Standing In The Sun
We all carry multiple identities around with us. Over the years, my journey has been one of trying to find a way to harmonize all the sides of me that sometimes felt at odds. I told my story as a survivor when I was 13 and I came out as gay when I was 16. As I was moving through my trauma of the childhood sexual abuse, I started to convince myself that my queerness was actually a symptom of the abuse, not a true identity. It was simply another coping mechanism that had to be dealt with, not to be given space to grow. This misguided conclusion made me push my sexuality down and led to many years of living outside of my truth, hurting myself and others in the process.
There is no right or wrong path on our journey of finding who we are. It all matters and it is all important. I share this side because I think that so much of the time we isolate certain parts of ourselves because we want to believe that they can be “fixed”. There is nothing to fix when it comes to living as you are. I knew that I was being sexually abused when I was 12, and I knew that I was attracted to women from the moment I began to understand what attraction meant. This truth has never changed no matter how often I have tried to deny it or ‘fix’ it. And today at the age of 33, I stand fully in the sun holding the two identities that I fought so hard for over the decades. I am a proud queer person AND someone who survived sexual abuse. So this June, I am celebrating both of these identities in the hopes that it will open up peoples’ hearts and minds to knowing that we get to live exactly as we are. We all deserve to be believed and be trusted with the fact that we know who we are better than anyone else ever will.
In June, we get the opportunity to create space for us all to honor what it means to live the queer experience. We get to revel in the love we feel for one another while collectively sharing our stories. We get to open up conversations around the work that has been done, the people who have paved the way forward and the long road that is still ahead. Our greatest strength is our ability to come together and share in it as a community.
Community is how we heal, is how we find peace, and is how we know that we are not alone. Pride is a revolution of self as much as it is a revolution of the collective. It welcomes us into such caring and joyous moments, that at times, you can feel all the magic that surrounds us. This freedom and community has given me the ability to face other pains and to lean into knowing that what we all deserve is bountiful love.
