As I sat in the corner of my bed, with pockets of tears rising in my eyes, I was not sure who I had hurt more.

Was it them?

Was it me?

Or was it not hurt that I felt, but the start of autonomy?

In the first moment where you find yourself feeling or thinking differently than others about your sexuality, you analyze it. No matter how small or large of an experience it may have been, you break down every part of it. You question it. You wonder “why can I not let go of this moment? I know that something was different about this, but why? What is this telling me about myself?”

For me, I locked those #ClosetMoments into the back of my mind so that I didn’t have to think about what they meant. I felt the importance of them to me but was unsure of how those moments would become a part of who I was.

That was until I met someone who was just like me. Someone who shared similar secrets that they kept to themselves. Someone that maybe didn’t feel exactly how I felt, but we shared that same sense of discomfort and confusion for those secrets.

Then I met another one of us. And another. And eventually, my world began to look exactly how I dreamed it to be. To look like me. However, those familiar faces didn’t come until further along in life. It wasn’t until I was able to name my truth for what it was and could surround myself around people that supported it.

Although I am grateful for what my journey has taught me, I wish that I had more guidance. More direction on how to make the process more comfortable. To have more folks like the ones in the TV show Love, Victor, that would have told me that “all you can do is be honest with the people that you love. The rest is up to them”.

That’s what queer people need to hear.

From each other.

From loved ones.

From the world.

Instead, at that moment of hurt, I was not being honest. Not with my people; and not with myself. I was living through a moment where I felt that by naming my truth, that I was “outing” myself to the world. For the LGBTQ+ community, this is something that could be very dangerous for some, especially if done by someone else. It not only comes with vulnerability and transparency, but it also includes potential risk(s). When a queer individual is outed, by entering certain spaces, they become more endangered.

I wish that we lived in a world where things like this did not happen, but unfortunately, this is one of those truths that I not only have to name but that we all have to live with. For some — especially Black trans women — these experiences are compiled with heightened levels of discrimination and violence upon discovery. We see this in more recent events where two Black trans women, Riah Milton in Ohio and Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells in Pennsylvania, were murdered for simply living in their truth.

I’m hurt.

I’m hurt, yet this is the truth that some queer folks have to live with.

We live it.

We live with it.

We live through it.

Yet, we still find ways to overcome the hurt. We become stronger in our minds, in our bodies, and in our souls. We learn not only how to live, but how to survive in our truths.

I’m thankful for the Black, Queer leaders that took the risk for our future by surviving in their truths publicly. They showed those of us who had not seen that representation before, to feel more comfortable in who we were. Seeing Black people on the streets, in magazines/books, or on the TV just being gay, intimate, and finding happiness is what helped me. I began to hear more stories about people just like me that helped me understand that there was nothing wrong with me.

Author E. Lynn Harris, who was a Black, Queer man, wrote in one of his books Just as I Am, that:

“All I can say is my sexuality is something that I didn’t choose. I don’t control the signals it sends me.”

It took me years to be comfortable with that. Through all of my experiences, I have learned to love the sexuality that I was blessed with. It’s not something that I could control, and I don’t need to. Because forcing myself to be someone who I wasn’t was what hurt the most.

Today, I’m here to say to find comfort in the signals that life sends you. Go with how you feel in your heart and fall in love with the outcome. Find someone that you can trust who supports you. And share your story in spaces that appreciate you.

In a recent interview by Rashad Young, Darius Caffey is able to do just that. He shares his experiences as a gay man within the Black community and also insightful tips on how Black, heterosexual men can strengthen their allyship. It should go without being said that this is just a small bit of the societal and cultural reform that needs to happen.

We need to keep having these conversations with each other.

We need to keep finding ways to support one another.

And we need to keep bringing more meaning to the experiences of Black, Queer folk so that they, too, can feel their autonomy.

Those are the stories that matter.

#YourStoryMatters