So Queerly Free

Are you down to support trans and queer youth shaping a world, so queerly free?

My name is J. Gia Loving and I'm Deputy Director at GSA Network. Since I first started a GSA Club at Azusa High School in 2012, I've learned how much potential TQ youth leaders have to create change. Even when I experienced pushback from school staff, local community, and my peers-- GSA Network taught me to continue on. 

For trans and queer youth, the message from society has been clear: we don't belong. From the anti-trans and anti-queer legislation being passed around the nation to the continued physical violence TQ youth face every day, how could anyone grow up thinking they have the right to live authentically?

And yet (!!)... in the words of Miss Major, we're "still fking here."

At GSA Network, we are shaping a world where all young people are cared for and loved. We're building a world where all the older queers can truthfully say, "I'm glad school feels safe for the kids nowadays." Imagine that! A future where we are so queerly free. I can. Will you?

Please join me in supporting the work of TQ youth leaders toward liberation and freedom. You can check out more of our youth organizing work at gsanetwork.org and ourtranstruth.org.

Below is the poem "So Queerly Free" that I wrote in spirit of our work and vision as TQ youth organizers. Throughout June, I will be added the extended verses of my original poem.

[Poem text]

So Queerly Free (Version A) Text

So queerly free

The children are

Like nature

-

So clearly queer

Why are you?

Actually, I’d prefer not

-

Will you let me be

So freely queer

Finally, me

So Queerly Free (Version B, Parts 2-5) Text

(1) So queerly free

    More than autosuggestion

    A prayer, a practice

    I guess they were right

A lifestyle, one we can choose

    Choosing life is the lifestyle I choose

(2) The children are

    Calling us, are you listening

    Forgive them, let them out of timeout

    Honor the people

who will, one day, care for you

in the ways you cared for them

You cared for them right?

You are caring for the children right?

Who is caring for the children? The Right? Ha!

(3) Like nature

Queers seem to find their way    

        seem to shine from across the sky

        seem to hold entire oceans 

        seem to dig their roots deeper everyday

    Like queers, nature seems to be the way

(4) So clearly queer

    “…and I’m not saying it in a bad way, you know”

    I swear I tried to be normal 

    But then normal tried to kill me

    So I did what I had to

(5) Why are you?

is a good question

from kids, who haven’t yet learned

how complicated society makes simple things— like

whether or not some other person is actually a person 

because,

of course,

some peoples’ personhood,

in America,

is up for question.

(6) Actually, I’d prefer not

    “Then why did you raise your hand?”

     Because I wanted to make sure you all heard me

        I REFUSE THE QUESTION

(7) Will you let me be

    is my question, and the wandering of most those before me

        the ones who continued to love you

        the ones who continued to see your humanity,

        even through spells the men keep you under

(8) So freely queer

    I’ve let my heart become

    Some days I remember how to fly and so I do

    When I forget who I am

    I remember my mother's directions:

        find your people and you find yourself

(9) Finally, me

    an idea almost too ironic to take seriously

    a fantasy I'm down to entertain

    or actually, more like

        a well-kept promise to a kid 

        who learned she had no right* to live

        and lived anyways

*under American man law