Naming Myself

Backstroke & Breakthroughs – Post #12

I’ve learned that sometimes, before the world names you—you have to name yourself.

I’m half African American and half Native American. I was raised in a Muslim household. I’m openly spiritual. I’m biracial. I’m bisexual. These aren’t separate labels to pick and choose from—they are my full self, woven together with every joy and contradiction that makes me human.

But growing up, that full self didn’t always have space to speak.

In school, I was too “different” to be just Black, too “Black” to be claimed by my Native peers, and too “straight-passing” to be embraced by LGBTQ+ folks—until I came out, and then suddenly I was “too much.” Even my own friends began to create double standards. I started calling it what it was: toxic queerness.

It’s when marginalized people replicate the same hierarchies and exclusions they claim to fight against—when queer community turns into competition, performance, or gatekeeping. I wasn’t allowed to be spiritual and queer. I wasn’t allowed to set boundaries and still be considered a “safe” friend. I had to shrink to be palatable, and I refused.

Because my range is not for you to define.
It’s for me to desire, discover, and declare.

That lesson followed me into adulthood. And now, into the workplace.

I was excited when my job introduced LGBTQ+ employee resource groups. But very quickly, I started feeling that same subtle silencing. My intersectional identity—Black, Native, queer, spiritual, raised Muslim—wasn’t something these spaces knew how to handle. The queerness they centered was white, able-bodied, cisgender, and corporate-friendly. Mine felt… inconvenient.

So again, I made space for myself.

This week’s takeaway:
Your truth doesn’t need approval. It needs air. It needs voice. It needs you.
And if no one in the room is ready to hold space for you, then you make your own room.

You are not too much. You are whole.
And being whole in this world is one of the bravest things you can be.

In truth,
– J.R.