Happy Pride 2018 to all the dear people celebrating authentic life, loving unabashedly, and showing the world what it means to be truly compassionate, kind, genuine, caring, and positively joyful!

I’ve learned so much from my LGBTQ family and friends, there is no doubt in my mind that I am a better person for knowing them. These people and my experiences with them have shaped who I am today, changing me in all the best ways, helping me evolve, pushing me out of what I thought was my comfort zone into a much more beautiful world!

In consideration of Pride Month, I’d like to share with you a few things I’ve learned, some of the beliefs that I hold now thanks to the welcoming people in the community, some pieces of advice, and a couple things that hurt my heart.  It’s just a list but there are numbers to refer to if you would like to open a dialogue about certain items. Here goes……….

1. Being transgender is a real thing.  Believe them when someone comes out to you.
2. None of this is a “lifestyle choice”.  Straight folks, can you just “choose” to be gay?  No? Then what makes you think they can?
3. The singular “they” is acceptable. Get over it.
4. Trans kids NEED and DESERVE loving adults in their lives, often for their very survival.
5. If you are afraid of your kid sharing a restroom with a transgender person you are looking for monsters in all the wrong places.
6. There should be both baby changing tables and hygiene boxes in EVERY restroom.
7. One LGBTQ person murdered is one too many.
8. Every state should have a hate crimes law.
9. There is no shame in having a queer child. They are a gift, not an embarassment.
10. As in so many other aspects of our society, LGTBQ people of color are disproportionately discriminated against, abused, murdered.
11. Just because it doesn’t hurt you, it doesn’t give you the right to diminish the problem or deny its existence.
12. I respect ALL religions and the right to practice them; however I will NEVER respect someone who uses religion as an excuse to discriminate against another person.
13. I believe I am a good ally but I still have to work hard not to appropriate culture that is not mine or put words into the mouths of community members.
14. Being married to a happy transwoman is far, far easier than being married to an unhappy human hiding their identity.
15. It’s never, EVER been about the stupid cake.
16. People deserve to be treated equally. Period.

If you are not planning to attend a local Pride event, please reconsider. These festivals often help support local artists, raise money for social issues or educational scholarships, and showcase businesses that are friendly and welcoming of everyone.  We’ll be braving the Indiana heat and humidity Saturday to attend Pride, loving this community more and more with each rainbow flag we see flying against a summer sky! That reminds me, we need to buy sunscreen.

Celebrate Pride with pride, friends!!