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Reflections of Pride Month 2021

As Pride month 2021 comes to a close, I wanted to reflect a little. This is my third year of officially celebrating Pride as a publicly out gay man. I say official in the sense that I always knew what Pride month was and wanted so desperately to partake in it starting around age 15 or so. However, facing the situations I had to deal with and the negative repercussions I could have faced by coming out in my youth, I just put it all behind me knowing that one day I would be able to be free enough to participate. And that time came for me in June of 2019 when I met the RubiGirls at Levitt Pavilion in downtown Dayton and the rest was history. Because of the ongoing pandemic and public health orders not being rescinded in time it caused many Pride celebrations to not be fully operating or even cancel again this year. Because of this, I personally didn’t have a lot of local options for Pride things to do. Work and personal life got in the way of and caused the cancellation of several things I had committed to this month, but I did hang out with a good friend and see an amazing drag show at Mj’s which was Jackie-O’s send off to the pageant circuit. She won at the local level and now goes on to state, and I’m confident she will go on to the highest levels of competition. I can’t wait to see how it all shakes out for her. It was a great way to close out the month celebrating with my friends in Dayton, at a place where I’m comfortable, accepted and safe. My dad came around this year and let me display a Pride flag outside for the entire month of June. It comes down tomorrow and Old Glory goes back out in her deserving spot per our agreement, but I was glad that he let me do it. For every step we take forward, we seem to take 2 or 3 backwards so I’ll take any incremental progress I can get. He will sometimes be totally ok with things, then will say something awful and not catch himself or just not care. It hurts, but you cannot educate your way out of ignorance or try to force a change where there is no willingness. I call it a very slowly progressing work in progress. I posted on Facebook in late May about putting up my flag and Michael from Have A Gay Day took notice and shared my post. It was viewed by people in at least 5 different countries and had hundreds of likes, shares and comments. I had some amazing conversations with people I did not know from all across the globe about Pride, my coming out story and made a few new online friends along the way. I was shocked at how fast the post caught fire and made its rounds. Even a month later I am still getting a few likes and comments from re-shares that trickle in over the days. The entire thing is the most traction I have ever gotten on social media in the entire history of me using social media- you may think it is insignificant, but I am proud of people seeing what I wrote and how they reacted. And finally, my outward expression of Pride has sparked some conversation in my little town of Sidney. My flag offended some of the neighbors, which only made me get a bigger flagpole and shine a light on it at night… I’m a petty gay… what can I say? It also made some of the school aged kids talk to me the last week they were in school since my corner is the bus pickup for our part of the ‘hood. One kid asked me what it was, another told me they were trans and another said that he felt like he might be gay but didn’t know what to do, so I got some trusted resources together and gave the info to him the next day. I haven’t seen the kid yet to ask about what happened, but I hope he lets me know what’s going on next year at the bus stop. Our down the street ultra-conservative neighbors put out more 2024 “Save America” Trump flags and a UUUUGE “Homo Sex is Sin” flag, which I know was directly aimed at me, but I laughed it off- to their face - and when they realized I wasn’t going to be offended or start the Westboro Baptist war they were looking for, those flags came down and their regularly scheduled NASCAR and Confederate flags went back up. To close, it’s been a great Pride month even though I didn’t do much other than celebrate in my own way. I’m looking forward to next year when the celebrations will hopefully be larger and more plentiful. But if not, I have my friends and I have my LGBTQIA+ community standing with me to love and support me. I have never met a more amazing group of people. These are people who really care, who I call dear friends and people I am so fortunate to have met to help me in this journey. I don’t know where I’d be without you all. I love you. Happy Pride 2021! 

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Welcome to Queerly Obvious

This blog is the brainchild of Jacob Dicke and will view things from a queer perspective. Look here for thoughts, opinions, random musings- including serious discussions and article series on things that affect the LGBTQ+ collective. Bookmark this website, and follow us on Facebook (social media pages coming soon) for more info!