You know, I just wish we could live in a world where everybody was equal. My boyfriend said: ‘Well, you know, nobody is equal, and that’s okay’, but I said ‘It’s not that nobody is equal, it’s just we might be better at different things, but the totality of our person should be equal to another person’. Do you understand what I mean?
Lenh: I think so… We are not the same, but we should have equal status.
Exactly. So yeah, he was saying… like, I’m always angry about how nothing is equal and it probably never would be, right? But we could take steps to make it as equal as possible. But at the same time, I feel like it shouldn’t be like ‘Yeah, some of us are not as equal as others and that’s okay’, because that’s not okay. Anyways, that’s just why I wanted to move out of university.
L: I get that, it’s a very toxic environment.
“I’m always angry about how nothing is equal and it probably never would be, right? But we could take steps to make it as equal as possible.”
Exactly. And I think that’s why we try to find people who think like us and try to move forward in a way that’s decolonising it and queering it, you know? And decolonising doesn’t only have to put in the colonised and queering doesn’t only have to put in those groups, it could be using other ways, to change how women and minorities are treated in general.
L: Can you tell me a little bit about how you were trying to decolonise and queer the space around you at university, to make it safer for you?
Well, you know, that was really hard for me because… I mean, I feel like I’m a very strong person, but at the same time it’s hard when you have to make people see all by yourself. Especially for example when I was in class. I did try to share as much of myself as possible, to share that I am a queer person, and also that I’m a black person, and it is really hard when you’re part of a group that is completely different from the people around you.
“It’s hard when you have to make people see all by yourself.”
I think up to this day, some people haven’t really… and I think they can never really, truly get it, but you know, I felt like I did get to some classmates in a way, they did learn something about queer people, they did learn something about black people. And I think that’s what our programme was about, so I tried to share my experience, I tried to share myself with my classmates to decolonise it in that way, because then they actually know somebody who is the minorities that they always talk about.
I think oftentimes people hear about minorities, but they don’t really know or see it first-hand to kind of relate to what they are going through, I mean. And I think my classmates saw that, and also with the activism I did, with performances and also sometimes in protests or showing up to different events, I think that’s really important. Yeah, that’s how I try to do what I could do.
L: That sounds really hard.
Mhm, yeah. I think just like they say, humans are resilient, and I think trans people and black people and different people of minorities have to be even more resilient.
“Humans are resilient, and I think trans people and black people and different people of minorities have to be even more resilient.”
