LGBTQIA+ Pride Month Without Your Person

With LGBTQIA+ Pride celebrations kicking off this week it’s easy to feel… well, a lot of things. With the anti-queer, anti-trans, anti-reproductive rights, pro-violence of the world, anything joyful or joy-adjacent can seem strange. It’s also still a pandemic, so there’s that too.⁣
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Even without the cacophony of the wider world, if you’re grieving, the celebrations of Pride can be extra challenging when you’re missing your partner, your friend, your sibling, your child, your parent – anyone who made Pride Month special. ⁣⁣
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Deaths within the LGBTQIA+ community – due to hate crimes, violence, and increasingly reduced access to appropriate healthcare – should also be acknowledged here. It’s hard to celebrate diversity and inclusion if your person experienced, or died as a result of, targeted exclusion and hate. It’s hard to believe in that multicolored flag if you aren’t really welcomed. ⁣⁣
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Whether you’re out and proud, not out, planning to come out, unable to come out, or figuring things out, you are valid and deserve love and support exactly as you are. ⁣To be honest, joy is potent social action, so if there is any joy this month for you, lean into it.⁣
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Take things at your own pace this Pride Month, friends.⁣

PS: If you aren’t capable of being kind and inclusive in the comments on this page (or any of my social media pages), your comments will be deleted and you’ll be banned. I have no time for hate.

If you’re in crisis, call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a free, 24-hour hotline, at 1.800.273.8255. The Trans Lifeline Hotline is 877-565-8860. If your issue is an emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room. Additional helplines – including those outside of the US – can be found here.