Going Back Outside for Pride

My first panic attack this Pride month happened at the front desk of an Embassy Suites. My booking had disappeared from every app, and, after calling my partner to confirm that I truly had no hotel accommodations during one of the busiest weekends in Washington, D.C., my anxiety was starting to get the best of me. While everything at the front desk was eventually worked out, it didn鈥檛 change the fact that having debilitating social anxiety in this 鈥減ost鈥� COVID-19 world has made going outside not only scary but also risky to both my mental and physical health.

Like many people, I spent most of 2020 to 2022 indoors. The global pandemic halted most air travel in those early days and, once flights were available, I was far too concerned that people would be traveling unmasked, risking spreading the virus to those of us who had properly masked and practiced preventative measures for years. My concerns were valid. After years of no vacations, many Americans were engaging in 鈥�,鈥� or booking all the vacations they felt they had missed out on for years. COVID cases , producing new, highly contagious variants that were less likely to cause hospitalizations but were nonetheless concerning. While saw an overall decrease in hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, the surges in rates still followed the general trend: When people are outside, so is Corona.

There is a part of me that yearns for community. I grew up in Oakland, California鈥攁 lovely place to be young and queer. Pride parades were regular occurrences both in my hometown and across the Bay in San Francisco. Even beyond June, I often saw visibly out and proud queer people of all races, ethnicities, colors, shapes, and creeds. I鈥檇 seen breasts and chests with sticky stars over the nipples at least a dozen times by the time I was in middle school. The rainbow flag was raised in doorways, windows, and planter boxes all over my town. I鈥檓 pretty sure that鈥檚 where I first learned to take Pride for granted.

In fact, I never actually attended a Pride celebration as an out queer person until I was in my mid-30s. A few trips to New York鈥攎ost of them ruined by exes鈥攁re all I really have to remember the season. My social anxiety has always been a deterrent for me as I often avoid large crowds, loud music, or spaces where I will have to be seen. After years of therapy and healing, I鈥檓 hoping to find safe queer spaces where even I can be fully 鈥渙utside.鈥�

For queers like me, who likely haven鈥檛 had many Pride experiences, this year is special. I鈥檓 turning 40 this year, a milestone for a neurodivergent heart patient who was told I would be lucky to make it to this age. Not only that, but as a professor at a private university, I am among the many people in academia navigating the political atmospheres of our college campuses, as pro-Palestinian students and faculty have been by university leadership. Meanwhile, I am watching people sit silently as Palestinians are , seeing our state governments , and witnessing an impending that offers us a vote for 鈥溾€� or no vote at all. So many of us queer and trans folks live in isolated communities, existing as 鈥渢he only鈥� at our jobs, in our classrooms, or in our neighborhoods. Pride has long been an opportunity to be one of the many.

We have to remember, though, that Pride was a rebellion against police brutality. As I write in my book, , 鈥淚t was a Black butch lesbian and drag king named Storm茅 DeLarverie who ignited the confrontation between police and onlookers when she allegedly punched police who were arresting her.鈥� Meanwhile, it was trans icon Marsha P. Johnson who is said to have thrown the first brick that started the Stonewall Rebellion. Johnson and her longtime comrade, Sylvia Rivera, were critical in organizing protests in those early hours, helping many white gay men see the struggle for freedom from oppression as their own. On June 28, 1970, the first Pride parade鈥攖hen known as the 鈥攚as held, on the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. We come from this rich queer and trans history. Pride is the result of this struggle.

For our Pride events to live up to the benchmarks set by our queer and trans forefolks, today鈥檚 events must consider the fullness of our identities. Pride has to be accessible and cop-free. Wheelchair ramps, hand sanitizer stations, free masks, and outdoor venues seem like the most basic accommodations. For folks who are sound- and sight-sensitive, we should have more events with sensory considerations and places where we can find quiet. We can no longer accept Pride events that only make room for one type of queer person鈥攐r that cater primarily to the corporations more invested in than collective liberation.

The overpacked clubs, skin-to-skin dance halls, seedy bars, and sweaty festivals are emblematic of Pride. And I want all of it. I want to touch grass and dance until my knees hurt. I want to find glitter in my hair with no clear explanation of how it got there. I want to feel comfortable and safe meeting new people in intentionally created venues, given that there are so few places for us to really just be. I want to feel as though no one is watching me because I鈥檓 gay but they are watching me because I鈥檓 fabulous. I want to feel free.

Though I am firmly of the belief that I am way too old to be in 鈥渋n the club,鈥� I am confident that there are places for us queer aunties seeking community and fellowship with our comrades. Spaces centered on us and our fellowship are spaces that take away the unease and overwhelm we typically feel outside. Spaces like these help prevent us anxious gaybies, femme and butch queens, androgynous goddexes, and broken-wristed twinks from feeling the isolation we feel most everywhere else.聽

So, this year, instead of worrying about my mental and physical health at Pride, I just want to be focused on asking, 鈥淲ho all gon鈥� be there?鈥�

Jenn M. Jackson is a queer androgynous Black woman, abolitionist, lover of all Black people, and assistant professor at Syracuse University鈥檚 Department of Political Science. Their books include Black Women Taught Us (Penguin Random House, 2024) and the forthcoming Policing Blackness (University of Chicago Press, 2025).

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