What 🏳️‍🌈 Pride Means to Me

Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

This year has been a constant barrage on the LGBTQ+ community, especially for our trans brothers and sisters.

• 533 anti-trans bills have been introduced
• 64 have passed, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker

There is so much grief in knowing the collective trauma and unnecessary pain that is being inflicted on LGBTQ+ people across the country and the world.

While we must grieve what has been lost and for the rights we must claw back, JOY, CELEBRATION, & COMMUNITY are what keep the LGBTQ+ community resilient.

Last year, I wrote a piece about the abundance of rainbow capitalism and faux allyship. This year, the attacks against our community have escalated and many of those allies have vanished. While rainbow capitalism is evolving, I’m resharing what I wrote last year because it still rings true today.

What Pride Means to Me

It’s now widely known that June is the month to celebrate the LGBTQ community since corporate America has made Pride a well-known celebration of rainbows, glitter, and parades.

This year, I find myself conflicted about Pride. On one hand, I am overjoyed to celebrate my queerness with the people I love and revel in the Pride I feel for my own queerness and the queer community in general. But I’m also torn by the fake corporate celebrations where selling some rainbow T-shirts counts as being an ally, while LGBTQ rights are being torn away across the country and LGBTQ lives are increasingly in danger.

This country is at a crossroads where we can choose inclusivity & community or minority rule & individualism. I hope that each of us chooses wisely (because we each have a choice).

Despite the headwinds we face, the queer community is where I get my hope for this country. Our community is resilient, independent, creative, loving, joyful, brave, and so much more. LGBTQ people across history have confidently stood in the light of their authentic selves and not let the forces of conformity force them into something they’re not.

Our country is stronger because of the diversity and uniqueness of our people (whether citizens or not). Our diversity is what will steer us out of the current strife, towards a greener, community-focused world.

This is clear not just because we see that greater diversity brings out better decisions and outcomes, but because those minority-rule forces are working so hard to suppress any diverse or independent thought. Even they know the power that we hold. That’s why they try to suppress us.

Their fear is that if LGBTQ people are “allowed” to exist and live fully, then others will see that they can make choices to live more authentically. That they don’t have to follow the rigid structures that society has forced upon us. We can all be uniquely us and live in community together.

So this Pride month (and every damn day), I’m going to live unapologetically me. Because I’m a pretty phenomenal person and so are you!

And if living my full authentic life means that one queer kid or anyone that’s just a little bit different can have hope that they can live their authentic life now or in the future, then I’ve done enough.

Will you join me? Whether gay, straight, or anything in between, I encourage you to embrace what makes you uniquely you, celebrate you, and love you.

Happy Pride to everyone reading this and beyond. ♥️ 🏳️‍🌈