#portlandpride

[a-dangerpdx]

HAPPY PRIDE! 🌈Be extra! 🌈 . . On this 50th anniversary of Stonewall I honor the struggle LGBTQI, NB folx and our allies endure daily to preserve the dignity of every human. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 #begaydocrimes #happypride #pride #bishopbikes #rainbowbike #pdxpride #portlandpride #dykesonbikes #stonewallwasariot (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByxgNipj-8d/?igshid=11fu7l0h21074

[thedarklordoftheshire]

So I went to Pride

This was my 3rd year going to pride. Going as a very straight passing bi guy with my girlfriend always makes me feel a lot like a tourist, but I still love to go every year. It still makes the gay part of my heart very haply to see so many cute people and they way they fly their flag. I always think its interesting how there are some people who dress very conservatively and drape a literal flag across their shoulders, while others wear fishnets, pasties, and elaborate makeup. And then you have they people who put on the uniform. The girls in their shit-kicking Doc's, the guys in their floral print silky dress shirts, and every shade and variant outside and between.

I've never worked up the courage to really commit to dressing up for pride. I always dress nice. A dress shirt, nice jeans, my hair and beard combed. I always really admire and adore the people who are brave enough to really go all out, though. I always wish I could be brave enough to do that. And maybe someday I will be.

Pride is always a little hard for me. On one hand I do feel like the odd man out. I have a lot of privilege. I pass as straight perfectly fine, I'm cis, I have a very beautiful girlfriend. I just feel like I'm the free trial version of gay for people who don't want to commit. And I know that's just my own internalized biphobia, but you know, its there, so why leave it out. It also awakens that part of me that just wants to plaaayyyyyy. So. Many. Cute. Boys. Oh my god. But I'm really happy with my girlfriend, I'm not gonna stray, so I just swallow that down again and dream of next year's pride, haha.

This is the first year I went to pride, how to put this lightly... Not sober. It was a vast improvement. I felt much more comfortable, much more at ease, I was able to relax. It was really nice. I do worry I may have stared a bit too obviously (ohmygodcuteboys). I did see this one girl who was wearing a sports bra, rocking a mowhawk, and she had the exact energy I had as a 17 year old in complete denial. Just very surly, very cool in an oldschool way. Makes me wonder what my life would have been like if I had come to accept myself at a younger age. Its weird that I feel like at 30 years old, its already too late to be what I had wanted so long ago. What I could only admit to myself I wanted on those really long, lonely nights, locked in my bedroom drowning my feelings with Fallout Boy and Blue October. God I wish I could just wrap that boy in the biggest hug and tell him everything is ok, that he's ok. That he can still have friends and respect and that maybe it wouldnt be the people he had then, but there was another family out there who would accept him.

I always wonder about how it would have been different. If I had spent less time praying and begging god to change me, to take away that part of me so I could just be "normal." It hurts to think about, but in this very kind of bittersweet way. I just want to be free. I just want to be allowed. There's that very vulnerable side of me that still just aches for acceptance in the most visceral way. But I'm so deeply entrenched in this visage I've crafted. I mean, in so many ways its just trying to find the only attractive way to present the shitshow of a body I'm working with. I haven't put in enough of the hard work lately to be who I really want. A decade of neglect has really done a number on me. I was REALLY hot when I was in my late teens, early twenties, haha.

Anyway, Pride goals next year are as follows:

1) be in better shape.

2) actually wear what I haven't been brave enough to wear every year (leather pants in June. Eek.)

3) go to a club, a gay bar, something (maybe even dance with a boy... Thats still super scary)

4) Make friends. Network. Connect with my people. Reach out to guys like me and make sure they feel welcome and valid and loved and seen.

5) Let myself be excited. Enthusiastic. Foolish, even. Over-commit to just making myself happy and comfortable and real. More than anything, just be real.

[tudios]

Happy Pride month Portland! #pride🌈 #portlandpride #ilovethiscity (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BylUAmgHTXk/?igshid=15yw4zx56c4u6

[sadlittlenerdking]

Practicing for tomorrow #Pride #PortlandPride https://www.instagram.com/p/BywwP8tppFH/?igshid=4l4x8cwneaqb

[moonxxroses]

Here’s a picture of my puppy that yall didn’t ask for but deserve

[optimysticals]

Working on some beautiful #MarshaPJohnson engraved dog tag pendants for #portlandpride this weekend. Art by @chalkyheart #motherofpride #womenofhistory (at Cathedral Park Place)

[makeshiftmachines]

Believe it or not we're not dating but got to spend my first pride with this beautiful ass person today. Despite all the shit that happened, you made it the best🏳️‍🌈✨ @l0ving-s0meone

[tonotherapper]

Catch my whole pride performance on my YouTube channel! (VC @huntersilass) #originalsong #rap #rapper #gayrapper #pride #portlandpride #lgbt (at Portland Pride)