5 LGBTQ+ Values to Celebrate This Pride History Month
Major Take-Aways:
October marks Pride History Month and provides members of the LGBTQ+ community and our allies an opportunity to take stock in our history and to draw inspiration for our continued activism
Historically, LGBTQ+ have faced significant threats to their mental health and may struggle with shame. Positive representations of LGBTQ+ identity can serve as a buffer against this shame
Here, I summarize five values celebrated within the LGBTQ+ community as a means both for honoring our historic achievements and for bolstering queer people against threats to our mental health
Pride History Month, which is celebrated in October along with National Coming Out Day, encourages us to look back on our history and glean from it an appreciation for the trailblazers to come before us. Icons like “trancestors” of color Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera steadily come to mind, as do the many brave queer and trans activists, advocates, and every-day people who fought for their right to exist and secured many of the rights we enjoy today. It conjures a history both inspirational and deeply grief-stricken, and one I hope we will all hold in our hearts this month as we continue to progress toward true equality for all.
LGBTQ+ people disproportionately suffer from mental health concerns
As I reflect on those to come before us, I am reminded of the deep psychological wounds many in our community carry. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness for example, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to live with a mental health condition; for trans people, that risk jumps to four times as likely. And our youth, who are disproportionately represented among the houseless, are more likely to suffer from depression and suicidality. These figures only worsen when you consider multiple sources of intersecting marginalization, like racism, poverty, and violence against sex workers.
As a society, it is incumbent upon us to continue to fight for LGBTQ+ people to be able to live dignified, safe, and fulfilling lives. For as much progress as we’ve made, we’ve got a long way to go before the Marsha’s and Sylvia’s of today are truly celebrated.
However, with as much doom-and-gloom as there is in our shared and contemporaneous history, there is great promise in a community that has had to demonstrate resilience, courage, and an audacity to love ourselves and our partners out loud. Finding fortitude in that history may just help us to weather the psychological storms of today and find the strength to persist in the face of discrimination.
Why living with pride in our history matters
As queer and trans people, we are inundated with messages from our family, society, the media, and culture about who we are— and up until very recently, those messages resoundingly encouraged us to feel ashamed of ourselves. That is why pride has flourished as a concept— it’s a direct antidote to shame, a claiming of ourselves in public despite others who would have us hide ourselves away. But pride is more than that— it’s also a protective mental health strategy akin to positive affirmations. It’s a sort of cloak from which to shield ourselves from the messages that inundate us and the very real challenges our communities continue to face.
In the spirit of that pride and our shared history, here are five values embraced by our LGBTQ+ community that I hope you’ll find comfort in this Pride History Month. While these values are not exclusive to the LGBTQ+ community, they are ones represented in our movements, icons, symbols, and lived experiences, and for these reasons, they are values I hope you will claim with pride.
1. Authenticity
As queer and trans people, we are challenged from a young age to understand who we are and to decide whether to share that with the world, despite our fears of rejection, humiliation, and even violence. Yet despite these fears, many of us choose to come out, claim ourselves in public, and live authentically. This authenticity stretches beyond categories of “queer”, “trans”, or other language that fits who you are— it’s embedded in how we choose to live our lives! Whether that means challenging gender norms through the arts of drag or vogue, crafting new family structures, or deciding not to adhere to arbitrary rules, we choose to express ourselves boldly and authentically in ways that honor who we are.
2. Communities of belonging
Historically, queer and trans people have faced rejection from their families, religious communities, and other sources of support. That level of rejection can be traumatizing, as ostracization activates the same areas in the brain as physical pain, and there’s no minimizing just how devastating its effects have been. However, for as much rejection as we face in our communities of origin, being queer and trans opens up access to an entirely new community of belonging. While LGBTQ+ communities are not without their own shortcomings (like racism and fatphobia), they create safe havens from the harsh realities of our lives and teach us to love ourselves the way we are loved by others. “Chosen families” and “found families” are familiar concepts among LGBTQ+ people, and while you may still be in search of yours, I hope you know you’re already a member of mine.
3. Empathy & compassion for others
Many LGBTQ+ people have experienced firsthand how excruciating it can be to be rejected, bullied, or discriminated against. While we should be careful to not add a silver-lining to these harmful experiences, it’s often the case that these create a wellspring within us for empathy and compassion toward others. It’s no surprise then that LGBTQ+ people have been at the front of many movements for a more loving and inclusive world. For example, two of the three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza, identify as queer women. Many queer people are drawn to healing efforts, like becoming a therapist or getting involved in community-care initiatives, for this very same reason.
4. Romantic exploration & sexual liberation
Much of our culture’s perspective on romance and sex is limited to heteronormative interpretations that can be limiting for some and may lead others to feel guilt or shame for their consensual romantic and sexual interests. While not all queer and trans people are interested in expansive explorations of romance and sexuality, many have learned to accept, affirm, and seek out opportunities to gratify their romantic and sexual appetites. Whether this means not seeing marriage or children as necessary milestones in a relationship, exploring open relationships or choosing to be “monogamish” with a partner, joining a kink community, proudly identifying as asexual, or challenging the pleasure gap between cis men and women, LGBTQ+ people are often front and center pushing the metaphorical envelope. As long as it's consensual, uncoerced, and well-communicated with your partner(s), there are near endless opportunities to celebrate your expansive romantic and sexual interests.
5. Living by your own rules
When it comes to being queer and trans, the choice to simply live authentically is already an affront to the rules of society that tell us to live, create families, and exist in narrowly-defined ways. These rules are harmful not only to queer and trans people, but to cisgender and heterosexual people who may also feel limited by them. Being an LGBTQ+ person means opening yourself up to the possibility that some of the rules we were taught were made to be broken, like chains that bind us. Allowing ourselves to live by our own rules, though challenging, can help us to lead more fulfilling and values-driven lives in ways we otherwise might have missed if we hadn’t had to think twice to begin with.
In short: you are a living history
There is a wonderful opportunity in looking to our history to find strength, resilience, and spirit. But just as the queer and trans activists before us, you too are a living testimony to the values of our community. I hope this Pride History Month you will honor and celebrate those values as sources of pride, just as I hope you will affirm your queer or trans identities all yearlong.
And with that, I bid you a happy Pride History Month!
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