Sweet, spreadable, “supreme” white frosting straight culture.

Mine, in many ways, not mine in others.

I wish it could/would stay in its can. Let the other frostings cover some cake, too. And when it’s a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, be okay that it’s not your cake. You don’t have to run over and applaud the chocolate-ness, throwing white sprinkles of appreciation on top. Stay in your can.

In June, when it’s time for us rainbow sprinkles to strut, back it up and enjoy the show! We, who celebrate survival with flamboyance, invite the righteous to the party, but it’s still our party. Whether we are loud and proud unicorn & rainbow frosting or frosting that looks like any other until you remove the lid and a riot of color and taste emerges, are about celebrating our space on the shelf in our own, highly individualistic, sometimes weird way.

My opinion, straight white frosting, and here’s where it gets sticky, is that you do not need to lament. You do not need to re-tell your frosting sins: that there were decades when every cake had to have white frosting. If the frosting was red, it was shoved off the shelf and given a ”home” in the worst aisles after trying to erase its label. If it was black, you tried to eradicate it in the cruelest possible ways. If yellow or brown you mocked and corralled it, shoving it to the back of the shelf.

Your-my-our sins are known, documented, codified. The question is what now? Can we stay in our can? And, what might that look like for the rest of the frosting on the shelf? To have space, not because we gave it, but because we didn’t take it? Maybe the dominant culture could hold back on dominating. Maybe the dominant culture could stop trying to label everything they don’t understand, believing it’s a knowledge rather than a power gap.

Maybe it could just pause, take a deep breath, and watch the joyful, colorful, bedazzled parade of those of us who embrace being Queer.