Like a lot of people, I built a new relationship with my identity as a Black woman in 2020.

I’ve always been proud to be Black – but thanks to white supremacy, I never felt like I was “Black enough.”

Through media and subliminal messaging, white supremacy created a message + image of what being Black looked like – and it wasn’t me.

The “right” kind of Black person wasn’t someone who used “correct” English. 

(I put correct in quotes because African American Vernacular English is a valid & correct English dialect.)

The right kind of Black person wasn’t someone who was in Gifted & Talented classes.

She wasn’t someone who was shy, preferred reading in a corner to playing outside, and listened to rock & emo music.

Because of white supremacist messaging of what’s culturally “white” and what’s culturally “Black”, it wasn’t just white kids who called me an “oreo.”

Other Black kids who had internalized this messaging also bullied me relentlessly, telling me that I was “uppity” or that I thought I was better than them.

*sigh*

I could go deeper into how my separation from Black culture was intentionally cultivated by my parents, who as a result of white supremacy, thought that assimilating me to “white” culture would lead to better outcomes in my life.

That being said, this email is about sexuality – so let me keep moving towards the point.

I’ve always known I was bisexual.

Thanks to systems of oppression, however, I struggled to fully own it.

Compulsive Heterosexuality led me to never imagine myself in a long term relationship with a woman. Even though I had plenty of desperate, burning crushes, when I thought of my future, it was always with a man and biological children.

White Supremacy led to the only bisexual girls I knew growing up (who were white) to never see me as a serious prospect, because I didn’t fit into the white-washed model of beauty that they had been taught to value.

Biphobia led to me feeling like I couldn’t fully claim my bisexual identity because I had never had an emotional or physical relationship with a woman (due to above white supremacy).  

Biphobia also led to both me and my queer friends treating me like I was straight because I dated men.

As a result, I shut down my attraction to women to the point where I didn’t feel it 99.9% of the time….for 12 years.

It wasn’t until 2020 that this changed for me.

Here’s why:

As I started decolonizing my relationship to Blackness, I became so much more aware, not just of the existence of these systems of oppression, but how they impacted my ability to feel like I was “Black enough”. 

Realizing that being “Black enough” is a white supremacist construct made me and my nervous system feel safer not fitting the stereotypical picture of “Blackness,” because I realized it was a tactic to create in-fighting within Black folks so that we wouldn’t spend that energy resisting white folks.

This new safety made me realize that if I was Black enough, perhaps I could be queer enough too.

It helped me examine how perhaps my lived experiences as a queer person, just like my experiences as a Black person, were completely shaped by systems of oppression.

It helped me realize there’s no shame in owning my experience as a queer person, because anyone or anything that tells me my queer identity isn’t “enough” is just steeped in oppressive bullshit.

These days, not only do I own my queer identity proudly….but the more I do, my identity evolves.

I find men less attractive. (Probably for the best.)

I’m attracted to way more types of people than I ever thought possible.

I’ve realized that even when I wasn’t owning my identity, I was still integrated into the queer community, because literally every single one of my friends are queer.

I also realized that some of my formative experiences were very normal for closeted kids –  like how my dad “randomly” gave me the “it’s okay to be gay” talk when he gave me the sex talk. (LOL)

This work has been transformational for me, and it’s work that I’ve loved doing with hundreds of leaders of color like you, because it changes the way you feel about yourself & also impacts the way you show up as a leader.

You’re more confident, because once you’ve dived into your identities and how systems of oppression shaped them, you realize your feeling of not being enough isn’t real – it’s simply bullshit that a white supremacist/homophobic/patriarchal/ableist/fatphobic wants you to believe.

You’re able to speak up more boldly because you know that your thoughts, ideas, and perspectives are nothing to be ashamed of.  They’re 100% valid, and there’s someone out there who needs to hear what you have to say.

You experience more peace, because you’re no longer spending time, energy, and money trying to be something different or “better” than you are.

You’re a better leader, because you start showing up with the unique skills that your identities, community, and lived experiences have given you, instead of trying to copy oppressive, white supremacist bullshit that doesn’t actually work for you.

If you’re reading this and it sounds like the kind of work you’ve been craving to do so that you can be a better, more confident, and more peaceful leader, then you should schedule your free, 60 minute call so that we can uncover if coaching is the right thing for you.

If you’d like to go through the transformation that this deep work creates, it’d be my honor to walk beside you as you do so.

Coaching with me begins at 500 USD/mo.

I look forward to talking to you soon.

And of course, happy fucking pride, bbs!

xx,

Gieselle