home is where your chosen family is

xinan
frankfurt

I feel like I have always been in the search for a home. With­in me there was this yearn­ing for a place that I could be part of – this long­ing for belong­ing. Grow­ing up in Ger­many, as a queer non-bina­ry per­son of col­or, meant to be always dif­fer­ent, oth­ered, cat­e­go­rized, fetishized and exoticized.

The first time I walked into a BIPoC safer space felt like I could real­ly breathe deeply for the first time in my life. There was this huge bur­den that was lift­ed of con­stant­ly stay­ing alert, of not know­ing when to expect the next racist com­ment, of always keep­ing my guard up.

The first time I walked into a Queer BIPoC safer space I almost cried, because every­body was so beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful with their gen­der­fuck atti­tude. I was moved to see how peo­ple car­ried them­selves with pride and a sense of self, of know­ing that we are who we are and that we are not alone. That day end­ed with me being cud­dled up by peo­ple I had just got to know, but who already felt like fam­i­ly. This was a moment of rest, of let­ting go, of find­ing myself in others.

Com­mu­ni­ty is such a vague con­cept, and there are always prob­lems com­ing with defin­ing these terms. Ques­tions arise regard­ing who belongs to a com­mu­ni­ty and who is exclud­ed, how to han­dle con­flicts, dis­man­tle pow­er struc­tures, make spaces acces­si­ble and meet each other’s needs. Com­mu­ni­ty spaces are not per­fect and it takes a lot of work, ener­gy and trust to build a vision of how we want to live togeth­er. Yet, they also rep­re­sent the sphere where I came clos­est to the feel­ing of belong­ing to a place where I could  build something.

There is also always the issue of find­ing a phys­i­cal space where we can orga­nize and hold events, as access to such ressources are very lim­it­ed for peo­ple who belong to these com­mu­ni­ties and face mul­ti­ple inter­sec­tions of dis­crim­i­na­tion. We make due with what we can get and com­mu­ni­ty has become this itin­er­ant home as a place of togeth­er­ness, rather than a fixed, phys­i­cal shelter.

The pan­dem­ic has deep­ened the mar­gin­al­iza­tion of racial­ized peo­ple, espe­cial­ly when con­sid­er­ing the inter­sec­tions with gen­der, class and dis­abil­i­ty. Peo­ple who are most vul­ner­a­ble strug­gle even more to stay safe and meet their basic needs. These are times where hate crimes and domes­tic vio­lence have risen, many of us have lost their jobs and are with­out access to ade­quate men­tal health care. Cap­i­tal­ism has very open­ly shown its ugli­est sides. There was often this feel­ing of being for­got­ten and that our lives and well­be­ing are worth noth­ing. In instances where the gov­ern­ment should take respon­si­bil­i­ty and a sup­port­ive role, it became even clear­er than before, that most insti­tu­tions and struc­tures in Ger­many are very much racist, ableist and trans­pho­bic and do not intend to change. Although some could turn to their fam­i­lies for sup­port, many Queer BIPoC did not have this option, as their fam­i­ly of ori­gin is not safe to be around.

How­ev­er, this time of cri­sis has also moti­vat­ed  a great wave of sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in com­mu­ni­ties to keep each oth­er safe, find ways to sup­port one anoth­er in try­ing times, either emo­tion­al­ly, finan­cial­ly or just by offer­ing help to go gro­cery shop­ping for some­body else. It was a push­back against a mind­set of scarci­ty that we were taught since child­hood. With this res­i­den­cy I would like to pay homage to the bonds fos­tered with­in cho­sen fam­i­lies and a com­mu­ni­ty that stepped up in times of cri­sis and gives me hope, when hope feels like an impossibility.