I’ve just read this really insightful and fascinating thread about gender and sexuality in Malaysia and South East Asia, written by Dorian Wilde. There is loads to unpack here about the ways colonialism imposes judgements and erases cultures, so this post is also hopefully an invitation to research and learn as much as it is to write.
What I’m offering for a writing prompt is the description of trans/gender fluid deities and religious/healing practices in this thread. Writing our queerness can often mean writing our trauma, but here is an invitation to think about our gender or sexual identity as a place of euphoria – a place of potential, supernaturalness maybe, of mystery or power or liberating fantasy. Without appropriating pre-existing deities from outside of your own culture and understanding, today’s prompt is to write/speak to, or describe, or embody your own personal queer and/or feminist deity, patron saint, muse or a superhero. What do they look like? What are their powers? Do they have an origin myth? What are they made of? What elements are they connected to? Where do they exist? How do they communicate? What can you ask them to grant or release from you?
You might write a prayer or a poem in praise of your deity/muse/superhero, you might write from their point-of-view – what are their commands or laws? Or you might write a ritual or description of encountering them.
sl grange 