Why The Angry Queer Writes...

Silence.  A word and an action I know all too well.

A girl born of deep southern roots with an acquired eccentric religious view knows her place.  Her place is to accept the truth quietly.  I was that bible-beating christian who knew nothing of grace.  I was supposed to become that submissive wife, who silently stood by her man.  I was to be all those things that denied my being and my voice.  I was to be silent. 

As a woman educated in the liberal arts, I fled from my childhood.  No longer content with southern oppression, I fled to the northeast.  No longer content with the bigotry of Christianity, I believe only in the universe.  No longer content with the truth, I hold fast to the truths postmodernism has set free.  No longer content with pious self-denial, I rejoice in my queerness.  No longer content with silence, I speak.

I speak because my voice is told that it has no validity, because of my gender and my sexuality.  I speak because I am an angry feminist queer.  I speak because I refuse to let the dominant discourse that threatens my life, and the life of those whose voices who are ignored, to kill us while we live.

In a recent class at an ivy league divinity school someone defended “power” as something that isn’t always negative.  They said that power is good.  He would.  The frustration of my oppression began to rise as this white, heterosexual, upper class male defended the goodness of power.  Power is only good when it serves the oppressed.  My response:  silence.  It was in that moment when I realized that I can no longer suppress my voice.

I write to find my voice in a world that says I don’t have one.

I write to challenge the discourse the world calls “truth.”

I write, not to simply rant, but to expose the things that oppress us.

I write so those deemed voiceless will find the courage to find their own.

I write so they may speak their silence.

I write because I believe that humanity can still surprise us in its capacity to love.

I write because it is the only way I know how to speak.