Queer Joy

Written by CJ Everhart, LMHC

While it happens to be LGBTQIA history month, I think it’s always a good day to celebrate our collective Queer history.  There is so much to celebrate and yet, we are currently living in times that are deeply unsettling as queer people. It is this struggle that has manifested our greatest gift and form of resistance: queer joy.

This is not an easily won experience and our queer elders have the bruises and trauma to prove it. In some places and in some families - being queer is still as much of a struggle as it has been in the past. Yet, we have always existed whether we were seen or not, wanted or not, embraced or not. Our courageous queer ancestors stood up in ways both visible and unfathomable to create space for those who followed, for me and for all of us.

While there was and still is struggle, there was and still is a deep well of a unique and profound type of joy commonly referred to in the community as queer joy.

Queer joy is the feeling of liberation that results from having to define yourself outside of the restrictive normative standards for what it means to be a cisgender, straight person in this world. By not being invited to that party, we’ve had to make our own way and the path is free from the weight of expectation and confinement felt by so many people outside of the queer community. We’ve had to create our own paths, forge our own identities, and live our own truths.

Queer people have often had to manifest and build our own families and in doing so, we’ve been able to redefine roles, creating deep and effervescent connections. Queer people know that there is no such thing as humanity for some, and this expansion is radical and healing, not only within the queer community, but for those outside of it as well.

It’s easy to focus on the suffering of any marginalized group, queer people included, but in solely focusing on this, we lose sight of the incredible strength and magical tenderness that lives within not just surviving but thriving in a world that doesn’t want you. Today and all days, let’s celebrate being exactly who we are and the abundant gift we give to the world and ourselves when we do just that.