L: Is there anything you would still like to add at this point, that we haven’t talked about yet?

Maybe the one thing I would like to add, because I’m not sure how much I talked about that yet… I said that I queerify everything I touch, but I also realized that ever since I’ve had a place of my own, I also like… my sexual and gender identity, they are not my whole life, but they are a very important part of my life. For me, being queer is extremely important, and I also like my space to reflect that.

So, when you get into my house, you will see a lot of queer books in my book shelf, there’s a rainbow over there, there’s my backpack with my rainbow pin here, most of my socks have some form or other of rainbows on them, I have my Sappho finger puppet over there. The other two are Virginia Woolf and Silvia Plath. Because, you know, they are my ladies, they are my triad.

“It makes me feel so safe and happy when my space reflects the fact that I’m queer.”

It makes me so happy to live in a space that reflects… I don’t know, the same way that my space reflects that I love books, the same way it reflects that I want everything to sort of be black and white and square. It tells various things about me, and it makes me feel so safe and happy when my space also reflects the fact that I’m queer. And I’ve really been enjoying the privilege of being able to really make my space as queer as I am.

And I know not everyone would agree, like people who have gone through traumatic experiences, I can imagine that you would have the very understandable thought of ‘But if I had just been born not queer I wouldn’t have to go through this’, so I completely understand if somebody was like ‘You know what, my life would be easier if I wasn’t’, that is a very valid sentiment. I am just very happy to be in a position where I can say I would choose queerness for myself. It’s not a choice, to be perfectly clear, it is not a choice. But if it was, I would choose it for myself.

L: That’s beautiful.

I feel like it makes you learn a lot, it puts you in a position where you see things in society and politics very differently… I would also specifically choose again to be a queer woman. Because that is a combination! I know that it can get even more challenging, for example if you are a queer woman of colour or a queer disabled woman, there are so many elements to your identity that can further complicate your position in society. But I generally think that the intersection of being a woman and being queer has its own set of issues.

“I feel like it’s important to have this kind of living proof that it’s possible to have a fulfilling life where you are not sacrificing yourself or your identity.”

But yeah, I would definitely choose it again, with all the thinking it has forced me to do, and even the confrontations that it has given me with other people, because in the end, I get to live my life in my very queer house, and I don’t know, I’m a happy little queer. I feel like it’s important to have this kind of living proof that it’s possible to have a fulfilling life where you are not sacrificing yourself or your identity. And I know that not everyone has that luck or that possibility, so I feel like if we do, it’s good to show it’s possible.

And I feel like that’s also something that contributes to making spaces safe, if you’re one of those that can life openly and happily, whenever you enter a space and you occupy it with being yourself and being open and being happy, then that contributes to creating a sense of safety for other people, because you’re like  ‘I am  here’. And that’s what I always feel, because when I had just come out, it made me feel so safe to be in a place where there was someone, like two men or two women holding hands, because I would be like ‘Oh, you can do that! You can actually do that, right here, right now’.

“you can actually be the one that makes the space safer for someone else, the same way that someone in the past has done that for you.”

Now, I’m in the opposite position, and you know, maybe there’s another teenager passing by me and my girlfriend, being like ‘Oh, so you can hold hands, you can live your life!’ So, if you’re in a position where maybe you’re a little bit older and you feel a little bit safer and confident in who you are, you can actually be the one that makes the space safer for someone else, the same way that someone in the past has done that for you. I feel like it’s a good mechanism to perpetuate: When you’re younger and less safe and sure, it’s important to have others that do it for you, and then when you’re in the position to do it for others, you make it safe for other people.  

L: Thank you so much for this conversation.