You can be “born this way,” or have a desire or attraction to the same gender or transgender and never act on it. Or, act on it and never identity as gay, as many of our Republican elected officials have demonstrated. See, lots of choices. And, I’m not knocking these choices, but do know that they are choices. Just as identifying, acting upon said feelings, aligning yourself with, openly loving “your people,” and cherishing queer community is. a. choice.

Better yet, it’s a decision.

And, I don’t care how out you are, as I’ve said before, I don’t know that coming out megaphone-style gets us any closer to ending the oppression of gay folks, which by the way, is hard as f*#@—especially when we internalize the shit. Don’t get me wrong, I live a pretty awesome life: I love my woman, work at a place where there are other (actually a majority) of queer folks, have a solid community of lesbians and gay men that I surround myself with, and get to write this blog and other pieces about my love for LGBTQ folks. It’s super! I never thought that my life would be this good, really. Growing up as a Black girl and seeing the things that I did, I really didn’t see myself living past or even making it to 30. For the first year after that, I didn’t know what to do with myself (that’s a whole other blogpost).