick downward at groups in society with less power or privilege than you. Tuck it away, if you want to. Stuff your trousers with a sock, if you want to. Wear a chest plate to give you pecs and abs or boobs, if you want to. Pad hips and bum, if you want to. Cinch your waist, if you want to. Shave or add hair, if you want to. Make none of the above adjustments if you don’t want to.

it’s not even about being fierce or fearless, it’s about being free.

It’s not letting anyone forget your name. It’s Marsha P. Johnson smiling down on you. It’s an ancestry.

It’s a black queen who threw a brick that built a movement. It’s building yourself up from zero expectations. It’s reviving your history. It’s surviving the present. It’s devising the future.

Correct those who say they knew before you did. That’s not how sexuality works, it’s yours to define.

Remember your life is not a movie. Accept you will be coming out for your whole life.

Remember you have the right to be proud. Remember you have the right to be you.