Happy Pride!

I adore and celebrate this month because of the pure revolutionaries who brought it into existence. Those that declared in victory that they were different — and proud to be! How beautiful is that, the ability to stand up and stand out. To be different and to be okay with being so. To be different and to feel validated in that. To be different and to relish in that deviance from normality. This month amplifies that victorious cry, takes in those who cannot afford to cry out, and celebrates all who have at one point or other in their lives felt outcast from the world. 

And, of course, pride is allowed to exist largely because of Black queer communities, who feel the overwhelm of difference on a daily, hourly, minute-ly basis, and speak up not because they want to but because they have to. Because who else will? A huge thank you to all of them for showing us bravery that is never thanked but always propelling us forward. For making this deviation feel right. Necessary. 

Pride month is a rejection of the binary mode of thinking, recognizing that practically everything in life exists on a spectrum of thought. Pride month allows us to sit in that gray area, however discomforting or isolating it may feel. It is taking the world as we know it and turning it on its head. 

Pride month gives strength to weirdness! To queerness! For so long in my life it was more comforting to me to try and intellectualize my sexuality and my pure existence rather than just being. Whatever the label, however I’m feeling, I am queer, and proud to be! I am soooo weird. And I love being weird. Weird girls rock. 

Heteronormativity feeds on and exists because of outdated gender power structures that plague our day-to-day life. Systems that are so broken and so old that we do not even know where to begin with undoing them — because it takes work that we have to think about all of the time! Work that BIPOC, neurodivergent individuals, women, etc. are constantly doing. 

And pride month helps us, as a society, come to this collective realization. You know what, there doesn’t have to be just one right way of doing things. The rules we are following…kind of feel like they weren’t made up with me in mind. So, rather than just wallowing in this powerless feeling, I’m going to make my own fucking rules. 

Even if you don’t identify with the LGBTQ+ spectrum, even if you want nothing to do with it, I want you to take a moment and think about a time where you felt so ostracized from reality. A time where your voice didn’t matter. It can be with friend groups. It can be with your family. It can be your job. It can be this motherfucking government that doesn’t care about any of our voices! Yeah, that felt pretty fucking shitty right. Well, I want you to imagine that feeling, and I want you to imagine that it is inescapable. Constant. 

Pride exists because of those that said — this is not an inescapable feeling. I’m not going to give it that power. I will defy. I will be my own person. 

I hope you are all able to celebrate pride – to celebrate being in your own skin. To feel proud to be you and to be unique. You rock.