Isa - Jackson, MS
Q: What’s something you would tell a non-binary person in Jackson, MS?
Isa: The words of my grandmother, my father’s mother, she asked me a very challenging questioning. [laughs] at 16 that gave me an existential crisis I wasn’t ready for, however I am very very very grateful for it which was to ask me when I came out as “gay” [heavy quotes]. She looked me directly into the eyes, and she asked “are you sure or is that something someone else told YOU that you were. Like are you gay or is it that someone else or whatever the term is, told you ‘oh well based on these things, this is what you are.’ And in that moment, because even 10 years ago language was not where it is now, I was like, well shit, if I’m not gay and I’m not straight then…oh gosh, now I have an existential crisis, and now I don’t know what to do, now I’m breaking down. Reality? What? Existence?
Interviewer: What did you need to hear in that moment?
Isa: I needed to hear that question. I needed to hear that question because on some level, I knew things. However it was that like, breaking that open. Now granted her motives for asking that question, I can probably think of some things. I don’t know if she had that intention, however the question itself, the power of that question and that family for me, overall has been, ‘we love you and we want you to live your best life means like, okay, don’t claim things that aren’t yours.”
