We’re coming to the end of pride month once again. Corporate twitters will go back to their boring profile pictures, pride themed events will (mostly) come to an end, pride themed items won’t be restocked, but that doesn’t mean that pride is really over. After all, having pride in yourself should be a year-round commitment. Living through the bad times to see the good is a worthy cause to celebrate, and I, for one, am proud of myself. For surviving the hard times and for lifting up other trans people to the best of my ability, I am proud. Every trans person should be proud and we deserve to celebrate who we are unashamedly.
I love pride month. Typically, there’s a lot of lovely summer days (it being June and all), I feel more comfortable with being visibly queer, and I have an excuse to celebrate my queerness openly with the people I love. Of course, there are hardships too, especially now with the growing vitriol from mainstream media and the government, but that doesn’t mean that we should lose hope. Statistics1 still show that anti-trans viewpoints – namely “gender critical” ideology – are not the mainstream and that the people who hold these views are a minority. The problem is simply that they are loud and often difficult to ignore because they apparently believe that the non-stop harassment of trans people will make us go away (spoiler alert: it won’t). Transgender people will never go away, we have always existed and we always will, if they won’t accept that then that is entirely their problem. I refuse to apologise for loving myself and loving being myself wholeheartedly.
That’s the crux of pride month in my opinion. Finally, we have a month where it’s okay to be loud and proud about loving ourselves, and in that vein I don’t think that it should end. A friend of mine told me that the most important part of pride month to her was “the courage it gives those in the lgbtq community to accept others’ love and care for them, and to have more courage to show others that they love and care about them as well.” This is exactly the kind of energy that I’m talking about. During pride month it’s easier to be more visible as an LGBT+ person, to show our love for ourselves and others, but we should be trying to keep that courage and love and care all year round. People who aren’t LGBT+ need to remember that we exist year round, not just during pride month. I have been inspired this year to have the courage to be more visible in my day-to-day life, so that I might give other trans people the courage to love themselves a bit more too. I have nothing to be ashamed of and I don’t want to be quiet and timid about it anymore.
Like I’ve said, this pride month has been particularly difficult for trans people. With the assault from the majority of mainstream media getting worse2, seemingly by the day, bigotry has been bleeding over in the form of a tragic increase in hate crimes against LGBT+ people3. It’s understandably difficult to feel pride in oneself when faced with a constant stream of negativity, but at the same time I feel like that just makes pride that much more necessary. Pride started as a protest after all, and sometimes the most effective form of protest is being unabashedly yourself despite all those who oppose you. Of course, there’s nothing quite like a good yell at those in power who oppose you, so physical protests are also essential. There are some brilliant minds working behind the scenes of some upcoming protests, working tirelessly to make them as accessible as possible, and I’m excited to be attending one in early August! Being a part of a visible, physical presence is important to me because it helps to remind people that trans people have always been here, and that we aren’t going away any time soon.
Now of course, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t acknowledge the fact that some people either can’t or don’t want to come out of the closet. Some people can’t attend physical protests, they can’t present themselves the ways they want to, they can’t come out at all, and they are no less valid for that. I support every single person who can’t or won’t come out of the closet for any reason, be it safety or simply their own comfort. Being out is not a requirement and it doesn’t make any person any less LGBT+, and pride month absolutely extends to them. I hope that one day every LGBT+ person has the courage and freedom to be themselves as loudly as they like, has the courage to love and the courage to express themselves in ways that make them euphoric. It took me years to get to this point and while I have struggled, I can absolutely acknowledge that I have been exceedingly lucky in my life. At this point I want to use my privilege in a way that helps other people, by being visible and fighting for the good of the community, by speaking up when others are unable to, and by hopefully changing the minds of every day people, one step at a time.
It is incredibly nerve wracking for me to even think about being visibly transgender in Britain at the moment and if you’ve been paying attention to this essay, I’m sure that you’ll be able to see why. Despite that though, I am not conflicted. I want to do this, I want to be out and proud and seen in a way that people won’t be able to ignore. I want to make sure that everyone can see the impact that the current anti-trans climate has on real people, I want to make sure that the injustices committed against us aren’t swept under the rug. I may just be one man, but I want to at least try to make a difference, even if it just helps one person feel a little more comfortable in their skin.
This essay took me all month to write. It was difficult to put all of the thoughts in my head into a reasonable and readable order, but it was well worth the effort. Pride month this year may have been hard but it hasn’t been without it’s bright spots. The best part of pride month for me was receiving my copy of Gender Euphoria, edited by Laura Kate Dale. It is a fantastic collection of essays written by transgender, nonbinary and intersex people from a wide variety of backgrounds, speaking about moments of gender euphoria in their lives, and it was incredibly inspiring and heartwarming for me to read. As such, I would like to finish this essay off by sharing a couple of small moments of gender euphoria that I feel. I feel gender euphoria when I am able to wear shorts on a sunny day, showing off my wonderfully hairy legs. I feel it when I do handiwork around the house, putting my muscles and practical skills to good use. I feel it when my dad proudly calls me his son. I would love it if any of you reading would share some of your moments of gender euphoria with me.
Before I sign off, I want to share one last thing with you all. Mum, Dad, sorry in advance for this one, but I got a new tattoo without telling you. Wishing you all the best, and happy pride.
Footnotes –
1 https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/07/16/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/data-clear-most-people-are-supportive-trans-rights
2 https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/exclusive-mermaids-research-into-newspaper-coverage-on-trans-issues/
3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48756370