00:00I just saw our hormones last week, so it's lit, and I'm just living in my truth.
00:05Hi, I'm Weezy. I am a queer, bisexual, ethical, non-monogamist, pansexual, polyamorous, ho, living in New York City.
00:15Hi, my name is Shanae. I'm a cisgender, black, lesbian, femme.
00:18Hi, y'all. My name is Malik, and I use they, them pronouns, and I'm bigender as .
00:23My name is Wellmas, and I identify as bisexual. For now.
00:28My name is Tori. I identify as a queer woman.
00:31I think society often misunderstands me because they think I'm confused, and it's definitely a projection.
00:37And so they're just like, oh, you don't get who you are. And I'm like, no, I'm cool, and I
00:41know exactly who I am.
00:43I am a multifaceted individual, and I scream it, like, from the rooftops.
00:47I will shake my ass, burn some sages, and kneel down and pray. Like, I can be everything at once.
00:54I posted a picture of my girlfriend and I recently on vacation in cute little bikinis, and we were kissing,
00:59and someone's like, that's the kiss when you're not that gay.
01:02They find that because I may dress a little girly, I'm not really down for my woman, and it's insulting.
01:09It's very dismissive.
01:11Being that I am homosexual, I am attracted to other women. Other women with, you know, breasts, vulva, vaginas. That's
01:17just what I'm sexually attracted to.
01:19Being attracted to one sex is not a dirty thing. It doesn't mean that you're closing off anybody else. It's
01:24just, you know who you are.
01:25I like the end.
01:26A lot of lesbians call bisexuals greedy. Being bisexual means not only constantly being invalidated by everybody on all fronts,
01:34but also constantly having to explain yourself.
01:36Sometimes it feels easier to just pick a box and say this is what I am, but I don't really
01:41want to define myself.
01:42With, like, bisexuality, there's this, like, well, pick a side because I'm on this side, and you saying that you
01:49like both might invalidate me.
01:50Like, we're not in competition. We can both exist together.
01:54The hardest thing I ever did was come out as bisexual to my lesbian partner of five years because she
02:02felt like she still calls me straight or whatever.
02:04And I've had people come up to me and be like, oh, I just know you're this type of, like,
02:09queer.
02:10Oh, so are you a date woman? We know you a date woman. It's like, you know, I never said
02:13that to you.
02:14So, I don't know if there's a point in time where you, like, know how to identify because the older
02:18I got, more letters were added and I got more confused.
02:20I came out ten years ago. Back then, you were lesbian, you were gay, you were bisexual. If you were
02:26lesbian, you were femme, stem, butch, high femme.
02:29It was more about, like, the way you dress and stuff like that.
02:32But I will say, at least as early as five or six, I knew that I liked my best friend
02:38way too much.
02:38I feel like I'm still coming out to my family as bisexual all the time.
02:42The other day, I was talking to one of my aunts. I'm like, hey, so, um, I have, you know,
02:47there's this woman in my life that I'd like you to meet.
02:49And she goes, oh, I didn't know you were still doing those things. And I'm like, what?
02:55Like, my transition looked like first me identifying as a bisexual cisgender woman.
03:00I didn't even know what cisgender meant back then.
03:03Then queer, and then non-binary, and then trans and bi-gender.
03:07So I have a lot of patience with my family, and I am very, very blessed that my family accepts
03:12me and my trans truth and my non-binary truth.
03:15Family, friends, people are going to have their opinions, and they're going to misunderstand you.
03:20And that can be stressful, that can be painful, because as human beings, we just want to be seen, heard,
03:25understood, loved.
03:26I was fortunate enough to have a mom who was understanding, but there were no, like, LGBTQ groups when I
03:32was in high school.
03:33There was nothing like that in my community. I grew up in Florida.
03:35You know, then you click online when you're late 20s, and you see people having their coming-out parties,
03:40and there's this bittersweet moment of where I'm like, damn, that's amazing, but I never had any like that.
03:45My friends were ready to kill themselves over being gay, let alone being black.
03:49For queer black folk out there who are in toxic, non-supportive, non-loving spaces,
03:55and trying to navigate that and keep yourself safe,
04:00I think that it's important to put yourself first when making tough decisions
04:05as to what you're going to tolerate and what you're going to keep around you.
04:09So if you need to keep it moving, you need to cut people off, whether it's family, whoever it is,
04:14you do that, because what lies on the other side is a free space to be who you are and
04:21to flourish.
04:21In the aspect of allyship, I think it's always great for cisgender people as allies to us.
04:27If you have a trans friend and you see them getting misgendered, you know, correct that for them,
04:32because oftentimes we don't have the capacities to always, you know, correct people for ourselves.
04:36Being a woman, being black, being queer, right?
04:39And knowing that being black is one thing, knowing that being queer is one thing,
04:43and knowing that being a woman is another thing, I just expect nothing from people.
04:48It's very hard to tune it out, right? I only expect shit from my people.
04:51We need to think about how we all see each other and ourselves, how we're building.
04:55Because if we're a strong front, who gives a flying what the hell they're doing and what they're saying about
05:00us?
