Is it brave to simply exist, with all the truth that is attached to your consciousness and experience of this world? Forgetting all external influences and aspects for a moment, any figurative dragons an individual has faced whilst living the life that they have mapped out for themselves, and whittling it down to a person with all their themness in body and mind and consider – is it brave to simply… be?
This is the conflict that permeates many people’s minds, because they are faced very often with the notion that they are brave for simply existing within their skin. A middle aged woman doesn’t colour her hair and allows her natural grey to appear and she is suddenly ‘brave’; the fat young man who lives down the road and feels neutral about his body whilst wearing anything he wants, including high cut shorts and crop tops, is labelled as ‘brave’; a young trans woman moves around the real and online worlds unapologetically, and is as candid as anyone on online spaces about her experiences, even when they do not include her trauma, but she is naturally ‘so brave’.
Calling people brave for existing within their own skin implies that there was an active choice made for them to be who they are, that there is any other way for them to be or that they took the courageous route along the path of life – which in turn implies that there is a base ‘normal’ way to exist. This faux normal, the roots of which run deep and have many problematic seeds embedded within society, is the reason that many do not consider being cis-gendered, white and a size 6 to be brave; it is also why nobody calls people who are neurotypical brave for being who they are.
This line of thought is problematic – not the least because despite all the measures taken to acknowledge that society is made up of as many types of humans as there are humans, we are still accepting the creation of a ‘normal’ and an ‘other’. The brave ones. The ones who do not mind living as themselves. As if the answer to equality and progress is calling people who do not identify as the same gender as you or look like you brave.
Hint: it is not.
One may exclaim that they just wish to acknowledge the hardships a person has faced in order to be themselves – and whilst there is some good intention within that sentiment, it nonetheless maintains and assumes that a ‘type’ of person has had to go through particular hardships to begin with, which are only formed through Western society’s preconceived notions of those it does not deem ‘normal’ (read: able-bodied, cis-gendered, white, neurotypical, straight sized etc.).
Although many may not believe that they have to do this, most people need to acknowledge and truly believe that everyone has the full base right to existence, exactly as they are, simply because they do exist; and that existing within one’s own body and mind is not a choice that they made, but rather is just who they are. It may seem obvious, but in the battle against the cultural, religious and societal biases, particularly in Malta, that hold each and every one of us hostage at times, we must fight against the instinctual reaction and stop ourselves from creating an ‘other’ out of people. There is ample to champion as ‘brave’ within people’s lives, the actions and choices and positions that they will hold will likely be vast and interesting and worthy of the title.
To be, however, to simply exist within their own experience of themselves and the bodies that carry them? No, that is not brave. That was not and will never be a choice, it is the human condition, and nobody is more brave for existing than anyone else.
#MaltaDaily
