A Post for Pride Month

The Pride Edition Is Here!

Photo by Ole Kloth on Unsplash

Pride Month feels new. It’s not. However, we do have history. The LGBTQ+ community is not new. We have new names for ourselves, words and acronyms, but as a people, we’re as old as time itself.

We’re born in all places into all types of families. Our existence is as traditional as or more traditional than traditional family values. We’ve cared for longer than modern society has been around. We will live forever.

Pride Month, on the other hand, lasts for a whole 30 days, a full month devoted to a small group of people with a mighty agenda. I’m not concerned about us claiming our time. Pride programming is our jam, what we do best. We communalize, and we celebrate.

We also protest and fight oppression. Nothing’s perfect. Our rights are being trampled on, yet we remember to love, not hate. That’s the right approach, the virtuous path, being noble. I do wonder from time to time: have we lost sight of what we’re fighting for? Are we still protesting or falling behind? Have we given up in a sense, forsaken the immensity of the amount of work it’s taken to get to this point? Are we, the LGBTQ+ community, even united?

It feels like we’ve been attacked just about daily for the past few years. Trans rights are hotly debated in the courts. Anti-trans bills here, legislation there. SCOTUS, the Court that’s supposed to stand for minority rights and protect the disenfranchised, has failed in its mandate, permitting book bans/providing pathways toward illiteracy and shuttering access to trans healthcare. The current administration defunded The Trevor Project and disconnected the national suicide-prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ individuals. Every time I check the news, LGBTQ+ rights seem to be assaulted in one way or another. I’m disappointed. What’s happening in our country is truly troublesome. I want good news. I deserve good news. All in our community do. Instead, so-called leaders of this country find ways to abuse LGBTQ+ people for sport. I am here, but I will not stand for the hate being thrust upon our community.

People have risen up time and again in our defense. Mackenzie Scott donated the largest-ever single donation to The Trevor Project in hopes of funding LGBTQ+ suicide prevention again. Even the executive branch realized the error of its ways after congressional protest and confirmed recently that it will restore the ‘press 3’ option for LGBTQ+ callers of the national suicide-prevention hotline (trans people are still wrongly being excluded from this policy change). But where’s SCOTUS? Are the Justices infallible? I haven’t seen such an arrogant Court before this one. That’s Chief Justice Roberts’ Court, the Chief Justice whose legacy is currently one of book bans and bullying the disenfranchised. Really, what reasons for a Chief Justice to grace our legal system…the Court for illiteracy.

On the flip side, I couldn’t be prouder of LGBTQ+ activism. Colorado found a way around SCOTUS’ failure to ban conversion therapy by writing a new law. Here in NYC, the size of the Pride Parade is second in the area only to that of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the world’s largest parade. I love Macy’s too, but the LGBTQ+ Pride Parade is impressive. It’s one of the reasons I moved to New York in the first place. I spent a summer in Brooklyn during my college years. It was the first time I ever attended a big city pride event. Perhaps I was so new to being out of the closet, I forgot to attend L.A.’s parade. Whatever the reason, New York was my first. My friends were somewhere meandering about, trying to meet up with me around all the street blockades, and I was standing at the gates, looking at the marchers who waved innumerable rainbow flags. I didn’t quite understand the significance of all we’d built then, yet I felt the emotion, the sensation of a group that refuses to be kept down. The energy was magnetizing, our spirit unbroken.

You should come out and see our big parade! It’s even more magical today than it was then. You’re welcome to join us. You’re all welcome.

In support of this Pride Month, I’ve tried to be a better LGBTQ+ human. I picked up some LGBTQ+ books from an indie bookseller’s Pride Month display. I cried at the lack of LGBTQ+ representation in film and television I witnessed when I turned on my TV. I even turned off the TV in protest because it made me angry.

By no means am I a perfect representation of LGBTQ+ authority. I write…problematic essays, to say the least. Sometimes, I feel excluded from my own community. I also feel excluded from the straight community. I’m a gay man. I get along outside of the LGBTQ+ community and in it. I belong. Whether I feel excluded or not. As much as I feel my feelings, I try not to let them get the best of me. I can be so insecure. But this is my place as much as anyone’s, my community. These are my people. We fit in, we belong—here—among you and with you.

I recently drove to Asbury Park, NJ, which was decked out in rainbow gear for Pride Month, essentially lit like Christmas but Pride style. For any who haven’t been, New Jersey has quintessential American small towns with main streets all over the state. It’s the place I think of when I think of the epitome of suburbia or education. In Asbury Park, LGBTQ+ flags flew on store after store all along Main Street. Although Asbury Park is one of my favorite beach towns in all of New York/New Jersey, I don’t really go there for the beach. I go there for baked goods from an LGBTQ+ owned rockstar bakery. The owner’s been featured on television networks, and her bakes are legendary. If all the country’s towns were like Asbury Park for Pride, I might even start to feel safe in America.

However, I live in New York City, a city that never forgets me but loves to take my money. Everyone seems to know that already. It’s not enough to just be in New York City. You need to be with cash. That’s why my husband, Vladi, and I pop over to Jersey whenever we can.

You may be surprised to know New Jersey is arguably the best pizza state in the country. Speaking of baked goods and Asbury Park, Talula’s, in the middle of Main Street, has some of the best Neapolitan pizza anywhere. I’d stop in New Jersey for pizza any day. Anthony Mangieri of NYC’s Una Pizza Napoletana (the best pizza place in the U.S.) started in New Jersey too; he uses locally sourced ingredients from New Jersey, like farm-fresh blueberries, on his menu in homage to his home state.

Okay, I’m a foodie. I’ve eaten at Una Pizza Napoletana twice, and both times it was impossible to get reservations. Literally, Resy provides a 30-second time frame three times a week when reservations can be obtained. I gave up on ever trying again. Since I ate there, I picked up some pizzaiolo skills. I may never beat Mangieri in a pizza bakeoff—let’s just say my oven, compared to Mangieri’s wood-burning, tile-plated masterpiece, is…problematic—but I could rival the greats. Another problem I have is hand dexterity. I’m no visual artist or surgeon. I ask Vladi to handle the dough. He’s my sous chef; we make a great team. We both agree our pizza is that good. We actually vote on it at dinner sometimes…all in favor. The resolution passes.

I’ve scoured the tristate area for the pizza, tried it wherever I can. It goes so well with a homemade-style summer sorbet. Mangieri taught me that as well. He used blueberry. I use fig or strawberry. Whatever flavor. Because pizza isn’t just a slice. It’s an experience. It means something. It connects us to people around us, and we share. We collaborate, customize, and cultivate our culinary dreams together. I source my sorbet recipes from the NYT Cooking app. I also cheat by buying my pizza dough from Roberta’s down the street unless I’m feeling inclined to knead and prove it for hours.

That’s a legacy of Pride I suppose. I get to make pizza with my significant other, a member of the same sex I call my “husband.” Because he is. He’s my husband. Then, I get to write to whomever I want about my marriage to Vladi. Pizza is no small feat. I suggest cookbooks. Restaurants, years of TV watching, and cookbooks. For marriage, I have little to no advice.

Except maybe be with someone who compliments you. Vladi doesn’t compliment everything I do, but I can generally rely on him. I’m a recipe guy, and he wings it. His hands work properly whereas mine are pretty odd. I read, and he watches TV. Or he watches Youtube, and I watch TV. Somehow, our system has survived our tiny apartment, the horns from the street outside, and the light that fills the room day or night. We’re now going on eleven years of marriage.

We’ve had trials and tribulations. He can’t be political in the U.S. due to the sensitive nature of his work. I probably shouldn’t be political. However, I wonder what Vladi and I will do when we live apart from each other. Vladi works for the UN, a place that I can say has changed dramatically during the current U.S. administration. The UN in New York is shrinking. Supposedly, Vladi and I are prepared to live in different geographies. We’ve talked about it. It’s normal for international civil servants to travel and live abroad for work. He’ll be in Rome, Bonn or somewhere else entirely. I’ll be stateside. He’ll visit. I’ll visit. We’ll make it work. And when we do, we can make dough together, as pizzaiolos married to each other do. We can watch TV or attend a Pride event. A storm ripped through the UN, and it’s only a matter of time before the distance of an ocean, a locational difference, changes the destiny of my husband and I from together in New York to his life in one place, mine in another. I’ll miss Vladi. I miss him already.

But that’s what we fought so hard for isn’t it? We looked within ourselves, mustered up the courage to bring out what we found, and petitioned for the right to be married. Now, my husband can travel for work, and we can remain legally married. The law isn’t everything. Culture of a society shapes us. Belief systems are known to impact decision-making. Vladi and I have the right to share property, be employed, live, and love each other. Our society has come around quite a bit. Vladi and I know our rights aren’t at the expense of others. We understand systems take time to change. People need reminders. Whoever you are, I don’t impede your existence. My footprint is smaller than the boot you think I wear. Remember that. We share this beautiful, dysfunctional society together, however we all complain about it.

It’s Pride Month. I don’t protest all that much, but I can be here. And I can make a damn good pizza while I am. Happy Pride!

Photo by Dipen Patel on Unsplash

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