Queer joy is different from the “joy” I grew up with, the kind that is emblazoned with Christmas colors on holiday towels. The Latin root of joy is gaudere, to rejoice. Joy is not simply a feeling one settles into, like a warm blanket; it is active, perpetual movement—a state of being that is cultivated with others. “I want to attempt toward joy,” Ashon T. Crawley writes.* Queerness isn’t just a sexuality. It’s a way of life that requires active and intentional daily work to decenter the normative and recenter our community, our safety—and our joy.
