Love Is Love

I keep running into queer people who worry about how the queer community will look at them.

They worry they aren't queer enough and I think they need to stop doing that to themselves.

It doesn't matter if you're currently in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. If you are attracted to the same sex or those who fall in between, you're queer.

If you're non binary and bisexual, you're queer. Yes, even if you look like a straight, white, male.

If you're trans and in a hetero presenting relationship, you're queer.

Sexual orientation is about sexual attraction. You can absolutely love someone who doesn't match your orientation. You might even enjoy sex with them.

Yeah, you may get less hostility in a straight-passing relationship, but you'll trade that for different relationship challenges.

Pride is about love. There isn't someone running around with a clipboard, a measuring device, or checking your naughty bits to determine your level of queerness.

I haven't run into anyone like that in any queer space or event. The most I've had is someone asking how I identify. Me. Not the community. Me.

Yeah, there may be some gatekeeper types around somewhere wanting everything to be pure and easily labeled, but those people are everywhere.

There's a saying about opinions being like a specific body opening that I think applies here.

You know your own experiences better than anyone else.

Even allies are welcome at Pride.

As a late bloomer lesbian, there's still a lot I'm learning, so I may have missed some things.

As far as I know, Pride is a celebration of love and I think that includes loving yourself fully, which includes the queer parts too.

And yes, it's still partly a protest because of some people who can't handle love looking different than they have been conditioned to think it should.

In conclusion, if you are queer at all, you absolutely belong. If your child/sibling/parent/cousin/friend/colleague is queer, and you want to be there for them, you belong too.

It's hard enough being queer without heaping onto yourself.

And if you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Jenny Eastwood.

I love what she says in her article on biphobia too:

"As a community we must do better to welcome all stripes of the rainbow. The queer community is all of us — gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and more. To treat anyone as less deserving because they aren’t gay enough is engaging in the the exact prejudice that we have spent decades marching against. The only way we can combat biphobia is by recognising this is a problem in our community and talking about it."

Please check out my digital to-do list: https://trello.com/b/RM8yD3eq/rae-roy-general