Pride 2019: Hope in the Dark...

“Toronto is in the 'Dish with One Spoon Territory’. The Dish with One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and peoples, Europeans and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect. We all eat out of the Dish, all of us that share this territory, with only one spoon. That means we have to share the responsibility of ensuring the dish is never empty, which includes taking care of the land and the creatures we share it with. Importantly, there are no knives at the table, representing that we must keep the peace.”

- Aboriginal Education Council, Ryerson University

          Chynal Lindsay, Johana Medina, Muhlaysia Booker, Michelle Simone, Dana Martin, Claire Legato, Ashanti Carmon, Jazzaline Ware... Rest in Peace & Power my sisters. I am sorry, for the world did not understand your art, thus not appreciating and honouring your glory, your truth, your breath... So let us remember, that Pride is not a festival but a fight. I am a transgender woman of colour at 19 years old, praying to survive 2019... Yet while I am here with such a broken soul, I am still privileged enough to dream of healing, especially when my black trans sisters are dying... I aspire to embody love, but what a privilege to meet ignorance with patience and to meet violence with compassion. Such privileges can not be held nor learned when they're already dead.
          So then how do we wake up, with hope ?
          How do we thrive... when most are only surviving ?

"I feel therefore I can be free..." - Audre Lorde

I feel lost, tired, discouraged. I feel desperate. I feel, like a woman before my time.
I feel like a woman who have long died, I feel helpless, I feel... dark.
However, we deserve to feel light, and fight. We deserve, better.

          Perhaps what's more saddening than a burnout, is the lost of hope. Without hope, we are lost with directions, lost without motivation, lost... in the dark. I hear cis-women speak of how they feel as if we have gone back in time as the setbacks for reproductive rights in America continues. Yet we can not leave our trans and gender non-conforming friends and families behind. We must fight back as one and united, fighting for the liberation of all. Like our mothers Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera believed: Power to the People. Which people ? All people, but especially the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the folks on the street, the Black, Indigenous and folks of colour, the queer and trans folks, folks with disabilities...etc. We have to take care of each other, as community building/organizing is one of our only hopes left. Like Malcolm X said, "the future belongs to those who prepare for it", thus we must come together, to strategize and act.

"I don't think we will win, [but]

I do not believe hope should be a prerequisite for trying anyways."

- Alok Vaid-Menon

          I am a transgender woman of colour and I aspire to be ever-so softer against this cruel hard world... Thus join me, to both birth and search for the light. May we continue to learn and unlearn, working towards decolonization and true liberation for all. May we carry the spirit of the forces that came before us, may we stand on the shoulders of women/femmes that paved the way, may we heal... collectively and gloriously.