Pride 2024
My thoughts on Pride Month in 2024 and my queer journey.
Thoughts on Pride 2024
Since I re-discovered my queerness in February of 2020, I’ve looked forward to celebrating Pride Month every year. During my late adolescence/early 20s (which is when I initially identified as queer), the concept of Pride Month didn’t exist just yet, at least from my perspective. There were Pride Parades, certainly, but they weren’t anything like the ones today (from what I remember), especially in terms of corporate influence and place in mainstream culture. At that time, I was desperately trying to keep my two lives separate..my queer/gay/furry life that I loved and embraced and the life I tried to show to my family and at work.
This duality is very common to the queer experience (no matter the time frame) and I’m currently living a version of it, even though I’m out to more people than before and it’s (said to be) more mainstream and accepted than ever. One might argue that I don’t need to separate my lives any longer, that I can be openly bi and furry everywhere and it won’t be a big deal in 2024; that I only have my anxiety to overcome and then I’ll be fine and able to be authentically myself 100% of the time.
This is a lot easier said than done in my case, with said anxiety being exacerbated by all of the hateful rhetoric being spewed online and in person. It was commonplace in the 90s as well, though the mainstream seemed to be struggling with how to deal with queer people as they were becoming increasingly visible in society. Now, I have no idea what American Joe and Jane Average think of it all; they currently seem to be as okay with same-gender marriage and acceptance of same-gender couples as they were when said marriages were legalized in 2015 in the United States. Yet, I wonder if they actually are, considering how transgender people are struggling to survive, let alone find acceptance and tolerance.
This ties into discussions I see of “Should we have kink at Pride?” along with the related “Should we have kink at furry conventions?” The questions there are “Should we hide kinky stuff from mainstream people who might be disgusted by them and be less inclined to accept us? And what should and shouldn’t be hidden?” These questions warrant an essay on their own, but my brief take on the situation is that most people in the mainstream just don’t care; they’re far more concerned with their own lives and while they may think queer people are too “loud and proud” sometimes, they aren’t as heavily involved in the culture wars as they may seem to be. And those who are involved will despise queer people no matter what we do, even if Pride Parades were just ordinary-looking cis-gendered men and women wearing nothing even remotely provocative, the fact that two men or two women dare show the slightest iota of romantic and/or sexual attraction to each other would cause them to spew their vitriol with the hateful intent of erasing queerness from society and culture.
I think that trans people have been specifically targeted in recent years as they seem the most abnormal in appearance to the Averages (along with causing the Averages, who have thought solely in terms of static gender identities, to feel scared at the idea that gender identity, how genders relate to each other, and sexual orientation are far more complicated than they ever thought they could be.) In the 90s, the emphasis was more on “These scary gay people want to destroy your marriage!” while now it’s “These scary trans people want to destroy your gender!” Of course, both are absurd arguments but they are unfortunately quite effective on people already terrified of their straightforward notions on how different kinds of people interact being gradually worn away by time and acceptance.
The attempts at widespread book banning, though..these are new. And it’s not just trying to erase even the slightest notion that queer people exist from all media, it’s also attempting to wipe out queer culture and history. That queer people are appearing more and more in mainstream media serves to stoke those who worship “Our Lady of Infinite and Perpetual Outrage” as they constantly scream that queerness is being “shoved down our throat” (a line they’ve used for decades) when two men so much as smile at each other. I have no idea how that plays with the straight mainstream, and whether or not it would make a difference if they stand up against open violence and oppression against queer people and minorities in general.
Evangelical Motivations
I saw an article, not all that long ago that gave me a good insight into the motivations behind evangelical plans for society, which I’ve thought about for most of my life once I identified that a) I was queer and b) they were a significant threat to that queerness and our culture in general and c) that they were a threat to the freedom of all people. I’ve had a good idea of what those plans are: domination over all culture and politics, strict penalties against those who stray in any way, a bleak and hopeless existence for the oppressed, a theocratic dystopia. The motivation that I learned recently, though, was that they believe all sex should be for reproductive purposes only and not for any sort of pleasure whatsoever.
From this perspective, most of their policies become clear. No room for queer sex or culture in that, no room for non-cisgender identities, no room for birth control or abortions, no room for no-fault divorce, and no room for sex outside of marriage (they seem to believe that couples must be shackled in marriage to ensure that reproduction doesn’t happen any other way. Upon this point, I am still somewhat unclear as to what underpins this particular belief.) and no room for women to do anything other than have children and raise them. That a clear hierarchy exists in society that is their “proper order” and they (of course) are on top, the “way it used to be and should be again”, according to conservative revisionist history.
It is Orwell’s boot that not only crushes the freedom from the populace but also seeks to crush the human spirit and force all of us into strictly defined roles, regardless of whether we are suited for them. I know what it’s like to try to force myself into such a role..and it nearly completely crushed my spirit before I could free myself of these self-imposed confines. Most of queer history has had us living in the shadows, using code words and other shibboleths to connect with each other and try to preserve our culture. The beginnings of Pride may seem to be a long time ago, but against the canvas of human history, it’s barely begun. We’re barely beginning to emerge into the light and show the world that we will live authentically, display our culture and heritage..and say an empathic “No!” to any who want to force us back into the closet.
The rhetoric from the far right against queer people seems to be intensifying in its violence and severity, which I don’t know what to make of. Is it desperation at feeling that the proverbial dustbin of history awaits them and their oppressive attempts at creating their “divine order”? Or, is it a smug warning as they feel that they are on the verge of establishing permanent power? I’ve tried to look at it from a purely neutral standpoint and from that perspective, I wonder how their proposed laws benefit society. They might argue that it’s about “protecting children” but the evidence is clear that LGBTQ people do not commit sexual crimes against children at a higher rate than straight people. Such crimes can be committed by queer people and those cases get used to try to justify anti-queer laws while ignoring the fact that most of these cases involve straight people.
My Journey In Brief
My journey through my queerness has been marked by how much the thoughts and opinions of others have affected it, mostly indirectly. I was mostly in the closet during the late 90s and early 00s, due to where I was living at the time, and that I didn’t quite understand what it meant to be queer, as I had no real context to go on, lacking any knowledge of queer history. It was through furry that I began to learn what it meant to be queer and met gay people in person for the first time. Doing so started to break down all of the inaccurate stereotypes I had ’learned’ during my upbringing, which were consistent with how society in general viewed queer people at the time. This is why, I think, my furriness and queerness are strongly intertwined. Thus, I became a gay furry in the late 90s, keeping it secret from almost everyone else in my life at the time.
As to why I suddenly left behind my queerness and furriness in 2001..even all this time later, it is still something I wish to keep private. I had to re-realize my queerness (which I did in February of 2020) before I could come back to furry (which I did in August of 2021). Bringing these seminal parts of myself back to light has changed my life for the better by far; I’d be in a much worse place without them and I am not exaggerating in the slightest. I’m not certain where my journey is headed, but I’m going to embrace it and not hide from myself ever again.
(I originally intended to publish this either during or at the end of Pride Month, but..life got in the way, as it often does..)
Thanks for reading!