Why I Celebrate Pride

June Is Pride Month

June is Pride Month!! As a member of the LGBTQ+ community here is Central Florida, June is especially emotional for my wife and I. June is the month when we celebrate our love for each other and the diversity and inclusivity that is so very important to who we are as humans but, it is also the month where we remember the 49 souls who lost their lives at Pulse night club 5 years ago.

There were so many opinions on this shooting and there were many people that said that we should not be focusing on the fact that this was a gay club or Latin night but, that is part of the story of what happened here. The majority of the people who died that night were members of Orlando’s Gay/Latin community.

Paying Our Respects

A week or so after the shooting Maranda and I went out to Orlando to pay our respects and of course I took my camera with me. These images are images you may have seen before but, they are so very personal and emotional for me. As someone who has experienced conflict because of my sexuality, a tragedy like this really hit home for me.

When Maranda and I were younger we spent a lot of time in Orlando at these same clubs because we felt welcomed and comfortable. Neither of us were open about our sexuality to our family at that point and I hadn’t been honest with a lot of my friends. Orlando was close enough to go to on a regular basis but just far enough away so that we could still have privacy.

Young People Figuring Out their Sexuality

Being a young person who is trying to figure out what sexuality is, is hard enough without contending with the fact that you have been made to believe that the way you feel is wrong or dirty. This leads gay men and women to believe that something is wrong with them. My parents actually believed that I had brain damage or some kind of mental illness or developmental delay. They convinced themselves that something had happened to me to cause me to be this way…Maybe it was the fall down the stairs when I was 9 months old, maybe it was the fact that my mom was 41 when she gave birth to me. These were actual things that my parents said to me and each other, when the topic of my sexuality came up.

I remember when I told my parents, they said to me, this is not how you were raised and we cannot support this. They never knew that I can remember being in pre-school and noticing the other little girls in my class and thinking that they were so pretty. They never knew that as I got older, I noticed girls just as much as I noticed the boys. I have always been gay; my sexuality actually had nothing to do with them at all!

Being Gay was never Condoned

My parents came from a time where being gay was not ok, it was never discussed and absolutely never condoned. It was disgraceful and embarrassing to the family if you were thought to be gay. My parents were so upset that I was getting married to a woman that they didn’t attend my wedding. The ideals and beliefs that they had been taught ran so deeply through them that they missed out on one of the most important days of my life and what should have been a beautiful day for them as well. I have never really accepted the fact that they were not there. As my parents I wanted them to try to understand where I was coming from, to love me unconditionally without judgement. To say to me, even though we may not agree and we don’t understand, we love you and we will stand by you no matter what. They were never able to do that and I believed for a long time that it was selfish.

I wonder how many of the victims of the Pulse shooting were dealing with conflicts because of their sexuality? I wonder if any of them were estranged from people that they loved because there was a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to try to repair the relationship? I wonder how many of them were healing from the hurt of not being understood or feeling abandoned and how many of them were deeply planted in the fresh pain. It breaks my heart to think that someone could have taken their last breath with that on their heart.

I Have Forgiven My Parents

I have forgiven my parents for abandoning me. I understand that they were just humans with their own wounds and disfunction. They were stuck in their own patterns and fighting their own demons. They were not emotionally prepared to handle their own feelings of failure. I just wish they would have been more open to talk about how they were feeling, to consider how I was feeling, to try to work through it.

It is still not easy for me to be open and honest about who I am, if my parents were able to change the way they felt about me, then anyone can, right? It has taken me years to be able to say that I now understand that the way people treat others is a reflection of how they feel about themselves. It has taken me years to understand that I didn’t do anything wrong, there is nothing wrong with me and I am worthy of love, acceptance and forgiveness. Forgiving myself for carrying the things that didn’t belong to me in the first place is the hardest part.  

Celebrating Diversity

Pride is not just about Gay pride; it is about celebrating diversity. God created people of all colors, different personalities and sexualities because it’s beautiful! This word would be very boring if we were all the same.

Pride is also about inclusivity, learning that there are people in the world who don’t think the same as you or have the same morals or values that you have, and while that may be difficult to hear and understand, it’s ok. We are allowed to be different, think different and feel differently. Inclusivity is about accepting, loving and respecting people and their differences even when you might not agree or it might feel uncomfortable for you.

For the month of June, I challenge you to lean into difficult conversations. It is important to understand that multiple realities exist and that everything is not always right/wrong or black/white. When you are feeling emotional about a situation, ask questions, try to understand why someone feels the way they do, without judgement. Along with understanding comes the ability to empathize with others and not always take differences personally. The real work begins when we start looking inward and reflecting on why we feel the way that we do and beginning to heal ourselves. We don’t all have to agree to love and respect each other, actually, you might find that when you walk away from the judgement and start focusing on healing your own wounds, the world starts to look a little different.