On Pride

I've been quiet.

Because I have a lot of difficult feelings to sort through in this month we deem "LGBTQ+ Pride". So these are messy thoughts to follow.

Let's be honest. There is never a moment where - in the eyes of the beholder - I'm passing as the gender I am. Internally, I'm passing all the time: I'm just me, and nonbinary is not even a gender (it's an umbrella term that describes what I'm NOT). But everyone else is looking for a performance of the stereotypical "enby". I get to simultaneously be validated and invalidated by others every day, sometimes in the same sentence. I get to come out multiple times to the same person, because they "just can't understand", and sometimes a total stranger just gets it. I experience the pain of being seen as the wrong gender by people who are close to me or part of my own community, and in the same day overhearing my cishet boomer boss correcting himself when talking about me, when I'm not in the room. I'm just trying to exist outside the binary, forever escaping the boxes they try to put me in, hoping to help the world see the senselessness of it all. And it's a rollercoaster.

That is just my little self-centered struggle with it. Don't get me started on the...

"Pride was a riot"

Have we overused this phrase so much that we diluted its meaning? We don't live in this world where there are floats full of drag queens and flamboyant gays making out to the tune of whatever is the latest queer-baiting pop artist of the moment, with banks and churches' sponsorships. Our rights are being attacked, removed, denied - with the help of the same two-faced corporations that put up rainbow logos in June. Black, Indigenous, POC, feminine perceived folks get the most vicious part of it. We're talking being murdered here. And you can bet every erosion of trans rights will have an effect on the whole acronym down the line - it's already happening.

Our real world has the majority of us living in or near poverty. It has us being openly discriminated for jobs and housing. It has us terrified of homelessness, stuck in domestic violence situations, or with roommates we are afraid of. This world has gatekeeping doctors and years-long waitlists for lifesaving surgeries. It has us venmoing the same $10 amongst ourselves and then donating all we got left to other oppressed people across the world - because we get it.

Few can relate to the struggle, so Pride is lonely. And this month should be one of protests, to bring awareness to all of those who have privilege, to use it for our cause. But people are eager to go to the parties and yell "SLAY" to the queens like that is support.

I don't want to hear "happy Pride"

People think we're fun but it stops there. They like the status quo more. And I want those who are married to the State to miss me with their celebrations of whatever they think is Pride Month. I can smell fake allyship from miles away. It can even come from our own community and it's disheartening. When one truly commits to "happy Pride" it means they'll challenge the injustice year long, do something real about it, understanding this: the bigotry they're up against is deeply woven in the fabric of society, so pulling on a thread will undo the whole damn sweater that protects their comfort and privilege, and they must be willing to bear the cold with us until we are ALL warm.

*The Intersex Progress Pride Flag is a design by Valentino Vecchietti