feature art: Autostraddle // tweet: Kayla Kumari

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Doing a Pride package at a place like Autostraddle — where we are not only queer all year but also indie all year, which significantly impacts our access to resources — is a tricky task. This was my first time helming our Pride package as managing editor, and my initial thought was we could maybe do about seven Pride pieces and call it a day. After all, every mainstream media company every year trots out their handful of LGBTQ articles — a lot of them blatant SEO grabs — in June and calls it a day. Why should we work harder when we’re the ones who are, again, queer all damn year! When we are the ones covering queer and trans issues with a variety of angles and scopes and paying queer and trans folks to do so in July, in August, in January, February, March, every day of every month. Not just when it’s hot to do so. Not just when violently transphobic legislation is nationwide news. All the time, we’re here. All the time, we’re proud, or at least, fucking trying to be! As Pride increasingly becomes co-opted, soured by capitalism, and diluted from its original organizing and protest roots, it’s easy to become exhausted every June. Who is Pride even for anymore?

Us. The answer should be us. The answer must be us.

We decided on a theme for our Pride package: Step Up + Support. The theme was meant just as a North star for our writers. It doesn’t appear on any of the visual branding for the series, which was executed by our wonderful new Art Director. The unofficial theme the senior team discussed during our first Pride brainstorm was Shut Up + Get Fucked, which we saw as a playful double-meaning turn of phrase. We want the politicians trying to erase and punish the most vulnerable members of our communities to get absolutely fucked in the metaphysical sense for being the demons they are. But we also want to, like, get fucked, you know? The merging of the erotic with the political has a long history in queer art and activism movements (something touched on throughout this brilliant interview with Phyllis Christopher in the Pride package!!!!). We deserve pleasure and to act on our desires all the time. We deserve full lives. We deserve Pride beyond rainbow merch and performative social media posts from brands.

Shut Up + Get Fucked became Step Up + Support, but that same general energy of LET’S KISS and also FIGHT was there, perfectly embodied by the (A+ discounted) Jenifer Prince print imo. We wanted a Pride package that made space for joy and celebration but also anger, hurt, and ambivalence. We wanted fun shit smashed up against history smashed up against personal narratives. Step Up + Support was meant to be a guiding theme pushing our writers to think of the ways they are showing up for themselves, for their communities, for queer and trans youth. And what I realized when putting out our call for pitches was that corporations can try as hard as they want to co-opt Pride, but we don’t have to let them steal it from us. Pride still matters. Pride still means something, and it still is for us if we make it so.

The influx of brilliant ideas from everyone on the Autostraddle team proved that. I was hoping for seven strong pieces to publish, and I ended up with OVER TWO DOZEN. One for almost every day of Pride month. We had a playlist for being trans and horny, a heartbreaking letter to an ex friend, a smart and funny analysis of reality television, a thoughtful essay on INvisibility, poetry recs, more poetry recs, a conversation with queer youth (spoiler alert: the best way to step up + support queer and trans youth is to LISTEN TO THEM), personal narratives about what it feels like to be excluded from Pride events due to disability and tips for how planners can do better, style guides, makeup guides, musings on queer temporality, a guide to hosting a restorative queer dinner party with chosen family, AND SO MUCH MORE. Seriously, just dive on in.

There are 30 days in June, but no one tell Carmen! Let’s pretend Pride month is an extra day long!!!!!

For me, helming this Pride package came at a time when I had begun to reconsider the role of Pride in my life. When I lived in New York, I always attended the Dyke March, and every year I’ve been away from it, I feel a deep sadness. But in New York, I often skipped official big Pride events, rolling my eyes at the capitalism of it all. And there certainly are a plethora of legitimate critiques to be made of mainstream Pride events, especially ones that are cost prohibitive and especially especially ones that include — or, worse, celebrate — cops. But of course it was easy for me to roll my eyes at Pride when in my bubble of privilege in New York. Make no mistake: Homophobia and transphobia breed everywhere, and liberals writing off the South as some backwards place does nothing to serve queer liberation in any part of the country (oh, hey, there’s an entire essay about this in our Pride package!). But I’d be lying if I said I don’t experience being queer and being in large queer gatherings like Pride parties differently since moving to Florida.

For the first time in a long time, I regularly monitor my own behavior and appearance when out and about in my daily life. In my life in Brooklyn, I didn’t think twice before wearing my beloved Dyke Drama shirt. Now, I don’t even wear it in my own building. I realize how much various privileges played into my relative safety as a queer person in my life before, and I still benefit from a lot of those privileges here. There are times when I forget where I am, what the “rules” are here — not rules I ever agreed to, but ones I have to abide by nonetheless. I have to be aware of when and where I choose to touch my girlfriend or kiss her or call her “baby.” When booking a place for us to stay on a weekend vacation, I have to consider whether I should write partner or girlfriend or just…friend. And yes, I live in Miami, where people outside the state might think it’s perfectly fine to be visibly queer, but it isn’t. While Miami Beach — and South Beach in particular — are known for gay party scenes, there are very few actual queer spaces in Miami. There are no lesbian bars in South Florida.

So, instead, we make our own queer spaces. When I’m with my friends at the happy hour, it’s all of a sudden a queer happy hour. When I’m with my friends at the book store, it’s a gay book store. And at the few official Pride events I’ve been to since moving to Florida — including Orlando’s, which is actually held in October — I feel a genuine sense of relief, brief as it may be, laced with complications as it may be. To be surrounded by other queer folks in a place that tries over and over to keep us apart feels nothing short of magical. I feel almost like a baby gay at her first Pride again.

Since before I even came out to myself, I have always been surrounded by close queer and trans friends. My queer community outside of Florida still matters so, so much to me, of course. They always will. But there are limits that come with the geographical distance between us. My queer Florida family — Kristen, Stef, Stacey, Bobuq, Chris, Kristopher — are vital parts of my life here, and being in their presence buoys me in a way that’s difficult to describe. That’s what I cared the most about this Pride, seeing those people and continuing to nurture those friendships, which do feel essential for survival here. I cared about being a part of creating online community with you all, with Autostraddle members and readers. I cared deeply about this Pride package because even if Autostraddle is a queer space all year, it’s still our Pride. So, yes, we’ll step up and support each other year-round, but I also hope we all had some fucking fun this month — IRL, on the site, on the discord — because what’s the goddamn point if we can’t have a little joy?

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