Why Is Being Yourself Considered Brave?
Every June, my social media feeds fill with Pride Month posts. Some are beautiful. Some are deeply personal. Some are educational. Some are corporations suddenly discovering rainbows for 30 days before quietly returning to business as usual on July 1st. And every year, I find myself having the same thought: ‘What a strange thing this is’. Not Pride Month itself. The fact that Pride Month is necessary.
Because imagine a society where announcing who you loved was an unnecessary afterthought because what we valued was simply the capacity to love at all. Imagine explaining who you loved being as odd as informing people that you breathe oxygen. Imagine a child growing up never once wondering whether their future expression of love would be accepted, tolerated, debated, legislated, or politicized. Imagine if it was all treated with the same level of interest we reserve for someone's favorite ice cream flavor.
"Oh, that's who you love?"
"Wonderful."
And then everyone moved on with their day.
As a mother, I think about this differently than I used to. Before having kids, conversations around sexuality and identity felt important, but abstract. Now I find myself looking at my sons and wondering how any parent could spend more energy worrying about who their child loves than whether they are loved well. I genuinely cannot imagine it. It genuinely does not matter to me if my children someday fall in love with a man, a woman, someone who is transgender, someone who is nonbinary, or someone I never could have imagined when they're toddlers running around in dinosaur pajamas. I care whether they're kind. I care whether they're respected. I care whether they feel safe. I care whether the person they choose brings more life into their life rather than less. That's it. The rest feels remarkably unimportant.
Maybe that's because when you hold a child, you realize how little of what adults obsess over actually matters. No baby arrives here carrying prejudice. No toddler is born ranking certain forms of love above others. They come here wanting connection. Wanting belonging. Wanting to be seen. Wanting to love and be loved.
What would happen if people stopped contorting themselves into acceptable versions of themselves and simply became who they already are? I think about that question a lot. Because the opposite seems to be what so many of us are taught from an early age: fit in, don't stand out, don't be too much, don't be too different, don't make people uncomfortable. And yet I can't help but wonder if so much of our suffering begins right there, in the moment we learn that belonging is conditional. Somewhere along the way, humanity started adding conditions. At one point, did humanity move from "I love you" to "I only love you like that?" At some point, we decided that some people would need to explain themselves while others wouldn't.
And maybe that's part of what feels so strange to me. Not just that we've become uncomfortable with certain expressions of love, but that we've become obsessed with categorizing and labeling everything. Sometimes labels are useful. They help people find community, language, understanding, and belonging. But I also wonder what would happen if we became less interested in defining people and more interested in knowing them. If we became less concerned with what box someone belongs in and more concerned with whether they are living honestly. Because the most authentic thing, at least to me, is not having to explain yourself at all. It is simply being who you are. Loving who you love. Existing as you are. Without needing to justify it. Without needing to defend it. Without needing to make it understandable to everyone else.
And that's the part that makes me sad. Not because Pride exists. Because a world that truly celebrated human dignity wouldn't need it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this isn't really a piece about Pride Month. It's a piece about authenticity. Pride is simply one example of what happens when people are punished for being who they are. Because the truth is, I don't just want a world where queer people can be themselves freely. I want a world where everyone can be themselves freely. I want a world where authenticity isn't brave because authenticity isn't punished. Where people don't spend decades hiding pieces of themselves to earn love, belonging, approval, or safety. Where children grow up knowing they never have to trade who they are for acceptance. Because every time a human being feels forced to become less of themselves in order to belong, we all lose something. And every time someone is free to show up exactly as they are, we all gain something.
The goal isn't a world with better marketing campaigns, more rainbow logos, or more performative declarations from companies that may or may not support the communities they're advertising to when June is over. The goal is a world where nobody needs a special month to remind everyone that they deserve basic dignity and respect. A world where children grow up assuming they belong exactly as they are. A world where the question isn't, "Who are you allowed to love?" It's, "Are you loving well?" Maybe Pride Month exists because we're not there yet. Maybe that's exactly why it matters. Because while part of me wishes we lived in a world where none of this had to be pointed out, another part of me understands that visibility becomes necessary whenever people are made to feel invisible.
So perhaps the existence of Pride Month is both heartbreaking and hopeful. Heartbreaking because it reminds us that there are still people who feel unsafe being fully themselves. Hopeful because every year, millions of people choose to show up anyway. I hope someday we live in a world where explaining who you love feels as unnecessary as explaining why you breathe. A world where nobody has to come out because there is nothing to come out from. A world where children grow up assuming that love is love and that their worth was never up for debate. Because if there is anything worth celebrating, it isn't who someone loves. It's that they found love at all.
