Pride Month & Me

It's Pride Month! Wooooot!

So what story am I going to tell? One that reminds us that Pride is a protest, and began as a protest, initiated by the Stonewall Riots of 1969, spearheaded by trans women of colour - activists and community champions who rose up against the persecution and oppression they had been experiencing.

The first UK Pride happened three years later in 1972 in London and has continued ever since. Pride month is now a global annual reminder of the struggles and persecution that LGBTQ+ people have faced, and continue to face every day, simply as a result of existing and being visible to others.

Rainbow Washing

Pride, Pride Month, and LGBT+ History Month are now often seen as celebrations of diversity, inclusive of everyone. These festivities are increasingly co-opted by corporate and commercial entities who 'rainbow wash' their organisations in an attempt to promote their brand as an inclusive one (and ultimately sell more products).

This doesn't usually wash with members of the LGBTQ+ community, but can go unnoticed by the masses. Here's a quick tip - if you're going to buy some rainbow 🌈 related merch to help celebrate Pride this month, please shop with LGBTQ+ run businesses like:

• The Pride Shop
• Proud Supplies
• Rainbow & Co

OK, so I've got a personal share for you - it's actually something I wrote around six months ago on Facebook that just went to my friends, but I'm putting it out here as a reminder that society still has some catching up to do when it comes to being a fully inclusive and safe space for everyone. Here goes...

A Story Of Micro Aggression

Yesterday I experienced some [homo/trans phobic] verbal abuse.

I've put 'homo/trans phobic' in brackets because the person's motivations for shouting at me were not entirely clear, but whatever they were, I did not appreciate being hollered at and ridiculed.

I'm not asking for sympathy or advice here. My intentions of posting about this are to give my anger some expression, do some personal processing, and provide a little 'queer education' within my wider circle of friends and acquaintances.

I wear nail varnish, and I'm 99% confident that this was the trigger that caused a person to raise their voice at me - here's what happened:

I was running through my local village (fitness running, not from a bear or anything) and, adorned with a quite glorious sunny yellow nail colour, was moving towards a line of stationery vehicles that had stopped at traffic lights.

A driver of a trade van was looking out of the window and eyeballing my nails with a look of bemused incredulity as I ran closer to them. As I passed the van, the driver leant out of the window with what looked to me like a malicious smile and shouted in what I perceived to be an aggressive tone:

run faster, boy!

...and then laughed loudly at me as I continued to run past, along with their passenger who found the whole thing deeply amusing, obviously. I was startled and emotionally triggered - a real fight or flight response - I had a lot of feelings come up.

It's a long time since anyone shouted at me like that but it brought up a lot of old stuff around being bullied and ridiculed as a kid, and a lot of fear I had/have around the threat of physical violence.

Internally, I got ready to fight, and spent the rest of my run having imaginary face-offs with the driver where I had a chance to respond and react (obviously all scenarios in which I 'won' in some sort of deft, meaningful triumph of wit and / or physical prowess).

I can only imagine that when the driver saw me running towards them with my bright nail colour shining, that they thought one of the following things in the few seconds they had in which to decide whether to open their mouth:

1. I see a man running, he has yellow nails: I will ridicule him for not running fast enough, and demean him by calling him a boy
2. I see a man running, he has yellow nails: I judge him to be a man with nails like a woman; that's gay, and because gay feminised men run too slowly and real men run fast, I will ridicule him for not running fast enough, and I will demean him by calling him a boy.
3. I see a man running, he has yellow nails: I judge him to be a man with nails like a woman; that's transgender, and because trans feminised men run too slowly and real men run fast, I will ridicule him for not running fast enough, and will demean and misgender him by calling him a boy.

Or perhaps some combination of all three. Or perhaps none of those things and they were being genuinely encouraging in the only way they knew how. Somehow, I don't think so though.

People can be ignorant as f$@k [please forgive the swears in a professional forum, remember this was my personal Facebook post and my intention was to vent some anger, language is language ☺️]. Anyone who thinks it's ok to lean out of their vehicle window and shout anything at all, at any passerby, for any reason whatsoever, is a d*ck

Everyone should be free to go about their business, running from bears or otherwise, without fear of being ridiculed or verbal abuse.

As a cisgender, white, abled, slim, employed, housed, educated mostly-stright-mostly-male-presenting person, it's pretty rare for me to experience anything negative from others. The cards are for the most part neatly stacked in my favour.

Since I started wearing nail colour (again) about two years ago, I have experienced a noticeable shift in tone of how I'm perceived and how people react to me. So let me say this:

What my nail colour has to do with my s*xual orientation or gender identity is nobody's business but my own, but its very presence is something I recognise disrupts people's equilibrium.

Now that I'm finishing this share, my mind and heart are leaning towards all my LGBTQ+ friends who have not experienced the same societal privileges as me through life, and who have instead experienced untold amounts of abuse and violence at the hands of the dominant cis-heteronormative culture, its perpetrators, and its complicit bystanders.

I stand in solidarity, and speak out.

My nails will be a different colour next week

I will wear them with pride