No one tells you how lonely it can feel to exist in a body that the world wasn’t built to hold.
To be queer.
To be Black.
To be both:in a place that often wants you invisible.

I didn’t always have the words. Just feelings. A tightening in my chest when I heard slurs slip like jokes across dinner tables. A silence that felt heavier than hate. The coded glances. The “just don’t talk about it here” warnings. The erasure that paraded as tradition.

But this is not just a story of pain. This is a story of finding a voice. Of choosing to live out loud in a world that begged me to shrink.

I Grew Up Learning to Tuck My Truth Away

In the Global South, identity is often communal, inherited, scripted. There’s a path you’re expected to follow:quiet obedience, respect for elders, a life that doesn’t rock the boat.
And I tried. I tried so hard to be what they needed me to be.

I wore the clothes. Said the prayers. Smiled through sermons that condemned people like me. I split myself in half:Black but not that kind of Black. Queer but never too queer. I feared that being all of me would mean being left with nothing.

But the cost of hiding was steep. I lost my language. I lost joy. I lost myself.

The Turning Point: I Got Tired of Whispering

It wasn’t one big moment that changed everything. It was a thousand small ones.

The night I cried quietly in a bathroom after being outed without consent.
The day a friend said, “You’re brave,” and I didn’t believe them.
The time I watched a queer film and saw myself:really saw myself:for the first time.

And then the question came:
What if I stopped apologizing for existing?

I started writing. Speaking. Refusing to fold. I joined queer community groups, shared poems that once lived in secret journals, held hands in public even when it made others flinch.

And slowly, something radical happened: I began to feel free.

Being Bold Isn’t About Being Loud:It’s About Being Whole

People think boldness is about volume. But for me, boldness was the moment I stopped editing myself to make others comfortable.
It was walking into a room with my head held high, even if my hands were still trembling.
It was learning my history:the queer Black artists, thinkers, and revolutionaries whose legacies were buried but never erased.
It was saying: I am here. Fully. Unapologetically.

Being queer and Black in the Global South isn’t easy. But it is powerful. It’s the act of claiming joy in places that tried to deny it. Of building families from friends. Of turning survival into celebration.

Redefining Home: I Belong to Myself First

I used to think “home” was something you had to be accepted into. A place that had to want you. But I’ve learned that sometimes, you have to build a home from scratch.
In your body.
In your truth.
In the people who see you fully and love you anyway.

I don’t have all the answers. But I have my voice. I have my story. And I’m not hiding anymore.

Final Thought: You Are Not Alone in Your Becoming

If you are reading this from a small town, or a silent household, or a place that still punishes difference:please know this:
You are not wrong for being who you are.
You are not too much.
You are not alone.

Your voice matters. Even if it shakes. Even if no one else understands it yet.
Keep speaking. Keep becoming. Keep being bold.

Because there is beauty in your Blackness.
There is power in your queerness.
And there is magic in your survival.