A Letter to the Baby Queers

To All Whom It May Concern (even if you don't know it yet),

I must begin with my deepest apologies.

I'm sorry that for all our struggles and gains over the past decades, true acceptance still seems so far away. Gay marriage is legal, but disabled Queers can't take advantage of that without losing the benefits that keep them alive. Pronouns and Gender-Affirming care is becoming more common, but trans-athletes experience pushback and no politicians seem willing to look for a third option.

I'm sorry that safe-spaces are being used to exclude you, and that certain interests are forcing you to jump through hoops for your right to be included, or to exist at all. I'm sorry that mere weeks ago, Pride Parades were shut down to pander to a religion that still calls for your murder.

I'm sorry that when I show you kindness and acceptance, your most frequent reaction is surprise and wariness. How many hid their poison behind honeyed words, to make you so fearful? How many shunned you, that welcome comes as a shock? How much more will you endure, before you no longer can?

Most of all, I'm sorry that I can't fight more than I am.

I have been fighting all my life for acceptance, even before I knew the word for what I was. The Free Love movement when I was a child was quickly replaced with Gay Panic when AIDS was discovered, and whole generations of those LGBTQ+ who came before us died in their multitudes. Even then, I wasn't sure if I, a Demiromantic Asexual, had a place in a community that focussed so much on sex and relationships.

Sometimes I still wonder.

I look at the discrimination and hate happening around me and I wish that I could do more than speak. I wish I had the time and energy to organise a protest for our rights, when all protest resources are being dedicated to a single cause, booked out for months in advance.

I wish my health let me do more than write to you now, in this letter. I wish that including your voices in my fictional work was more than a pebble to dam the flood of opposition you face. I wish I had the money and resources to help more.

To house those whose parents throw them out, and shelter those who fear to go home. To pay for professionals to help come to terms with the trauma you face, and will face again. To help you get a start in life, as you all deserve.

Thoughts and Hopes are such small things, in the face of what opposes us, but sometimes, they are all that we can give.

I have stood where you stand now, and there is hope. I stood on the precipice, staring down into the void that yawned beneath me... and flew.

My wings were not composed of acceptance, but of righteous anger at those who thought to push me down. The winds that lifted me were not of welcome, but my own determination that I was allowed to be.

To be myself, to achieve my goals, to walk or run or fly as I wished, because I am a person, and I deserve the same rights as every other person on earth, just as you do.

If the loudest voices in the world claim to want you gone, hold fast to Spite, and tell them to Suffer, because you are going no-where that you do not wish to go.

With all of my love, and best wishes for a kinder future,

I remain yours,

Natasja