Back in June, I won an Instagram giveaway from Pride Palace. When they contacted me, they also asked if they could feature me in their community spotlight with a few sentences about what Pride means to me. I was honored; of course, I wanted to be included! I started writing immediately–a few sentences is nothing, right? Wrong. In trying to write those few sentences, I realized that Pride means SO MANY things to me that was a struggle to condense it down to a few sentences. But eventually, I got there. This is what I ended up with and I’m pretty proud of it.

Pride is so much more than a month. It’s paying respect to everyone in our community who came before me and paved the way for me to live as my authentic self. It’s putting in the work to make sure that future generations can live and love the way they were born to without fear. It means living and loving and existing authentically and unapologetically. But most of all, it means that every single day, I get to wake up and celebrate love. Queer love is magical.

Short and to the point, I think. But now, here’s everything else I had to say. Don’t look away.

Because this post is a little longer than usual, I’ve broken it down into parts so you can read it in bits as you have time.

• Part I: Politics are Talking About Me
• Part II: The One Where I’m Given a Platform
• Part III: Don’t Rain on My (Pride) Parade
• Part IV: Bringing It Back Home
• Part V: Two Great Loves
• Fin: One Hell of a Party

Part I: Politics are Talking About Me

Pride is so much more than a month. Yes, June is when we celebrate and Pride looks like a party (and we do know how to throw a fabulous party!), but we can never forget that it was a protest first. And it continues to be. Pride might be in June, but we are LGBTQIA+ the rest of the year as well. It’s a celebration of progress, but it’s also a protest in the ongoing fight for equal rights. Especially right now, in 2025, it has to be a protest. We live under an administration that would have you believe that queer people are not worthy of life and therefore not worthy of equal rights and certainly not worthy of being treated like human beings. And they’re not trying to take away our rights anymore–they’re doing it. It’s already started and unless you are a straight, white, rich, cis, Christian nationalist man, your rights and freedoms are on the chopping block as well. We’re seeing it now in the mass deportations, the brutality of ICE, the attacks on trans humans, the open attempts to force women to become breeders at all costs, even if that cost is her life. And I haven’t even mentioned the BBB (sorry, I refuse to write it out and call that monstrosity “beautiful”). Even if none of this has affected you yet, it will. We should all be angry and scared and ready to fight for our rights. That’s what it’s going to come down to.

I’m honestly so exhausted with the news and talking about politics. But it’s like Colleen Jolly said at International Pole Convention (PoleCon) as Pride Month kicked off: “I don’t want to talk about politics, but politics are talking about me.” And that’s the fucking truth.

Part II: The One Where I’m Given a Platform

Speaking of PoleCon, I was incredibly honored to be selected to perform in the Queer Pole Showcase at this year’s convention. I applied to perform in several different categories, but being selected for the Queer Pole category felt like divine intervention, like the Universe was telling me, “Hey. I just gave you a platform. Use it.” And so I did. Part of what Pride means to me is using whatever platform you are given to speak up and speak out.

I knew immediately that I wanted my piece to honor Marsha P. Johnson and Stonewall and speak up for the fight that trans and queer people are still fighting. I spent weeks coming up with the perfect choreo, music, props, costume, and everything else to bring trans lives to the forefront of my performance, to the forefront of the stage. And I think it went beautifully. I am so proud of how it turned out, and I know from the amount of people who approached me after my performance to tell me how much it meant to them that it had the impact I wanted it to. LGBTQIA+ people are here, we’ve always been here, and we’re going to keep on being here. No law can change the fact that we exist. And we don’t just exist. We live, we love, we laugh, we cry, we celebrate, we find joy. We fall down and we lift each other up. Everything that makes humanity human.

I also have to shout out my fellow performers in the Queer Pole Showcase. I think we all realized the significance of being given this platform at such a pivotal point for the queer community, and we showed up and showed out. What a great way to kick off Pride Month.

You can watch a playlist of our performances here.

Part III: Don’t Rain on My (Pride) Parade

Another great way to celebrate Pride: go to a celebration outside the U.S. (if you have the means). We traveled to Mérida, Mexico, at the beginning of June, and as luck would have it, we got there just in time for Mérida’s Pride parade, and I am so glad we did. We had an absolutely lovely time. The parade was much smaller than most of the ones I’ve been to in the States, but the unity I could feel from the community was palpable. Everyone was so warm and friendly. There was no judgment, no hate, only love. Everyone who showed up was immediately family. Mérida’s LGBTQIA+ community welcomed us with open arms.

Two noticeable differences about Mérida’s Pride parade versus those in the States:

1. There were no protesters. None. Nada. We were not harassed by “Christians” telling us what an abomination we are and how loving who we love is a sin worthy of burning in hell forever. The air was so light without the ever-present reminder that some people hate us simply because we love differently than they do.
2. It wasn’t filled with corporate sponsors who only pretend to care about our community for one month out of the year. The parade was filled with dancers, drag artists, floats for local queer businesses, and the like. Another breath of fresh air.

Since I’m on the topic of Pride parades, I want to go back to the point that Pride is a protest. If you don’t know how Pride started, I implore you to go read about the Stonewall Uprising, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and so many others who paved the way for us to be able to celebrate and live our authentic lives. Let yourself go down the rabbit hole. Watch Paris is Burning. Learn our history. Remember our history. Not just to honor the past, but also because we are still fighting the fight. And we have to keep on going.

Part IV: Bringing It Back Home

I’ve talked a lot about what Pride means to me in context of the world we live in, but it also has personal meaning for me. Pride is a celebration of finding myself, my identity, and my community. I felt like an outcast for most of my teens and early twenties, and I could never figure out why. I felt differently about boys than other girls did. I wasn’t “boy crazy” by any means. I felt differently about girls than other girls did. I got my first boy kiss and my first girl kiss on the same night (playing “Spin the Bottle” in D’s garage at her birthday party when we were in seventh grade), and I liked the girl kiss way more than the boy kiss. I didn’t know what to do with that. I thought something was wrong with me, and growing up in a small town while also being raised in the church, I really didn’t feel like I had anyone I could talk to about these feelings. So I pushed them down and just pretended to be like everyone else.

Turns out there was nothing wrong with me. I’m just a nonbinary, pansexual person who had no language or references to understand, much less express, their feelings. But now I do. So, Pride means that I now get to live my authentic life every day, rather than spend every waking hour trying to fit into a box that was not made for me. I get to embrace my “different,” love my “other,” and be loved for the person I am, not some illusion of who I think I am expected to be.

Part V: Two Great Loves

Pride means I’ve gotten to experience two great loves in one lifetime–life partners who love me just as I am, who love me because of who I am right now, not who I was in the past or who they think I might be in the future.

When I married my first great love, Dave, he knew exactly who I was, and he understood me and loved me in a way that no one ever had before. He was an amazing ally to the queer community and my biggest supporter. He taught me how to love and how to be loved. I thought we would grow old together, but that was not to be. In 2020, his soul left his earthly body four days after his thirty-fourth birthday, and I thought that was it for me. I was destined to be alone. And I accepted that for a few years, until I realized that I was accepting it because I had certain people in my life making me feel as if I should be alone forever to honor Dave, when, in fact, I knew he would want me to find someone and be happy. Not to move on, but to move forward. That’s all we can do in this life, right? We can choose to stay stuck or we can choose to move forward. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Dave. I’ll always love him, and I know that I was the love if his life. I’ve lived many lifetimes already, and he will always be the love of that lifetime–the lifetime that ended when he died.

I met my second great love, Samantha, in June of 2023. We had an instant connection, moving from Hinge messages to texting to phone calls in about two days. The first time we talked on the phone, we talked for four hours. And that’s something, because if you know ANYTHING about me, it’s that I hate talking on the phone. I had further confirmation of the specialness of our connection when she drove from Atlanta to Columbus, GA, just to take me on a date. No one who lives in the Atlanta area is dying to come to Columbus, trust me. That meant something to me. And after our “lunch date” went on for eight hours, I had no question that she was meant for me and I for her. Life is funny, isn’t it? Because I feel like Dave and Samantha would have been great friends if he were still alive, but if he were still alive, Samantha and I would never have crossed paths. Sometimes, it feels like he sent her to me. We have an amazing relationship. Queer love is truly magical. Pride means I get to wake up every day next to the love of this lifetime–this lifetime that started when I met Samantha.

Fin: One Hell of a Party

Pride is life. It is love. It is joy. Pain. Happiness. Sadness. Laughter. Tears. Celebration. Protest. Community. Pride is people. And, yes, it is one hell of a party.

Cover photo by Kimberly Dyann