Following cancellations last year due to the pandemic, Pride marches returned to their usual scheduling this summer. For me, it was my first time attending such an event since I came out in the spring of 2019.
Coming out was not exactly easy for me. I felt desperately let down when from the moment I uttered the words “I’m gay” all my troubles were not immediately solved. Yes, there was relief, but I was bemused why certain family members were not instantly prepared to serenade me with I Am What I Am or Born This Way. Genuinely, though, things were still tough. I lived in a pretty backwards area and suppressed my identity around certain people. I wished I never left the closet.
But things got better. As the months turned into years, I realised that everyone’s coming out experience is different, that it never works out the way you intended. I physically got away from the small-town mentality that had held me back by moving into the city for university. For the first time in my life, I felt pride in being different.
Now identifying as bisexual, I stood in Glasgow Green on June 25 surrounded by countless rainbow flags and people holding signs in anticipation of the march which was about to begin. I was with my people, as it were, and despite a tiny counter demonstration by a bunch of, yes, actual adults clutching bibles and insisting that being who we are was sinful, it was a fantastic day. The highlight for me was the heartwarming sight of an elderly male couple looking down gleefully on the demonstration from a window in the City Centre. Together they held a Pride flag and waved at those below. The pair would have lived through it all: from decades of fear, stigmatisation and public prejudice towards the LGBT+ community, to the repeal of Section 28 and the legalisation of same-sex marriage.
It made me think a lot about how I as a 19-year-old, despite my at times troubled experience, have still grown up in the best period in living memory to be queer, but that does not mean the fight for our community’s rights is over, far from it.
Many often wonder whether Pride is even a protest anymore or if it is now simply a celebration of previous battles won, where dubious big corporations can exploit the pink pound during Pride Month before removing the rainbows from their social media accounts as soon as it hits July 1. Some – including myself at times– have wondered if we even need Pride anymore, given the progress we have made. It would be remiss to not acknowledge that a hint of complacency has set in within a movement that traces its origins back to the 1969 Stonewall riots, when LGBT+ people finally decided to strike back after years of institutionalised persecution.
This year, LGBT Youth Scotland recorded a decline in the number of young people who believe the country is a good place to live if you are LGBT+. The study also showed that respondents think that homophobia and transphobia are “big problems” in Scotland, at 49% and 69% respectively.
The struggle for trans rights is the biggest the community is currently facing. With transphobic coverage in the media still rife and the UK government ready to clash with Holyrood over Scotland’s plans regarding the proposed Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would make it easier for a person to legally change their gender. Our trans siblings need our support more than ever.
So, of course, we still need Pride. It can remain a celebration of how much we have achieved whilst never forgetting its roots in protest and the championing of the downtrodden. Be they trans people who have been excluded from protection under the British government’s conversion therapy ban, queer people of colour or our LGBT+ family in some countries around the world who still face severe punishments.
I do not think I will ever forget my first Pride. In a perfect world it would be my last, but sadly we do not live in a perfect world.
