Joy Is the Point, Not the Footnote

So much of the writing about queer life is about pain — the discrimination, the legislation, the statistics that should keep anyone up at night. All of it is real and none of it should be minimized. But if the only story we tell is the suffering, we hand the people who want us gone a version of us that is nothing but a wound.

The truth is that being queer is also a profound source of joy. The dancing, the in-jokes, the freedom of finally living as yourself, the friend who gets it before you finish the sentence. We did not fight this hard for the right to merely survive. We fought for the right to be happy out loud.

I write about the hard parts because they need fixing. But joy is not the reward at the end of the struggle. Joy is the thing itself. It is the point.