In other words, I would be giving in to a myth of sameness which I think can destroy us.

What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman's face?

One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.

stoicism and silence does not serve us nor our communities, only the forces of things as they are.

I can't really define it in sexual terms alone although our sexuality is so energizing why not enjoy it too?

For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

[Speaking] is never without fear; of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, and had maintained an oath of silence my whole life for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die.