Celebrating Pride Month to See as They are

It’s the last day of pride day but the journey towards equality, eradicating discrimination, acceptance and educating ourselves should always pertain. 

Are you wondering why pride month is celebrated in the month of June? Well, June is the month chosen to celebrate pride as it was the month of the Stonewall riots, the protests that changed gay rights for a lot of people in America and beyond.

It is a month when we all come together to talk about pride, the LGBTQ community and how we can all walk towards a brighter future and learn to see as they are. 

Here’s how a few people shared about how they felt about pride month and their journey of acceptance: 

Drag, the artform of expression

Prateek aka bettanaanstop expressed his feelings towards the society and drag in quite a creative and intriguing manner. There’s a line in his narration which really caught us off guard, it goes like, “we are all special and unique and how is it going to be fun if we all look the same”. We often try to mould ourselves in a certain way to make ourselves more ‘acceptable’ but this dialogue got us thinking that won’t the world get all monotonous if we are all just the same?

Be a man

Jatin, a student of NIFT Gandhinagar has narrated his life journey with a beautiful poem named, ‘be a man’. It talks about how growing up the society constantly reminded him to ‘be a man’ but with his courage and determination he stood against the society and said, “he wasn’t a man, he wasn’t a woman, he was just a human”. In a simple yet impactful way, his poem made us remember that humanity is beyond any gender, sexuality, race or caste. 

He/She/They - Ask before you assume

For the month to celebrate pride, Mayank decided to educate us about gender pronouns. It might sound simple to you but it is important to those who are being addressed by incorrect pronouns. Do not feel bad if you are not sure about what pronoun to use when addressing someone, all you need to do is simply ask - Hey, what’s your pronoun. 

It’s never ‘just a color’ 

When a loved one is not around anymore, we tend to find ways to keep them in our lives. It could be by keeping their belongings, getting their name tattooed or having a picture of them in your wallet. For Arijit it was his grandmother's blue eye color. Wearing red lipstick and blue eye colour makes him feel safe and close to her. Looking like her makes him feel empowered and confident. Just being there for people, being empathetic and seeing as they are can make this world a better place. 

Inspiring Stories for this Pride Month

From Ann accepting her sexuality when she was 17 to Puneet dressing up like his friends in school just to ‘fit in’ to Shyam’s self-exploration journey. Their stories or journeys might be different but their confidence, self-belief and acceptance are common. Though Pride month has come to an end, we still have a long way to go to achieve equality, eliminate myths, educate ourselves, always remember love is love and learn to see as they are.