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20200621 - Pride

The yearly pride season is here, and even though this year is considerably different, let's look back on the parades celebrated on a usual year and I wanted to reflect a little upon those.

If anyone asked me, what is my stance on homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender, and also other labels not included, my answer would be that I absolutely support everybody 100% but I do not particularly like the words associated with those labels. I believe not everybody has thought about this. I think, using words to classify a person's sexuality and even the celebration of all of the variations using those labels - "pride for LGBT" is slightly problematic even though one might think one is promoting a good thing. For me, love and an honorable relationship is something that should not be defined but rather experienced and treasured. And the usage of words to try to classify if you are this or that is a way of defining. Putting a person in a box.

I mean, that I think any human being on this earth has the capacity for love. And as the LGBT community's message is, that love doesn't have a boundary. But then, why the need for labels? Does not the activation of this innate capacity for love, depend on who you meet in life? Now maybe not everybody would agree, but any other way doesn't really make sense to me.

I do understand the reason we have the term LGBT and the community it has built up. It has allowed so many people to identify themselves and that's great. But I think, there are people who don't identify themselves even though they fit into one of the categories. Maybe I just have a too idealistic personality, thinking that it would be great if in the future humans would just be humans, and since everyone would have the same rights and respect it doesn't matter and there would not be a need for it.

And I think the way we celebrate pride could be even better. It could be of more depth and more genuine. For instance, why doesn't the pride festival make a ”Humans of New York”-like initiative? That would be amazing. The parade is for sure good for celebrating, but if we want to change the views of those in society that are more conservative, we are not going to do that by walking down the streets in glitter. We can only do that by telling our stories. Stories of love that people can connect to. I think, we fight and stand up for our right to love, simply by loving the person we love.

Yes, I always sound critical, even of things that are wonderful because they can be subtly better. Make no mistake, I support everyone 100%, and I don’t want to offend anyone by saying this, but I would actually not say that I support LGBT as a concept. Instead, I like to think that I support love and being true to yourself. Instead of seeing someone as lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans, I would prefer to see them as a human being. I don’t phrase it this way just to sound controversial or picky, I truly believe that if people thought this way, the world would be a more authentic, compassionate, supportive, and loving place without so many boundaries.