There is no rule in the pink-triangle guide to coming out that you must wear a rainbow flag cap and organise a full band parade.
BETH DITTOPortland is a place where you can find a community as a feminist, a vegan or a fat activist. Artists, musicians, knitters, and filmmakers can all meet like-minded souls. It’s proved the perfect place for me and all my punk friends.
More Beth Ditto Quotes
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High school wasn’t so bad though because, by then, I had worked out that there were far more nerdy kids and poor kids than there were rich, popular kids, so, at the very least, we had them outnumbered.
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I was overcome by the Holy Ghost one time, but in a Baptist way. I was six or seven, and I was saved. I just cried and cried. It was joy!
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Growing up as a chubby kid with a ton of imaginary friends and a Cyndi Lauper obsession, I learned about rejection early on and was constantly trying to avoid it.
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When I moved out of my mom’s house at 18 I was almost as sad to leave her sewing machine behind as anything else.
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Even talking, I’m super-loud. I could never have that kind of meek, little wispy whimsical lavender and lace voice. It comes from my body. There’s no way I can fight it.
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I was always being told off at school. The teachers would say: ‘Everyone’s talking, but you’re the one I can hear.
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We weren’t idiots, but I didn’t have that access to academic feminism. I had to realize, on my own, that feminism is not just about how far ahead you can get in a job and it isn’t about not wearing makeup. It isn’t about not watching your waistline. I had to recreate the world entirely.
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I have no control over what people think of me but I have 100% control of what I think of myself, and that is so important. And not just about your body, but so many ways of confidence. You’re constantly learning how to be confident, aren’t you?
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I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn’t understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still like girls.
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I wish I could open a piece of my brain and you could see into my memories.
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When I was a teenager I would lock myself in the bathroom for hours, bouffanting my hair like Patty Duke and trying to recreate Barbra Streisand’s flawless eyeliner, only to comb it all out and wash it all off before stepping out into the world a butchish bisexual teen.
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Barack Obama was amazing, but he wasn’t perfect. We all know that. He was the closest thing to perfect America’s ever had. We were basking in the glow. We forgot that there’s always going to be a backlash within a movement every time.
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I work really well under pressure but I really hate doing things on a timeframe.
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Starting out really punk came from not knowing any better and listening to music like that, not knowing how to play music – well, still not knowing how to play music.
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Girls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we’re slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we’re not told growing up, and it’s our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it.
BETH DITTO