Pride month has come and gone and as ever all the Rainbows will retreat back to the hills from whence they came or something. We’ve had our allocation of being Super Duper Gay for another year and must go back to being simply Ordinary Gay.
Of course I joke, and Pride is a year round fight, it is also something that personally we should do, be however you want to frame it.
I wrote at the start of the month about not feeling quite at home in the world of Pride…and I’ve seen both people also agreeing, but also expressing at present Pride feels somewhere between flat, frustrating and lost in the political times we live in. An important reminder that Pride is a protest and perhaps its time to revert back to those roots. But as a busy Pride month draws to a close here are some thoughts, in no particular order, or importance of things that have occurred to me this month…
Pick Your Battles
Or, to use my favourite Angels in America quote ‘I save my hate for what counts.’ I had a few conversations with fellow queer folks this month around feeling anything from ‘not enough’ to outright fear of retribution from fellow Queer folks for not being angry at x y or z appropriately or doing x y or z to demonstrate their queerness appropriately.
The bottom line is first there’s a LOT to be angry at in society right now. Both for Queer folks and all the other myriad of intersections our lives bring us. We simply do not have the bandwidth to be angry at everything that deserves it all the time. We would burn out be (more) miserable. And sometimes, every battle is not our own, nor do we have the ability to fight them all.
But more than this, it feels like some groups are turning on members of our own community for not doing politics ‘right’. And I don’t mean being a Gay Tory or supporting the TERF Wizard. I mean, for not knowing about or being ‘seen’ to be doing certain things in line with certain politics. Or there’s the idea of focusing on every tiny indiscretion, or perceived indiscretion against the community, and targeting those not only deemed ‘responsible’ but accusing others of ‘apathy’ for not being ‘political enough.’
And there are a multitude of arguments to be made about this- not least that what politics and actions people are able to engage in are highly personal and relative- people’s jobs prevent ‘visible’ politics sometimes (something a lot of young people don’t seem aware of) things like family tensions, disability all manner of things can prevent the kind of ‘engagement’ that some groups cry out for. It’s the cliche that you don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life, but it’s also true. But not everyone has the time and capacity to be full-time ‘activist’.
But also, rather than turning on our community for perceived inaction regarding x or y, maybe we should save the hate for where it counts: the people and systems we’re fighting against.
Not Everyone Wants to ‘do Pride’
This in part, goes back to my post at the start of the month: Pride in the traditional sense that we know it isn’t for everyone. Not everyone wants to or can march in or watch a parade. Not everyone wants to watch 90s pop stars in a field. Not everyone enjoys drinking. Not everyone has a Queer network to do all that with. Or perhaps they prefer to hang out with their Queer climbing or running group than dress in rainbows. That’s all ok too. As cliche as it is, Pride is a state of mind, not well, a state of intoxication.
But in a broader take, too, you’re not less ‘Proud’ or less Queer if you don’t have a queer group. If you want one, I hope you find it, but also, it’s ok (whisper it) to have straight friends. Or not to have a big ‘Tales of the City’ chosen family. Maybe you’re a one-gay-per-town friendship person, or you just have a small network. You don’t have to have a group to go and ‘do Pride’ or anything else with to be Proud.
You Don’t Owe anyone Pride (or Labels)
Equally, you don’t have to turn up at Pride to prove your queerness. It might seem like every Queer and their dog is at Pride (and we love dogs at Pride), but if it’s not your thing, you’re not less Queer or less part of this community for it.
A similar thing with labels. I’ve had this discussion a few times over Pride month in doing the talks I do…you don’t owe anyone your labels. And no, it shouldn’t have to be said but I think it’s worth reiterating as we exit Pride month. While labels are great and useful not everyone has the right to them, nor should you feel compelled to share them- or all of them. I talk about how I give my ‘list’ of labels in talks I do as it’s part of the reason I’m here- to share the lived experience as well as learned information. It’s relevant in that situation I share the nuances of my labels. But if I make a new friend or start a new job I am not required to share my labels. Heck, even to ‘belong’ (whatever that means) to the community, you don’t have to share your labels unless you want to. Sharing that information is personal and a privilege to the receiver, not a right.
While we’re at it, too, stop assuming labels. Just because I am a female-presenting person who has short hair does not mean I identify as a lesbian (nothing wrong with lesbians. They’re great people…I’m just not one and equally feel bad ‘appropraiting’ their label). But this goes double for when Queer people produce art: if I had a pound for every time someone expected me to produce ‘lesbian’ themed work because they’d decided by default I was a lesbian, I might have enough money to actually fund my own work. People don’t owe you labels but lets not put them into boxes either.
Find Your People
There’s a weird exterior perception still that all Queer people should be friends ‘my cousin is gay you might know him’ and ok, while we might know your cousin (or at least someone who has slept with him…) just because we share a sexuality doesn’t mean we’ll get along, or like the same things. Again, there’s pressure to ‘join the group’, especially in Pride month, and we as a community, I think particularly bad at the ‘if you want to join us, you have to like this and dress like this and look like this’ mentality…and it’s boring, frustrating and helps nobody.
And your people might not be in Queer spaces…hear me out, but I’ve made more ‘queer friends’ in spaces not designated as such, either because we’ve found each other in the face of crushing heteronormativity or general disillusionment but also again hear me out the way to fine YOUR brand of queer people is through things you actually like. So be that shared taste in music, sport, books or board games. Find your type of queer folks, and you’ll find that mythical chosen family (even if that’s just your mate Dave and his dog).
Find your Queer Joy
In all its forms. Whether that is walking the dog with Dave (I don’t know who Dave is either) or knitting or board games (personally, I think board game lovers are psychopaths, but proof we should all do our own thing).
My Queer joy this Pride has been a much-needed affirmation of ‘doing what I love’ and ‘I’m actually good at this’ in doing Pride talks. Getting back to (particularly after ending my last ‘day job’) doing what I love and, dare I say, what I’m good at matters.
But it also affirmed for me that this is where my Pride exists: sharing a passion for the community and our history and passing that on. It sits in education for Queer folks allies and hopefully soon-to-be allies. It contributes to both recording that history and passing it on.
For me too, that’s my idea of ‘Queer Fun’ whether its the giving the talks, the conversations about them or the research to do them that’s my fun, my Queer Joy in it and shouldn’t we all be simply reveling in what affirms us as Queer Folks. Isn’t that what Pride is about.
Make your stand where it counts
Pride is after all a protest, and while maybe we can’t all be out demonstrating every week or be involved in every cause, we can do…what we can do. I spent Pride month joyously amplifying a friend’s fundraiser for the Terrance Higgins Trust and being thrilled at the visibility he was bringing to his community (of knitters!) and also the money raised. I went into organisations and spoke to individuals who perhaps don’t always engage with Pride. When someone says after a talk ‘I’d never heard of any of those people’ my job, and my role in activism is done. I also, unfortunately, took a stand against a TERF-y author during Pride month and drew my own boundaries around working even in the proximity of him (I will indeed gender that ‘prominent Welsh Author’ because TERFS don’t deserve total anonymity). Finally, I found Queer Protest Joy by marching with my fellow hockey supporters at Pride in Cardiff, and we were/are one of only I think two representatives of the professional sports teams in Cardiff. And I’m proud to be part of a set of supporters helping to progress inclusivity in sport. Maybe I didn’t ‘do’ as much as some, but I did things that mattered to me, and had my whole heart behind.
Finding your niche in Pride is the key. Pride is a proest, but Pride is also personal.
Emily Garside 