CRAIG’S THOUGHTS

By Craig Hanlon-Smith @craigscontinuum

Pride is...

Pride is being me and not being you, and celebrating the freedom in not trying to have to. Pride is identifying as a man and as gay. Pride is appreciating the sweat and balls (insert non-masculine, non-sexist/gender nonconforming alternative to balls now) it takes to be here. Pride is appreciating the heart and headache it takes to get here. Pride is accepting the therapy and anti-depressants I take to stay here. Pride is not buying the T-shirt. Pride is taking the T-shirt off. Pride is setting fire to the T-shirt provided it’s not polyester and burns for days. Pride is throwing that brick. Pride is going to gaol. Pride is mine dammit and I will do it my way.

Pride is political, Pride is personal, Pride is public, Pride is private. Pride is mine and not yours to ease, calm or sedate. Pride comes from a place of need, the right, a fundamental to be heard and seen. Pride does not need to bend to a level of beige hidden behind a safeguarded ‘family-friendly’ epithet. I am not family-friendly, I am a gay man and filled with Pride. Be afraid, be very afraid, for I am not normal, and it is a beautiful ride. Pride is sex, Pride is naked, Pride is raw, Pride is liberated from your choke. Pride is mine and the fight was painful and yet I am winning. Your nuclear family was no friend to me or my kind, and I shun your ‘provided I behave’ acceptance.

Pride is not kind, Pride is fear and the overcoming thereof. Pride is nerves and the nerve to hold tight. Pride is the right to yell and shout and march about as heroes if just for one day. Pride is not just one day, Pride is mine and all of the time. Pride is the right to have sex with men and to enjoy it without shame. Pride is knowing you were and continue to be so wrong about that. Pride is mine and I want you to let go of it. Pride is a history, Pride has a future, and Pride in the present has been given the gift of pause to stop. Pride is to think and reflect and make a change for the better. Pride is alternative and Pride is growth. Pride has meaning and cuts through the expected narrative for all of us. Pride has no logo or stamp, no stripes on the cheek nor flags hanging out of every boozer there is. If I felt no welcome last week, you shan’t have my pennies this. Pride is to forgive you all and to understand that you are not my friend. Even though you are wearing Pride socks from Primark. You know they’re really, really ‘gay’ right?

Pride is my road, my path, my ascent. Pride is my success because and not in spite thereof. Pride is getting my head off that pillow and doing it again. Pride is not stepping out in front of that truck. Pride is leaving the drugs alone and Pride is knowing they’re a cloak for all of the above. You take them. You’re in much more pain than I am.

Pride is death. Pride is devastation and disease. Pride is AIDS. Pride is forgiveness and remembrance. Pride is knowing we did not do it alone. Pride is thank God for the lesbians. Pride is knowing that there probably is no God and so let us thank the lesbians for the lesbians. Pride is there is an L in LGBTQIA-YMCA-D.I.S.C.O – O.P.P Yeah You Know Me. Pride is all of that and more. Pride has no borders. Pride is solidarity. Pride is recognition that while the struggle may look unfamiliar, the pain is the same. Pride is DO NOT ASSIMILATE. Pride is to stand up and be you. Pride is a chosen family. Pride has no place in your family photo. Pride is cutting me out of the photo and upon my untimely death coming back for the money.

Pride is justice for Samuel, Matthew, Alan, Martha for Kerrice Lewis and Nicole Saavedra Bahamondes. Pride is justice for the thousands of others who shall not remain nameless. Pride is to look them up. Pride is to not be sad; Pride is to get keep calm and tell their stories. Pride is to sometimes get mad.

Pride is my poof, my faggot, my fairy. Pride is my Dorothy, my Doris, my Mary. Pride is your shit-stabbing shirt-lifting gay cunt and paedo. Pride is my heels and never less than six inches mother fucker. Pride is my hosiery, my stockings and fishnets. Pride is my ‘fuck you, I’m fabulous swagger’. Pride is the realisation that you don’t hate me, you want to be me. Pride is, well, you can’t.

“Pride is death. Pride is devastation and disease. Pride is AIDS. Pride is forgiveness and remembrance. Pride is knowing we did not do it alone. Pride is thank God for the lesbians. Pride is knowing that there probably is no God and so let us thank the lesbians for the lesbians”

Pride is my bruises and cuts, my hospital treatment and the shattered confidence and wounded pride. Pride is my appearing in court against my wishes, alone. Pride is your verdict of not guilty and yet you are. Pride is the case dismissed on legal technicalities and yet you did do it. Pride is knowing that the system is not broken, this is the system and I have no pride in it.

Pride is the light, the dawn, the birth, the reincarnation to this. Pride is the truth, the way the life. Pride is ‘cast aside your nets, come with me and be fishers of men’. Pride is not a clause or 28 sections of anything. Pride is repeal, abolition and sense. Pride is never again in any form. Pride absolutely is an inalienable right to be gay.

Pride is mine. It is ours. Pride is theirs for the taking and it will be our undoing.