Oh hello, darling, and welcome to June, and once again to Celebration month. Last year I brought you a series of posts that explored my feelings during pride season;
They all still have relevance and are worth a read. This year I will bring you another series of posts that explore my journey with queerness as well as the way I feel about the community, and activism as a whole.
This year, pride season is very different, as so many of the physical gatherings are not taking place thanks to the global pandemic. This means that as activists and queer people, we are having to work harder to make pride happen.
There are so many things happening online, and I am so grateful. It would have been easy to admit defeat, and shutter events until 2021, but because we all know how much pride means, the community has rallied and I think there might even be more content than ever before.
I quite often get asked by people outside of the community, why pride matters, and to me it is simple. Pride is a celebration of all that society has told the queer community is wrong, it’s going against the social norm. Pride allows those on the fringes of society to feel like they belong. Pride is owning who you are and being proud of that.
Acknowledging and celebrating pride is also remembering the Queer POC's that were the pioneers for our community. We celebrate Pride in June to commemorate the Stonewall riots, so it is important to remember that Pride was, is and always will be a protest started by black queer people.
Pride provides a sense of belonging that we don’t have in our day to day lives, because for many queer people we are isolated. Pride events bring the community together and celebrate all of us. Not having these physical events this year for many is a huge disappointment, but the vast amount of online events, live streams, and extra content only goes to show how much the community cares about itself.
So many people in the community, of all ages, are still coming to terms with who they are, and pride for them will be a chance to gain an insight into who they are. Knowing that there are still opportunities for people to learn about themselves and feel supported is one of the many reasons I am so grateful for modern technology.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone in our community who has organised events, educational content, live streams, podcasts, and zoom calls. The fact that the community still feels present when we are all socially distancing is a miracle that I won’t forget.
So in 2020 Pride is still so important, and more importantly, it is still happening - just in a slightly different way!
Thank you so much for joining me, I will be back next week to continue Celebration Month!
Shot by Rachel Pechey
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