As Queer People, Do We Have To Be Influencers To Heal Our Community?

Last spring, my fiancée, Cheryna, and I took a cross-country journey the best way lesbians know how: by adding an air mattress to our Jeep Wrangler. I was celebrating the release of “House of Our Queer,” a memoir-meets-advice-book thatdetails my experience being raised culturally Catholic by my Polish mom, with Buddhist influences from my Chinese father — and how all of that informed the creation of my own spiritual rituals. We decided to spend three months leaving the queer city life of Oakland to host talks in queer-friendly indie bookshops across the country.

A few months after our return, I was left wondering, was it work? Was it a break? Was it one of those Gen Z-style hybrid work-ations?

Whatever it was, the trip served as a major turning point for my career. For years, I’d been focusing on national LGBTQ advocacy through nonprofit and consulting work, tracking anti-LGBTQ policies, and working with school and business leaders to make more inclusive and affirming spaces. When COVID restrictions raged in the spring of 2020, I wasn’t able to perform the tasks that involved a lot of travel.

And so, in that forced grounding, that quiet, I shifted gears and finally listened to the work that I felt was calling me. At the start of 2021, I launched House Of Our Queer , a spiritual playspace and project where I could share healing offerings and build community. The book tour was my pivot to completely focusing on spiritual organizing.

Over the years, I’ve grown so accustomed to sharing my story and talking about my identities through public-facing work that this turning point didn’t feel like much of a pivot at first. I’ve called myself a “professional queer” since 2016, an ironic twist since my parents’ major fear for