Marlon Caldwell
Stories (2/0)
Pride - stand tall
Pride to me is standing up tall, puffing your chest out to the world and saying this is who I am. In a world that is ever changing. To think that the world has been around for billions of years, humans have been on earth about 200,000 years but the earliest form of writing has been around approximately 5000 years! It means that Queer people have existed for 200,000 years most likely but we just didn’t have a meaningful voice until 40 years ago since the 70s and that was just the springboard. There will have always been lgbt+ people in history but the narrative didn’t really begin until the Stonewall riots. Civil partnerships in the uk were only around from 2005 and then gay marriage was legalised in 2014. There’s 195 countries in the world and only 29 that allow same sex marriages. So a way to go yet. You only have to see a post from someone who is championing trans rights to then see the dozens of hateful comments underneath. Pride is essential as it’s our voice. If you are silenced or quietened down then you lose your voice and so eventually lose your rights. If we can show pride, fight for each other then our voices can be heard and we can fight for the other countries for better rights. Some countries people face death or prison if they have same sex intercourse and other countries where there are serious limitations to expressing yourself. Just for being you - you could be beaten up at the very least. Just recently Ali Fazeli Monfared was murdered by his cousins and half brother who murdered him for being gay. This was only in May 2021. He was hoping to exile to turkey and then travel on to Europe but he didn’t make it tragically. Pride is so much more than in a pre- Covid times going to pride, getting drunk and dancing to Britney Spears. It’s an essential way for people to express themselves and remind the world that there is a long way to go!
By Marlon Caldwell 3 years ago in Pride