Pride: We Still Have Work to Do

As an LGBTQ+ Specialized Therapist during Pride season, tension always arises with my queer clients. I see this tension reflected in the greater Denver LGBTQ+ zeitgeist as well as in larger queer media while there is tension between ubiquitous inclusion and many queers not identifying with Pride at all. 

Pride is Complicated 

Pride is just as complex, contradictory, and complicated as the communities, cultures, and identities it represents. As LGBTQ+ rights and visibility increase, cities and communities become more expansive and diverse. One Pride event or Pride Month can never reflect all the LGBTQ+ identities under the rainbow umbrella.

Pride has Changed 

“Pride” has evolved over its 50-plus years. It originated from riots against police brutality for the criminalization of queerness and LGBTQ+ people congregating. Today, Pride commonly resembles a music festival and a parade with sleek marketing and corporate sponsorship. As Pride has expanded to be “inclusive to everyone,” the reality that we are not all one culture has become more apparent and ultimately alienates more than it includes.  Inevitably, a Pride for Everyone approach centers around dominant cultures, specifically white, cisgender people with disposable incomes. Mainstream Prides are rarely reflective of the subcultures within LGBTQ+ populations much further than a catchy slogan or tagline. 

Pride has History 

Sylvia Rivera is a perfect example. She and Marsha P. Johnson initiated the 1969 Stonewall Riots and led the Gay Liberation Movement (which is now Pride). After the first wave of liberation was set in motion, queer visibility became pronounced; decriminalization efforts took shape, and some rights started to develop. Despite the prominent movement leadership by trans women of color, forward strides in rights were enjoyed by the socially acceptable cisgender, white, middle-class gays and lesbians. 

Sylvia, a Latina trans woman who lived with housing insecurity and struggled with addiction, was left behind by her cisgender gay and lesbian community. In 1973, Sylvia, the mother of Pride, was banned from speaking at Pride just five years after she was integral in its inception! She was able to fight her way on stage and spoke out about the dominant (white cis) culture developing in the LGBTQ+ rights movement of the 70s. 

Her speech was met by a booing crowd of gays and lesbians seething in hypocrisy as Sylvia remained true to the post-Stonewall Liberation Front mission of collective liberation. She used the stage as a platform to spread awareness of those LGBTQ+ folks who were still in jail for being queer and to spread the word about STAR. 

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was a housing collective for transgender people founded by Sylvia and Marsha. It was a resource created as the Liberation movement centered around gay men and lesbian women, leaving behind the trans community and queer people with less assimilation privilege. 

It is still common for LGBTQ+ people to face racism, transphobia, addiction, or housing and economic insecurity. Transgender people of color are still left lacking in LGBTQ+ rights, protections, community support, and cultural visibility. At the same time, homogenous cis, white community organizations pat themselves on the back by preaching LGBTQ+ inclusivity. 

Many queer people with less social privilege and access don’t identify with contemporary mass LGBTQ+ culture, let alone Pride. Even with the wide range of Pride Month events within Denver and Colorado, many queer people don’t feel accepted or allowed to participate in LGBTQ+ spaces or even possess their identification with queerness at all. This is why we must always acknowledge the tension between the inclusivity and difference of queer culture, LGBTQ+ rights, and liberation, including Pride.  

Holding Tension 

It is often my job to hold that tension, help my clients see how multidimensional their identities are, and how they can overlap and conflict with the larger LGBTQ+ culture. LGBTQ+ folks have the gift of being outsiders. The tension here is that our outsider status is also the source of our pain through trans-bi-homophobic hate and oppression. To be queer is to be free from the norm that doesn’t fit anyone anyway. Those of us like myself who have the privileges of being white, cis-gender can assimilate into mainstream culture (moving away from our Queerness) to access more privilege and power. Unfortunately, we still, to this day, leave behind our marginalized Queer community members just like Sylvia and the transgender communities in the 70s. 

Pride Moving Forward 

Now that this year’s Pride season has passed and we have had time to reflect on our experience, our relationship to Pride, LGBTQ+ culture, and our own queerness, I invite us to seek out affirming spaces. Next year’s Pride month, I invite you to consider how you take up space at the mainstream Pride events. We must keep diversifying Pride, making room for visibility for those who get left behind. In doing so, we keep Pride queer and maintain the values of where it originated from: social justice for all queer people.  

As Sylvia’s co-leader of the Stonewall riots, Marsha P. Johnson, said, “No Pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” And let’s not get it twisted; there is still mass injustice in LGBTQ+ communities and culture. Free Palestine.

For more from Jesse, follow him at @Holistic.Homosexual. 

Photo courtesy of Veronica L. Holyfield