Pride is resilience, liberation, community, and identity
More than a dozen people at Pride events around the city told Gay City News what Pride means to them, and their answers offer some useful insight about people’s perceptions during an era of great adversity for LGBTQ people, especially transgender individuals. At least three people mentioned some form of the word “liberation.” One person … Read More
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More than a dozen people at Pride events around the city told Gay City News what Pride means to them, and their answers offer some useful insight about people’s perceptions during an era of great adversity for LGBTQ people, especially transgender individuals.
At least three people mentioned some form of the word "liberation." One person said Pride "means standing firm in who you are," while another individual said Pride is "about resiliency, standing up to be who you are, where you are, without any apologies to ask for."
A different person said Pride "means full visibility really, and fully owning identity and queerness... and in this society with the level of discord and fighting going on, it feels more important than ever to just own this, and celebrate the word 'Pride.'"
Furthermore, the two main marches slated for Pride Sunday — the Queer Liberation March and the NYC Pride March — reflect similar themes as the ones voiced by people we talked to at Pride events. NYC Pride’s main theme is “Rise Up: Pride in Protest,” while the Queer Liberation March’s theme is "Resist! Reclaim! Rejoice!"
It is clear that today, 56 years after the Stonewall Uprising, the community is channeling the resilience and the energy of the original uprising in the face of hostility from the federal government, many State Legislatures, and others who have aggressively resisted queer rights in recent years and shamefully disparaged transgender individuals.
The determined responses of individuals also reflect just how far the community has traveled in the last five-plus decades — and how much longer there is to go.
“Pride means a long, long haul,” one person said while pointing to a shirt from a 1994 pride march. “I was here and it was not like this. … There was a lot of opposition, a lot of people telling us ‘you don’t have the right to exist.’
Notably, many individuals emphasized the importance of standing in community with other LGBTQ individuals, which demonstrates the power of collective action and contributes to positive shared experiences.
Another critical point echoed by multiple individuals is the importance of identity. Every coming out story is different, but they are all personal and unique — and everyone remembers what it was like when they first came out. Moreover, people are constantly continuing to come out, over and over again — and each time is associated with an important decision of whether or not to come out in that given setting.
At Pride, however, there is a shared sense of relief, a sense of community, a sense of belonging. No matter how distressing things may seem in the background, it’s important to show Pride — however you do it.
Happy Pride!
