Reflecting on Pride

Name withheld | Jun 05, 2025

I want to speak from the heart today, because I’ve been holding in a lot.  

I have a lot to say about Pride — not the hashtags, not the brands changing their logos, not the party version that gets passed around online — but the real Pride. The one we fought for. The one that came out of blood, grief, resistance, and survival.  

I’m not here to take anything away from this generation and the Gen Z folks discovering who they are and building community in new ways. But I need to say this:  

Pride didn’t start as a parade. It started as a riot.

When we stood up decades ago, we weren’t fighting for visibility on TikTok. We were fighting for the right to live. To not be arrested for existing. To not be beaten in alleyways. To not die alone during a pandemic that the world ignored because it was just killing gay men.  

We stood side by side at funerals that happened far too often and far too young. We lost friends. We lost lovers. Some of us lost everything … and still we kept marching.  

That was Pride.  

And so yes, it hurts when I see it treated like a joke. When it feels like all that pain, all that history, has been reduced to shock value and surface-level statements.  

It’s hard not to feel like something sacred is being lost. We wanted freedom for the next generation, of course we did.  

But we didn’t fight this hard for it to be forgotten where that freedom came from. We didn’t bury our friends so that rainbow capitalism and clout could replace activism and community.

And yet... I want to speak not just with frustration — but with love. Because I see you, Gen Z.

I see your courage, your creativity, your insistence on being who you are. You carry fire, too. But don’t forget the ashes we had to walk through to light it.  

Know your history. Honour the shoulders you’re standing on.

You don’t have to carry all the pain we carried, that’s not what I’m asking. But carry the respect. Carry the purpose. Carry the Pride.  

Pride is not a costume. It’s not a trend. It is a living, breathing movement. And it needs you; not to be louder, but to be deeper.  

If we let go of where we came from, we risk losing where we’re going.

So today, I still celebrate. But I celebrate with memory. With reverence. With a full heart for everyone who didn’t live to see this moment, and for those of us still fighting to make sure Pride means something more than just glitter and slogans.