Rachel is a Jewish bisexual autistic woman (she/her) with ADHD in her twenties. She loves writing and can always be found with her nose in a book! Her plan for the future is to earn her Psy. D. in clinical psychology. This interested in psychology started as a way to help her understand people better and to figure out what it was about others I kept not getting. It is also something deeply linked with her self-advocacy. There is a gap in communication between the autistic community and providers, and she want to help bridge it and challenge others to see things from different perspectives.
View all postsTaking Pride in Queer Joy
Posted on
Pride month, any pride month, is about celebration. And June marks a celebration near and dear to many hearts as the members of the LGBTQIA+ community grow more and more numerous. Yet such celebrations can often feel marred by struggle, loss, and frustration. It can seem as though all the bad drowns out any reason to celebrate the good.
I know this because most of the time when I write these blog posts, it can feel too easy to wallow in what I find wrong or lacking. Whether in my own life or the bigger world of disability advocacy, it’s hard to find things to celebrate compared to how easy it is to point out things I regret. It’s never because there’s nothing to celebrate, but because the things worth celebrating can often seem pale compared to everything that I still wish was different. How can I celebrate a few pebbles of accomplishment when great boulder-like obstacles still loom before me?
It is human nature to ruminate on our mistakes and regrets. Part of this is out of a desire to learn from them, but most of us tend to take it far past the point of practical self-improvement.
My point is that pride month should be a time for celebrating the progress made as much as it is an opportunity to look towards more progress in the future. I know I shouldn’t forget that, and I hope others don’t as well.
It can be hard to look around and count our blessings when it seems like threats come from every corner, when we are hyperaware of those who wish to see the progress that we’ve made rolled back. But we should not be so consumed by the fear of losing that progress that we can’t celebrate it.
Reflecting on how I have benefited from the bountiful progress of the LGBTQIA+ rights movement, I know that even my own identity as a member of this community is owed to this progress. I am a bisexual woman with a preference for men. It took some time for me to identify as anything but straight, and I think if I had been born to an earlier generation, I would never have bothered to question my sexuality at all. To examine my sexuality would have only been to invite greater hardship on myself. I do not even think I would have suffered, living life as a straight woman. But being able to embrace my bisexuality has brought me so much additional joy. I have known the love of another woman who loved me in return, and even though our relationship did not work out in the way we would have wished it to, there is still joy in that. I knew this happiness because I live in a world that allowed for it. Even with all the caveats and restrictions still put upon queer joy, it is joy, nonetheless. It is strong and beautiful, and we must not let it be overshadowed.
I worry I am not queer enough many times, I admit. I do not seek out queer media or often revel in depictions of queer love and joy. My love of romance tends to lean strongly towards the heterosexual depictions of it. But I’ve realized we all celebrate our queer joy in different ways. Our queer identities all have a meaning personal to us, and the happiness we find in that identity is equally personal. For some on the spectrum, their neurodivergence and their queerness are something strongly intertwined, and they too find joy in that.
I hope all of us can find something to celebrate this pride month. I hope that even if there are hardships and setbacks, that we will remember the happiness we still have in our hands despite that.
I know it’s a scary time right now, for many people. I would never discredit that fear, for I often feel it too. But that is why our joy is so necessary, so important. So that we do not let the fear define us or define what this month means to us. This month is about taking pride, about celebrating, so remember to rejoice. Pride should not just be a defiant reaction to hatred, it should be an elevation of the queer community for its own sake. Because there is so much there inherently worth taking pride in.