Last spring, my fiance, 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 that details 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, Id 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 wasnt 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, Ive grown so accustomed to sharing my story and talking about my identities through public-facing work that this turning point didnt feel like much of a pivot at first. Ive called myself a professional queer since 2016, an ironic twist since my parents major fear for my coming out was never being able to be hired (a typical concern for immigrant parents of a certain generation). There was a rush of immense relief when I was hired into LGBTQ advocacy as the education manager of a national nonprofit. I was hired because of who I was. Suddenly my story and my life were professional assets. I was living proudly and publicly.

For five years in this work, I was able to share my story and be on brand. Working within an organization helped me to be me, but within guidelines and codes of conduct. I had my personal opinion, but when I spoke or wrote publicly, I had a mission statement to guide me. It was me, and it wasnt all me. There was comfort in this container. And there were challenges to my own authenticity and who I was allowed to be to remain professional.

Looking back to that era of my life now, I see that much of that editing was self-imposed and part of my own perfectionism, my socialization to be a good Chinese girl and the safety that I felt as someone elses representative.

Last springs book tour marked the end of that era for me. As an ex-Catholic, that fear of excommunication has deep roots. Maybe thats why it felt so damn good to be sharing as myself on the road trip, and to have a platform whose only guidelines for my story were my own.

It was easy, during these three months, to document where I was and what I was doing. I was lucky to have a publisher who supported my boundaries of how often Id post. After coming back, however, Ive felt a growing pressure to create content. Ive had to reflect on when Im using the platform to connect and build community, and when Im packaging myself up into bite-sized samples.

I realized that even though I felt new freedom as my own boss, sharing from my own project, I still felt a pressure to present my life to the world in a certain way. Was that ever escapable, as an out-here queer person trying to support my community?

As LGBTQIA people, social platforms create an opportunity for us to find each other and build community beyond what we are able to do IRL, even in major, queer-affirming cities. And they also have challenging and slanted algorithms that can leave us buried. Doing this work for the gram vs. on the gram can be a thin line.

With House of Our Queer, I post a near-weekly IG live called Queer Church, where I share a reading and astrology update, among other things. This offering helps with one of the major goals I have as a spiritual organizer: to help us keep track of time in community. I can feel the difference between the weeks when this live video flows freely, lifting me up and starting my own week with more clarity, and the weeks when Im wondering if the lighting is right or distracted by people leaving halfway through.

If social platforms are ways for queer people and folks in marginalized groups to reach out, connect, and share our work, does that make posts our currency? I cant help feeling Im falling into the trap of working twice as hard as others just to earn my place at the table or to earn my rest. Its healing community work, indeed, but do I have to be an influencer for my work to have meaning?

When are we, as queer people, allowed to do something just for us?

In the midst of this exploration, I had to admit that Im always pushing Cheryna to turn her love of Jeeps into advocacy work. Theres a lack of visibility around women, especially Black and brown queer women in the outdoors, that part of me tries to make every trip we take into a community organizing opportunity, every post she makes into healing content.

Shes not interested.