Pride month means a lot to me for various reasons. One is, my current relationship officially began during Pride, when both my girlfriend and I volunteered to help canvas for NARAL Pro-Choice and run their booth at the 2016 Portland Pride Festival and Parade. The Orlando nightclub shooting happened just the week before, and all the other volunteers bailed, likely because they were scared of something similar happening at openly LGBTQIA+ events and locations. But we were happy to help, collecting signatures for a measure supporting full range of reproductive rights for everyone, handing out swag, marching in that Saturday's trans parade, etc. At the end, Sunday the 19th, the organizer took us both out for a beer, and we ended up expressing our feelings for one another and have been together ever since. Pride is literally or anniversary.
In addition, I've had my own journey towards undoing the societal conditioning against LGBTQIA+ individuals and lifestyles I was exposed to growing up in the media and others around me, and exploring my own gender and sexuality. While my mom was as open as a boomer could be, my step-dad and peers were definitely not, and I absorbed negative ideas and stereotypes about LGBTQIA+ people even when I didn't understand what words like gay, bi, or trans meant. I was just conditioned to think they were bad and something you didn't want to be because it was gross, unnatural, etc. Fast-forward to my late teens, and I was hanging out with a diverse group of people, wearing goth makeup and women's clothes and occasionally making out with hot guys because why not? And while I can (and usually do) easily pass for a cis, straight white dude, I'm definitely somewhere along the queer spectrum. I find certain men attractive, and I have loved people of the same sex. I also identify with more feminine roles and people and styles even though I also feel pressure to fit in as "one of the guys." I've never felt body dysmorphia or the need to transition, and pretty much most of my relationships have been with women, so I don't feel the need to claim any labels, like queer or bi or anything else, because I don't want to take attention away from others who have struggled a whole lot more in their lives for the right and ability to be open about who they are and it's not a large part of my own amorphous identity. But I also understand the need to normalize these things despite it not being a large part of my identity, so I'm definitely open about my opinions of gender and sexuality being a spectrum and my own place on that spectrum to anyone curious and being vocal about my support for people being free to express their gender and sexuality and ending all the violence and discrimination inflicted upon LGBTQIA+ individuals who fall outside of the various socially-imposed, traditionally accepted, cis-normative categories.
As a species, we have to capacity to enjoy a rich spectrum of emotional and sexual relationships. Part of the reason I think this isn't more obvious to many people is that we've been conditioned by social, religious, and cultural norms to identify with a single 'orientation' and, more importantly, to find only one specific orientation socially, morally, and culturally acceptable. We're just now reaching a point where it's becoming somewhat acceptable to be open about being attracted to the same sex and to be in a same-sex relationship, which is good. Unfortunately, we're still trapped culturally into identifying as one or the other (gay, straight, etc.), which doesn't even begin to address the limitations of our views about gender. And scientifically, we're trapped by an ideology of genetic sexual determinism to do the same thing. So it's going to take a bit longer for people to fully realize the possible diversity in human sexuality and that it's not only possible to be attracted to people for who they are regardless of sex or gender, but that it's OK to be attracted to someone for who they are regardless of sex or gender.
And even though my social and political activism isn't what it was 5 or 10 years ago, I still try hard to continue to advocate for LGBTQIA+ people and for things that would benefit them, from marriage equality to guaranteed reproductive rights, as well as to connect those struggles to struggles for gender equality, racial equality, and socioeconomic equality. Because all of these struggles are intertwined, and if one of us isn't free, none of us truly are. We just benefit from a temporary privilege at the expense of someone else, which is both harmful and morally repugnant; and social structures and cultural norms that support these unequal systems of oppression must ultimately be torn down.
It's a long, difficult process. And I know that many people would prefer slower, more moderate solutions. Things like 'tearing down' oppressive structures sounds destructive, violent even. But some foundations can't be salvaged before something new is built. And Pride itself began as a riot against the enforcement of that oppression, and even though police today like to ride in Pride parades and corporations like to throw rainbows all over their tweets and ads this month, the police are often used to uphold systems of oppression and many of those same companies financially support politicians and organizations dedicated to restricting and reversing hard won rights. Quick to cash in on a growing market, but just as quick to stab them in the back if it appeases another. And our society, while arguably changing for the better, still finds it publicly acceptable to ridicule and demonize people simply trying to exist, as all the recent anti-trans laws and comedy specials illustrate. And I definitely think we need the same active, revolutionary spirit of Stonewall for the fights ahead. Because these structures and those who support and benefit them, will not be transformed without hard battles and a militant willingness to dismantle oppressive institutions.
I love Pride because it has a very deep and very sentimental place in my heart. It's one of the places where I learned how to be brave, and where I found love. But I also love it because it's as much about celebrating oneself and the diversity we find in one another as it is an openly rebellious challenge to outdated modes of thinking and long-standing systems of discrimination, dehumanization, and psychological and physical damage. And part of celebrating Pride is being brave and standing up for others and building something better, which sometimes requires getting our hands a little dirty.
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