Rainbows Are Visions, But Only Illusions

It’s Pride Month, in case you’ve been living under a rock since, like, 1980 or something. I went to my first Pride festival (Birmingham, Alabama) when I was 19, and while it didn’t change my life, it certainly confirmed it. I was here (technically: there), I was queer, get used to it.

It felt good to not be the only queer person for a change. It felt good to be surrounded by people even more queer than I was, who had been out longer than I had, who were better at being queer than I would ever be. I soaked it all in, this sense of belonging to a vast, surrogate family that didn’t question my attraction to boys and Barbra Streisand and books and clothes. “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge played everywhere: in parks, on floats, in cars, at drag shows.

We were family. I had all my sisters with me.

But why was my boyfriend’s friend always such a bitch when he talked to me? Why was his lesbian friend with the mullet so sarcastic every time she spoke to me? I didn’t know, so I did what I’d always done in uncomfortable situations like that—I sat quietly and smoked cigarettes and tried to figure it all out. That was easier said than done, of course. And I was young and stupid, so my brain hadn’t fully developed to the point that I could easily explain human behavior in awkward social situations. I didn’t understand, at that age, that some people turned to sarcasm and condescension to alleviate their own nervousness. I wouldn’t figure that out until I was in my thirties.

So, I just assumed they didn’t like me. That was easier. But it was confusing, because weren’t we all family? Didn’t I have all my sisters with me? Would my sisters treat me like this? Wasn’t family—not actual family, but the family we found and created on our own when we were far enough away from the family that had never accepted us—supposed to love unconditionally and treat one another kindly and take care of one another? Why did these people not like me? What had I done?

It’s easy to get caught up in the whole We’re All In This Together myth of the LGBTQ community. Back then, it was just the LGB community, then we added the T because we were idiots and should have added them from the beginning. And we put the L first because it was the lesbians who cared for so many of the gay men as they were dying of AIDS in the 80s and 90s. The Q came later, for some other reason. I don’t even remember when it was added. It just showed up, and people were like “It stands for ‘Questioning!1!!’” But then it got codified as “Queer,” which made more sense, because if you were questioning your own sexuality, you were probably one of the other letters already and just needed a bit more time to work it out.

And now? Now we (read: not me) argue about whether the I and the A (meaning asexual, I guess…?) should be included. So, I just say LGBTQ+. Like streaming channels where you get so much streaming content it makes your head spin, that plus symbol—to me, at any rate—means everybody. “Y’all means all” and shit. And still, there is disagreement.

So much for the notion of a found family to replace the shitty ones we all escaped. Because sometimes, the community is the problem. We are not family. I ain’t got all my sisters with me. I’ve got bitches telling me I’m not gay enough because I got married and marriage is heteronormative. If that’s so, then what the fuck were we marching for all those years? Because I was under the impression that equality meant just that: LGBTQ+ people get to legally do all the things straight people have been able to do legally for centuries. And we’re still fighting. There are still places in the world where we can’t get married. But, sure, Mark/Rick/Steve, tell me how fucking heteronormative I am because I got married so I can keep my fucking health insurance.

But, yeah. Sometimes the community isn’t much of one and they think they’re advancing all the causes for LGBTQ+ people, but really, honestly, they’re just being assholes because they’ve always been assholes and no one has ever called them on it. So, if you’re one of these assholes, stop it. Be nice. Help people. Meet them where they are.

You know how people love to share that meme on social media, the one about how everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about, so just be kind? Those people are some of the most judgmental, so cuss them bitches out. If we’re all in this together, then let’s all be in this together and let’s have each others’ backs, but let’s really have each others’ backs. It’s getting hard to even be openly gay or lesbian or nonbinary or transgender out here. All that progress we made since Stonewall is slowly being rolled back and people are worried about whether or not everyone in the community is meeting their personal standard of what being LGBTQ+ is.

The whole idea of the rainbow flag is that it represents us all, and how we are—despite our differences—part of something that is bigger (read: greater) than ourselves. So we need to fucking act like it. You don’t have to love everybody, because some people are assholes. I get it. But you have to let them be themselves and figure their own shit out at their own pace so they can get to where they need to be.

Pride Month is about celebrating who you are as an individual, but it’s also about celebrating who we all are, and helping those who need it be who they are, and letting them get there when they get there, however they can. “Rainbows are visions, but just an illusion.” Kermit the Frog sang that in “The Rainbow Connection” from the Muppet Movie. You only see a rainbow if you’re at the right angle and have the right perspective, otherwise you see nothing.

Make sure you have the right perspective.