In June 2011, the creators of Grindr, a popular gay and bisexual smartphone app, announced that they had reached 2 million users worldwide, with 45,000 men online at any given second. The app’s purpose is pretty clear: Using geotagging services, men are able to see how close other men are to them, often for the purpose of hooking up.

After using it for a year, while I’ve met friends and had plenty of hook-ups otherwise unlikely, I’ve noticed the site is ripe for analysis in terms of gender. And far from hinting that we’ve reached a point of abandoning traditional gender roles, Grindr lets us know that these roles are alive and well, even flourishing in the very communities we believe are embracing flexible gender roles and expressions.

The first thing you’re likely wondering is, “What does gender have to do with gay sex?” And to answer that question, we have to look at why sexual acts are tied to gender. To that effect, it’s rather easy to look at heterosexual relationships, where a pattern emerges that constantly values masculinity, attaching it to strength and virility, while female sexuality is labeled as passive, and femininity is devalued.

In this instance, sexuality is not tied to biology, but instead it becomes a question of power and control that ties it to many other public spheres.

When talking about gay sex, it’s easy to imagine flexibility to talk about and engage in sex outside of these confining structures. And while it’s true that the gay liberation movement opened up forms of sexual practice that heightened traditional sexual roles through conscious plays with power, it’s clear that use of applications like Grindr have not done the same thing. While Grindr doesn’t inherently reaffirm these traditional gender roles, it does offer some the space to assert them, which has unintended causes.

I would describe myself as a guy who is not, by any means, traditionally masculine. My interests and passions seem to diverge wildly from those that define traditional masculinity. I always walk around in tight jeans, cut-off shorts, and a signature, always changing tote bag. These characteristics have led to me being called “faggot” more times than I can remember. (Here it is very clear because I look more feminine, I’m devalued as being gay, and not a “real” man).

But these attributes have also led to conflict within those who identify as gay. Sexual practice comes into play here, and has fueled the love/hate relationship that I’ve developed with Grindr. Since I first started having sex, I’ve been labeled the “bottom,” which means, for those unfamiliar, the one who gets penetrated. For the longest time I struggled to understand why, at least until I began to use Grindr more for the purpose of hooking up. It was through these experiences that I first grew fed up with people pigeonholing me into a specific sexual role. I lusted for some level of flexibility that I saw inherent in the history of queer political and social struggles.

I knew at once I needed to look more carefully at the way that people represented themselves through Grindr. And while I don’t profess to be a strict researcher, it became abundantly clear that terms like “straight-acting only,” “masculine only,” and “no fems” were popping up far too frequently for me to be comfortable. I want to make it clear that I am not targeting people and advocating that they adopt any series of characteristics. Instead, I want to challenge individuals to examine the consequences that how they talk about themselves influences sexual behavior and those who aren’t traditionally masculine.

To call yourself “straight-acting,” as an example, assumes heterosexuality as traditionally masculine, and reaffirms the stereotype of the flaming queen. Of any of the terms used, it most clearly shifts the conversation on sex away from practice into gender presentation. To call yourself “masculine” assumes a particular set of characteristics attached to masculinity. You’re not going to imagine that someone who calls himself masculine is going to like romantic dramas. You’re going to assume he means a specific set of physical attributes and behaviors that are taught to us from the very earliest of ages.

In these realizations, I began to see how my own sexual behaviors and practices fit in with my use of the application. New phrases like “power bottom” emerged, which is defined most commonly as the aggressive receptive partner during anal sex. But terms like power bottom, I realized, did not disrupt gender roles. By qualifying the noun bottom with power as an adjective, it makes the term bottom, like it’s heterosexual analogy, mean passive and receptive to the desire of the top. It actively denies the bottom’s sexual agency.

But I also began to see how, in refashioning normative gender roles in sex, we not only neglect the beauty and joy that comes from the ability of these sexual relationships to offer new forms of expression, but we also help fuel a culture that prizes the traditional images of masculinity at the expense of anyone, including myself, who sits outside of these boundaries. This is because adopting an assumed masculinity allows for our broader culture to create spaces that make those who are less normative in gender expression feel insubordinate. It helps create phrases like “no fems,” which is another way of saying, on a much larger scale, it’s okay to discriminate against guys who are more effeminate.

But how can you possibly engage in more flexible, non-normative definitions when you’re only given a limited number of characters to write with? Grindr, like most social media technology, favors rapid responses at the expense of more intellectual discourse. But it’s not impossible to communicate wants, needs and preferences without resorting to these labels.

It all begins by making the personal commitment not to use them. Rather than saying, “I am straight-acting,” you can say, “I’m tall, I have a beard, I enjoy sports, hiking, the gym, etc.” If I can write about academic theory in 140 characters on Twitter, you can easily be descriptive about yourself and your sexual preferences. At the same time, it’s wrong to settle for something you are confined by, and taking the time to communicate your desires can make the difference between creating, and not creating, a space of sexual agency.

It’s not easy to dismantle traditional gender roles, and technologies like Grindr aren’t on our side at the moment, but I remain hopeful that through the discussions we try to create, things are not hopeless. We can be more open-minded, in the process valuing all different forms of sexual expression.

Kyle Bella currently resides in Philadelphia, PA, and will be graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Goddard College in April 2012. Follow him on Twitter @quixoticblazes.

The post Grindr, Gay Sex, and Gender As Usual appeared first on HyperVocal.

But once I found Wojnarowicz’s work, he haunted me. His death from AIDS forced me to confront my own scare engaging in sex without a condom, when I thought that I might have contracted HIV.

I found out I was negative, but I realized afterward my own lack of understanding with the history of HIV/AIDS. While I very clearly knew AIDS existed and always thought of it as being important to queer history, I was never intimately connected with it, I never felt its history, until I sat in the waiting room of the GMHC in NYC and wondered: How is my life going to change inexorably if I find out I am positive?

While I knew at the time I had a strong support network, the stigma and institutionalized discrimination toward people with HIV/AIDS has not vanished. ACT UP raised greater awareness of the virus, but we are not living in a world where it has been divorced from a history of violent oppression and misunderstanding.

We can never get rid of that history.

As I sat on that bench in March, reading Wojnarowicz’s The Waterfront Journals, the remnants of that history settled in my spine as story after story of violence seemed to pierce my skin. The thought of random prostitutes fucking along the West Side Highway seemed foreign to me and yet as I settled into another story, I realized maybe their experiences were not indistinct from mine. Maybe Wojnarowicz was more a part of me than I had ever known before. Maybe I needed to talk to him to understand where to go because I felt stagnant.

As I read: “I was draped over the planet…my head rested on North America and my legs rested on South America…my arms stretched for miles and miles over the oceans…and I could feel millions of fish just below the surface of the water…I could feel them nibbling on my arms…real gentle…,” it was as if I had been, like so many of the people he depicted, in search of an escape from the violent realities of the present.

So I turned myself back into history and imagined Wojnarowicz. I tried to imagine what he would say to me. Or how we could help me. Or if he could provide me any morsel of truth. After a movement of hesitation, I let myself slink into imagination, into what author Carole Maso calls “voluptuous darkness.” After this experience, I realized I can never escape walking with ghosts again.

I finally saw him in the field. He was like a character protected on a old reel of film, beautifully lit but flickering in and out, as if his form were distorted and forgotten by time. Despite his uneasy form, however, he addressed me, asking me to think about the image of the giant.

He said, “Think of this image…Think again of your body…once again I ask: Where are you?”

In this instance, I remember seeing rage flicker into his eyes. As I surveyed the scene, that feeling of rage registered in my own body as I quickly realized political policies were being enacted across the country that are anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-queer. But I grew more angry when I realized that those around me weren’t doing anything about it. In that moment, I couldn’t escape the following thought:

I don’t want to say there isn’t progress because there is. When it comes down to it, it’s not illegal if I have some guy’s legs in the air and I am fucking him hard, but it is still immoral.

In that moment, it became clear that I was connected to Wojnarowicz because, like his characters in Waterfront Journals, I was searching for fulfillment, for a home, for belonging outside of difference. In this realization, however, I reached another impasse. Would I choose to confront that search for fulfillment head-on or would I continue to drift around, directionless?

The answer arrived with considerable force: I will not take silence or erasure anymore…I will really be a giant…

After this moment, I imagined myself running. I imagined I could never stop running. That his fire had taken residence in my steps. I felt fearless. Just five days later, however, I was the victim of a violent assault that left me paralyzed, that left me to question what it meant to talk to queer ghosts and made me wish, more powerfully than ever, that I could just vanish.

But Wojnarowicz appeared once again, more urgent than ever. Run run run run run. The words echoed through my bedroom. Run run run run run.

I realized that Wojnarowicz hadn’t stopped running despite the difficult and violent realities of the present. In that moment, he forced me out of bed. And as I walked later that night along Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building gleaming, I knew that in telling my story fearlessly, there was a power to unlock great beauty. I had the power to realize, in the words of Marianne Williamson, that “our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

To walk with queer ghosts is then a way to be more open and honest. In the active linking of past to present, shame, violence and fear will be uncovered. Behaviors previously unquestioned may immediately become unclear and painful to grasp. For me, speaking to Wojnarowicz has made me question my sexual practices and motivations entirely. But in this process, he’s also helped unlock the power behind this questing.

As I speak with relentless honesty, as I search deeper and deeper each day into memories I don’t want to have, I get closer to understanding what I desire. In the power of that desire, I realize I have a vision of a future more open and democratic than our future now.

I now realize that talking to ghosts not only isn’t odd, but it is also necessary for the type of united movement against hatred and violence that we so desperately need.

Activist, writer, social media addict, and arts-enthusiast, Kyle Bella is proud to be outspoken on all things queer, sharing experiences that represent the full-spectrum of the LGBTQ community.

Follow Kyle on Twitter at @quixoticblazes and read his full HV archive right here.

The post I Can’t Escape Walking With Ghosts appeared first on HyperVocal.

Before answering this question, it’s important to define what I mean by growth. In the most basic sense, I mean: How can we continue to build and foster relationships with youth to join the LGBTQ community as voices of change? But I also mean growth in a different sense. I also ask myself: How can we overcome ideological divisions that have led to in-fighting in the LGBTQ community and created a politically stagnant movement?

In the wake of Pride, I’m unhappy to say that doesn’t seem possible. Just this past week the Washington Blade reported that a queer group had vandalized the HRC Store in DC by splattering pink paint on the window and writing Stonewall in pain on the sidewalk. In conversations that I’ve had with fellow queer-identified activists, some have acknowledged the historic nature of the NY marriage vote but have largely rejected its aims. Others have vehemently spoken out against the most vocal individuals in the movement, including Dan Savage, who served as the official grand marshal in the NYC Pride March.

Everywhere that I look, this tension over the direction of growing the LGBTQ movement is pronounced. I do, however, still cling to the belief unity is possible in part because I’ve straddled identities and changed my position in the LGBTQ community. Throughout this process, I’ve grown increasingly vocal and intimate about my experiences, forming political alliances and building community with individuals who identified differently than I identified. My own experiences illuminate this most clearly.

When I first came out in 2005, I described myself as gay and began, with expected enthusiasm, to blindly support organizations like HRC. Unquestioningly, I plastered binders with their logo. I worked for the Fair Wisconsin campaign in an agonizing defeat against marriage equality in 2006.

When I came to Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Fall 2006, much of what I previously believed had dissolved. Works by authors and feminist academics, including Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldua, forced me to examine the ways in which I was privileged to speak as a white male. This examination of my own identity caused me to question my involvement in the mainstream LGBT movement.

I began to notice how many portrayals of individuals neglected racial diversity. I saw how so much money was being poured into marriage equality campaigns, while a variety of other issues, including employment non-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, continuously failed to be made into law. As I read gender theories, I also began to see the ways in which trans voices were met with antagonism, particularly among the group of gay white men I identified with.

From this, as I expressed in an earlier piece, I began to see political inequities in a more interconnected light, which forced me to change my identification from gay to queer. At the same time, I also became more interested in the power of storytelling to move beyond divisions to find ways that LGBTQ community members are connected. This new focus on narrative developed from finding so much resonance in stories of voices like Lorde and Anzaldua.

The first step that I took on campus was to organize a “Coming Out” storytelling event, where all individuals on campus were given the opportunity to tell their coming out stories. I’ll never forget after the event when someone came up to me and said they weren’t LGBT but now wanted to get involved with the movement as an ally because they felt powerfully connected to these stories.

From this moment on, I believed that storytelling has the power to connect and help grow the LGBTQ community.

It also inspired me to reach out as an ally. At Simon’s Rock, I joined the Owl’s Nest Coalition, which brought together different minority groups to help support and empower each other. As I sat in the upstairs room of the cottage where the meetings were held, I remembers the moments where we disagreed on how to help support each other. As I moved to Tulane University, I became the only male-identified individual to be part of a feminist organization, but my work and experiences helped increase the breadth of activities we’ve engaged in, allowing us to bring in new allies.

I’ve learned from these experiences that I’m not expecting, nor do I want, a totalizing or absolute unity.

But I do want unity insofar as LGBTQ individuals are willing to recognize shared goals and values despite different approaches. This itself a new model of community that relies less on totalizing ideology than it does on a fluid network of groups with overlapping interests. The difficulty here is in ensuring that there are efforts by all groups to engage this type of system.

If we can begin a process of mutual affirmation and support, however tenuous it may be in its initial articulation, I am confident that this community can grow. It takes taking a time to be quiet and listening. It takes understanding and admitting to mistakes. It takes effort to admit ways in which we are privileged by economics, race or gender.

This is already beginning to happen as we are approaching the intersections of immigration rights, bi-national couples, and the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. Through the work of young activists, we’re developing state and national legislation that protects all students from harassment and discrimination. Generational gaps are starting to be bridged through inventive new programs in cities across the country.

There is some suggestion that divisions are being broken down. But singing the post-Pride blues, I feel we’re more divided than we are connected. The consequences can be grave for growing a stronger movement because of this division.

I don’t expect immediate change but I will affirm my promise to maintain an open dialogue through my own experiences. I will affirm my efforts to always question and explore the ways in which I am privileged as a white male. I will never stop interrogating moments where I find myself guilty of the very things I fight against.

From this, I extend the questions I’ve been asking myself to you. How can we overcome divisions in the LGBTQ community? What does this mean for the movement’s growth? How can we be more honest to ourselves and each other in the future?

Activist, writer, social media addict, and arts-enthusiast, Kyle Bella is proud to be outspoken on all things queer, sharing experiences that represent the full-spectrum of the LGBTQ community.

Follow Kyle on Twitter at @quixoticblazes and read his full HV archive right here.

The post Singing the Post-Pride Blues appeared first on HyperVocal.

In the events that transpired since Friday evening, my approach to queer politics has been called into question. While I’ve made few major changes, the vote over marriage equality in New York demonstrated what I thought was previously impossible—the LGBTQ community showing unity—was, in fact, possible. A renewed sense of optimism has come from this feeling of possibility.

On Friday evening, I sat on a Greyhound bus to New York for a previously planned trip for Pride weekend. On what was a typical bus ride, however, it became clear a historic event was in the making. As I sat on my computer, catching spotty Wi-Fi access, my Twitter feed was exploding with news on the impending marriage equality vote in the New York Senate. Over and over, tweets were labeled with the hashtag #ny4m. But what became most apparent was a sense of unity in support of this vote.

My Twitter network is largely comprised of LGBTQ-identified individuals, many of whom are either writers or activists. They come from all over the country (and world, even). They span many generations, come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and support many different political ideologies. But I knew they were moving beyond differences and coming together to a support a struggle for equal rights under the law. This sense of unity only intensified as the bus ride continued on.

Activists in New York began reporting that on the ground in New York City people had instinctively chosen to gather at The Stonewall Inn to view a live feed of the proceedings. Images soon flooded in of the streets around Stonewall, jam-packed with people. In Albany, where the proceedings were going on, many reported an unmistakable euphoria.

I arrived at Port Authority expecting to miss the actual vote on the subway. Thankfully I was at my friend’s apartment in Brooklyn just 10 minutes before the vote occurred.

What stands out most is the moment when Mark Grisanti, a Catholic Republican senator spoke out in favor of the bill, affirming the separation of church and state despite his own personal religious beliefs. When placed in contrast to a painful tirade by Ruben Diaz, the only Democrat to vote against the bill, it became so clear that the only arguments against marriage equality are moral arguments that seek, in the context of a larger political movement, to structure this country as a Christian theocracy.

While I had realized this before, Grisanti’s two-minute speech crystallized this realization and forced me to reflect on my own views regarding marriage equality. In the process I finally understood I had been unfairly characterizing the marriage equality movement.

I stand by my belief that the marriage equality movement receives far more funding and attention from national organizations than it ought to, but I now recognize the efforts and desires of couples who have been partnered for many years to be legally recognized as married under the law. I also realize that the hate speech of these anti-marriage equality organizations must not be tolerated, and that this speech is endemic of a larger pattern of violence against LGBTQ people that must be addressed.

Flash forward to Sunday, when New York held its annual Pride March.

I won the Bilerico Project and MasterCard-sponsored contest where they asked people to share what Pride meant to them. My prize was a chance to sit in the back of a Rolls-Royce convertible as an honorary grand marshal.

In an earlier piece I explained how I felt Pride celebrations were depoliticized and not representative of the LGBTQ community’s diversity. As I strolled down Fifth Avenue, passing by the Empire State Building and Flatiron Building, I realized that this too was an unfounded belief. Arriving at Stonewall Inn, where the car paused momentarily, the feeling of euphoria from such a diverse coalition of LGBTQ individuals struck me. The earlier belief of unity, as I followed on Twitter, became real.

As I remarked on Facebook immediately following the march, “What I saw today, having ridden in the parade, is the tremendous diversity of the LGBTQ community come together in a moment of pure euphoria. There is much work to be done but if we continue efforts to form compassionate and energetic alliances, we will accomplish so much.”

Later that evening, as I stood on Pier 54, overlooking the Hudson during sunset, the feeling of the day’s beauty intensified at the same time I first recognized my beliefs and values had changed dramatically and unexpectedly.

I admit being guilty of stereotyping people in the community who handle the marriage equality movement and recognize that I incorrectly characterized what Pride celebrations are. These beliefs were underlined by a sense of cynicism of where LGBTQ rights are headed. For the first time, however, I do believe that there is hope for a stronger and more powerful movement against those who make the experiences of LGBTQ people seem illegitimate.

The chance of reinvigorating the movement is not without struggle or disagreement. In the weeks and months that follow, while we can celebrate the success of marriage equality in New York, we must also ask questions including: “Why haven’t we gotten the Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed?” or “Why have we not been more forceful in our efforts to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act?” or “Why does do much money go to support marriage equality while so little goes to support homeless LGBTQ youth?”

These questions are not intended to be attacks. They are ways to engage a movement whose individual voices are more aligned than divided at a basic level. Part of what will make the movement successful is recognizing where we take questions like these as attacks and, consequently, unfairly characterize potential allies.

I do not know where things will be in a few months time, but after the historical events of the weekend, I know that euphoria, unity and affirmation are possible in a community I’ve belonged to and felt was bitterly divided. I’m proud to say that I support marriage equality for the first time, and I invite those I may have previously dismissed to engage in the questions that will propel the LGBTQ movement forward.

Activist, writer, social media addict, and arts-enthusiast, Kyle Bella is proud to be outspoken on all things queer, sharing experiences that represent the full-spectrum of the LGBTQ community.

Follow Kyle on Twitter at @quixoticblazes and read his full HV archive right here.

The post Why Supporting Marriage Equality Matters to LGBTQ Movement appeared first on HyperVocal.

I haven’t been back to New York since May, when I first moved from Fort Greene to West Philadelphia in large part because I had been the victim of an assault on March 11th in the West Village that left me needing reconstructive surgery. My emotions are mixed because of my contentious relationship with Pride celebrations. At the same time I feel marching in this year’s parade is somehow necessary, and the painful memories of this assault that will resurface on Sunday afternoon.

I believed for the longest time that I was invincible as a queer person in New York City. How could I not feel differently? It is a place steeped in such history of queer struggle that it seems almost impossible to imagine it, from an outsider’s perspective, as anything but a queer paradise. And while queer arts and culture thrive to an extent unimaginable in most cities, a pattern of anti-gay hate speech and assault has developed in neighborhoods previously considered the birthplace of queer liberation.

I had, of course, realized the history of anti-queer violence in the city. On March 6th, as I sat on a bench in Fort Greene Park, reading The Waterfront Journals by David Wojnarowicz (who gained notoriety after his video was removed from a National Portrait Gallery exhibit last fall), the story of a man beaten in Manhattan for confronting anti-gay slur stood out in my mind and inspired me to never stop speaking out against violence. That same evening, I’d pen an imagined conversation I had with Wojnarowicz.

Five days later, however, I would be faced with what I thought was impossible for me to experience. It was a Friday afternoon that I walked with a friend down 13th Street, intending to reach the High Line to enjoy one of the first real spring days. As we passed the LGBT Center, I was engaged with my friend in discussion on the Center recently banning a pro-Palestinian queer organization from meeting.

I remember walking with a relaxed gait, as a pair of tight jeans clung to my hips and a purple tote bag, emblazoned with “Defend New Orleans,” swung on my right side. Within seconds, however, the relaxed scene shifted as a young man came up to me. I don’t remember all of the details that followed, except for the fact that within seconds he hit me squarely in the face three times with considerable force.

I remember falling to the ground, ripping a hole in my jeans, my knee bleeding. I remember staring up sideways, one side of my vision noticing a black wrought iron fence and on the other seeing a flash of a yellow cab zip by. As I screamed for help, not a single bystander rushed forward as the assailant darted south into the confusing maze of West Village streets.

In my shock and lack of significant pain, I neglected to call the police. They would, as I fearfully stepped into the office six days later, accuse me of fabricating the story. But how could I have known that my face had swollen so considerably that simply feeling it was unable to show fractures to three separate bones?

While my appearance has been restored thanks to the work of talented surgeons, psychological scars have persisted. Even as I write this, the sheer emotional weight of such a traumatic event leaves me pausing to wipe away tears. But I have continued forward in large part from the reality that Wojnarowicz’s persistence to speak, despite being so victimized and facing death from AIDS, reveals one of the most important aims of violence: to use fear to silence voices on the margins.

This realization is what willed me, even as my face was swollen and had turned several unnatural shades of black and blue, to step outside to speak up, celebrating everything that is still beautiful in the city and in queer culture.

I’ve long been skeptical of 21st century Pride celebrations. When all I see are go-go dancers on vodka-sponsored floats and giant dance parties, I wonder where the revolutionary spirit that defined these initial marches is. When there is a lack of engagement in questioning the political structure of our society that oppresses queer people on so many fronts, Pride seems a undisciplined act of self-indulgence.

In the light of my assault, however, I realize organizations will march on Sunday that are different, and I recognize how I can be a part of making Pride about more than just partying.

When I march on Sunday with the Anti-Violence Project, a New-York based organization that helps support queer people who have been victims of a wide range of violence, I am uncertain exactly all of the emotions I will feel. I still am fearful of the difficult past I must confront. But in marching in the streets, I hope to show that queer people can move beyond fear. I hope to show that they can help to create a more accepting culture by reviving the old ACT UP adage that silence equals death.

What do you think? Your opinion is valuable and encouraged. Share it with Kyle and us below…

Activist, writer, social media addict, and arts-enthusiast, Kyle Bella is proud to be outspoken on all things queer, sharing experiences that represent the full-spectrum of the LGBTQ community.

Follow Kyle on Twitter at @quixoticblazes and read his full HV archive right here.

The post Pride March More Than Just Go-Go Boys and Dance Parties appeared first on HyperVocal.

All of this, if it’s even possible to locate a moment, started when I took my first class on feminism in fall 2006. I’ll avoid the postmodern genderqueer theory here, but needless to say feminist academics made me question characteristics about myself that made me feel insecure. I had been taunted before, called faggot, and looked at different in my hometown of Kenosha, WI. I had always thought, before that moment, it was because I was gay. But these voices made me realize that the way that others perceived my dress and mannerisms as feminine–my gender presentation–was what really contributed to the slurs against me.

I didn’t immediately label myself queer because I didn’t, for the longest time, have any clear sense of what it meant. I read more theorists from across the world and a variety of disciplines, but the complete sense of what was queer about me remained just out of my grasp.

Back in 2009, when I spoke to Chris Bartlett, Executive Director of the William Way Center in Philadelphia, he directed me to a link at the Queer Resource Directory featuring a leaflet distributed anonymously at the June 1990 New York Pride celebration. Reading it, I felt, for the first time, a crystallized sense of identity. Two years later, part of this leaflet’s definition of queerness has not left me.

It states that to be queer is, “the freedom to be public, to just be who we are…everyday fighting oppression, homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred… leading a different sort of life that is on the margins; defining ourselves.”

On so many levels, this definition affirmed the intellectual and political struggles I had been engaged with for the past few years. To be queer is, then, not just about looking at issues of sexuality or gender. It is about exploring the ways in which various marginalized groups interact with each other and contribute to larger discussions on institutionalized power.

But it is also about confronting my own relationship to shame and the difficulties of moving beyond a culture that tells me on a daily basis that my voice is illegitimate.

In the past two years, one of the most important ways to confront the difficulties of living queerly has been through the relentless act of telling stories. On Twitter, Facebook, my own personal blog and other websites, I’ve given a voice to my own and others’ experiences, speaking from anything from my recent entrance into a HIV vaccine trial to the work of the Family Acceptance Project in California to confront depression and suicide risks in LGBTQ teens of color. Others’ stories have moved me to do more research and become an advocate on issues that never appeared important for me before.

From this, it is clear that being loud and queer means always being open to telling new stories and trying to tackle the difficult problems that I and other queer identified individuals face on a daily basis. What will come out of this blog may be difficult for some to read. There will probably be things you disagree with. With contentious issues, that is to be expected. But I am trying to maintain, as much as this is possible, a space for dialogue through storytelling. By avoiding moralizing behavior or leveling accusations against others, I hope that we can work together to build a stronger, more powerful community of change makers.

What do you think? Your opinion is valuable and encouraged. Share it with Kyle and us below…

Activist, writer, social media addict, and arts-enthusiast, Kyle Bella is proud to be outspoken on all things queer, sharing experiences that represent the full-spectrum of the LGBTQ community.

Follow Kyle on Twitter at @quixoticblazes and read his full HV archive right here.

The post What Does It Mean to Be “Loud and Queer?” appeared first on HyperVocal.