Latest news with #WorldPride
Business Insider
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
I'm a drag queen in NYC whose bookings for Pride Month have plummeted this year. I'm trying to work smarter, not harder.
Brita Filter, 39, is a household name in drag entertainment. Her popularity went mainstream when she appeared on season 12 of "RuPaul's Drag Race," and she's made appearances on "Saturday Night Live," "Broad City," and "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah." I first heard of Brita in 2023 when my then-employer, PayPal, was trying to book her for a Pride happy hour near our NYC office. But Google had already booked her for the same coveted time slot: post-work drinks the Thursday before New York City Pride — what Brita says was usually her busiest time of year. This year, she says her corporate bookings are down by about 60% compared to last year. Another drag entertainer Business Insider spoke to, Holly Box-Springs, said the few June Pride bookings that have come through for her have been last-minute. Corporate interest in Pride is softening elsewhere; around 25% of corporate donors for NYC's Pride parade (taking place Sunday, June 29) have reportedly canceled or scaled back their support, citing economic uncertainty and fear of retribution from the Trump administration. We asked Brita about how this shift in interest is affecting her career. These are her words, edited for length and clarity. 'I've never had this much downtime in June' I started doing drag over a decade ago — around the same time as Holly Box-Springs, actually. And I've seen the highs and lows. This year feels especially slow. I've never had this much downtime in June since I started. All year long, at least twice a month, I fly all over the US to perform — Alabama, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, Hawaii. Usually I'd fly out on a Thursday, do a show on a Friday or Saturday, and fly back by Sunday for my regular set at a bar in New York City. But during Pride, drag queens are like Santa Claus during Christmas — everyone wants to book them at the same time. A typical week leading up to New York City Pride used to be nonstop for me. In 2019, during World Pride, I worked 43 days in a row — no breaks. I was hired by big companies. Some days, I had multiple gigs, back to back. I kept count because it was the year I filmed "RuPaul's Drag Race." In one month alone, I made enough money to buy a brand new Toyota Prius. This year? I only have eight gigs total for the month. It's a complete 180. I used to have a manager, assistant, and publicist, but I've been doing it on my own for the past two years. I don't have any corporate bookings at all this year. I'm just working a regular bar shift on the 29th — the day of the Pride parade — at Hardware Bar in Hell's Kitchen, where I perform weekly year-round. This week, I hosted a big activation event in Union Square for National HIV Testing Day. The community events — the more politically-focused or pro-LGBTQ charity events — are still happening, but the corporate big-ticket gigs just aren't there. 'We'll do anything for a comma' When I was booked solid during World Pride in previous years, I'd take as many gigs as humanly possible. If that meant waking up at 6 a.m. and being in drag until 4 a.m. the next day, I did it. We all did. Sleep, skincare, physical exhaustion — it didn't matter as long as the check had a comma in it. We used to say, "We'll do anything for a comma." You just pushed through because that kind of money didn't come year-round. July was for recovery. This year, I'm not taking July off. I might have to work straight through the month. I'll pick up more shows and cover for people who are out of town. Moneywise, I'll have to figure things out; I'm not sure how. I'm grateful. Because of my situation [being on TV], my rates are higher. I'm given more opportunities and at times bigger checks. I'm working smarter, not harder. About 50% of my income is from influencer partnerships and content creation for private companies that pay me to spread political messaging. But I'm spending money as soon as it comes in. For every gig, I have to talk to designers, get a new dress, a new wig, take new photos, do new press. Almost everything I make has to go back into the craft because it's all about the look. My entire job is the look. Or I'm spending money on getting 10 dancers, a rehearsal room, a choreographer, costumes — I'm like my own little Broadway show, except I'm the producer, the artistic director, and the star. 'Corporate interest has changed' A few years ago, Pride was global. You could feel it. People flew in from all over the world. This year's World Pride in D.C. earlier this month didn't feel global at all. It was mostly Americans. I barely met anyone from outside the country. I think a lot of folks are hesitant to come to the US right now. Things have shifted. Budgets are different. Corporate interest has changed. But the work that supports the community directly, such as Pride galas — that's still going. That's what's always mattered most to me anyway.
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Why drag queen Pattie Gonia is werking from the mountaintops
It's been a big year for Pattie Gonia: She lip-synched 'Defying Gravity' in front of Cynthia Erivo at the Out 100 party, performed a sold-out show during WorldPride in D.C. and became the first person to deliver a TED talk in full drag. These would be remarkable achievements for any drag queen. But Pattie Gonia is not any drag queen. She's a mustachioed, anti-capitalist, environmentalist activist drag queen.
Atlantic
3 days ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
The Whiplash Generation
The closing of Dupont Circle felt like a bad omen. The park and its namesake neighborhood, a longtime hub of gay life in Washington, D.C., were expected to be packed during WorldPride 2025. But on June 2, the National Park Service announced that it would be shutting down the place on the celebration's culminating weekend. The intrusion of federal Washington on the District was unsettling but not unprecedented; the circle, like many of the most popular spaces in the city, is not under local control. More unusual was the chaos that followed. For many residents, there was a sense of fear that the federal government was intentionally excluding queer people from a beloved green space. (The NPS later said that the city's police chief had asked for the closure.) The shutdown order was reversed the next day, then suddenly reinstated. Black security fencing went up on Friday, and then came down again the next morning, opening the circle just in time for the headline parade, on June 7. The entire affair—the opening, the closing, the paranoia, and then the alarming news of a shooting (which was unrelated and, thankfully, nonfatal)—could be easily put down to the vagaries of big-city life. But it also served as a heavy-handed metaphor for the general vibe of Pride month in the capital and across America: severe emotional whiplash. For D.C.'s queer community, this was supposed to be an unambiguously triumphant June, one marking multiple important anniversaries. WorldPride, an international LGBTQ festival, had hastily chosen D.C. for its ninth event, after the initial 2025 host, Taiwan, pulled out. The change was fortuitous, in part because it coincided with the 50th anniversary of Pride events in D.C. (first organized in 1975 just a few blocks north of Dupont Circle). And most significantly, this June is the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Every Pride is a commemoration of LGBTQ history, as well as a celebration of how far the community has come. For many in Washington, by some measures the gayest city in America, the marking of a decade since the Obergefell decision in the city where the Court ruled represented the ultimate victory lap. But the actual event was more mixed. Although organizers initially expected 3 million visitors, attendance was reportedly only in the hundreds of thousands. Many foreigners skipped it, citing the United States' recent detainment of travelers and noncitizens over their public statements or social-media posts. Domestic visitors were wary, too, of partying in the federal government's backyard—particularly in the days leading up to President Donald Trump's big military parade. Trump and his party have made the rollback of LGBTQ rights a nationwide priority, and more encroachments—perhaps even the reversal of Obergefell —appear to be on conservatives' radar. Backlash has officially arrived just as some members of Generation Z, the queerest cohort in American history, take their first steps into adulthood. Instead of reveling in their progress, they're having to reenvision their future and wondering which rights are safe and which they might not be able to count on. Ten years is a long time for a young person. The teens I saw reveling in the streets in rainbow clothes, hair glitter, and body paint were born recently enough that they might not even remember the day of the Obergefell ruling. Older members of their generation were just teenagers when it came down. The bisexual rapper Doechii, who performed at a free concert near the National Mall on Pride weekend, was 16 in 2015; the lesbian pop star Renée Rapp, a grand marshal of the WorldPride parade, was only 15. The youngest Gen Zers, born in 2012, were toddlers at that time. Today, more than one in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, a greater share than in any generation before them. They grew up, and many of them came out, in the most gay-friendly social climate our country has ever seen. They have had role models in every corner of mainstream American life: Congress, the cover of Time magazine, the NFL, the military, The Bachelor. Things that felt impossible for so many teenagers in decades past—using gender-neutral pronouns; cutting their hair short; bringing a same-sex partner to a high-school dance—were normal for an unprecedented number of them. Target marketed them so much Pride merchandise that they shared memes mocking the collection. But now that they're reaching maturity, these same young people are watching their status quo erode. The past few years have been marked by harsh, vitriolic backlash. Homophobic language and slurs are back in vogue among a contingent of influencers. The Target jokes stopped being funny when, in 2023, right-wing social-media attacks on its Pride collection got so bad that the company pulled some of the items from its stores, citing threats to employees. The Republican Party has aggressively challenged transgender people's ability to serve in the military, play sports, update their IDs, and medically transition. And over the past six months, rescinding rights has become official policy. Trump has targeted individual transgender teenage athletes on social media, while his government has cut funding for HIV research and prevention worldwide. State governments and major religious denominations are challenging same-sex marriage, and corporations with a recent history of unfurling rainbow flags— Booz Allen Hamilton, Mastercard, Pepsi —have pulled out of sponsoring Pride events. The White House called LGBTQ-specific suicide-hotline services 'radical grooming contractors' and abruptly halted its partnership with the Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on preventing self-harm by queer youth. The Supreme Court just ruled that a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors can stand. Meanwhile, support for gay marriage shows a record-high partisan divide, with a major dip in Republican approval and even a slight overall decline. Pushback against social progress isn't a new phenomenon, and neither is adversity for LGBTQ people. But prior generations grew up knowing it firsthand, whereas Gen Z has been raised in a world where, each June, huge rainbow parades bearing the imprimaturs of corporations and local governments rolled down the streets of every major U.S. city. That gave them plenty of reasons to believe that the recurrent waves of discrimination their elders faced—the Lavender Scare, Ronald Reagan ignoring the AIDS crisis, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act—had been relegated to history's dustbin. The milestones of their youth, after all, were victories. But these wins lulled the movement into what Sarah McBride, the 34-year-old transgender representative from Delaware, described to my colleague Hanna Rosin as 'a false sense of security.' After Obergefell, there was a 'dynamic where public opinion was sort of a mile wide but an inch deep,' she said. And, in her view, the LGBTQ coalition coasted instead of carrying on the work of public persuasion. Now the reality of the moment is setting in, and it's taking a psychological toll. 'I always say people come to a doctor's office for two reasons: They're either in pain, or they're afraid,' Max Doyle, a physician assistant at Whitman-Walker Health, in D.C., who treats many queer Gen Zers and Millennials, told me. 'Lately, my patients have been coming in because they're in mental pain and they're afraid.' He's been seeing an increase in depression and anxiety in his patients, and referring more of them to psychiatry. The ebb of LGBTQ acceptance provokes serious, immediate material concerns for people who are beginning their adult lives. They must ask themselves questions like: Where is it safe to live? Should I pursue gender-affirming surgery before it's too late? Should I get married now? Will we still be able to use surrogacy or IVF to start a family if we wait a few years? The freedom these young adults grew up with was, in part, the freedom not to think about these things. That liberty was incomplete—stratified by class, race, region, or pure luck—but wherever it did exist, it represented the fulfillment of a long-held dream, one in which queer people would be able to pursue careers, relationships, and families without fear of being outed or ostracized. Having to ask Where and when can I hold my beloved's hand? is caustic to a person's dignity. Having to wonder Where can I safely use the bathroom? is abrasive to the soul. It fundamentally alters one's brain chemistry to see Sesame Street accused of 'grooming' for posting a Pride message. Doyle is 29, and a Millennial. He says he's not entirely surprised by this climate of backlash, especially because he grew up in the more conservative Midwest. But his co-workers at Whitman-Walker, which has been providing LGBTQ health care in the nation's capital for more than 50 years, belong to many generations, and he finds that his older colleagues and patients, especially those who survived the AIDS epidemic, are 'more jaded'—but also 'better prepared.' This year's WorldPride was loud, colorful, and full of confetti. As anyone who has spent June in D.C. might have expected, the air was thick and humid, and attendees were dripping with sweat basically as soon as the sun rose. Signs implored the crowd to support trans troops, to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, to stand against queer-book bans, to join IKEA's customer loyalty club. Drag queens threw beads and flags from floats; pop hits and disco classics wafted down 14th Street. There was plenty of good humor and an undercurrent of naughtiness and rebellion. Despite the political climate, WorldPride felt very much like a regular D.C. Pride. These kinds of family-friendly gatherings contain an implicit but powerful argument for acceptance. They glorify the power and importance of love in the lives of all kinds of people. They make gay life visible and diminish stigma or shame. And, crucially, they emphasize similarities instead of highlighting differences, in the hopes of generating wider approval. That spirit can be found in the majority ruling in Obergefell, in which then-Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that gay and lesbian couples respect marriage 'so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves'; in McBride's belief that her allies could have focused more on making the case for expanding trans rights; and in the travel-size trans flag I saw in someone's back pocket branded with the logo of the mayor's office. That's not the only way LGBTQ people have made progress, though. Today, recognizing that decades of change may not be as irreversible as they'd thought, some Gen Zers look back to their radical elders in search of models for moving forward. They counter homophobia and transphobia with slogans like 'The First Pride Was a Riot.' They argue that the power of Stonewall came from the open rebellion of an unapologetic, unassimilated group. If even Elmo is getting called a groomer, their line of thinking goes, then being palatable doesn't work: You might as well show up, as many did at WorldPride, in leather and drag. The first D.C. Gay Pride Day, in 1975, was deliberately split across two sides of the street, the organizer Deacon MacCubbin has recalled over the years. He'd struck a deal with local media: They could film one side of the block; the other was for people who didn't want to be outed to friends, family, or co-workers. In light of that history, this year's parade, documented openly by thousands of iPhones and public Instagram posts, feels less like a typical party than a minor miracle. About 69 million Gen Z people live in the U.S.; perhaps 10 million or more of them identify as queer. They can't possibly agree on everything and may not have much in common at all, but that is a staggering number of people who acknowledge and share something that many born before them took to their graves. They may make very different choices about what their lives will look like, but even if it becomes much harder to be openly gay or trans in America in the coming years, five decades of history cannot easily be undone. 'We've been through this before, and it's really hard on people, but we're gonna get through this,' Doyle told me. This is what he counsels his patients, based on decades of knowledge about how, for instance, AIDS activists made medications more available and affordable, and trans people shared and used hormones long before they were widely prescribed. Those 10 million people represent a durable cultural change because they have grown up feeling entitled to be themselves in private and in public. That word— entitled —is frequently thrown around to insult this generation, but there are some cases in which the unabashed expectation of fair treatment is a clear source of strength. Personal liberty is an American entitlement, and these young people will not readily give it up.
Metro
20-06-2025
- Metro
I went to the world's wettest Pride parade where everyone gets soaked
I'm sitting in the police station soaking wet, still clutching my super-soaker as I drip on the tiles and wait for the officer to finish typing up my report. Not exactly how I'd expected my first day in Bangkok to end. I'd come to Thailand 's capital for Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year festival that turns the streets of the city into a giant water fight every April. I'd hoped I might dry off on the ride over, but sitting on the back of the motorbike only made me a moving target. That's the thing about Songkran, nobody is off limits. Police officers, Buddhist monks, the elderly and small children – I'd seen them all targeted with rapid-firing squirt guns and freezing buckets of water. It seems that there really are no exceptions. If you step onto the street, you're consenting to getting wet. That's why I'd put all my things into a waterproof bag. Squirting strangers as I ducked and dodged and sought out my next victim, I let my guard down only to realise I'd just become a victim myself. Feeling my bag snag on something, I turn to find the pockets zipped wide open – my second passport, money and credit cards all stolen. I glance around the crowd of saturated revellers, but whoever had taken them had already disappeared. I try my best not to let it dampen my spirits – the money was minimal, my bank cards were immediately cancelled, and my primary passport was tucked away dry in the hotel safe. But then I realised they'd taken something infinitely more valuable. My second passport had my US visa in it – my only ticket to entering the United States. This may not seem like all that big of a deal, but with a new visa likely taking months, it was about to unravel all my carefully laid plans. This year, I'm on a journey to experience Pride all over the world, and having already booked flights to San Francisco – the birthplace of Pride – and World Pride in Washington DC, I realised it was now unlikely I'd be able to go to either. But this year is also what brought me here to Thailand. On the second day of the festivities, the LGBT+ community come together to get soaked in the Songkran Pride Parade. Being robbed the night before didn't exactly fill me with joy, but if I've learned anything on this journey, it's that the queer community always know how to lift my spirits. A hidden gem Finding the parade presented a new challenge in itself. While Pride events are usually heavily documented, for this one, I struggled to find any information at all. In fact, I started to question whether it actually existed. I didn't have a start time, or an exact location, all I knew was that it took place somewhere along Silom Road. For the uninitiated, that's the beating heart of Bangkok's queer scene, but during Songkran, it becomes the centre of the party for everyone. It's easy to understand why – the queer community spill out of the bars to party in the streets, pop up stages are erected, and spontaneous K-pop choreography catches like wildfire. The raucous spectacle speaks to Thailand's acceptance of the community. The queer party is t he party, and everyone wants to be involved. Though with such wide-sweeping acceptance, queer spaces can sometimes become diluted, making us once again the minority. That's why a pride parade here is so important, it reclaims the space and tips the balance back towards centering queerness. Despite the lack of information online, it doesn't take long for me to find the festivities. I'd assumed it would be a small parade – given the fact that the streets are already so crowded – but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was quite the opposite. A dozen floats are lined up ready to depart, bubble cannons firing in all directions, rainbow fabric drenched in water and sweat as dancers perform in the sweltering heat. One drag queen has fashioned an outfit out of super-soakers, while another's make-up streams down her face as she performs on the back of a truck. The current Miss LGBT+ Thailand poses for a photo with the winners of the past four years, while Mr Bear Bangkok is soaked by his countless admirers. There's a tremendous sense of camaraderie here, and even though I'm travelling solo, I quickly feel I'm amongst friends. People approach to chat – or to attack me with their water pistols – one boy even pulls me in for a kiss after I turn his white shirt see-through. Pride Around the World Calum McSwiggan, author of Eat Gay Love, is a man on a mission. He plans to spend 2025 exploring how the LGBT+ community is celebrated everywhere on Earth: 12 months, 7 continents, 20 Prides. In an exclusive Metro series, Calum will journey from the subzero climes of Antarctica to the jewel-toned streets of Mumbai, telling the story of Pride around the world. Follow his journey on Metro, in print and on our socials to learn how Pride is celebrated around the world. Next up? A different sort of Pride, behind closed doors in Malaysia. A place for everyone It quickly becomes apparent that it isn't just the Thai community that's come to celebrate either. There are queer people from all over. There's a float decked out in Filipino flags, and one in Taiwan 's colours too. I meet people from India, Cambodia, Japan, China and Korea. I even meet some who've travelled from Malaysia, where LGBT+ identities are still considered criminal. For some, Songkran is another excuse to party, but for others, it's a form of escapism, one of the only times of year when they can truly be themselves. 'Songkran is one of the most diverse and inclusive events I've ever attended,' Taiwanese personal trainer Patrick Chen tells me as he shields his boyfriend from an incoming bucket of water. 'It's something everyone should experience at least once.' Vietnamese influencer Milton echoes this sentiment. 'It's one of the best memories I've ever made. A place where everyone – regardless of religion, language barrier, or sexual orientation – comes together to have fun and get wet. You don't need alcohol or drugs, you'd be amazed how many friends you can make by just splashing water in their faces.' Talking to people from right across the Asian diaspora helps me realise how important it is to have this space in Asia, where there are comparatively fewer spaces for the LGBT+ community. Songkran also coincides with GCIRCUIT, Asia's largest LGBT+ dance festival, giving extra incentive for people to make the journey to come here. 'We wanted to create a safe space where our community can come together from all over Asia,' Tom Tan, who founded GCIRCUIT with his partner, explains. 'From our earlier years, where sponsors weren't interested in gay events, to now having the endorsement of big brands, it's evident to see the shift in perception of our community. We're proud to keep pushing for that while championing visibility, acceptance and inclusion.' Travel Proud research shows that 63% of LGBT+ travellers prioritise destinations where they can be their authentic selves – and that's exactly what Bangkok delivers. It doesn't just welcome queerness, it soaks it in unashamed joy. Inclusive and proud There's an enormous emphasis on the trans community here, too. Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia to have never been colonised, and as a result, its centuries old practise of trans inclusion has been preserved. While legal rights for trans people are still far from perfect, Thailand is now leading the world in areas like gender affirming care, with people travelling from all over the globe for treatment. Still, this visibility comes with a dark side. Kathoey is the term traditionally used for transfeminine people in Thailand, but the use of the westernised ' l a***oy' slur has become commonplace. While some reclaim the word, or brush it off as harmless, for others it's deeply offensive, and only contributes to segregating them further from society. With sex tourism on the rise, trans people are often objectified and fetishised, sometimes with horrifying consequences. In April, trans woman Woranan Pannacha was violently mutilated and murdered by a Chinese tourist after she refused to have sex with him. That's why it's so important to see such loud and proud trans representation in the parade. Some march for sex worker rights, with signs that read 'my pussy, my business,' while others wave flags and gleefully soak the crowd with water canons. It's still very much a celebration, but there's an undertone of protest too – and that combination, for me, is exactly what Pride everywhere is all about. By the time the parade is over, I've all but forgotten about the robbery from the night before. New friends invite me to dinner, and I remind myself that this is what this journey was always about. It's too early to say whether or not the robbery has completely derailed my plans for the rest of the year, but no matter what happens, I have no regrets in coming here. Songkran Pride is one of the best things I've ever experienced, I'm already planning on coming back. Travel guide to Bangkok Pride Getting there Thai Airways offers return fares from both London Heathrow and Gatwick starting at £683 return. Things to do (beyond Pride) S20 Festival: Combining sky-high water canons with EDM for the wettest party on Earth. Yunomori Onsen: To celebrate the water festival in a more relaxed environment, this serene bathhouse lives up to Japanese standards and is very popular with the LGBT+ community. Chatuchak Market: For super soakers, waterproof bags, and other Songkran supplies, this is one of the largest weekend markets in the world, and filled with LGBT+ owned stalls. Where to stay Ibis Styles (£) Amara Hotel Capella Bangkok (£££) These hotels all proudly display the Travel Proud badge after completing LGBT+ inclusivity training. Where to eat and drink Little Bao: A concept by LGBT+ chef and advocate May Chow, this eatery brings a modern twist to traditional Chinese comfort food. Luka Sathorn: LGBT+ owned bohemian brunch spot in the heart of Silom. Patpong Night Market: For late night eats, just steps from the queer scene.
USA Today
20-06-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
As a gay man, I'm finally flying a pride flag. I don't know what took so long.
As a gay man, I'm finally flying a pride flag. I don't know what took so long. | Opinion Having witnessed one attempt after another by the current administration to erase LGBTQ+ people, I'm no longer OK with being a quiet gay. Show Caption Hide Caption WorldPride marched through DC for Pride month, in defiance of Trump WorldPride, The global festival promoting LGBTQ+ visibility, held it's anniversary parade in D.C. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never bought a pride flag, much less displayed one, in my 60-some years. I've been gay for all those years, and openly, publicly so for almost all of them, but have never flown the rainbow flag. But recently, lost in thought on my front lawn here in a small town in central North Carolina, I looked up at the American flag I fly from the front porch. Five years ago, I wrote why I decided to hang the Stars and Stripes, reclaiming it as a flag of all the people, not just some. I remember thinking I was making a statement about inclusion, equality under the law and, yes, patriotism. No one, no political party, should hold the U.S. flag hostage. When people ask me where I live, I proudly tell them, 'It's the house with the Stars and Stripes. You can't miss it.' A friend's flag helped me find a reason to show my pride Then, my neighbor and friend Pier Carlo Talenti, also a gay man, posted a photo of his charming cottage with a big pride flag hung on the front porch, seeming to wave at anyone passing by. He wrote, 'For the first time ever, I'm flying a Pride flag.' And then he went on to tell us why. Talenti was angry that the Department of Defense had decided to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, erasing the gay civil rights leader from the Navy vessel that has borne it since 2021. Milk was assassinated in 1978 because of his sexual orientation; Talenti was sure the announcement of the change had been made specifically to coincide with Pride Month. 'So petty and hateful,' he wrote. He added, 'I need my neighbors who … represent a broad political spectrum (to understand) that there's a gay man living and working here and making their community better. America belongs to all of us.' In just a few hours, dozens of his friends and neighbors had commented, all of them echoing this one: 'I support this message.' A friend in Washington, DC, added, 'Maybe a few of your friends will even join you.' Well, it didn't take long. A Louisville friend posted, 'We've never flown flags either until now. We've got one, too.' That's when I went online and purchased what's known as the 'Progress Pride Flag," which includes five half-size stripes in an arrow shape representing trans and nonbinary individuals, marginalized communities of color and those living with HIV/AIDS on top of the traditional rainbow flag. That particular flag makes a clear statement in support of everything the Trump administration has tried to erase. Opinion: I wrote a book on finding joy. Even now, it's easier than you think. Trump administration trying to erase LGBTQ+ community President Donald Trump and Republicans have made their own statement on the LGBTQ+ community. It started with Trump's anti-transgender attacks, central to his reelection campaign in 2024. Once back in the Oval Office, he called on Congress to pass a bill stating that there are "only two genders' and signed an executive order in January halting federal funding for hormonal and surgical intervention for trans minors. Erased. Anti-trans decision: Supreme Court turned its back on trans youth. Our community never will. | Opinion Then, Trump fired members of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, became chairman and canceled all the events planned to celebrate LGBTQ+ rights for June's World Pride festival in the nation's capital. Erased. Not having done enough damage, Trump has now banned transgender people from serving in the military. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that he'd scrub the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, who served as a Navy operations officer on rescue submarines during the Korean War then went on to become the first openly gay man elected to public office in California. If all that wasn't enough, the administration announced plans to end a suicide hotline explicitly created for LGBTQ+ youth. Why haven't I flown a pride flag before? But it made me wonder why I had never done this before. I have been writing about LGBTQ+ issues for decades: books, columns, public talks. I'm no shrinking violet (one of the seven colors in the rainbow flag, and one of many more on some of the newer variations). My identity is no secret. Still, I had my reasons for not identifying my house. I live not far from Ku Klux Klan country, and in recent years KKK members have visited our town, white robes flowing and Confederate flags flying. They've made threats. They've left abhorrent literature on people's front porches. A 2019 invasion frightened many in town, especially my Black and Brown neighbors, who witnessed a hate they thought belonged to another time. I'd been fearful, too, and did not want my house to become a target. As a journalist, I'd already faced a home invasion from a reader who stalked me online for months, finally deciding to confront me by trying to break down my front door. This was in 2018, just before five journalists were killed in Annapolis, Maryland. There was another reason, too, which has only congealed for me. Over the years ‒ decades ‒ I'd changed. At one time, I had enthusiastically and regularly marched in San Francisco Pride, but I hadn't participated in years. I'd once lived in the Castro District (one of this nation's gay meccas), but I'd moved to the suburbs and then to North Carolina. I had once been single, but I'd married my husband and committed to our two dogs. My god, I even got rid of the flashy fake diamond stud that I'd sported for many years. Was it just age, my older self not being as out there as my younger one? Or had something else happened, and I just wasn't 'that kind of gay' anymore? I wasn't even sure what that meant, but it seemed I'd become the kind of gay who didn't hang a pride flag from his front porch. Well, I am again. Like Talenti and other friends, it's time for me to step it up. Having witnessed one attempt after another by the current administration to erase LGBTQ+ people, I'm no longer OK with being a quiet gay. It's time to be a more visible and vocal member of our community ‒ to be counted and to be seen. I've said for many years that I refuse to let fear drive how I live, not realizing I'd already succumbed in this very important way. I think of others in the LGBTQ+ community who live lives at much greater risk than I do, thanks to their sexual identity and the color of their skin, and I know that I need to step into the light on behalf of those who must still live in the shadows. That's why I've hung the pride flag on my front porch, for everyone to see. It's a beacon in these dark times. Now, when people ask me where I live, I tell them, 'It's the house with the pride flag. You can't miss it.' Steven Petrow is a columnist who writes on civility and manners and the author of seven books, including 'The Joy You Make' and "Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old." Follow him on Threads: @
