No Shame in Pride

There are more Pride posts, blogs, updates and articles than we can count. Some have been written by people outside the community, but above all, they have been written by us – the ones who live under everyone’s gaze. This text is for us, who belong to sexual and gender minorities. It is a shoulder to lean on, a place to set your shame down, even just for a little while.

Each of us has known fear and shame. Each of us has, at some point, believed that we are wrong in some essential way. We have all been told to worry about what other people will say. That we should be ashamed. That we should hide. Disappear. Wouldn’t it be easier to just be ordinary, normal. We carry these words like chains and dream of a world where who we are at our core is no longer soaked through with shame.

But do not think, even for a moment, that everyone’s chains are the same. We come from different stories, and each of us carries a different weight. What we share is this: we did not forge these chains for ourselves. Every encounter that tells us we are the wrong kind of person tightens another link.

Nor should you imagine that those of us who live openly as gender and sexual minorities have completely broken free. The weight of the chains still presses on us now and then, but it no longer holds us down. It is a memory of pain. You learn to live with it, because something gentler and truer has taken its place. If you are still held back by your chains, it can be hard to see how they could ever break. Ahead of you, you see no path – only closed doors.

We who live openly are not blessed with magic. We did not become visible all by ourselves. No one does. There is always a first, tentative moment when a single link gives way. A small act of courage. A racing heart and a bottomless joy at being, for once, among your own. Feelings pulling in opposite directions. Pride and fear, hand in hand. Unsteady steps towards connection with yourself and with others. Across the flood of shame there stretches a fragile, narrow bridge, and on the far side wait those who crossed it before you. They have the patience to wait. They see you. They do not judge.

To be among our own is beyond measure precious. The air is easier to breathe when you do not have to stay on your guard. It is easier to stand tall in your own pride when others around you recognise that same glow in themselves. We walk in the parade and close the streets for those who are not yet ready to join us. We march for them, and we march for ourselves. The ache of old chains falls quiet and slips away. We stand in full view, from us, to us. We pour our voices into the emptiness so that our echoes might reach even those who have not yet dared to come and watch.

“From us, to us” is not just a slogan thrown into the wind; it is something we do. We write for us with everything we have, because there is no other honest way. We write to the backs of closets, behind drawn curtains, beneath locked doors. These words will find their way. These words are a path you can walk. You may walk it in secret. As a traveller, you owe nothing to “us” – and nothing to me. On this path, I see you. You are allowed simply to be here and to breathe. There is no hurry. We are here for you, waiting, if one day you choose to cross that bridge.

Tinksu