December 11th
“Letter to a Sensitive Brown Queer”
John Paul Brammer
In this section, John Paul Brammer discusses an event from his childhood. His aunt takes his cousins,
sisters, and himself out to the fabric store to pick out fabrics for a craft that she had seen in a magazine. A
lamp. While picking out the fabrics he wanted to use, the lady working in the store pointed out that he was
challenging gender norms, asking “Isn’t this a girl thing?” This reminded him of all the times he felt like he
was not allowed to cry or feel pretty or act in a feminine way. He thought back to the times when people would
comment about the young girls in his family and wished that he could feel ‘fabulous’ as well. Brammer states
that he had always felt like any time he was on the verge of being himself, people would shut him down,
making him much more sensitive to criticism (both real and perceived), as well as lying to fit in with his peers
and the adult men in his family.
He then pulls back to the present, of him crying in the fabric store because he felt like the lady
working there was, in a way, denying him the right to be himself. His aunt approaches him and asks if he
would still like to make the lamp. Brammer states that this is where the road ‘forks’ and he can pick one of two
options. One is to continue sucking up your feelings and personality and pretend that it does not have any
effect on you. This he says will cause you to carry those feelings around inside of you for the rest of your life.
However, the second option is to be authentic and do what it is that you want to do, even if you are crying and
your eyes are puffy, and it makes you feel embarrassed.
Brammer states how important it is to pick the second option as much as you can in life, because at
least you will have something to show and the suffering that you have been through was not for nothing. He
says that eventually, after picking option two for long enough. You will feel yourself in the world that you
always imagined. One that allows you to be yourself, regardless of how different it is from ‘the social norm.’
I chose this story to focus on because I feel like it highlights the feeling of being alien that so many
queer people feel, and how it always feels like your soul is being restrained. How you must learn how to be
two people, yourself, and who society says you need to be to make others feel more comfortable. I believe that
by recognizing these feelings, we can start healing and progressing as a society to a world where people no
longer have to change everything about themselves to feel like they are not in some kind of danger. If we can
open people up to the fact that social norms are extremely harmful to people who exist outside of them. When
people speak up about what hurts, that is often the only way that anything can change.
“Letter to a Sensitive Brown Queer”
John Paul Brammer
In this section, John Paul Brammer discusses an event from his childhood. His aunt takes his cousins,
sisters, and himself out to the fabric store to pick out fabrics for a craft that she had seen in a magazine. A
lamp. While picking out the fabrics he wanted to use, the lady working in the store pointed out that he was
challenging gender norms, asking “Isn’t this a girl thing?” This reminded him of all the times he felt like he
was not allowed to cry or feel pretty or act in a feminine way. He thought back to the times when people would
comment about the young girls in his family and wished that he could feel ‘fabulous’ as well. Brammer states
that he had always felt like any time he was on the verge of being himself, people would shut him down,
making him much more sensitive to criticism (both real and perceived), as well as lying to fit in with his peers
and the adult men in his family.
He then pulls back to the present, of him crying in the fabric store because he felt like the lady
working there was, in a way, denying him the right to be himself. His aunt approaches him and asks if he
would still like to make the lamp. Brammer states that this is where the road ‘forks’ and he can pick one of two
options. One is to continue sucking up your feelings and personality and pretend that it does not have any
effect on you. This he says will cause you to carry those feelings around inside of you for the rest of your life.
However, the second option is to be authentic and do what it is that you want to do, even if you are crying and
your eyes are puffy, and it makes you feel embarrassed.
Brammer states how important it is to pick the second option as much as you can in life, because at
least you will have something to show and the suffering that you have been through was not for nothing. He
says that eventually, after picking option two for long enough. You will feel yourself in the world that you
always imagined. One that allows you to be yourself, regardless of how different it is from ‘the social norm.’
I chose this story to focus on because I feel like it highlights the feeling of being alien that so many
queer people feel, and how it always feels like your soul is being restrained. How you must learn how to be
two people, yourself, and who society says you need to be to make others feel more comfortable. I believe that
by recognizing these feelings, we can start healing and progressing as a society to a world where people no
longer have to change everything about themselves to feel like they are not in some kind of danger. If we can
open people up to the fact that social norms are extremely harmful to people who exist outside of them. When
people speak up about what hurts, that is often the only way that anything can change.
