Why Pride? We're Not Done Yet!

In 2012, I stepped into my first Pride in Boston, and it was like walking into Oz. I didn’t know the city,

didn’t know the people, and my friend ditched me to ride a nightclub float. The colors, the music, the sheer number of people—it was sensory overload. Nobody cared that I was gay. Nobody cared. Because, they all were too! For the first time, at 32, I felt like I was a part of something. I marched a bit, snapped photos, and thought, “This is Pride? This is huge. Why didnt I do this sooner?” I didn’t fully get it then, but I knew it mattered. It was freedom, messy, loud and sparkly, coated in rainbows, in a world that hasn’t always let me feel free.

In 2015, I thought we were turning a corner. The Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision made same-sex marriage legal across the U.S. Obama called it “justice that arrives like a thunderbolt,” and it felt like gay rights were finally becoming human rights. No more “separate but equal.” I thought the fight was winding down. I was wrong.

Pride started with a riot. In 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, transgender women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, alongside countless others, fought back against police who raided their safe space. They threw bricks, bottles, and pure defiance at a world that criminalized them for existing. That spark lit the first Pride march in 1970, a protest shouting, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.” That’s the fire we need now, because 2025 feels like a step back to the world I grew up in.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, I was a kid—six, seven, maybe eight—taking flak for being different. Kids used names like knives, and they cut deep. That old saying, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”? It’s a lie. I still deal with some of that stuff, to this day at almost 45. I thought we’d left that behind, but now, as an adult, I’m seeing that same hate, emboldened by a president who thrives on lies and nastiness. Trump’s administration has erased “transgender” and “queer” from the Stonewall National Monument’s history and pulled HIV and LGBTQ+ resources from federal websites, as if we can be deleted.

Pride Month 2025? No White House proclamation—just silence, as corporate sponsors bail and refuse
to sell Pride-themed merchandise, scared off by the political climate. This isn’t progress—it’s regression. It’s the world I knew as a kid, where being different made you a target. But I’m not that kid anymore. I’m an adult, and I’m done staying quiet. Pride was born from a refusal to be erased, and I’m taking a page from that book. I’ll keep speaking, keep writing, keep showing up at Pride—or telling my story to anyone who’ll listen. Because every voice counts. Stonewall taught us that change comes when we stand up, loud and unapologetic.

The U.S. is a melting pot, but too often, we’re told our differences make us less equal. I’m here to say: Gay rights, Trans rights, Queer rights—they’re human rights. No president, no policy, no silence can take that truth away.

I saw that truth in action at Central Maine Pride in Waterville, during a drag performance by Lady D. As she owned the stage, a small group—maybe four or five people—walked through with a sign: “Jesus is King, John 3:16, the one who does not believe has been judged already! How can we pray for you?” Their message judged us in the name of religion, claiming we’ve already been judged by “the Maker”—ironic, but Lady D didn’t flinch. She flipped them off and finished her performance. I half-expected trouble, but nothing happened. They just moseyed on with their quiet protest, while we, the L’s, G’s, B’s, T’s, Q’s, and the rest of the Alphabet Soup—outnumbering them at least 20 to 1—kept existing. The crowd, usually quiet, even cheered her on after that small act of defiance. I snapped a photo of that moment, a reminder that their judgment can’t dim our light. Pride isn’t just a party or a Parade—it’s a fight. Speak up. Be loud. We’re not done yet!