Pride Reflections: “I don't want to leave, and I'm not too scared to keep going.”

It’s hard, this year - but I feel like I say that every year. Something I've come to realize is that finding joy is a skill, something we work at, something we grow over time. When things are difficult, and I mean really difficult, I mean crying on the sidewalk in front of the Urban Abbey difficult, I mean feeling like I'm going to throw up every weekend at work difficult - it is these times of anxiety and frustration and guilt - that is when it is important to focus on joy. Pride has always felt like solace to me, that I can turn to my community and feel safe and happy to be part of something bigger than myself, something that took hard work from so many people to make happen.

But even that, this year, feels a little hollow. The reality is that the LGBT community has suffered from so much loss, it feels like I am perpetually grieving as transgender rights are stripped away all over the country, as the state of Florida has become a veritable no fly zone for gender nonconforming folks - as the Supreme Court rules that people like me can be turned away and refused service for the crime of being different - for being gay or transgender or queer. It is an awful, bitter pill to swallow.

and I ask myself: how do we find joy in all of this? How do we have faith? What am I trying to believe in? I find my answer here. it always comes back to this. To community, to the people around me.

I remember, after the first threat came, Debra had all of us on staff sit down together and we talked about what we were going to do next. She asked us if we should keep hosting Drag Story hour, that she would understand if we were all too scared or we wanted to leave - and I knew immediately that I wasn't and that I didn't. And then I looked around the table to all of my coworkers. Up to that point we had all felt some level of uncertainty, we were not sure if the threats against us were real, were not sure what what we would do if they were, I wasn't even really sure if it was all real or some kind of crazy dream - but i looked around that table and and saw everyone else come to the same conclusion. That this didn't make us want to leave and it didn't make us too scared to continue. What we needed then wasn’t a way out but a path forward, a plan of action, the next steps.

And that is the mentality I find myself falling back on when it feels like it’s all too much, when it feels hopeless and impossible, when every hurdle becomes a mountain and every loss becomes an ocean - that I don't want to leave, and I'm not too scared to keep going. I don’t want out, I want in. The queer community has confronted this hatred before and we will again. and it is joy, i think, that keeps us going. It is a love and community and family that we fold in our pockets and keep close to our hearts.

This is how we forge a path forward, this is how we continue to pursue equality. We gather our strength through unity. To quote Audre Lorde, “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

and that's what it comes down to; it is not that I am fearless, it is that I am finding the strength to move forward anyways. And I am never alone in this - that is what Pride shows us, again and again. Thank you.