In Between the Folds of Pride Flags and Family Photos

A Photo Worth a Thousand Questions

There’s a photo on my dresser — my mother in a church hat, regal and composed, the kind of woman who ironed your school uniform and your future in the same breath. My brother grinning beside her, already trying on manhood. And me. Younger, softer, still learning how to hold all of myself in one body.

It was taken in Scarborough, but the spirit of the photo lives somewhere between Spanish Town and Eglinton East. Between the Sunday sermons and Saturday dancehall. Between patois prayers whispered over soup and the quiet, burning question of whether being different meant being distant from love.

In that photo, I see a family doing its best with the script it was given. And I see myself — the child slowly rewriting it.

Living in the In-Between

Being Black and queer in Canada — especially with Caribbean or Jamaican roots — sometimes feels like living in the in-between. In between acceptance and assumption. Between celebration and silence. Between the values you were raised with and the truths you came to claim. Between the family we’re born into and the ones we build when blood lets us down.

The Ache of Unspoken Things

There’s a kind of ache that lives in those spaces. An ache that sharpens during holidays. That tugs quietly during Pride. That lingers in the silence after a family gathering, when your queerness was either politely ignored or nervously joked about. It surfaces in moments where you wish someone had clapped louder when you came out — or held you tighter when you didn’t yet have the words.

Finding the Beauty in Between

But there’s also beauty in the in-between. It’s where we braid together new definitions of family. Where a chosen cousin sends you voice notes in patois reminding you that your queerness is sacred. Where a friend saves you a plate and your pronouns in the same breath. It’s where joy becomes a deliberate act, not a passive one — not despite your intersections, but because of them.

What Homegrown Joy Looks Like

At Black Queer Canada, we call that joy homegrown. It’s the kind you make yourself — from borrowed pronouns and hand-me-down hope. From late-night voice notes, Sunday soup deliveries, and chosen aunties who show up with coconut oil and affirmation. From drag shows, dance floors, carnival costumes, and quiet texts that say "I see you" when no one else does.

A Place to Land

This space isn’t just a network. It’s a lifeline. A soft place to land when the world feels jagged. A mirror that reflects you fully — not as fragments, but as whole.