Pride has always been a protest

Chapel Hill-Carrboro’s Small Town Pride kicked off on Saturday at Peace and Justice Plaza. I had the honor of speaking at this annual event for the final time as a Council Member. Below are the remarks I shared with those who gathered - in community, in solidarity, and in protest:

It has been deeply meaningful to represent the LGBTQ community as part of my service to the Town, especially in this critical moment in time. This scary moment in time. So, my parting words of advice to you are:

Don’t be a drag… Be a queen. Now is the time to be the best queens we can be, whatever that means for you. Be seen! Because visibility is resistance. We need to be visible, now more than ever. Together. Like this. As long as we stay together, we can hold on to our hope and we can resist - with queenly joy. Our community’s super powers are hope and joy. They want us to lose hope. They want us to give in to our fear. We cannot let that happen.

No doubt these are dark times. The Orange One and his corrupt cronies defy the constitution daily. They ignore court orders, deny basic human rights. They have long sought to erase the LGBTQ community and they are using the power of the government to try to literally make that happen. Threatening our health care, our rights at work, the legal status of our relationships, our fundamental right to be safe. It is serious and the threats are very real. BUT, you know what motivates them - hate and greed. That’s the only thing they have in common - and as we have seen just the last few days - how fragile a bond that is. But remember OUR super powers - we have hope. We have joy. Those are our super powers. Love bonds us together. That is why we will outlast them. That is how we. will. win.

So this Pride month, let's commit to being queens. To showing off our super powers. But we can’t find joy by ignoring what is going on around us. We can’t keep hope alive by avoiding the news. We can’t use self-care as an excuse to hide. We need to resist with joy. We need to protest with joy. We need to make calls to our electeds with hope for change. We must protect our most vulnerable - with all the joy and hope in our hearts. That joy and hope come from knowing that we are driven, not by greed, but by love. Our love for one another. Our love for our community. That is our super power. And that is why we will win.

To summarize: Them: Greed and hate. Us: hope and joy.

Let’s be queens. Let’s stay united.

In the words of Lady Gaga:

Rejoice and love yourself today
'Cause baby, you were born this way

Happy Pride!