Here for the Girls, the Gays, & the Theys: Happy Pride Month!

Sometimes, the hate is so loud that it feels overwhelming. I remember this beautiful time in my youth where bigots were ashamed of their bigotry. They went into that closet they were always trying to shove other people into, and for just a little while, the larger society got to breathe a sigh of relief at the sense of peace and progress left behind in their absence.

But that closet wasn’t a black hole. They might have gotten quieter for a little while and more reluctant to loudly voice their hateful rhetoric, but they didn’t go away, and most of them didn’t have a change of heart. They just grew increasingly bitter and resentful.

It turns out that no one likes feeling like they have to hide their true selves.

But I miss when they did. They’ve been emboldened to be loud and proud about their hatred and bigotry in ways I’ve never seen in my lifetime. Their hate is this thing that they no longer have the sense to be ashamed of, and it’s made the world a far meaner place than it would be otherwise.

I’m a woman in a patriarchal society, so I grew up always looking over my shoulder, keys clenched tightly in hand. I knew how to look for danger in every situation and how to placate potentially dangerous men. I could weaponize politeness and call it survival.

But here in my feral forties, I am no longer interested in surviving with a polite smile stretched across my face while checking for exits and weapons. I don’t want to keep the peace while I’m actively feeling threatened. My survival instincts haven’t dulled with time. I’m just a lot more interested in being just as loud and proud in defense of my beliefs as they are in defense of their bigotry. It’s going to get a lot more uncomfortable for some people, and I’m choosing not to be one of them.

Why I Love the Girls, the Gays, and the Theys

In my lifetime, I’ve felt threatened by a lot of people. All of them men. I can honestly say that I’ve never felt like my life was in danger by other women, gay people of any gender, or trans people. I have never felt threatened in the presence of drag queens, even the ones who apply their makeup so much better than I do. I have never felt uncomfortable in a restroom with a trans woman. I changed in locker rooms with women who are attracted to other women and never once felt objectified or unsafe.

I have certainly felt threatened and unsafe in a room with a cis-white man, particularly if he identifies as conservative and even more so if that conservative identification is paired with so-called Christian values (and by those values, I am referring to the fundamentalists who eschew Jesus’s teachings for white, Republican Faux-Jesus instead). I have never crossed to the other side of the street when seeing a drag queen headed my way, but I have done this more times than I count to avoid a man or group of them.

I’m going into Pride Month fiercely supporting the queer community, as I do every other month of the year. I’m taking a clear-eyed look at the world, and who we love isn’t the problem. Who we hate most certainly is.

I have to admit that I grew up being taught that there was something wrong with gay people. The churches I went to really hammered that home, and my family echoed that mantra. But I still didn’t think it was okay to be mean to the queer community.

The funny thing is that I changed my belief system during a church service where a young man got up to give his testimony about giving up a gay life and coming to Jesus. As he told his moving story, all I could think was this: He was born this way, and he’s spent his whole life hating himself because other people are telling him that he’s wrong for who he is.

I hope that man is somewhere living his best gay life with a man who makes him happy because I walked out of that room and didn’t think “gay people are wrong and can be converted back to straight.” I walked out of that room thinking it was pretty messed up that religion has made people feel shame for who they love.

I never again believed that it was wrong or weird or unnatural. I did, however, believe that any religion teaching hate and judgment was all three. I also learned to hate the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin” because I could see that love had nothing to do with any system that promoted bigotry.

I started loudly affirming this idea that love is love, and I think we’ve got bigger problems in my country and in this world without making problems where there are none.

A Better Place to Put That Energy of Bigotry

All the energy that goes into hate and fear could be better spent elsewhere. In developing empathy. In getting to know someone with a different lifestyle and viewpoint. But I have to admit, there are even bigger fish to fry than self-actualization.

We’ve got a whole bunch of pedophiles running around free in the world, and I’d much rather see people grab the pitchforks and chase them down rather than head off to harass some drag queen at story hour.

I’d love to see people lighting the torches to chase child rapists into the streets than burning books that made them think, an uncomfortable and unfamiliar event for them.

I’d be happy to see people holding all elected representatives responsible for upholding the law and the Constitution rather than confronting people in the bathroom about which genitals they may or may not possess.

All that time people spend protesting any kind of gay rights could better be spent serving at a local food bank, an animal shelter, or a green space giving back to the community.

The Part Where We Get Loud and Make Bigots Uncomfortable

But bigots do what they do. Unless they educate themselves and change, they’ll keep being harmful to others in their words and actions. And we need to start making them uncomfortable right back by calling it out every single time. No queer bashing joke goes unchallenged. No microaggression gets ignored. They’re so loud right now. We can be louder.

This is the part I’m finding frustrating right now. I know a ton of good people who’ve actually gone quieter lately. I understand that it’s self-protective. Sometimes, it’s protecting their finances because they fear the backlash of publicly aligning with progressive values. Sometimes, it’s disgust with our country and self-isolating to avoid more of our fellow countrymen. But here’s the thing: When we see fascism, this isn’t the time to tuck tails and run and hide. It’s the time to get very, very loud and mouthy — especially the cis-white people like me who come with all the invisible privilege of being cisgendered and white.

I think of Renee Good telling the officer “I’m not mad at you, dude.” On the one hand, it’s beautiful and admirable. But I’m telling you this: If I get murdered by conservatives, I don’t necessary want my last words to be kind. If I’m honest, I’d rather go out running my mouth to the bitter end. Maybe that says a lot about who I am as a human being, but I think a lot of women are feeling the same right now. I don’t want to die with a polite smile on my face. I want to go out feral and fighting for our rights and the lives of everyone who will come after us.

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Of course, I’d rather live to a ripe old age and not die at all. But I’d hate for my last words to have been kindness to someone who could take my life and call me “a f*cking b*tch” as I died.

Don’t get me wrong; I think she did what so many of us do. She reached for kindness. She tried to diffuse the situation. It’s usually the right thing to do. I guess I’ve just reached a point after watching my fellow human beings murdered for doing absolutely nothing wrong that I just don’t want to be kind to our oppressors.

I don’t want to paint on a smile and pretend I give a shit about them while they actively try to harm my community. I want us all to be louder and bolder until we drown out their hate. I want to shame them back into their closets where they can sit and think about what they’ve done.

It’s exhausting to live like this. Pride Month should be allowed to be a happy, celebratory month of love. It should be something that brings people together. It shouldn’t be a time when the bigotry turns up the volume and so-called leftists only quietly show their support.

People shouldn’t be dying for who they love in the year of our lady 2026. They shouldn’t have to hide who they are or fear that someone will come for their right to marry or have children. They should get to love who they love with as much public acknowledgement and celebration as every straight love story.

I want us to turn up the volume louder than the bigots can handle. I want rainbows everywhere and a world where we refuse to be silenced because their fragile sense of self cannot handle a world where people exist who are not like just like them. I want to spread revolutionary joy, but I also want to bare my teeth and snarl rather than politely smile when met with offensive and bigoted energy.

I want us to get so loud and proud and bold that we drown out the noise of their hate, until we remember that we are not alone, and until we are reminded that we are always stronger together.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.