Pride Month – let’s talk about it.
I have as much of a complicated relationship with Pride Month as I do with any discussions of sexuality and gender reform. Mostly, this is because at the very root of my “gay existence” there’s an incredible scar. The type of scar that excavates deep beneath the mantles of flesh, muscle, and bone, and the kind of scar that I’ll no doubt carry inside me for the rest of my living years.
In society, we’re quick to talk about healing cycles and the invested power that restorative therapies bring to us. All of which is something that I fully support and practice. However, along with the premise of healing, there’s often this false narrative that healing can expunge all that we’re trying to heal from. Indefinitely. Removing it so completely that it’s as if the scar was never really there. Sure, it sounds very genie-esque but for those of us who are without a genie, we’re facing life wearing a robe of scars; some healed, some semi-healed, and some that are mostly dormant with a nasty habit of offering impromptu reminders. Those are my least favorite scars.
It's that dormant but ready-to-pop-up scar, the one that tends to surface and erupt every June, that makes Pride Month so complicated. Mostly because this particular scar was one that burrowed itself far too deep and far too wide. A scar that’s altogether too powerful and too life-altering to ever really be resolved. Sure, I’ve healed since the scar happened - which was twenty years ago - and yet, this scar of mine, inflicted by someone who was supposed to love me unconditionally, but who I discovered loved me with limitations, remains. It hurts a little from time to time but not enough to distract me from all that I’ve overcome, outgrown, and survived.
For most LGBTQIA+ folks, coming out is an unnecessarily complicated, challenging, and often heartbreaking experience. My coming out story was no different. It always seemed quite odd to me that people like us – a minority group of individuals victimized by autocratic and oppressive politics – grow up with an abnormal deadline to “come out” to our loved ones, as if the reveal of our sexuality is something owed to them. The natural progression of puberty and sexuality should just lead to commonplace curiosity and experimentation. When and why did it become something so intrusive for the LGBTQIA+ community?
Obviously, these are rhetorical questions. I’m fully aware of our communities longstanding fight for equal rights, which is just as relevant in today’s regressive society as it was before 2016 when the Orange Man didn’t only wake up bigoted sleepers but gave them a voice box and permission to engage in active terrorism against minorities across the board. The LGBTQIA+ community is firmly in the sight of Conservativism and religious tyranny; it’s becoming an increasingly dangerous world for us to exist in.
Make no mistake, our community is under a significant hate campaign that’s altogether hostile, purposely misinformed, and inherently violent. The conspiracy to promote LGBTQIA+ folks as sexual predators, demonic entities, and abnormalities are wildly inaccurate and ominous. Victimizing a group of consenting adults, while villainizing them in the same breath, is one of the reasons that I take so much pride in celebrating Pride Month. It’s one of the best fightbacks and fuck you we have in our arsenal. Pride Month honors the groundbreaking work of our LGBTQIA+ predecessors and allies - both activists and victims - and is a benchmark of how far we’ve come, despite how deplorably our community is being persecuted. It is a time of joy as much as it is remembrance, and it’s a time of education and demonstration.
And for those of us with almighty scars, scars forged from heated words, violence and brute force against us, disownment, isolation, and becoming strangers to families who once claimed to love us, Pride Month is a hurtful reminder that many of us began our lives feeling unloved, alienated, and greatly misunderstood. We were judged and discarded for the “sins” of self-love, self-advocacy, self-expression, self-empowerment, and self-acceptance of our sexuality. On the plus, Pride Month is an inspiring and emboldening reminder that many of us have gone on to live exceptional lives of love, success, and happiness. We live openly and without apology for the beautiful people that we are, often surrounded by the incredible support of each other, as well as with the immeasurable support of our beautiful allies. Pride Month recognizes all our beautiful and brave sisters, brothers, folks, and friends.
For those celebrating, Happy Pride Month!
“The path to accepting your sexuality must start somewhere. For those who identify as heterosexual, the childhood bliss of an early crush is typically encouraged and praised. Milestones such as your first date and the prom are celebrated by parents and friends. But when you’re anything other than straight, it’s more complicated; your growth gets shrouded and stunted. That’s why a lot of queer people, when they fall in love and get into a relationship for the first time, revert to a kind of prepubescent puppy love: spontaneous, impulsive, obsessive, and ecstatic. I’ve heard many people express annoyance at friends who “just came out and it’s totally cool and whatever, but do they have to talk about it all the time?” My answer to that is “Yes. Yes, they do. Don’t you remember puppy love? Well, imagine if you had to hide it for twenty years. So yeah, if they wanna gush about it, let them gush. There’s a first time for everything.” –Hannah Hart, Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded
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