You all know the story about how LMBG came to be, but do you know why I keep doing it? Do you understand the purpose behind the brand? Because after four years I am just starting to discover my why and I want to share it with you. This is going to be a long one, so settle in.
LMBG started out as a harsh and much-needed fuck you, to all the men – specifically white men – who had raped and abused me. That was its soul purpose, a place to hold my hatred, anger, and resentment, where people couldn’t tell me how to talk or who to be.
Over the years, however, it became a record of healing, of survival, and even of a woman who learned to thrive in spite of what I’d started out with. Loud Mouth Brown Girl was, is, and will forever remain, MY garden, to sew the seeds of inspiration for other women, who want to share their voices and their stories.
Embracing MY spirituality was difficult for me, and it continues to be, again because of White men who constantly and consistently declared war on the idea that a woman can be several things all at once. I have friends who are Christian, and I have friends who are Witches. I even have friends who are both.
But it’s the idea that you have to be one or the other that tells me that there is a place for me in this world to tell girls and women everywhere, you can be WHATEVER you want to be, and you can even be nothing if that’s what you need to be.
I do this blog because I can see the words “Loud Mouth Brown Girl,” around the world. I can see the way that it might be perceived and I can feel a collective breath of fresh air when I think of all the Bloggers and Content Creators out there who want to turn their passion for writing and inspiring others, into an equitable career that inspires themselves.
It’s not easy pushing your way through the long, long, list of amazing women who came before you, but not many women want to turn their mental health blogs into a business, just to prove that it CAN be done. I do. I want to use my mental health issues to inspire all the dreams I had as a child, that I was told I wasn’t allowed to have access to, because someone else wanted similar dreams to me.
I spent a lifetime being told by teachers, friends, and fake allies, that my dreams mattered, so long as MY dreams didn’t coincide with someone else’s dreams, because I was “so special,” that I needed to be quiet and settle down to make room for someone else even quieter, to have their dreams come true.
BULLSHIT.
I love myself, and for that truth to be a reality, for me to embrace the idea that I DESERVE to love myself, I have to keep pushing to make space for the Loud Mouth Brown Girl inside of me to exist, for the Loud Mouth Brown Girl, that I needed when I was growing up, to become a reality.
Whether you call her Devon Hallgate, Devon J Hall, or Siddha Lee Saint James the Love Letter Faerie, she is me, I am she, and we are we, and there are very few people who understand that the alias might change, but the need for the Loud Mouth Brown Girl to exist, can’t ever dissipate as long as I am alive.
When I talk to women about improving their blogs, when I talk to women about turning their passion into a job, a career, and a life change, I mean “are you ready to put 100% into becoming the brand that you want to showcase to the world?”
People around the world WILL notice when you are working hard, it may take a while for them to say something, but when they see that you are serious about your dreams, they will either step out of the way, or they will do what they can to help you, and the ones that try to jump in your path, are the ones that you jump over.
I don’t let people’s bullshit idea of who the Loud Mouth Brown Girl SHOULD be, and believe me there are plenty of annoying opinions because the people who have opinions about the work I am doing are not the ones doing the work.
It’s not just the blog, it’s mental health, it’s the transitions, it’s spirituality, it’s all the things combined that make me smile and make me laugh and push me to believe that I can be my absolute best self.
From the art to the writing, so much has changed about this website since the beginning four years ago, and that’s my why. That’s why I keep doing this, because I am curious to see what it is going to look like in five more years, in ten years, in fifteen, twenty, and thirty.
Eventually, I’ll write about dating, sex, marriage one day, and maybe even children and it will all be here for you all to read, it’s my thing, my purpose in life. Not just sharing my story, not even just proving it can be done, but also making sure that one day my future kids know that they were loved, even before they came into my life.
As beautiful as I felt in both of these photos, I was honestly so keenly aware that speaking out could end up with me dying because I spoke out and continue to speak out about gang and rape culture. I was genuinely – and I am not exaggerating – afraid I was going to be murdered like Rena Virk, Chris Monohan, and Maple Batalia, all people in my community murdered or allegedly murdered by people who were and are connected to gang culture.
In Canada, too many girls and women are murdered by men, men who they trusted, men they believed in, and men they loved. My, “why are you doing this,” statement ends with this: Because if not me, then who?
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 