Pride means support, making lawmakers accountable
As a community health system dedicated to serving LGBTQ+ individuals, Pride is central to our mission, not just in June, but year round.
Pride means cultivating communities in which LGBTQ+ people understand ourselves as worthy of health and have access to the resources we need to imagine and realize our wellness goals.
On an individual level, the increased visibility of the LGBTQ+ community during Pride season can serve as a reminder of that worth. Our celebrations help offset the sting of stigma we experience to varying degrees throughout the year. They let us shake off the exhaustion of invisibility and isolation and offer motivation to connect with one another and with sustaining resources.
But Pride is not just about celebration.
Born of anger and activism, Pride is a call to solidarity — a requirement to acknowledge that the LGBTQ+ community is as vast and varied as are the systems that contribute to our health.
A medical setting that affirms the well-being of a cis gay man may not offer the same level of welcome to a Black Trans woman. A workplace or school that feels safe to a white lesbian may not be so for a Latinx non-binary person. A system of policing that offers comfort and protection to some members of our community routinely monitors, harasses, and suppresses others.
And so our observance of Pride season must be one of both celebration and solidarity.
Fifty-five years ago, trans female and cis male sex workers who were predominantly Black and Latinx put their lives on the line to demand justice from discriminatory policing at the Compton Cafeteria in San Francisco and three years later at Stonewall Inn in New York.
But in spite of the advances made in the ensuing gay rights movement, Black, brown and other BIPOC LGBTQ+ individuals continue to fight and die for the freedoms that white, cisgender LGBTQ+ Americans have come to enjoy. There is no pride in that.
For Equitas Health, taking pride in the well-being of the LGBTQ+ community means offering quality, affordable, accessible, affirming health care.
But it also means holding our legislators accountable when they suggest they are best equipped to make health decisions for trans people and people who can get pregnant.
It means advocating for laws that recognize HIV and addiction not as crimes but as medical conditions worthy of treatment.
It means calling for school systems to be affirming environments for LGBTQ+ youth.
It means fighting for fair access to sustainable housing for all LGBTQ+ people.
It means demanding that we prioritize an anti-racist overhaul of education, employment and service provision over the targeted surveillance and incarceration of Black and Latinx people. And it means demanding the expansion — not restriction — of voting rights, so that we all have equal access to the ballot and the ability to choose the policy makers who govern our health and our lives.
Like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-gracy and others who risked their lives at the Stonewall Inn, we must have a vision for LGBTQ+ equality that exceeds anything we have witnessed in our lifetimes, and we must use what power we have to ensure that the progress we make is progress that moves us all forward together.
Bill Hardy is president and CEO of Equitas Health.