Wishing I Could Just Be "Love and Light"

Personal Reflections...

I’ve been feeling disconnected from this platform lately.

Most of my audience is white and middle-upper class, which is the primary demographic of the online gender critical / alternative media space.

Although all kinds of people are welcome to read my work, I wish I had more black WLW readers—especially since I focus so heavily on us in my work.

I tend to find like-minded black women in spaces that are devoted to Art and Wellness. So, I have wondered if my inability to be fluffy “love and light” all the time, pushes women in my community away.

Gender ideology is a hard topic. Sometimes, I wonder if I talk about it too much.

The irony is that I started educating myself about gender ideology because of how I was treated when I tried to host a Women’s Sensual Dance workshop in 2019. One of those workshops was also an affinity space for black women in Berlin.

The amount of language and inclusion policing I encountered for hosting a female-only space was totally unprecedented.

(I was also policed for being fatphobic because I included a beautiful photo of me as the flyer image—but that is another story lol)

I managed to host the workshop successfully, but not without a great deal of nervousness around this matter. Suddenly, I felt the need to address and clarify things that should have been obvious.

Then, I noticed other strange dynamics when going out to local events, just trying to have a nice time and make friends.

Feeling marginalized in female-run ‘BIPOC’ and LGB spaces because I didn’t identify as Queer, Trans, or Nonbinary was weird.

Even within spaces that clearly invited me, there were plenty of social hoops to jump.

Apparently, just existing as I am sets off alarm bells.

And eventually, I realized that doing my most authentic creative work requires me to push back against gender madness.

So, I’d rather make myself loud and clear.

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To be honest, I have always had it in me to create controversial artwork.

I am an old school Youtuber. In 2008 I started creating videos that pushed a lot of buttons, while still offering food for thought.

My first time speaking up about gender ideology was in 2013, and I’d like to write an essay in response to that video soon.

As far as the research-driven essays on black female historical figures—this is also aligned with the documentary film I published in 2013, Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights.

So, what I create here is in my wheelhouse, and it is part of who I am as an Artist.

I think what I am feeling is just a sense of isolation. Particularly—feeling very much alone in being one of the few of my kind who really puts herself “out there”.

While I have some wonderful support for my creative work, I am lacking a sustained personal community of women who can deeply relate to me and support me through my unique challenges in doing this work.

That was part of the deeper emotion that drove my last article. I could feel the hurt and frustration behind my words; a release of all the times I was politely asked to blow off my feelings.

The pressure to endlessly coddle every woman’s right to remain silent, when that is not necessarily what I value, or what it took for me to get here.

sigh

I guess there are no easy answers here, and it will take time to figure everything out.

Writing this piece has helped me feel a bit lighter…I just hope I don’t get a vulnerability hangover after publishing it.

I do plan to reignite my Sensual Dance and Women’s Wellness platform in the future. I hope that having an outlet for a different form of self-expression will offer a greater sense of balance.

No matter what I do, I always strive for authenticity and transparency.

The work I have done here is going to follow me forever. So, people can always mark me as a “TERF” if they want.

The mob can still come knocking any time, even if I talk about rainbows and gum drops for the rest of my life.

So this is not goodbye, or anything…I have too many articles in the pipeline.

It’s funny because after I “came out” as gender-critical on Instagram in 2022, I made a statement saying that I would stop talking about this issue.

“I’m putting this issue on simmer”

It’s too grating, and I just want to live the soft life!

I just want to dance, and be free, and snuggle with kitties.

And I do all those things too…

But for some reason, I haven’t been able to keep my mouth shut.

Maybe it’s just my karma.