I Received a Grant to Publish a Groundbreaking Book

My journey creating controversial work in a captured arts community

I’m very proud to share that I have recently been awarded an Artist grant to publish a groundbreaking book on an underrepresented topic in gender ideology.

I am deeply honored and grateful to receive this award, and I am excited to open up a new chapter of my work that I’ve been dreaming of for the past couple of years.

As my book involves community engagement, I will share more details about this project and open up for collaborations more publicly in the coming months.

For now, I’d like to pull back the veil on my personal experience receiving this grant and the complexities it has come with for me, as a gender-critical black woman.

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I received this grant from a major artist organization that is notably trans-affirming. Not only was I awarded this grant, but the organization has also hand-selected and paid me for special opportunities that most grantees are not receiving, such as having an intimate dinner with their wealthy patrons during their multi-million dollar fundraising campaign. I have been called upon to represent the fruit of this organization’s efforts, and I sort of feel like a darling.

Although I’ve been very clear and honest in my intention to push boundaries with my work, I also understand that I embody the holy grail of who and what liberal arts organizations dream of supporting:

Black, Female, LGB, Low-Income, Local, Talented, Bold, Heretical, Accomplished, and “Articulate”.

These qualities give me a special appeal within white liberal communities…within rules and limits.

I know that my positioning offers me a little more wiggle room to express myself in ways that would be more scruntinized if it were coming from someone who is not marginalized or minoritized in the way I am.

This is understandable. I am writing about my own community from a place of love. I do have an enriched perspective from the combination of my lived experience, the communities I’m part of, and the research I’ve done.

It’s also true that the most visible public figures who speak about gender ideology’s adverse impact on women and minorities are not actually one of us. At the very least, none of them have the “triple-threat” of oppression that black lesbians have. It’s easy for the ‘woke’ crowd to vilify and mistrust those people. My perspective is novel.

But I also think that my ability to fly under the radar and blend in as a member of the “oppressed” can cause even more misunderstanding and backlash once certain people witness the full scope of my work.

This risk is always in the back of my mind.

For me, it always boils down to this: When will the dam finally break? When will all hell break loose?

Here, I’ll be sharing my experience with this Artist grant thus far. I’ll share more details about my project, and how I tactfully presented my controversial work to this Arts organization with honesty and integrity.

I’ll talk about the special opportunity I received to be the poster child for this grant organization at a fundraiser, and an experience I had during that event which left me feeling deeply misunderstood and tokenized.

Finally, I will share why I choose to take full ownership of this opportunity despite my fears, and how my commitment to overcome self-doubt continues to open doors beyond my wildest imagination.