It isn't enough for us to be proud of who we are and from where we've come. At this point, it is expected of us considering how hard our ancestors fought for us to be able to live in acceptance of ourselves in all the glorious queerness we can muster.

I often think of James Baldwin and who he chose to be in the world of straight privileged folks —as a black gay man who had minimal advantage in some beliefs. If you asked James, he would say he hit the lottery. He walked with an air of importance. His opinion of himself as a queer person was louder than the spoken narrative of those like him. He embodied an audacity—a ballsy willingness to be all that his soul said he was despite any worldly evidence. One could argue, Baldwin thought he was better than his white heterosexual counterpart. In many ways, being gay was the fairy dust that made him remarkable, it was what qualified him as magical.