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Unprotected: A Memoir

Book by Billy Porter · 7 quotes · Religion, Bible, Chosen Family

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Unprotected: A Memoir Quotes

“What is family? Most would say family means a group of people closely related by blood or marriage as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins. This is family of the biological kind. By the same token I’ve learned in my life experience that family can also be of the chosen kind. As queer people we very often find that our chosen families are the ones who love us unconditionally and pick up the slack in support of our personal truths and humanity when our biological family members don’t have the tools.”

“I actually enjoyed the unspoken exile. I count myself as one of the lucky ones, one of the ones who broke free from what very often can be a life’s worth of debilitating stagnation. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it happening to me - the Christian othering, the soul salvation bullies, the shame that keeps one bound up in a prison of their own mind for a lifetime. The hypocrisy of church folk was dangerous and deadly to me and I could see that fact plain as day. Mommy couldn’t. She was caught up in the spell. She had nothing else. It was all she’d ever known. ‘You gotta believe in something or you’ll fall for anything,’ she would say.”