Kathryn Budig on the meaning of Pride

“Stop telling girls they can be anything they want when they grow up. I think it’s a mistake. Not because they can’t, but because it would never have occurred to them that they couldn’t.” – Sarah Silverman

I regularly get asked about my “coming out” story. That “ah-ha” moment when I realized I was gay. And while that might seem like the most natural question for a woman who was once married to a man and is now married to a woman, it always forces me to take a deep, patient breath.

You see, I didn’t have a traumatic coming-out experience, or rejections from my family and peers. I consider myself lucky: I fell in love with a woman at the age of 34 and everyone around me loved her as much as I did. They didn’t blink at her gender. They just saw how happy and content I was and welcomed her into the circle. So, as I like to tell people: I didn’t “come out;” I “fell in”—into love with a woman.

I still believe love to be that simple. I call it fluidity. I’m not gay or straight. I don’t even fully identify with bi-sexual. I consider myself (and most people, if they’d open their minds) to be sexually fluid. I see and love people, regardless of their gender or how they identify. I spent most of my life in relationships with men, and was always attracted to both genders, but I found the love of my life in a woman.

June is “pride” month—across this country and many others. A month during which the LGBTQ community shines, throws awesome parades (read: wild parties), and welcomes allies to show up in support. To the outside world, to the millions of people who’ve never attended a Pride parade, the event may seem like an attempt to highlight differences. But that’s not quite right. It’s actually an attempt to celebrate what makes us all the same: love.

And yes, I love to celebrate us. Despite all the progress made over the last decade, I know we’re still considered “different”. And in many ways, I embrace feeling unique. But this is what I suggest: we celebrate differences while focusing also on what makes us the same.

I hope someday soon my marriage won’t be labeled as “gay”. The way I see it, I’m in a plain old marriage, just like all opposite-sex couples. As a member of the LBGTQ community, I don’t feel different; I just feel like me. I’m not some exotic sparkly unicorn (okay, sometimes I am). I’m just a human who found love in a place that, growing up, society didn’t tell her to look. If we could nix the dated version of normality, then people won’t ever feel ostracized.

So, let’s change that.

Yes, celebrate uniqueness, but also let’s keep finding ways to behave and speak as if we’re more the same than we are different.

After all, we’re all somewhere within the rainbow.

With Love,
Kathryn Budig