Queer fashion faux pas?
“Girl, you look good!” is a sentence that often accompanies the proud owner of a new Louis Vuitton bag. In the queer community, it’s common to look good with baggage. However, there is a pocket that slowly snakes its way around our neck.
What is there?
Consider that the 2016-2017 Prudential LGBT Financial Experience Survey found that 48% of queer people identify as high spenders, compared to 32% of the general population. Regardless, spending on LGBTQ disposable income accounts for approximately 14% of the U.S. economy. Despite having relatively high incomes compared to our heterosexual peers, fewer queer people reported starting saving and investing in 2016 than reported in Prudential’s 2012 study.
Even today, many of us come from a place where it’s not okay to be queer. Despite talk of “things are getting better” and anti-bullying campaigns, queer people still face additional hurdles. Don’t get us wrong; We are incredibly grateful for the progress our community has made since that fateful summer of 1969. However, there is still further progress to be made.
As NoBullying.com reported, a 2013 study by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that 74% of queer youth reported being verbally harassed at school, compared to 27% of all students, as reported by a National Center for 2013 Education Statistics Report. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 12 to 28 percent of queer youth are likely to experience violent threats and harm on school grounds, not including harassment.
For various reasons, many queer youth flee or are kicked out of their homes; they make up 40% of homeless youth. For a population that represents only 4% of the total population, we make up a disproportionate share of the homeless youth population.
Children begin to develop personalities as early as four years old, if not younger. As we grow up, we pick up clues and clues that shape our adult personalities. Even before many children know whether they are queer, they know that being queer is perceived as bad.
This dichotomy between what we feel inside and the messages we hear from the outside causes many of us to grow up with stunted belief systems. Our atrophied belief system leads to limiting beliefs, some of which are limiting money beliefs. We make up for being bullied, bullied, or evicted from our homes when we were younger.
Even though we seem fabulous, many of us don’t feel that way inside or don’t fully believe that we deserve to be fabulous. Then we go to even greater lengths to prove that we are fabulous, often through flashy external appearances, such as queer fashion, rather than resolving internal conflicts.
What then?
Find your purpose
Entrepreneur and philanthropist “W. Clement Stone said: “Determination of purpose is the starting point of all success.”
The determination of the goal is the starting point of all success. – W. Clement StoneClick to tweet
From our personal history we know this to be true. It wasn’t until we were clear about our definition of “success” that we were able to pay off the $51,000 in debt we had accumulated in search of validation.
Your determination is the inspiration to change your financial situation and all aspects of your life. Your determination is your higher calling and will erase conscious and unconscious feelings of inferiority. So if it’s queer fashion, go for it. If not, then… you know. Not!
Clarify your financial goals
It is impossible to achieve success without knowing your definition of success. Financial goals like “live comfortably,” “prepare for retirement,” and “be debt-free” are not enough.
Financial goals should include:
• Dollar amounts for each goal
• Deadlines to achieve each goal
• How to achieve each goal
• Why every goal is important
• How each goal supports your goal from above
Stop being a victim
What we say here will upset some in our community, but we must stop being victims. There is a difference between being a victim and being a victim, and you cannot be a victim and a winner at the same time.
You cannot be a victim and a winner at the same time.Click to tweet
Tony Robbins said, “It is your choices, not your conditions, that determine your fate.” When you believe you are a victim, your ego wants to prove you right. Therefore, your ego perpetuates the thought processes of a victim and the decisions of a victim and you get the results of a victim.
If you don’t like your reality, it’s up to you and only you to change it. As Earl Nightingale said, “We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.”
Successful people in our community, like Martine Rothblatt and Beth Brooke-Marciniak, demonstrate the potential each of us has when our circumstances do not define us.
Limit your beliefs
Limiting beliefs arise from our conscious and subconscious thinking. It’s hard enough to change our false conscious beliefs. Changing false unconscious beliefs is more difficult.
We recommend three exercises to change the conversation in your head and your subconscious beliefs. When you change your subconscious beliefs about yourself, you also change your feelings about yourself. This is the beginning of a change in both your personal and financial circumstances, because your thoughts create your emotions, your emotions create your actions, and your actions lead to the results you want and sometimes don’t want.
Repeat motivational affirmations daily
Memorize a script that describes the best version of your personal and financial life. Be specific. Choose measurable benchmarks to track your progress and set deadlines to achieve your goals.
Then close your eyes for five minutes morning and evening and recite your affirmations loudly and with enthusiasm and emotion. Visualize and feel what you are saying.
Keep a daily gratitude journal
Keep a daily gratitude journal and write at least three thank you notes a day, even if you feel like you have nothing to be grateful for. As what we focus on expands, focusing on the good will produce more good.
Actively seek happiness
Happiness should not be a constant goal, but a constant state. If you are not happy with what you have today, you will not be happy with what you have tomorrow. Therefore, every time you have a negative thought about something for any reason, think of two things that you are happy about to balance out that one negative thought.
If you look for happiness, you will find more happiness. If you celebrate every victory, you will win even more.
Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor, said: “There is a space between stimulus and response. In this space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
If we as a community want this fabulous life, we must start with the seeds of happiness and gratitude planted deep within us. As it grows, we no longer need the baggage we have carried around with us for years. Then we will set ourselves free and experience all the real personal and financial success that we and our queer brothers and sisters have longed for all these years. And who knows, maybe you’ll actually be able to afford that amazing queer fashion you’ve always wanted. 🙂