Thommay’s HeadSpace

Pride.

What is Pride? Pride is a sense of one’s own proper dignity or value. Pride is a display of pleasure or satisfaction derived from achievement, a possession or an association. Pride is a feeling of self-respect and personal worth. Pride is about feeling important about yourself.

Gay Pride is just that. It is taking pride in still being valued, still being human and still having worth as a human being. Gay Pride is a celebration of the accomplishment and stuggle of those people who have fought for equal value and rights on the lives of homosexual, bisexual, transsexual (and beyond) persons. It is a time when we celebrate being able to walk down the street holding hands with members of the same sex in our concervative continent. It’s a yearly vindication and affirmation of our lives. It is an oppourtunity for us to remember that we are intelligent human beings that are a strong contributing force to modern society.

Gay Pride isn’t simply a giant parade flowing down city streets and into bars, clubs, performance halls, and arenas - those are mere expressions of this intangable concepts. They are ways people deal with the joy and freedom of being able to say to someone of the same sex I love my wife or I love my husband, partner, boyfriend or girlfriend. Granted, some displays of this joyous freedom may come out in unique ways like drag queens, but it is an important and healthy part to any queer life.

Imagine - being faced with intolerance for much of the year for being something other than a vast majority of society is except for a few days of the year when you can have the chance to be who you are. Imagine if suddenly you were hated because you had red, black or brown hair instead of the expected blonde? what if you were shunned because you had blue, brown, hazel or orange eyes instead of the desired green? It is much the same as being queer.

In short, Welcome to midseason of Gay Pride that are undoubtedly storming across many nations. Gay, Straight or otherwise, feel free to allow yourself to feel a sense of pride at all the accomplishments of equal rights, equal worth and equal value in whatever way you deem appropriate for the occasion.

Until next time,
Nobbe (CL7)
The Unofficial Voice of Pride
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