he reason I call myself a faggot, and why I have given that title to this site, is not to offend any members of any generation of my community, nor is it to shock individuals of any gender or sexual identity.

Rather, in an era of extreme state violence and austerity, it is to remind myself and others who stand by me that as queer, trans, Black, Brown, disabled, femme, Muslim, poor, working, immigrant people, we are outsiders. We are abject, and exist in inherent opposition to current social, political and economic orders.

Only when we remember this opposition, invest in our outsiderness, can we commit to working together to topple down power, rather than finding spaces for our individual benefit inside its oppressive machinery.

See more of my current work at BenjiHart.com

Logo by Leila Abdelrazaq