PRIDE 2022 – Proud Out Loud!
For the first time in three years, Pride celebrations are returning in person with their full fabulousness and passion on display. With the unimaginable rise of anti-LGBT+ laws being enacted around the country attempting to silence and diminish our lives, families, community, history, and voices, it’s not a moment too soon. For that reason, we have returned to theOUTfront’s first Pride theme for 2022
When Sec. Pete Buttigieg ran for President, he said this about belonging in our Community.
There is no right or wrong way to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community. You belong. #EqualityTownHall pic.twitter.com/D9hKD2K97L
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) October 11, 2019
The same is also true of Pride Month. It means different things and evokes different emotions for everyone and there’s no right way to mark, honor, inspire, protest, and/or celebrate. What’s important is that we find the way that unites us with our Community. Unity has gotten us to where we are today and is the strength required to fight for its future.
In the wake of SCOTUS’s impending reversal of Roe v Wade this month, the threat to LGBT+ civil rights and protections may not only roll them back but do so too the point that our existence could be worse than in the pre-Stonewall era. A worse than pre-Roe era awaits women in need of abortions given the laws already being passed. But we said, “Enough!” and fought back in 1969; in the 1980’s we said “ACTUP! Fight Back!! Fight AIDS!!!;” and today this new wave of hate and oppression will hear our voices fighting as one Community, Proud Out Loud!
By definition, pride is “a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or consciousness of one’s own dignity.” What’s more worthy of celebration than pride in our Community’s achievements which inspires us, the families we have created, or the love at its heart that binds us together? Seeing our happiness enrages the haters. It negates their core belief that if you’re not straight, your life is miserably unhappy. All the more reason to be Proud Out Loud!
Throughout June, in addition to our usual posts, we’ll be bringing you special Pride Month features spanning the spectrum of interests from LGBT+ history, activism, culture and entertainment, to fun and celebrations.
As is our annual tradition, we’ll also be featuring a special Pride Month series on Twitter of LGBT+ writers, icons, and activists who words continue to inspire us, especially now that they are being banned in schools, libraries, and bookstores.
For our special Pride series
Please follow us on Twitter @TheOUTFront
and Instagram @theOUTfront
As a Community and as individuals, we must tell anyone who would repeal our rights or push us back, we will not be silenced. We will tell our stories. We will be Proud Out Loud! To kick off Pride 2022, this is “Make Them Hear You” from the Tony Award winning, Ragtime, performed by Ramin Karimloo.
Wherever, however, and with whomever you find your Pride this month, we hope you’ll share your stories with our Community by using
