pride
i have cried at every pride parade i've ever attended. which, admittedly, has only been like, 2-3 since i moved to [REDACTED OHIO CITY] in 2017. but Still. i cry every time, i just get overwhelmed with emotion.
i am from a small city (~16k people) in west virginia. i no longer live there for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that i did not feel i could Come Out as a queer trans person there. which i'm kind of objectively right about. and THAT was in 2016-2017, before i/we moved to ohio. i know there are all flavors of queer and trans people living in wv and other appalachian/southern states, i know. but i couldn't do it. i remember one time walking home from work with my bf (he had long-ish hair at that point; i had a short fauxhawk and was wearing a binder), and we got called slurs by some shitheel in an old shitty truck with a gadsden flag.
on the other hand, when i worked at [REDACTED GROCERY STORE] in wv, two of my sweetest, best regulars were a lesbian couple who i adored and i genuinely think they saved my life at one point (i was walking to work in the dark at like 6:30am and a guy was following me somewhat closely and i was getting Scared and they Saw and picked me up in their SUV and took me to work and i'll NEVER forget that). i really regret not giving them my contact info when i moved.
and like i know i Know most pride parades are nowadays primarily (but not entirely, but like, The Majority) expressions of Rainbow Capitalism. we had fucking TARGET in ours for chrissake. but...
there was also a local old folks' home in our parade this year, like an assisted living community type thing. and they had like the little bus that they take residents around in to appointments/etc in the parade, and there were residents on there, waving through the windows! i locked eyes with an older lady, who did a heart sign with her hands and i started fucking BAWLING and hugging my gf (while doing the heart sign back of course).
working in a pharmacy, we have to do modules at my work every year about, among other things, elder abuse. and the rates on it are fucking INSANE, and just. i can't and don't want to imagine how much worse it is for queer elderly folk, especially ones without anyone else to advocate for them. just ones who are in a home or in an assisted living community, with or without a partner, and just... god. like sure it's not as bad as it must have used to have been (bad sentence sorry) but. i don't know.
i just hope that when me and my partners are old, we're able to take care of each other, and god forbid, barring that, are able to be taken care of, together, with dignity. i don't think that's too much to ask.