Crayola’s Blog

 What Pride Means to Me

by Crayola the Queen

“We’ve left the closet behind, but just existing in public spaces still comes with much anxiety and fear.”

This year marks 53 years since the Stonewall Uprising in New York City inspired the first ever Pride March, and 50 years since the UK followed suit with its own. In some ways, 50 years seems to be a hefty milestone, and one definitely worth celebrating – incredible that the UK has allowed this yearly protest to occur for such a long time. But, from another perspective, the fact that the fight for equality and pursuit of safety for LGBT+ people continues to wage on after 50 years in the face of ongoing bigotry and injustice… it’s also kind of hard to applaud.

We are still surrounded by so much danger. Conservative media is riddled with anti-trans rhetoric. We currently have a leader in power who has gone on record speaking disparagingly against queer identities (as well as many other marginalised communities), and while these bigoted comments were made in the past, he has yet to ever apologise. The BBC recently attempted to block staff from participating in Pride activities on the grounds of impartiality. Even the once beloved children’s author JK Rowling has made it her mission to influence and control the lives and bathroom habits of trans people in the name of “radical feminism”, causing much harm and uproar in the process. As queer people in the UK, we have won a lot of rights and privileges when you compare where we are today to decades past. And there’s much to be thankful for when you compare Queer Life in the UK to the realities faced by those in other countries like Saudia Arabia, Poland and Iran. But our relative comfort cannot make us complacent – we still have a lot of work to do. Hence the ongoing need for Pride.

We put on a brave face, but a lot of us Queers are so tired of the difficulties and the darkness that taints our daily experience. The fear of going home on public transport while being visibly queer. Wondering if we should take off our cute but gender non-conforming earrings for the walk home in case we get jumped. Constantly preparing comebacks in case somebody on the street calls us a f*****. Wondering if we can tell family members or people at work about our partners, our pronouns. We’ve left the closet behind, but just existing in public spaces still comes with much anxiety and fear.

This is not fun to talk about, but it’s real. As a drag artist and entertainer, I feel especially strange dwelling on these negative aspects, as a lot of my work for corporate clients during Pride month involves putting a shiny curtain in front of all the difficulties we face as a community. It’s all the balloons and booze and confetti and glitter and disco bangers that we associate with Pride, without the politics or the weight. And that’s okay – sometimes my smiley presence is radical enough in these spaces and means the world to the 4 queer people in the office. But being given the opportunity to write from the heart about Pride and what it means to me, knowing that the majority of the people reading this are going to be straight allies… I feel like ignoring the hard parts would be a disservice to us all.

Pride is not a holiday - rainbows are not the same as tinsel and baubles at Christmas, spiderwebs and pumpkins at Halloween. We are a struggling people, not just a seasonal marketing opportunity. Celebration has become part of Pride month because it’s a chance for us to express queer joy, loudly and proudly. To come together as a community and celebrate our persistence, our miraculousness, our survival. If you are an ally, please do join us in the festivities. But if you’re only going to the parties without giving us any meaningful support or engaging in real world actions to help make the world a safer place for us once June ends, then perhaps your work as an ally needs some improvement.

 It doesn’t take much. It can be as simple as learning someone’s pronouns and doing your best to get them right, as active as raising money for queer charities or marching in protests, or as challenging as taking the time to try and teach miseducated family members and friends that queer sexualities and identities are different but harmless. The bottom line is - if we all use Pride as an opportunity to dedicate ourselves to doing just a little bit more for the Queer community each year, then perhaps in another 50 years, blog posts like this won’t need to be written. Pride will be purely commemorative and celebratory. But we’re not quite there yet.

Thank you so much for reading. If you found this post informative, here’s quick reminder that Crayola is seasoned at delivering LGBTIAQ+ Diversity and Inclusion Edutainment sessions for a variety of Corporate and Institutional environments. Please do consider her for future events, and pass her name along to your Events and DEI teams if you feel moved to do so. Happy Pride xx

Originally posted: 10/6/22