38 Quotes by Vivek Shraya

How cruel it is to have endured two decades of being punished for being too girly only to be told that I am now not girly enough.

Why is my humanity only seen or cared about when I share the ways in which I have been victimized and violated?

I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the word girl by turning it into a weapon they used to hurt me. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to hate and eventually destroy my femininity. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the extraordinary parts of myself.

What would my body look and feel like if I didn’t have to mold it into both a shield and an ornament? How do I love a body that was never fully my own?

The history and current state of western masculinity is predicated on diminishing and desecrating the feminine, therefore, healthier masculinity must be one that honors and embraces femininity as many non-western cultures have long prescribed.

But your fear is not only hurting me, it’s hurting you, limiting you from being everything you could be. Consider how often you have dismissed your own appearance, behaviours, emotions, and aspirations for being too feminine or masculine. What might your life be if you didn’t impose these designations on yourself, let alone on me?

Why is being touch by strangers – strangers who refuse to identify themselves – a form of flattery?

As important as it is to make these incidents visible by reporting them, sensationalizing and digesting these stories is also a form of social control, a reminder that I need to be afraid and to try to be as invisible as possible.

What if you were to challenge yourself every time you feel afraid of me – and all of us who are pushing against gendered expectations and restrictions? What if you cherished us as archetypes of realized potential? What if you were to surrender to sublime possibility – yours and mine? Might you then free me at last of my fear, and of your own?