Chiller Sway

Clickbait title much? Not exactly. Welcome to another Abby blog Let me preface this by saying that I've never ever actually done anything to celebrate pride month-first off because I'm trans and in the closet still, and second, because the concept of being proud of my identity has never been something that my family and immediate friends have inspired in me. The upbringing and religion that caused that to be the case are not something I wish to discuss, despite their causal nature. No, I am here to discuss the responses I've seen from people about Pride Month-everything from, "I don't think we need it" to "It makes me uncomfortable". Let me start by saying that it's brave for you to put your feelings and opinions out there-that is always admirable, it takes courage. I salute you. However, no matter what platform you do it on, if you create a status with such an opinion, in open forum, it is made to be seen by people-and expecting everyone to either universally agree with you, or to not comment with counter-points, is most certainly foolish. An open forum like this is an area for discussion, by making a post you open yourself to opposing points-so you should without a doubt make your posts with the intention of fostering a discussion during which there will be analysis, explanation, understanding-constructive, critical thinking, interaction that moves you forward as a human being. Or whatever you identify as. Not going too deep into this. So when I see statuses where people post that they think Pride Month shouldn't exist or be celebrated, but are then resistant to people explaining views which oppose-why did you make the post? So you could get bask in wonderful sycophancy and feel vindicated from those that share the same viewpoint going "Truuuuu!"? We cannot move forward as a society if there is not a sharing of ideas and synthesis of new viewpoints. There was a time where I was nothing but "normal boy". I didn't have a sexuality or gender identity. I was just a person. It took years for me to realize that I was girl, it took experimenting and many relationships to realize that I was demisexual at best-and I didn't even KNOW what these things were until they were explained to me. And, very often, due to my religion and upbringing, I was hesitant to explore and understand sexuality and gender identity-but what I soon realized was that failing to do so left a negative mental impact on me-because I didn't KNOW. I was letting other people and their views define me-instead of finding out for myself what I wanted and liked. Never do that. Do yourself a favor, and find your orientation based on you. This springboards into my next point-the reality of Pride Month, and why it is here-because there HAS been a struggle to do exactly what I just said. I will avoid the politics of this by avoiding the pointing of fingers, and instead use a gesturing of hands-simply put, I'll state it as a teacher: the two big factors that have put shackles on gender identity and sexuality are culture and religion. "Ah here we go, she's denouncing religion." Not going to argue over it, that's not the point of this piece. I'll let you know I'm agnostic now-I'll believe in whatever deity decides to walk through my door, beyond that, anyone can believe whatever they like, so long as it doesn't harm those I care about. The moment it does, we have a problem. But religion, as well as culture, has historically defined what is acceptable in terms of sexuality and gender identity. In some countries, this is more prevalent than others. In some parts of the world being transgender or homosexual will just outright get you killed. Thank goodness that the worst I've had to deal with is my parents threatening to kick me out, and attempting to brainwash me back to "normalcy". I very much believe that the large portion of you that have spoken up voicing your displeasure or discomfort with Pride Month are being affected by the dregs of these world views. I was once affected by them as well-and would have denounced any pride content, and ridiculed the people involved. I was there. Now I understand things I did not before. There are also probably many of you who are being affected by the thrall of jealousy as well-seeing people that are proud of their identity as people, and are vocal about it-and I can tell you, there is no need for this, at all. Pride Month does NOT exclude anyone. If you feel like an outsider looking in, it is because you are excluding yourself. We welcome you. The second part of Pride Month, aside from just being proud of identity, is the remembrance of those that came before us, and fought for us to reach the point at which we now are. This has been a hard-fought battle-and it's still going. We've made progress, but we're still not where we'd like to be. Pride Month was originally a single day created to commemorate the Stonewall Riots of Manhattan in 1969. The single day became variably celebrated as a single sunday in June, but evolved over time into a full month worth of events-which is in fact a beautiful and fitting thing, seeing the amount of things that is encompassed by the LGBTQ community's quest. Everything from hate crimes to victims of HIV/AIDS are covered by this month's focus-it's a harsh reality, but if you truly want to consider yourself accepting, tolerant-UNDERSTANDING? These are the facts you need to know. The Stonewall Riots were a protest carried out in June of 1969. They were in response to a raid done on the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan, a gay bar owned by the Mafia. During this time, the American society and public were very much anti-gay, but this raid served as a catalyst to spur the early LGBT community into more organizes protests against their treatment-and is widely held as the defining moment that our push for equal LGBTQ rights in America began. Now enough of me spewing textbook info-let me just put it to you-can you even imagine, in your own life, just...being at a bar, chilling with your friends, and having the police show up and arrest you for your sexuality-regardless of what it is? Being a young adult, and having to call your parents from the jail and tell them you got arrested-or tell your work, you got arrested-worse, you were in the closet, and now everyone knows? Not good enough? How about the hate killing of Matthew Shepard-I won't go into the details of what was done to him, but it was bad enough that his case and James Byrd Jr.'s later brought forth a hate crimes prevention act that was signed in 2009-you all have the internet, and now homework. I was actually going to start tossing more examples, but as I started looking into all the instances of hate crimes...it actually sharply reduced my will to continue existing, a lot of them hit very close to personal fears I have. I'll simply say that...if you want to know the truth, do your work. Go research the history of hatred and violence the LGBTQ community has had to endure, and then ask yourself... Don't we deserve a month of remembrance and pride for many lifetimes of suffering and success? In a perfect world, there never would have been stigma, there would not have been conflict, and there would not have been suffering. There would not have been a struggle, and a rise from our previous views to enlightenment. But this ain't it chief.