Show Your Unity, Show Your Pride

This post is Part 3 in a 5-part series on Showing Your Pride through Unexpected, yet Important Means. Join the dialogue!!

In times when we still have an upward legal battle to face, and when daily, worldwide prejudice still abounds, the LGBT community needs to stand together. It is really easy for us to corner off into our L, G, B, or T circles, or sequester ourselves by our race, religion, class, citizenship or degree of comfort with our sexual orientation, but one of the most important, and simple, ways that we can show our pride is through our support of each other.

Especially during pride month, when parades and celebrations are occuring round the globe, this is a time to stand with people who, on all other levels, appear to be very different from ourselves, but who, like us, are fighting for the rights and respect of the LGBT community.

Our means of fighting are inevitably going to be very different, and one way that we can show unity is recognize that everyone's pride is going to shine in it's own unique way. Some people are simply not ready (for emotional, financial, or other reasons) to come out to their parents or their workplace, but their online or other, more quiet presences still need to be supported and honoured. Others may feel compelled to show their LGBT pride through much more overt displays, and as long as the celebration is respectful and non-violent, I think that we need to be supportive of everyone who is finding a way to show their pride. Criticizing people in our community for the ways that they show their pride creates a harmful division, and while we may not agree with other means of expressing what it means to be a part of the LGBT community, we need to recognize that our community is founded upon a celebration of difference, and respect others as we would wish to be respected for our own displays of pride.

We are a very diverse group of people, but we are a group, and our strength has been and always will be in our standing up for each other. For those of us within the LGBT community who still struggle, on any number of levels, with holding a certain degree of culturally-infused homophobia, it may be hard to accept an expression of pride that is outside of the comfort zone of how we might define or describe ourselves. This difficulty of accepting others because of the lack of self-acceptance demonstrates that one of the most important ways of sharing prideful solidarity is, in fact, to accept oneself.

Now for story time: This past weekend, my partner and I went to a fantastic, small concert in East Vancouver (www.myspace.com/eslband), and the majority of the people in the audience were clearly queer or queer-loving folks. We flocked to the venue in all shapes and sizes, and even though it wasn't explicitly a queer event, this place quickly became a space of solidarity and respect for each other, rather than a competitive, clicky and cold situation, as it sometimes can be. B & I seek out spaces such as these, because it makes a difference to our morale, and helps us to feel as though real difference in community can be made even in small moments, such as a band concert.

I would encourage, and urge, you to seek out places within the queer community, whether virtual or in person, which celebrates the differences and diversity that we host within our common quest for respect, and perpetually seek and support unity rather than division.