Quote of the Day

To be punk is to be gender nonconforming, to fall outside cis standards of gender and beauty and acceptability.

-- Christopher Soto, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 211

Quote of the Day

To be punk was to resist, to accept the burden of being gawked at in return for living a life of self-determination.

-- Christopher Soto, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 209

Quote of the Day

I often think of my body as a gift from my family: like several of the gifts they've given me over the years, it's really not what I would have picked out for myself.

-- Nino Cipri, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 205

Quote of the Day

I believe my parents would have been abusive regardless of their religious beliefs, but their religion fed and encouraged their abusive behaviors.  Most days my parents' abuse wasn't bad enough that Child Protective Services would have stepped in, had they known about it.  And my parents were white, college-educated, conservative Christians, so they received more slack from the system.  My parents just celebrated their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.  But white picket fences and jade anniversaries are not always what they seem from a distance.  Sometimes, they're downright sinister.

-- Aubri Drake, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 166

Quote of the Day

We establish no religion in this country.  We command no worship.  We mandate no belief, nor will we ever.  Church and state are and must remain separate.

-- Ronald Reagan

Quote of the Day

Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge.

-- Carl Jung

Quote of the Day

We spend years posing as something we're not because we don't know what we are.  All we know is, we don't feel like the gender we're supposed to be, yet we can't find an alternative either.  Everywhere we turn we get reminded that most of the world has extreme trouble with thinking outside the confines of binary labels.

-- Cal Sparrow, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 146

Quote of the Day

Children are wonderfully honest and direct; when adults can't figure out my gender without asking, they react with embarrassment, irritation, and, sometimes, anger.  These reactions used to confuse me.  Why embarrassment and anger?  What had I done to them?  I finally realized that confusion and embarrassment are onramps for fear -- fear that we don't know what's going on, fear that others will mock us for that ignorance, fear that we'll embarrass ourselves by incorrectly gendering someone and have to deal with their anger or the derision of our peers.  My androgyny didn't threaten them physically, but the confusion it caused translated into an emotional threat.  For people who cling to their worldviews like life rafts, having that worldview challenged is a threat.  And I have found that people who cling to biology-based binary gender are very threatened by those of us who cross gender lines or don't believe in those lines at all.

-- CK Combs, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 97

Quote of the Day

None of the public debates or discussions about gender and crime or about access to public facilities includes me or others like me.  Transgender men and women who visibly conform to the gender binary have been at the center, with more and more policies allowing them to use facilities that match their gender identity.  But this still leaves genderqueer individuals without much assurance of safety or protection.  To ensure that I can exist in public space without risk to my physical or emotional well-being, we need to promote gender-neutral or non-gendered spaces.

-- Jace Valcore, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 81

Quote of the Day

I represent  one idea and one idea only: how to be you.  Over the years I have become an emblem and example of how we can all embrace and accept who we are.  I am genderfluid and I accept that.  If you are a Man and you love that word, if it feels comfortable, I want you to enjoy that about yourself.  I want you to be you.

-- Jeffrey Marsh, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 76-77

Quote of the Day

When I was a kid it was astonishing that people viewed me as a Man when I was so clearly a Disney Princess.  But, I never really thought of myself as a Woman.  When I was a kid I had a genderless view of myself.  And this ungendered view is the essence of gender equality; it is the essence of people equality.

-- Jeffrey Marsh, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 76

Quote of the Day

To this day interviewers ask me, "When did you know you were different?"  I use that question to make a broader point: I never felt that I was different.  Deep down, all of us want the same things -- we are all so very much alike.  We want acceptance and freedom and recognition and happiness.  So I never felt different in the context of whether or not I was a part of humanity.  I never realized I was different because I could plainly see that I wasn't.  What I did realize (and what I couldn't comprehend or articulate as a kid) is that people treated me differently.  I knew that I was just like everyone else, but the way I am and they way I express myself seemed to be a huge problem for everyone else.  People could never let me be, and it was incredibly mysterious.

-- Jeffrey Marsh, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 75

Quote of the Day

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.

-- Harvey Milk, from a tape recording to be played in the event of his assassination

Quote of the Day

A gay person in office can set a tone, command respect, not only from the wider community but from the young people in our own community who need both examples and hope.

-- Harvey Milk, The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love, p. 103

Quote of the Day

Freedom is too enormous to be slipped under a closet door.

-- Harvey Milk

Quote of the Day

Acceptance by some people doesn't make all the hostility of our inflexible systems and norms go away.  And since nonbinary people are invisible in most data collection, it is hard for our voices to be heard.  The irony of this hypervisibility is that while my body and identity may be open to public comment, my thoughts and needs don't seem to matter.

-- Haven Wilvich, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 62

Quote of the Day

Genderqueer is such a broad category, a subset of nonbinary transgender identities that often emphasizes the rejection of social norms and gender roles.  It's meant to subvert and not conform.  It means living in the gray area between the binary genders and asking a lot of questions.

-- Haven Wilvich, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 61

Quote of the Day

Being a token can be misleading at first.  It can make you feel wanted, admired, and special.  Who doesn't want to feel that way, especially after a lifetime of not feeling seen or validated?  You hear the message "We really value your unique perspective," which really means "You have something we want from you!"  I have to admit that I've been lured in by this message, along with my own savior complex and sense of over-responsibility.  When you become a token, it's hard not [to] feel owned by a system that continually pats itself on the back for being so open-minded and progressive for hiring you while simultaneously putting you in your place.  Good intentions say nothing about a system's capacity to change.

-- Sand C. Chang, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 55

Quote of the Day

I have to remind people that "nonbinary" predates "binary" in many respects; those of us who don't fit the expectations for what is "masculine" or "feminine" have existed across almost every continent, going back centuries.  But one of the impacts of colonization is that histories are forgotten, and not by accident, violently muffled until they don't make a sound.

-- Sand C. Chang, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 55

Quote of the Day

Workplaces tend to be reactive when it comes to accommodating trans and nonbinary folks.  They wait until a trans or nonbinary person gets hired, then they scramble to figure out how to make the environment safe and accessible.  In my ideal world, workplaces would do the work before a trans person gets hired or even before they are interviewed.  They would figure out their HR policies, restroom facilities, and documentation (e.g., name badges, email addresses, electronic records, computer user accounts) ahead of time.  There is always the chance of having employees who do not disclose their trans status or identity, so waiting for the first "out" or vocal trans person to report problems is not really an equitable approach.

-- Sand C. Chang, Nonbinary Memoirs of Gender and Identity, p. 53-54

Quote of the Day

For lesbians and gay men have always been in the vanguard of struggles for liberation and justice in this country and within our communities ... This is the beginning of a new front.  We are saying to the world that the struggle of lesbians and gay men is a real and particular and inseparable part of the struggle of all oppressed people within this country.  I am proud to raise my voice here as a black lesbian feminist committed to struggle for a world where all our children can grow free ... Not one of us will ever be free until we are all free.

-- Audre Lorde, speaking at the March for Lesbians and Gay Rights, 1979

Quote of the Day

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life.  The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.

-- Lord Byron, The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love, p. 92

Quote of the Day

Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of the lie.  A flag really fit that mission, because that's a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, "This is who I am!"

-- Gilbert Baker, The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love, p. 87

Quote of the Day

There is nothing more lovely in life than the union of two people whose love for one another has grown through the years, from the small acorn of passion, into a great rooted tree.

-- Vita Sackville-West, The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love, p. 59

Quote of the Day

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

-- Jane Addams, The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love, p. 44

Quote of the Day

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

-- Somerset Maugham, The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love, p. 17