Tennesseans, Wear Your Pride
I grew up near San Francisco, where being gay was just air. Tennessee doesn't get that luxury. A Pride Month piece on why visibility is the whole fight, and why being seen here matters more than anywhere.
Adam, The Local Bottom
6/14/20264 min read
I Got to Be Gay Without a Fight.
TennesseANS DoN't ALWAYS Get That Luxury. So Wear It Loud.
Look at these photos for a second. Take them in.
There's a kid in a party hat with a strawberry-blond bowl cut who has clearly never once considered playing it cool. There's that same kid on a basketball team, sitting there beaming in a Boys & Girls Club tee, looking, and I say this with love, gay as absolute hell. There's a later edition in a latex dress and a perm the size of a weather system. And there's the bleach-blond phase, because of course there was a bleach-blond phase.
That's me. All of it. Growing up near San Francisco.
And here's the thing I didn't understand at the time: I got to be all of that out loud. Nobody made me hide it. I was lucky.
I grew up near San Francisco, and being gay was just air.
The Bay was right there. The scene was right there. Pride wasn't a risk, it was a parade I could walk to. I never had to ask whether it was safe to be myself, because the answer had already been decided for me long before I showed up in my little party hat. A lot of people my age didn't get that. A lot of people in this state still don't.
I don't say that to brag about California. I say it because it took me years to understand what a head start it actually was, and how many people are out here doing the same living I did, just without the soft landing.
Then I became an educator. And I moved into the world we're actually living in.
I work with kids and families now. I live in a state that, this June, decided to float calling it "Nuclear Family Month" instead of Pride. I watch what's happening here, and across this country, and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't get to me. It does. Some days it makes me genuinely sad. The quiet erasure, the polite little ways people try to make us smaller, the bet that if they just stop saying our name we'll eventually stop existing.
Here's the thing they're counting on: that we'll get tired. That we'll get quiet. That visibility costs too much, so we'll just keep our heads down and wait it out.
I'm not interested in waiting it out.
Visibility is not a vibe. It's the whole fight.
When you can't see something, it's easy to believe it isn't there. That's not an accident, that's the strategy. Erasure works by making us invisible to each other first, and then to everyone else.
So the counter-move is almost stupidly simple. Be seen.
Not in a parade in a city that already loves you. Be seen at the grocery store in your town. At the gas station off the interstate. In the school pickup line. At the bowling alley. Walking your dog in a neighborhood where nobody expected to see a Progress flag on a chest today.
Because somewhere in that grocery store is a fourteen-year-old who thinks they're the only one. And the most powerful thing you can hand that kid isn't a speech. It's proof. A stranger, in their town, wearing it like it's nothing to be afraid of.
That's what visibility does. It tells the scared ones they're not alone, and it tells everyone else we were never going anywhere.
"I'm not proud to be from Tennessee."
I hear this a lot. And I get it. Tennessee did not exactly roll out the rainbow carpet, and pretending otherwise would be a lie. So if that's you, this part is for you.
Here's what I'd tell you: you are from Tennessee. That's not up for debate. You can spend your energy being quietly ashamed of a place you didn't choose, or you can put the state's shape on your chest, fill it with your flag, and make "Tennessean" mean something the people in charge never intended it to mean.
Owning it isn't endorsing what the state's government does. It's refusing to let them own what the word "Tennessee" stands for. Every time a queer person walks around proud with Tennessee on their body, they're taking a little piece of this place back. They're saying: this is mine too. I'm from here too. And I'm not hiding.
That's not shame. That's a flag planted.
Be visible this month. However that looks for you.
Wear the flag. Wear the shirt you already own, or grab a new one, mine or anybody's, it does not matter whose. Put the state's shape on your chest and fill it with your colors. Put a pin on your bag. Fly something off your porch. Show up to the thing you were going to skip.
The specific item was never the point. The point is that a scared kid in a small Tennessee town sees one more person who isn't hiding. The point is that the people betting on our silence lose that bet, one visible person at a time.
We're here. We've always been here. And this month, let's be impossible to miss.
Support your local bottoms. And whatever you wear, wear your Tennessee loud. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
