Recognizing that I was never going to fit comfortably into my American peers’ idea of masculine or my Indian family’s idea of feminine meant freedom to throw out both scripts and write a new one.

There is a longstanding history of diversity affirmation across African and Indian culture. While there has been an increase in whitewashing, colorism and antagonism on the basis of gender and sexuality, these biases did not exist in the same way we experience them today.

This is the legacy of colonization. It is the mass extinction of identities and languages that can no longer exist because someone else said they were bad.

I am ready to be fearless. To dream beyond Black womanhood and know that I — Black, queer, and not-quite-sure — am worthy, so worthy of all of the love, affirmation, and power the universe can muster.

I always wonder what words my ancestors had for someone like me. In embracing my genderfluid identity, I’ve found great comfort in the deep and wide of the Atlantic — the way the water connects me to kin, named or unknown.

We’re always coming out. As an: anime fanatic, manga-collecting Pokémon plushie hoarder; as a giddy, youthful ray of sunshine and not just the dense, American Dream-deprived immigrant, prompted over-thinker — I realize I am more than any of these individual rooms at all times.