I already feel like I’m hated for one of my identities. If you combine them all, then it feels like the amount of respect I get condenses even further.

Not only is there so much hate when I am acknowledged, but there are people who don’t acknowledge me whatsoever. I’m a black, non-binary, pansexual, and neurodivergent person. I sound like the blueprint for a chud’s joke about “wokism” and “political correctness”.

When people learn of who I am, they’re baffled that I, a black person could get into the supposed “woke white liberal gender shit”, as chuds tend to call it, because apparently EMPOC genderqueer people are non-existent or something. And yes, I have seen plenty of people call queer identity and egalitarian causes as a whole “white things.”

I have had people say they’re baffled that I’m black and vegan. People have told me that they’re baffled that I’m black and a feminist. People have told me that they’re baffled that I’m black and anti-capitalist even.

The notion that these things are at odds with my blackness is something I don’t feel uneducated enough to understand. Why would my being black make me shy away from these things? My being black, along with all of my intersections, makes the case for my alignment with these even stronger, yet I remain invisible.

The fact that I’m invisible while simultaneously despised is a crushing feeling that makes it hard to truly take pride in who I am, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but beyond Hexbear, I wouldn’t trust most people who identify with leftism. This is the only place where I feel like I can exist as whatever the fuck I am and have it not be taken as either a joke or just something to shove to the side. It’s a place where I don’t feel like I have to sense that I’m going to get targeted by hate speech simply for mentioning my gender identity, and as sad as it is to say, that is an incredibly rare find on the internet especially.

There is no true liberation desired by most self-identified “leftists” I’ve encountered, and the intersections I have seem to serve as a test that can prove how true that is every single fucking time. Misunderstanding is the primary ingredient for my depression and internalized oppression, and as long as that misunderstanding persists from people who only pretend to care, I will continue to feel like I’m some sort of “broken” in my existence, even though, if I just think logically instead of emotionally for a moment, I know that’s not true.

I’d love to see a world where we’re all liberated from the shackles of oppression, but for the time being, I just want the slightest relief from my “political” existence.