It takes insight and intelligence to know our ‘self’. Not everyone dares to discover it and embrace their real whole self. Because it takes immense strength too.

 As a straight ally, I have tried to know the puzzle and pain one has to go through in the process of finding one’s ‘self’. It is quite a baffling state of existence where you don’t identify with the terms society has attributed to you. Because for the majority of the society, sexuality is something to be attributed to a person based on the biological or physical appearance they can interpret. For them, everything is either black or white, no greys in between.

Coming out for LGBTQ people would have been an easier process if their society would start to understand that sexuality never exists in binary. It’s a spectrum of different shades.

I have friends who ended up in forced marriages against their will and got...

One of the most beautiful things about the Pride and Joy Foundation is that it is “striving to build self-awareness within and safety for LGBTQ+ families and their allies.”  Let’s take a second to talk about how important allies are (hint: so freakin’ important!) to the LGBTQ+ community.  Let’s think about it this way - even if every member of a marginalized community banded together to fight for their cause, they would still be up against a majority, making change near impossible.  For any marginalized community, having strong ally support is integral in the fight for equality because allies allow for the community to show up in numbers and to prove that their cause isn’t only their own. 

But what does it mean to truly be an ally?  Queer sex educator and trauma specialist Jimanekia discussed in an Instagram video post her position on allies.  Though her post specifically references non-Black allyship within the Black...