Pride

Reframing our defaults with love

Pride (noun)

1.     A feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from achievements or qualities.

2.     Consciousness of one’s own dignity.

3.     Self-respect; self-esteem.

A good friend of mine from Europe once asked me why the U.S. puts so much emphasis on Pride month. “Why isn’t there a Straight Pride month?” he asked, only half-joking.

Pride month is an evolution of the annual commemoration of the Stonewall Riot of 1969 and the fight for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community, but the answer I gave my friend is the same two-part one I give to anyone who complains that all lives matter so why do we need to affirm that Black Lives Matter?

Consider birthdays. We all have them, and they all matter. But some people get celebrated every day with job opportunities and better pay and characters in books and movies who look and identify and love like they do. And the other people – the ones who don’t look and identify and love like the ones who get all the perks – deserve to be the only birthday kid in the room sometimes.

Going to someone else’s birthday party doesn’t take away from the validity of your own, it’s just a day that’s not all about you.

But most important to me is reframing our cultural defaults, which are like factory settings for cultural literacy and representation in books and media, expectations in boardrooms and in business, and perhaps most influentially, the default that is taught in schools. The cultural default for relationships in America is straight and binary – with boys and girls, pink and blue, boyfriends and girlfriends, she and he, and his and hers. The default for privilege in America is white, with generational wealth, easier loans for homes and college, and higher average pay. And the default for power in America is male – the pay is higher, the jobs are more plentiful, and the expectations for advancement more entrenched.

Those cultural defaults are so deeply ingrained in our society that most of us don’t even realize we’re defaulting to white, straight, binary, and patriarchal until it’s pointed out to us, like when my editor read my first book and said “It’s great, but did you mean for all your characters to be white and straight?”

No I absolutely did not, and so my job as a writer, a storyteller, a mom, and a human being, is to do better – learn more, expand my thinking, reframe my defaults, apologize for mistakes, and use my voice for positive change.

And so here we are, talking about Pride. I had the amazing good fortune to be able to march in the West Hollywood Pride parade with City of Angels Pipe Band last June, and I will tell you that it was the most joyful, joyous, wonderful celebration I’ve ever experienced. All the colors of the rainbow, all the allies, all the families who love and support LGBTQ+ people were lining the street, dancing on the sidewalk to Scotland the Brave, and laughing, smiling, and celebrating the day. Drag queens and kings were gorgeous, Darth Vader with his rainbow cape was magnificent, the various dancers and performers were outrageously fun, and rainbows and all the people represented by their colors were (are) beautiful. If you haven’t had a chance to join a Pride celebration, please consider finding one near you – they’re truly a delight. In my experience, Pride parties are pure joy that not even the protestors with bullhorns can diminish.

And let’s talk about those protestors, shall we? The ones I encountered at Long Beach Pride wielded their bible verses like weapons as they shouted slurs and curses at my 15 year old son and his band, and at all the small children who marched with PFLAG Manhattan Beach, waving gorgeous rainbow flags and enjoying their parade. In the bible, Corinthians 6:9 is quoted to support the anti-gay rhetoric Christians use to justify their bigotry, and yet Corinthians 6:9 in the 1946 American RSV bible is a mistranslation of the ancient Greek that didn’t appear in any previous bible. I’ll repeat it for anyone who believes God condemns gays (and you can research it yourself): prior to 1946 there was no mention of homosexuality in any bible, in any language, at all. Even the head of the 1946 bible translation committee agreed that the ancient Greek words malakoi (defined as someone effeminate who gives themselves up to a soft, decadent, lazy and indolent way of living) and arsenokoitai (a compound word that roughly translates to “male bed”) had been mistranslated to mean man bedding man. Scholars believe that, in the context of the time, the meaning is more about abusive, predatory pederasty (the practice being condemned was of older men bedding young boys, ages 8-12) than homosexuality.

That history doesn’t get taught in schools, and presumably, not even many seminaries, considering that so many ministers, priests, and church congregations believe that the bible and teachings of God have condemned homosexuality for 2,000 years. If it had been accurately taught, how many young boys might never have been abused by priests? For that matter, what would LGBTQ+ history and medicine look like if Magnus Hirschfeld’s 20,000 volume library at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft hadn’t been burned by the Nazis in 1933? Or how could American lawmakers justify their anti-trans legislation if the accounts of transgender and non-binary people that have existed in every culture through time had been taught in World History?

LGBTQ+ people are, and always have been people that exist. To deny someone personhood, with all the attendant rights that come with being human, for any reason whatsoever is unconscionable. Throughout history, those kinds of denials of rights have been met with protests and sometimes violence in order to demand change. Pride as it is celebrated now is not a protest, it’s a declaration. It’s a celebration of humanity in all its vibrancy, and it is a community taking a stand for the dignity, esteem, rights and worth of LGBTQ+ people everywhere. The bible defines pride as an excessive love of one’s own excellence, but when a mistranslation of that same document has resulted in so much excused bigotry and pain, no excess of love is too much.

Happy Pride! (P.S. I designed the shirt below especially to take to Texas for Book Bonanza this month. I’m happy to make one in your size if you’d like).