Description: Heteronormative platitudes got you down? Color these joyful queer affirmations instead! Next time someone pulls out an old walnut like, It’s just a phase, they’ll grow out of it, you can correct it to, I love your strong sense of self!.

Sick of hearing trite shit like, It could be worse? Cross it out with a Sharpie and replace it with, I’m sorry you’re going through this.

Verdict: Not everyone in your life may know how to talk about feelings and affirm your experience, but you can do it for yourself and the community you create. Joe Carlough’s thoughtful and humorous revisions of everyday platitudes pair perfectly with Ally Shwed’s colorable scenarios of all sorts of queer people bonding with each other, expressing their emotions, and learning to love themselves a little more every day.

In English, we have many linguistic tricks we can use to make a flamboyant show of emotion without ever expressing actual emotion - we can say things like family is a blessing without ever saying I love you and you mean a lot to me.

We have the old-hat language to make a bombastic claim that We live each day like it’s our last without ever expressing the core sentiment that, Yeah, it’s hard to do new things while wrestling with the ticking clock of mortality, but it’s important for your personal growth.

These sayings do serve a purpose - they act as a quick fix to express feelings through metaphor, which is useful. But, and as explained by the author, Joe Carlough, he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for every conversation, or relationship, to become deeply intimate at every turn.

But as these sayings become overused, trite, and empty - or even worse, oppressive - they are stripped of their original meaning and used as a device to avoid expressing emotion.

So what, then, is a queer affirmation? As a result of growing up and carving out space in a heteronormative world, Joe belives that queer people are uniquely qualified to introduce intentionality into our conversational responses.

Most heteronormative platitudes exist to quash conversation, responding to a friend, family member, or coworker’s problems with a God helps those who help themselves might as well be saying, Hush up about it now, you did this to yourself.

It’s simply judgemental and deflating. So what if you answered your friend’s troubles by opening a door instead with, Your life is a story in motion. What’s making you feel stuck? You would be inviting them to probe their feelings on the matter, together with you.

It would introduce the next steps in the conversation and in the relationship. How can we grow closer by connecting on an emotional level? How can I support you?

It’s no longer an inane response, but an invitation to do some soul searching together.

Welcome to The Queer Affirmations Coloring Book, one and all. Born as a joke, Joe hopes you find the ready-to-be-colored pages not only fun, but uplifting to read and useful in their approach to thoughtful conversation.

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