PRIDE month–June, usually, to commemorate the beginning of the Stonewall Rebellion on June 28, 1969 in New York, but can be any month–gets a lot of hype. We are inundated with marketing and events, and may wonder how can we fit in all of the parties and socializing and events and fundraisers in one short month, or if we even want to.
PRIDE should be a time to celebrate our accomplishments, experience joy and community, plan for the future, commemorate the past and those we’ve lost, lean into protecting and supporting our youth, our newly identified or questioning folk, our elders, and anyone who needs protection under our wings, for being supported ourselves, and for play and euphoria. It should be a time where we feel safe and cherished. And maybe more than a little bit sassy. PRIDE is autonomy and connection in a sweaty ecstatic dance.
And the reality is that PRIDE events, and PRIDE month can be isolating and unwelcoming for many of us, for so many reasons.
PRIDE can be
- so white.
- commercial and performative.
- focused on activities that exclude our youngest and oldest, and many in-between.
- steeped in narrow beauty and body ideals.
- physically demanding.
- loud and other sensory input heavy, or allergen-unsafe.
- lacking or inconsistent in interpretive services, or not broadcast well.
- expensive.
- substance use focused.
- only urban (or inaccessible via public transportation or for alternate mobility needs.)
- dangerous for those who are at risk of COVID or other infections (Yo, mask up!)
- marginalizing in other ways that I’m not recognizing or including.
It all can be overwhelming and not all that much fun.
On a personal note as QueerDoc’s Facilitator Unicorn, I have cried more in introductory appointments this past month than I think I every have. Some of those tears have been from joy and some have been from frustration, and some have been from relief. There are moments of incredible lightness when we are able to help someone start or continue their journey, and moments of deep sadness when we are not able to do so. As the person who meets most of our prospective patients first, before the rest of the QueerDoc team, and when I interact with many of our patients in navigating administrative hurdles, I cherish every moment of joy and the tiny bits of community that are built. These too, have been some of the reasons for my crying: sometimes I just don’t have the energy in the moment for the things that always need doing, or I am unable to do the things that need to be done, or I can’t do them right now.
I probably won’t be going to PRIDE events: I’m immunosuppressed, and it isn’t safe. The sensory abundance of PRIDE celebrations can be…overwhelming. The logistics of getting to and navigating around, if I were to go, are spoon-intensive. The crash of insincere advertising encourages my most cynical self. I am celebrating PRIDE in small daily acts and affirmations, and I’ve recently found a fab listing of virtual PRIDE events put together by BiPan Library.
- Virtual Pride 2024 website
- Virtual Pride Insta
Even as PRIDE events can be both the best part of the year, and frustratingly inaccessible,
these are also some of the reasons that we say “Queer All Year!” at QueerDoc. PRIDE isn’t a weekend in June, or May or September or any other month. It is moving through the world as our glorious, messy, imperfect selves, striving to carve out the spaces for joy, autonomy, accountability, and community, giving grace to ourselves and to others when we are messy and imperfect, supporting care and healing, growth, learning, rest, and celebrating euphoria.
Happy PRIDE to our amazing patients, to the dedicated medical community joining us in this work, to our loved ones and the strangers who hold us through this work, to all those we have met and not met who know the feeling of “other.” May we thrive.
“Queer’ not as being about who you’re having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but ‘queer’ as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
-bell hooks
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