Thread by @jplarocque

It’s Pride Month. I’m happy to see your logos turn into rainbows. I’m happy that our allies, both privileged and marginalized, wave flags and retweet and offer up their safe spaces. I also want to talk about what this month means to me.

Every spring I get bashed in Toronto. Friends have jokingly referred to it as “the spring bashing” — the weather gets warm, so car windows roll down, and someone calls me a faggot from a moving vehicle. Every year, since I was 14 years old.

When I was sexually assaulted in my early twenties, everyone I turned to dismissed my experience. They assumed that because of queer hook-up culture, I was misremembering the details, that I’d had too much to drink, that I couldn’t possibly be a victim. Only therapy helped me.

AIDS killed off many of my mentors, and the onus was on the community to care for our own. My HIV positive friends are still stigmatized, and if you think COVID-19 has placed restrictions on your life, imagine growing up terrified of sex because you equated it with death.

In workplaces, I’ve had bosses lisp at me, pull me aside “for fashion advice,” ask me questions about my sex life. I’ve been groped by superiors in sex-positive environments, endured horrible racism in queer spaces. I’ve been bullied by other marginalized people in “safe spaces.”

And even for the shit I’ve had to endure, I also have a lot of privilege. I know many members of my community have it worse. My trans family. The street involved. Sex workers. A few years ago, a serial killer hunted our community and the cops didn’t care. He’s one killer of many.

So, yeah, Pride’s a party! It’s fun quippy jokes and drag queens and musicals! It’s also ongoing harassment and marginalization in our communities. The fight is not done, and we need to support the fuck out of each other to survive. And our allies need to do more than wave flags.