Site icon Rogan Shannon

Pride Project

Rogan Shannon
YouTube Poster

Hello, I’m Rogan and it’s Pride month! This is for all of us, those who are openly out and those who are still in the closet for whatever reason. You are still valid. You are queer, regardless of your status. If you feel you are queer, you are queer. Don’t let others tell you how you identify. They don’t know you as well as you know yourself.

What is this project? I originally planned on posting a video every other day of Pride month. With hashtag BlackLivesMatter needing all of the focus to be on them and the protests, I decided to delay the start of this project and shifted around the schedule so I wasn’t taking up space with my white voice about something unrelated. Now, it’s not exactly every other day, but you still get a whole bunch of queer videos.

It’s a bummer that there won’t be any Pride events this summer, but pride can’t be canceled if it lives in us every day. Just by being queer and visible, we tell others that we’re proud and loud, queer and here to stay. Now it’s time for your annual reminder that while Pride is a time to celebrate our queerness, it started as a march. It started as a way to remember and honor the Stonewall riots that happened in 1969. Remember that it has always been trans black women who demanded change. Remember that we still have a long way to go as a community. Queer white people are not exempt from racism just because we’re queer. Queer white people still benefit from white privilege. Yes, that includes white disabled and deaf people too, I’m looking at you. We have work to do. I will leave some links below about being anti-racist, how to unpack, and so on.

One way to start is supporting queer businesses and organizations, especially those run by marginalized communities. Buy queer, buy black, put your money where your communities are. Don’t give all of your money to corporations who are most likely just slapping rainbows onto their usual merch and not actually having any of those monies going to the queer or BIPOC community. Do your research first. I’ll leave a few links below to some businesses, organizations, and a few lists. I donated to some of these organizations as well.

Last year, I gave a few stats on queer rights nationally in the US. Here they are again, updated. 29 states still have no law against conversion therapy. 16 states have no laws at all prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. (This is a very complex issue, covering employment, housing, public accommodations, credit, and state employees.) 24 states plus DC prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for foster care and adoption by queer parents. This is even worse globally. At least 68 countries have national laws criminalizing same-sex relations. I will leave links with sources, and I’d strongly suggest you check out the lgbtmap one, there’s so much detailed information on different laws, statutes, policies.

That’s all I have for this post. Please let me know of anything that should be added to the list I’ve left below.

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