Published in the June/July 2025 Edition
By The Center for LGBTQ Health Equity
What is Pride? Pride means something a little different and often very personal to everyone. In celebration of Pride Month, we asked staff members at the Center for LGBTQ Health Equity for their reflections on what Pride means to each of them.
Sam McClure, Executive Director, The Center for LGBTQ Health Equity
For me, Pride means I, and my community can take up as much space as we want, be as joyful as we want, and remind each other how far we have come. And then remind each other that we didn't come this far just to come this far. Yes, we still have to fight, and it is okay. We've always been fighting. It also means showing up to do the work to build the businesses and organizations that will meet our needs now, and for many generations to come, because we are not going anywhere.
Kate Bishop, Education Coordinator
PRIDE means I'm working, it's the most intense week of our year. I've served in the ElderPride tent this past decade, providing a shady space for Elders to know their worth and young ones to find their path. I'll be winding my shy self up to get relentlessly friendly, losing my voice from shouting, aching from overdoing it, gratefully devoting my small service to our revolution in progress.
When I get hot and tired, when sunscreen melts into my eyes and my feet hurt, I remind myself: it's always someone's first Pride, babe. You've been blessed with a career as a movement Ambassador. Time to dig down to those rainbow reserves and offer the embrace of Community to all who seek it.
Those couple weekends in June, my family's sparkly reunion, are my chance to absorb the joyfire that fuels the unglittered hard work of being a Gay for Pay the rest of the year. Pride means standing strong in the authenticity I damn well earned, loving my people on purpose.
Ann Marie Brokmeier, Staff Therapist
Pride to me means honoring our LGBTQIA+ elders, our queer ancestors, and transcestors through unabashed hopefulness for our futures, collective and individual. It means allowing ourselves to affirm our authentic selves; to honor generational pain and systemic trauma wounds; to practice community care and mutual aid; and to truly feel joy as we celebrate who we are, how we got here, and where we are going.
Liz Fairfax, Administrative Assistant
When you think of Pride, it's easy to think of the big things: We're here, we're queer, we're in your face, we're proud at full volume! It is, however, easy to discount the quiet sort of Pride that dwells within each and every one of us, the proud certainty of who we are in spite of what others may see when they look at us.
Sometimes Pride is catching the glance of the teen with the trans pride pin and giving them a wink and a knowing smile that says, "I see you. I see you, and I'm proud of who you are."
Sometimes Pride is two old friends meeting at the site of an old adult theatre and knowing that the movies were only half the fun.
Sometimes Pride is what you hold in the pit of your stomach when the world seems to be against you, keeping you warm against the coldness of the world.
Pride is in all we do, even the subterfuge, codewords, and stolen glances—an entire language of signs all our own to be proud of, and to show, in our own words, on our own terms, who we are!
Ray Moneypenny, Staff Therapist
Pride to me is the antidote to shame. For many LGBTQ+ people, we've been told all our lives to be ashamed of who we are, who we love, or the ways we do not fit into the expectations of our heteronormative society. We've been taught to hide in plain sight, and to quiet the parts of ourselves that might not be accepted. Pride is a month, a parade, a party—but it's also a powerful and necessary statement, a balm. Pride is a reminder to release the shame that we have been taught, and to celebrate ourselves and each other for having the courage to be free.
Sailor, Trans Care Navigator
During Pride, I am one of the introverts smiling to see other queer+ people who are loud and expressive, and also introverts who are people-watching, claiming space, and open to connection.
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