“People like the ‘You can hide being Gay, but you can’t hide being Black’ because they think that homosexuality is performative. They think heterosexuality and masculinity are default and that homosexuality and femininity are deliberate deviation from those defaults. They think we choose to be Gay, and that we choose to behave the way we do in order to let you know that we’re Gay. They think we could just ‘man up’ if we wanted to and that nobody would know that we’re gay (then turn around and malign closeted gay men)… They believe that being Black is this burden that they were born into and have no power to conceal (and I’m guessing they would if they could). But with being gay, they believe that we both chose to be Gay AND actively choose to express homosexuality/gender-nonconformity. It makes it easy for them to dismiss the oppression that we face because they can justify it with, ‘Well, he could stop it if he wanted to.’ …People talk about ‘coming out’ and how drastically their lives changed after coming out, and listen: that is a privilege. I repeat, simply being able to come out is a privilege. I didn’t have to tell anyone I was Gay before I started experiencing brutal homophobia. I still don’t have to ‘come out’ to anyone before experiencing homophobia. You think n****s have us filling out questionnaires before they fuck with us? You think they survey us before subjecting us to homophobia? Just the other day, I was out running errands and this dude standing behind me in line called me a f****t. I didn’t tell him I was Gay. I am visibly Queer, just as I am visibly Black. My appearance. My mannerisms. My voice. EVERYTHING. So even if I dressed in ugly ass cargo shorts and sweatshirts like straight men do, I’d still be visibly Queer. That will not change.… And I find ALL OF THIS to be very interesting because Black people often accentuate and amplify our Blackness (as we should). So then why is it an issue for Gay people, even if it were true that we could hide if we wanted to?”