Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of fully embracing one's identity as a means to combat oppression.
Jane Rule's quote suggests that openly acknowledging and expressing one's true self, especially in the context of marginalized identities, serves as a powerful political act against oppression. The act of coming out is not just a personal journey but a collective struggle, advocating for rights and recognition in a society that may seek to silence or oppress those who differ from the norm.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for LGBTQ+ rights.
It's not the length but the quality of life that matters to me. It has always been important to me to write one sentence at a time, to live every day as if it were my last and judge it in those terms, often badly, not because it lacked grand gesture or grand passion but because it failed in the daily virtues of self-discipline, kindness, and laughter. It is love, very ordinary, human love, and not fear, which is the good teacher and the wisest judge.
I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me.
I've never been resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't sew, I could think.
Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back.
Fear hems us in, stops us from thinking clearly, and prevents us from either challenging oppression or engaging calmly with the impersonal fates.
Look how fears have presented themselves, so have supports and encouragements; yea, when I have started, even as it were at nothing else but my shadow, yet God, as being very tender of me, hath suffered me to be molested, but would with one Scripture or another, strengthen me against all; insomuch that I have often said, Were it awful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comfort's sake.
Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.
Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.
Love bravely, live bravely, be courageous, there's really nothing to lose. There's no wrong you can't make right again, so be kinder to yourself, you know, have fun, take chances. There's no bounds.
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