Reflecting on Pride Month

Wow, I can't believe it has been a full year since I attended my very first Pride parade. As you all know, Pride parades around the globe have been canceled this year due to Coronavirus. Even though Pride month is June in America, I experienced it in July last year in London. I wanted to use this post to reflect on how amazing that experience was since I hadn't written about it at the time.

I always knew that I was bi in high school, but I never really thought about going to pride or celebrating then. I was still quite young, so it just didn't occur to me. I also didn't see my sexuality as such an important part of my identity as it is now. I never officially "come out" to people because I don't like to make it into a big deal by doing so, but if you didn't know already, surprise! I identify as bisexual, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changed to pansexual at any point in the future. I'm not a fan of labels, but I use bisexual for convenience.

When my friends brought up going to the Pride Parade, I was really excited at the idea. I couldn't think of a better place to go than London! I never really had a group of queer friends. I wouldn’t quite say this group of people could be described that way either. However, I wasn’t the only non-straight person, so that was enough. I wish I had more rainbow clothes, but I wore a bright orange shirt and red lipstick. I figured I could get a little flag there or something.

When we arrived, the crowd was HUGEEEE. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We went to see the parade at Trafalgar Square and it was crazy to see a usually quite empty area absolutely flooded with people decked out in all sorts of bright colours and crazy outfits—including me! We found a spot to watch the parade, and someone had a cool makeup stick when you swipe it across your cheeks, it makes a rainbow! She offered it to everyone around us, and I happily got rainbows added to my smile.

At one point, my friends got up on top of a bus stop, and the view was amazing. Everyone in the parade was waving to us and I was definitely tearing up at some point. I couldn’t believe this was real life. I was surrounded by people who were so incredibly proud of their sexuality and it gave me such a great joyous rush of emotion.

My parents were in London, so I departed from the group once the parade ended. Budweiser was giving out reusable plastic cups with the gay and lesbian flag designs on them. There was also a measurement for one pint, which was really cool! I still have them in my cupboard and use them daily.