Every time the word “gay” rolls off my tongue – when the words “queer” or “intersex” or “trans” or “nonbinary” or “bisexual” bless my lips – no matter what I’m talking about, I am also, always, sending a love letter, casting a lifeline, praying a prayer, and yes, obviously, waving a flag.
So many generations of silence and slurs, of words of violence and of quiet, lonely does-anyone-else-in-the-world-feel-this-way? My heart could burst every time I speak the imperfect but earnest attempts at finding ways to communicate lineages of “us.” Every word, a reaching toward each other. A “you’re not alone” or a “we got each other” and a “isn’t it divine, being this way?” It’s never too early to start teaching this love language and planting these seeds of assurance. Just thinking about it makes me want to sing the whole queer lexicon to the tune of ABCs to every new born baby. “Asexual, Bisexual, Cubs, and Dykes . . .”
Train a child up in the way they should go, says the scriptures. And I want them all to go queerly, go freely, go in belonging. I want us to raise a whole generation of kids who never learn to hate themselves. Or to treat others like monsters. Or that there’s anyone even god is against.
This is indeed part of my queer agenda: To expose children as early as possible to all the possibilities of their beautiful becoming. To leave no doubt that whichever way their love blossoms and their gender blooms and their body unfurls, they will be protected, cherished, celebrated, loved. In the world as it is, to even begin to balance out all the messages otherwise, these things cannot be said enough. So we say them in every form they take across languages and cultures. We say them as early and as often as we can. We say them, especially, when they’re not welcome. We say them with all the love we’ve got and we will never, never stop.
Related Off-site Links:
Florida Just Passed the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill. Here’s What It Means for Kids – Madeleine Carlisle (TIME, March 8, 2022).
At Home With the Families Affected by Texas’s New Anti-Trans Orders – Rachel Monroe (The New Yorker, March 9, 2022).
ACLU Files Suit Over Texas Investigation Into Parents of Trans Child – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, March 1, 2022).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Affirmation Declaration
• Day of Silence Prayer
• Our Lives as LGBTQI People: “Garments Grown in Love”
• Jim Smith on the “Tears of Love and Faith” of LGBTI People and Their Families
• Minnesota Catholics, LGBT Students, and the Ongoing Work of Creating Safe and Supportive Schools
• GSAs and the Catholic High School Setting
• An Inspiring Event
• A Girl Named Sara: A “Person of the Resurrection”
• Confronting Classroom Homophobia
• Stephanie Beatriz on the Truth of Being Bi
• The Bisexual: “Living Consciously in the Place Where the Twain Meet”
• Putting a Human Face on the “T” of “GLBT”
• Trans 101
• Catholics Recognize and Celebrate the Truth of Transgender People: “Their Quest for Authenticity Is a Quest for Holiness”
• Lisa Leff on Five Things to Know About Transgender People
• Signs and Wonders
• Signs and Wonders Continue
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