U People- life affirmation

So I’m writing this because I saw an awesome, and highly recommended documentary, last night- it’s called ‘U People,’ and the idea came about because hip-hop artist Hanifah Walidah and her partner Olive were filming a music video.
While shooting the video, Walidah took a moment and was struck by the way the women were interacting and talking behind the camera lenses, and she started filming their ‘behind-the-scenes’ interaction and conversation and it became a 1.5-hour long masterpiece. The film is incredible because it captures black women doing hair, having heated conversations, telling stories, crying… all the wonderful things that we women with our brown skin do so well. These women also all happened to be gay.
But plenty has been written about Walidah and her motivations for the film. You can check it out at http://www.logonline.com/. I wanted to write about this documentary because of the impact that I felt; Pittsburgh can be rough for a girl like me, you see. It’s a binary place- sort of like America at large. You know how it is, there’s black/white, gay/straight, good/evil, male/female, masculine/feminine, you’re either for us or against us, God/devil… i mean the list goes on, and it’s mad oppressive.
One would be foolish to think that those binaries don’t extend deep into the gay culture, and especially into a great deal Pittsburgh’s black female queer community. You’re either stud or femme, dom/AG or sumbmissive… I mean DAMN. I don’t really fall into these categories- I got a friend who says I’m ‘futch,’ which I DON’T claim… shit sounds like a dental disorder, but I like what it represents: ‘femme-butch. whatever. I’m a woman who exudes masculine energy. But I exude feminine energy. It’s like having yen and yang coexist in one person. I hated this about myself as a child, but as I embraced my sexulaity, I actually came to love this about myself. I love the short, natural ‘do and the square jawline and the lace AND the mind-blowing heels. I choose to call myself ‘plain-old-regular gay,’ and despite the labels I heard thrown around in the documentary, these ‘plain-old-regular gay’ women gave my life a new purpose. Pittsburgh’s queer scene will scare you- you’ll end up wondering if you’ll ever find what your heart is looking for, but these women sent me a message that I fit. That I belonged. Somewhere else.
I NEED to go to Brooklyn; I NEED to attend some of these mad brownstone parties; I NEED to go to NYU so that I can go to these parties so that I can make friends so that I can find my future life partner. Sounds nuts- it’s not. I’m a Capricorn. We live to plan-