Pride Doesn’t have to be Just a Month: Learning to Love the Intricacies That Set You Apart

By: Jerry White

For the LGBTQIA+ community, June is a month where queer people are encouraged to practice self-love and self-embracement. It is a call to experience the liberating feeling of being recognized and accepted in a society founded on homogeneity. Rainbow flags catch wind, the history of the LGBTQIA+ community is recalled, and the hearts of so many queer people, closeted and out, are filled with hope for the progress yet to come.

If you have ever attended a pride parade in June, you know that this display of solidarity and strength is something quite beautiful. It’s a refreshing image of queer voices telling a story, rather than being subject to the dated and demeaning heteronormative opinions littering popular media and day to day interaction. Yet, while this month can be invigorating and inspiring for so many people for so many reasons, it makes me wonder: Where does Pride go for the other 11 months of the year?

Queerness, along with other marginalized identities, comes with a seemingly endless list of conditions for LGBTQIA+ individuals to “fit in” to society. They can govern the way we dress, how we talk, what we talk about, and our relationships with our bodies, to name just a few. Sometimes these rules seem omnipresent, like some unnamed societal entity which hovers over and influences how I choose to express myself. Like, if I wear my peach-colored jacket with a tie-dye shirt and hippie glasses, the world will somehow be out to get me.

It’s easy to feel prisoner to the pressures of Villanova’s dominant narrative, but superseding these norms of conformity presents an opportunity for self-expression. When I ditched dressing to impress and started dressing to express, I found the special power in listening to my inner self. Don’t get me wrong, being different might catch you some side-eye around campus, but finding comfort in being unapologetically you is the best way to nourish your beautiful differences, rather than silencing them.

So how does one flip that switch of being comfortable in being different? How do I muster up the courage to be supportive to my own unique identity?

The answer lies in re-asking the question. Self-love is nothing like a permanent switch that gets flipped and forgotten. Self-love is an art, ongoing and ever-changing. Walking, talking, and existing authentically are only conscious reminders to value who you are as an individual. Your relationship with your inner voice is like a relationship with another person: it is not effortless. Some days you will feel distant from it, and some days it might be your saving grace, but the only way to become comfortable with what sets you apart from the crowd is to trust that what makes you different is exactly what makes you beautiful. Beginning to love who you are beyond your desire to fit in is the kindest thing you can do for yourself.

Pride starts with the decision to prioritize your forms of expression despite how you might be viewed for doing it. And while that can be the source of the whole challenge, it might help to remember that for every person who might make you uncomfortable, there are several in your same position who might be inspired by seeing you being you.

At the end of the day, we are all unique individuals trying to feel like we belong to a community. Deciding to be comfortable with your intricacies pushes that community in a more inclusive direction. You have the ability to create environments where people embrace difference instead of hiding it.

So that brings us back to the wonderful and exciting month of JUNE! How blissful it can be to wear colorful face paint and strut around in clothes you would never wear to work and have an excuse to be everything you always wanted to be and more. And while it is cathartic and empowering to have a month dedicated to LGBTQIA+ solidarity and the protest of oppressive norms, Pride doesn’t have to end on July 1st. In fact, Pride never has to end. Pride festivals illustrate what it looks like to be unapologetically you in the face of adversity, but that image extends to when you feel judged for how you speak, or when you’re deciding what to wear in the morning, or when your body seems hard to love. Each day holds something to take pride in, just by remembering to listen to -- and learn to love -- your inner voice.

Through this practice of self-love and respect for your inner voice, pride becomes something we carry with us all the time. Being comfortable sticking out is a skill that allows us flourish in challenging and unfamiliar environments, and although anybody can benefit from practicing self-love, it’s queer people that hold a key to creating communities that embrace and value difference.

There is power in representing a piece of the diversity that makes up the LGBTQIA+ community, and there is power in choosing to convey aspects of our identities that challenge the norms. In the end, our hope to create more inclusive systems starts at the individual level, with a commitment to self-love and a new embodiment of our pride every day, every week, and every month.