Another year has passed and another collection of Pride festivities have come and gone. The rainbows are coming down, business go back to normal, and all the love is love merchandise gets packed up and sent to the junkyard. Last year I talked about my skepticism and anger towards rainbow capitalism. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very much anti - rainbow washing.

However, as I get older, I’ve noticed a few things have changed. For one thing, my skepticism and disdain have evolved to indifference. Any maybe even a little hope. At this point in my 30 year old decrepit life, I’m too tired to hold on to negativity. Last year I wrote about how much I hated it and expressed total detestation. This year, we’re letting go of that. I’ve come to accept Pride and all it’s theatrics as just another part of life. Like driving through traffic or washing my ass.

I participate every year marching with a non-profit AIDS organization because I know deep down that there’s a need for it. Fighting the stigma around HIV/AIDS is a lifelong battle I’m willing to fight. But while I march surrounded by faggotry of all kinds, I see in the corners of my eyes little kids who get all doe-eyed at the sight of grown ups they aspire to be. I saw a little boy’s eyes light up when he saw me rocking my Malibu Ken doll realness look and asked his mom if he could get pink clothes. My heart grew 10x that day.

I go through this cycle of hatred and hopefulness as I continuously explore my relationship with Pride as a branding. Yes, you have the absolute cringe Target collection where the designers were clearly not gay and tried to make something that a liberal try-hard parent would make for their non-binary kid; I hate to get corny, but I think that should count for something. It’s a baby step in making non-heteronomative ideals the norm. I know that my decades of apprehension have made me somewhat jaded to these types of corporate gestures, but if it’s not hurting anybody and the net result is a positive impression on the future of all queerkind, then what’s the point in my being a hater?

I’m also guilty of Pride theatrics because I don’t normally dress like a fag like in the picture above. I enjoy it, but I don’t prefer it. I’m the gay that wears an oversized hoodie and sweats. I wear the pink during Pride as a way to draw attention for myself and to commemorate the season. In a way it feels inauthentic, but also part of who I am. So in my throwing proverbial criticism stones at Pride glass houses, I’m a hypocrite. I hurl rocks at the very institution that made me the tiny booty shorts I so enjoy because it makes my ass look insane.

I know that my outlook on Pride will evolve more as I continue to explore my queerness and my identity and my sexuality and all the other aspects of me. And that’s going to be an exhausting journey. One that I’m okay to explore my whole life. One thing is certain: Pride, and all the stagecraft it comes it, however empty and virtue-signaly it may be, is an important and necessary component of our life. It’s one that brings beauty to an already dark and bleak world. It gives me hope that one day everybody will just walk out the street wearing makeup and ballroom gowns and nobody even bats an eye.