The noble man wants to create new things and a new virtue. The good man wants the old things and that the old things shall be preserved.

But that is not the danger for the noble man–that he may become a good man–but that he may become an impudent one, a derider, a destroyer.

Alas, I have known noble men who lost their highest hope. And henceforth they slandered all high hopes.

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

Today I will speak to you who have lost your faith.

And I see you, labouring under scars you will not admit; I see you, cradling your own broken souls in your arms. I the goat-faced man, with my high goat's voice, I who have begged on corners while rocks were thrown at my head, I who was born in the days of the carnival as an amusement, will speak to you now.

You have been injured. This is true; I see the scars. I see the old brown blood where you tried to hold yourselves together. Let none deride the injury, for it is plain in the timbre of your voice and the tremor of your steps. And you think, it was your faith that injured you. Your faith which allowed your injury. Your faith which brought you pain.

My friends, what I say today is not a new thing, it is not a novel truth. But it is truth. A man who slipped and snapped his leg might blame his leg for the hurt, but would he cut it off? A child, burned by a hot meal once, might taste nothing for a while, but would he eat no more on its account?

You may truly say it is not safe to have faith in this world, where you may be mocked and derided, where you may fail your own expectations, where you may find yourself alone. But you may as truly say it is not safe to live in this world, where you may be accidentally caught up by machines and killed, where the sun may burn you and the wind cut you, where you may find yourself alone.

You are suicides, my friends, who have cut away your faith and live in fear of another one claiming you. You are the dead who call to the living, those of you who have lost your faith and warn others against their own. I see you, but I cannot despise you; you have forgotten the blessings of beating blood, the warmth of hope and exultation.

I am your shaman as well. Your priest and kind ear. I am installed in this role to be your father and teacher, and I listen with sympathy to your footsteps. Even should you deride me, even should you spurn me, I listen to you with sympathy.

It is not an easy thing to regain faith, as it is not easy to raise the dead. But a thousand faiths await you. If you have faith in the pen you hold one day you will have faith in the hand that holds it; faith in the hand will lead to faith in the mind that moves it; faith in the mind will lead to faith in the soul which surrounds it. From here all things are possible.

Do not surrender to black thoughts; they are your deriders, and they will style themselves as your gods. But it is not god which wishes to cast you down before it, for gods wish to raise you up that they may see you in the glory they create. Gods have no use for broken things. What are these gods but gods that have lost their faith?

And expect, my friends, that it will hurt. All dead things hurt when they return to life. But it is the ache of growth, of laughter too hard, of muscles tired after a good day's run. It is the ache which will subside and leave you strong and ready to stand taller, laugh longer, run further.

And when you have faith again, in yourself, in beauty, in hope, in your lovers, in your hands, in your mind, in anything, I will smile great joy at your life, for indeed, you have begun to live again.

You ask me, my brothers, what we should say to Them that have wronged us for so long. You ask me how our voices which have been roughened by tears and screaming should address Them.

I say we should tell Them this: we carry injuries that beg forgiving. We carry anger that begs resolution. We are a wounded people, a people whose kin have been driven to resignation, a people who have been too long pushed to the side of the road. We are an angry people. We are a violent people.

And when They ask us what our violence means, let us tell Them this: They may imagine us breaking down Their walls and hammering Their heads into the street. They may imagine us tossing fire at Their feet. They may imagine all the excesses They have propagated upon us, but we will do none of these things.

What we will do, my sisters, is greater and worse than these things. We shall exist, my kin. We shall exist and be undefeatable, indefatigable, relentless. We shall exist and be beautiful, and our beauty shall shine on every street corner, until They who throw stones and shout filth are the ugly ones. For we are beautiful in ways They have never had access to, and we shall surpass Them.

I ask you, my family, my tribe, to cherish your anger. Let it make you warm and sharp. Let it draw pride into your step and lift your voice. But the cruelties of the fist and spat word are Theirs and Theirs alone; we shall not bruise our good hands or taint our good lips with them.

There is not one truth, there are many truths.

There is not one sun, there are many suns. It is because you are close to one that you say there is only one sun.

The ones who orbit those other suns say theirs is the only sun as well.

You rename the other suns "stars" and assign them lesser majesty. You take your religions and call the rest mythology.

It is not cowardice to refuse to choose between truths. It is not cowardice to walk into the land of no boundaries, where you must accept that you were born in sin and you were born without sin, where you must accept that there is one indivisible God and that there are a thousand irreconcilable ones. How can it be cowardice to walk in the woods you do not, cannot, understand, with only faith to reassure you that the ground is solid and the beasts are not unkind?

To multiples and otherkin and therians and autistics.

To the disabled and cripples and deformed and ugly.

To transsexuals and gays and lesbians and those of the third gender.

To pagans and wiccans and agnostics and spiritual eclectivists.

To new-agers and walk-ins and reincarnates and goths.

To the bearded women and the breasted man and the lazy-eyed and the midgets.

To the geeks and the submissives and the masochists and the fantasists.

You are all monsters.

Listen to me: I give you the words which They do not give you. I give you the words which They pretend They are too polite to give you. And the words are: you are all monsters.

The ones who stare and mock you make no distinction between you. They will deride transsexual and otherkin alike. They will deride gay man and androgyne alike. They will deride multiple and therian and pagan and lesbian and They will see this as Their right, because Theirs is the castle of normalcy and they are protected from blame in its walls.

While you cut amongst yourself and divide yourself one from the other, They will walk among the carnival and laugh at how the scaled girl stands separate from the two-headed boy and They will make spectacles of you all. They will tie you up and kick you in the streets and They will not care that I, with cleft feet, should stand separate from you with your maladies.

My sisters, my brothers, my siblings, my children, you have all been clamoring for a space in their castle from which to throw stones at your brothers, your sisters, your siblings, your children. When the sexes became Normal the monsters joined the ranks of the deriders. When the races became Normal the monsters joined the ranks of the deriders. now the sexualities are becoming Normal, and they too wish to join the ranks of the deriders. I will say to Them what I have said to you: you were monsters. You were all monsters.

My sisters, my brothers, my siblings, my children, we grow in numbers. We swell like the rising of the tides. It s time for us to tear Their castle apart until there is no more shelter and there are no more walls. It is time for us to wrest Their son the-word-Normal and dash his head against the rocks.

You are all monsters.

You are monsters because this is what They have made you, and They have perverted the word and made it ugly. They have said that They are beautiful and you are ugly. And because They have said it so constantly, you have believed it.

I see you, the gay man who derides transsexuals. I see you, the multiple who derides pagans. I see you, the therian who derides otakukin. I see you clawing at the walls of the castle, and while you say to Them, "accept me!", you say to Them, "reject these people beside me!"

I see you, and I see that you claw your sisters, your brothers, your siblings, your children away from the gates you would open for yourself. And I say this to you: even you are perverting the word.

We are all monsters.

A monster is a display. What is Monster but the Latin word "display," "point out," "reveal". We are children of the sacred word monstrare. To show. To advise. To teach.

My sisters, my brothers, my siblings, my children, we are a storm tide that crashes against itself. Let us crash against Their walls instead.

We are an avalanche that dashes rock against rock. Let us dash against Their castle.

We are a hydra that bites its own neck. Let us speak in our million voices and let Them hear us.

Remember that They lay judgement on your sanity, and to deride another is to beat your comrades with the switch that has marred your own back. I say to you: no one of you is so judicious to exercise punishment with no fault of your own.

Let us no longer hate or fear the ones who stand beside us.

We are all monsters.

We show. We reveal. We teach.