QTBIPOC

"Those of us that identify within the QTBIPOC community cannot take off our skin the same way we cannot remove our gender and/or our sexuality. We have to continue to have conversations about all of the disparities that are going on. There is not just one way we are affected."

Today we take a look at Forward Together, an amazing comprehensive activist resource that fights for the rights, recognition, and resources for families everywhere (including non-nuclear families, weird families, anti-families, mamas, trans and gender nonconforming folks, and also mermaids).

Being queer and South Asian isn't easy; being queer and mixed is harder, because any community can put it down to the OTHER identity group. That said, my Indian grandmother has been incredibly supportive, and no one has written me hate mail or disowned me. I'm very grateful for the internet, and for the time I've spent in larger cities. Both give me a sense that there's someplace I might sort of fit in.

I've known that I am attracted to men for as long as I can remember. I identify as a MSM or as "downe" rather than as bisexual. Being attracted to men didn't bother me as much as how that attraction would play out. There aren't many black MSMs in the media so it was hard for me to reconcile my race and my masculinity with my attraction to men. I felt as though I would be seen as weak or effeminate by others.

At age 17 during my senior year of highschool, I was at a crossroads. "Should I turn against my religious beliefs and how I was raised or should I listen to my heart and live the life that I want?" I chose to be a righteous Christian and a good daughter. Yet, I felt more disconnected with my Faith each time I prayed about my "ungodly" feelings.