Safe Spaces
This one goes out to all the faggots, all the dykes, all the trannies, and to all the rest of us who just want to be ourselves in peace.
Safe spaces... People talk about them like they're going out of style, checking off the boxes next to catering options and seating arrangements. From small friendly gatherings to high-powered conferences, we talk, but we say nothing. We do not acknowledge the alternative spaces, the ones where fear courses through our veins like ice, the ones where our heartbeats seem to be the only friendly sound for miles.
We speak of peace without acknowledging disaster. And in those places where our fear lives, those trapped find no solace in our words. A few may see our light and find their way, but the majority cannot escape so easily, and our citadels of tolerance are as unbreachable as the rules they can never fully obey.
Safe spaces... We used to call them something else. As I recall, they were 'refuges'. Refuges for refugees. A home for those who dared go no where else. No one seems to remember that definition anymore. And maybe, we should start.
It's a wonderful and amazing thing, hosting an event where we can be ourselves. But it isn't really a refuge, often, barely a starting point. As we build these places, we would do well to remember that few people who truly need them can afford their entry price Fewer still know that they exist.
I do not say they are evil. I do not say they are vain. I only say they are insufficient to ward off all our pain.
Those who most desperately need us who need to hear our words will never in these places find them and so we must endure the darkness of the real, the pain that never ends, and in *those* places join them and there become their friends.
Together, we can build them, our spaces safe and sound, but we must all together else some be interred in ground.
So let us now be joyful, and let us build anew, but we must always 'member to build for all them too.