Happy Pride Month, everyone!
I really do love seeing rainbows everywhere I go this month. As much as I concede that the corporate co-optation of Pride is problematic, I feel happy when I see rainbow colored merchandise everywhere. Rainbow has been my favorite “color” forever. Partly because I have trouble picking favorites, but also because I genuinely love how rainbows look and make me feel.
Obviously Pride is not just about rainbows. It’s not even mostly about rainbows.
Pride is a riot. It’s a challenge and an invitation to strive toward greater collective care and radical acceptance. It’s an opportunity to question our social and cultural norms around love, gender, sexuality, partnership, family structures, identity…
Over the past several years I’ve grown enamored of the concept of Queerness and have begun to identify with the label. I love how Queer can encompass my expansive exploration of my identity. As an elder Millennial I grew up in a time and place where there weren’t discussions or representations of gender outside of the girl/boy binary. Later, as a young adult, I leaned heavily on my performance of female gender and heterosexuality as a source of external validation.
Now that I’m older, and I am watching younger generations expand the conversation around gender identity, I feel so excited. I feel excited for my kids growing up in a world where there are so many ways to experience and express gender identity. I also can’t help but feel a bit of grief for my younger self. I wonder who I could have been if I had understood that there were more options? I wonder how much more secure and comfortable I could have been if I had known that I didn’t need so much external validation?
So now I am leaning into a new exploration of who I might be. And Queer feels like a good fit so far. Queer allows me room to question, experiment, and reinvent. It allows me to acknowledge that I don’t want to subscribe to the rigid social norms or false binaries that have been passed down and perpetuated. My Queerness includes not just how I see myself, but also how I choose to parent and relate to others in community. Queer feels expansive and inclusive, and in alignment with my values.
I’m curious to know what Pride means to you? How has your identity shifted over time? And how have you been impacted by the growing dialogue around gender and sexuality?
