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Mendi’s first breath came from the mouth of a queer woman, so by definition Pride runs in our veins. While the focus of Pride is always evolving, to us here at Mendi, Pride is about two things: celebration and protection.
It’s a time to celebrate our beautiful community and the hard work done by previous generations to get to this point. While there has been a tremendous amount of progress, there’s still a lot of work to do and we are grateful for those before us to laid the foundation.
We think it’s important to keep in mind how Pride came to be. It was born out of a revolt and violence against the LGBTQIA+ community, and that violence is still very much happening within our community. Pride was a riot for our rights, and for the basic right to be seen as a whole human. Pride month has become so corporatized and commercialized, however the support needs to be ongoing and year around. We’d love to see Pride as a continuation of the ongoing work to celebrate, support and protect our entire community– specifically our trans community. This focus needs to persist year around, by large corporations and the masses, in order to ensure the protection of all LGBTQIA+ members.
Growing up in a small conservative town, I was completely blind to the many expressions of humanity. It was not until much later in life I came to understand what true diversity meant and how important it is for the world to welcome it.
We are excited to celebrate Pride and recognize this as a time to show sincere gratitude for all the brave, unrelenting, fearless leaders who fight to preserve the rights for all of us today. There’s no question being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community is a human right. Personally, I am thankful to every activist and equality advocate who came before me.
At this moment, our trans community is under severe attack across the country. There are dozens of anti-trans bills in several state legislatures with the sole purpose of wiping our trans community from existence. We urge you to fight with us in order to protect our trans community. Call your representatives, call your senators, and back candidates who support the full rights of all human beings. Ensure that the companies you interact with and politicians you endorse are not in support of those bans. You can also choose which companies you want to work with and buy from. Finally, we encourage you to educate yourself so that you can help debunk the myths about trans youth, particularly as it pertains to healthcare and sports. This is a human rights issue, period.
