A newsletter written by and for LGBTQ and Ally Arizonans
Introduction to Community Perspectives
Welcome to the new Community Perspectives Newsletter! The Equality Arizona team has been working hard during the first half of this year to refocus and reinvigorate Equality Arizona as the state’s longest serving LGBTQ community advocacy organization. Over the coming months you’ll see a variety of new programs rolled out, including new ways for this organization to uplift, share, and engage with the enormous diversity of the Arizona LGBTQ community. This newsletter will become a monthly publication that will feature the voices, viewpoints, opinions, and ideas of LGBTQ Arizonans and our allies.
The purpose of this newsletter is simple – to provide a space for our community to share what they think about a large variety of topics – from current events to common experiences in the LGBTQ community. We are kicking off the Community Perspectives Newsletter during Pride month and have asked our writers to reflect on what Pride means to them and how they have experienced Pride as an LGBTQ person.
It is our hope that you will hear from people from many different walks of life with different views, opinions, and experiences. We think that its more important than ever to remember that no community is a monolith. What we mean by that is that the Arizona LGBTQ community alone consists of at minimum hundreds of thousands of people – each shaped by their experiences in the world. While we do have much in common, we also do not live the exact same lives in the exact same way – and that is part of what makes our community the big, beautiful, resilient community that it is – a big tent as it were. We are all better for this big tent experience of the LGBTQ community and we hope this newsletter becomes a place that celebrates that big tent and reminds us all that there is value in being in community with people who have different experiences and hold different views about the world around us.
If you feel inspired after reading this first newsletter and would like to contribute to a future edition of Community Perspectives, please reach out to one of us, Landon@equalityarizona.org or Michael@equalityarizona.org . We hope you enjoy this first newsletter.
Landon & Michael, Editorial Team
Pride in Allyship
by Landon
Happy Pride Month! June is the national month to recognize the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community, celebrate our achievements toward equality, educate each other about queer history, and raise awareness to the ongoing battles our community faces. Pride gives us space to appreciate ourselves, our queer community, and the allies who support us as we fight for equal civil rights.
Allyship is often considered a role for heterosexual and cisgender individuals who support the queer community, but allyship is also a crucial role played by queer people between LGBTQ+ sub-communities.
There are many leaders whose names are inseparable from the Stonewall protests that sparked the contemporary LGBTQ+ movement. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Stormé DeLarverie, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy are celebrated as the primary leaders of the rebellion. Each of these trans/genderqueer heroes played an instrumental role in liberating not only themselves and the trans community, but all LGBTQ+ people, even in ways that did not immediately benefit them. I aspire to have the same community-oriented advocacy that fights equally for everyone whose rights are at risk.
How can I as a transmasculine person support trans women whose pains and joys may differ from my own? How can white queer people support LGBTQ+ people of color? What are we doing to make our spaces accessible and inclusive to community members with disabilities? How can each of us use our experiences, talents, and privileges to best serve those in our community whose own experiences, talents, and privileges are not the same?
These questions have become the foundation of my personal growth this pride month. It is easy to give ourselves a pass as LGBTQ+ people and assume that our personal experience gives us an understanding of the whole community. I've been guilty of this assumption, but my worldview has expanded in beautiful ways as I've continued to educate myself about the varied experiences and needs of others. My life has been changed by allies within the community who have fought for my rights as fiercely as they fight for their own. This pride month, I am proud of our strength when we unite as allies to each other.
Landon (he/they) is a transmasculine writer, artist, and flower shop worker. He loves playing Dungeons and Dragons, going to the movies, and spending time with his family.
Healing Through Pride
by Anya
Growing up in a high demand religion with an anxiety disorder, I always wanted to be perfect. Though I didn't recognize it as a child, I became motivated primarily by fear - the fear of not fitting in, of letting people down, of going to hell. I hid all of my differences behind walls of shame. Though I came out to myself in high school, I didn't really come to terms with my queer identity until I was 22. That's when I started letting pride replace my shame. It began with taking pride in other aspects of my identity, the ones that feel more central to who I am. I am proud to be an artist. I take pride in the relationships I create with those around me. I am learning to love the me that I feel I truly am, and I'm giving myself space to express that inner self. That's what pride is all about to me. It replaces shame and fear with love and compassion. It heals individuals and communities. I use pride month as an opportunity to reflect and celebrate how far I've come.
Anya (they/she) is a 23-year-old genderqueer lesbian in Mesa. They enjoy making art and music, spending time with their cat, and working as a server/barista at a tea room.
Love is Love at Pride
by Mia
Pride month for me personally has always been a tricky concept. As far as personal pride goes, I’m very comfortable in my skin and I’m proud of my sexuality. When it comes to feeling that from the community, I’m sad to say that oftentimes I don’t feel as though I fit in. I’m a bisexual woman who is with a man and I tend to get quite a bit of comments on it whenever I mention I’m bisexual. It’s been interesting for me this year to see the amount of hate female members of the bisexual community are getting for bringing their man to pride. Instead of hating on your community, I think it’s important to respect and remember that being bisexual doesn’t mean that we choose one over the other, we love two genders.
I think it’s incredibly important to remember the famous phrase “love is love”. A lesbian isn’t any less lesbian if she isn’t actively with a woman. A gay man isn’t any less gay if he isn’t actively with a man. The same goes for bisexuals, being with an individual of the opposite sex does not make them any less part of the community because they are choosing to be with somebody they love regardless of gender. I’m proud to be bisexual, I love my man but I also won’t hide the fact I am attracted to women. It’s a beautiful journey and I hope that those reading this message can remember to be kind and let everyone love who they want to love with zero judgment or hate when celebrating pride. LOVE IS LOVE even if your journey is different than others.
Mia (she/her) is a 20-year-old hair stylist living in Mesa. She enjoys hair, art, and reading romance novels.
Taking Pride in Community
by Orion
Community is important and even necessary for pride. We call it pride because people were so intensely shamed for being queer – and still are!
It's hard to take pride in your identity and stand up for yourself all on your own. In my personal experience of growing up and coming out without any queer community, I was so isolated that I had no idea what community looked like. It made a huge and unexpected difference in my life to find community for the first time in Phoenix as I made new friends post-transition and post-Covid.
We all know it's important; in fact, "in the community" is the modern-day slang equivalent of "friend of Dorothy." But I think that we don’t talk enough about how community is essential for personal pride as well. Humans are ultimately social creatures, and we do live in a society. The way that other people treat and regard us does have an impact on our self image and self esteem. Having others like me around to support me, and for me to support them, created a new experience of positive reinforcement and queer joy. It was unspeakably different from my previous experience living in various conservative suburbs, where queer people were tolerated at best but certainly not welcomed.
Personal pride requires a lot of individual courage. It's easier to stand up for others than for yourself. Maybe that's part of why having community helps us feel proud: we see ourselves reflected back in others that we respect and care for, who we want to see thrive.
Orion (he/him) is a gay trans man living and writing in Phoenix. He works as a bookseller and spends his free time reading, playing with his dog, and coming up with too many creative projects to ever complete.
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