{"id":228,"date":"2025-07-08T11:01:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2025-07-10T11:09:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T11:09:55","slug":"owning-pride-overcoming-oppression-and-being-true-selves-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/08\/owning-pride-overcoming-oppression-and-being-true-selves-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"Owning Pride: Overcoming oppression and being true selves (Letters)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Owning Pride: Overcoming oppression and being true selves<\/h4>\n

Re: “Keep government out of Pride, whether it’s Trump or Biden<\/a>,” June 29 commentary<\/p>\n

Had I grown up with a legion of Krista Kafers as my parents and neighbors and teachers and schoolmates and doctors and shopkeepers, I would likely think and feel as she does about gay \u201cpride\u201d — live and let live without judging or celebrating someone because of immutable characteristics like skin color or ethnic origin or sexual orientation or gender identity.<\/p>\n

I grew up as a closeted gay person. From my earliest awareness of attraction to other boys, I was acutely aware that most of those people would judge and perhaps harm me for who I was.<\/p>\n

I read in school books, newspapers and my church bulletins that I was \u201csick\u201d and \u201cperverted.\u201d In Sunday school I was literally told I would be \u201cdamned to hell forever.\u201d\u00a0 When, finally, in my early 20s, I told my parents I was gay, my father said, \u201cYou disgust me and are no son of mine\u201d, and my mother shut the tiny door of any affection she ever gave me. I am not \u201cproud\u201d because I am gay. I am proud because somehow I found in the depths of my being, against all these realities of my young life, the courage to simply be and live openly as the gay person I am.<\/p>\n

Actually I prefer the term \u201cqueer\u201d because it gives me a sense of solidarity with all the others whose rainbow of attributes led to living under similar oppression. I appreciate Krista for not judging me and other queer people. I encourage her to consider that celebrating gay pride is about something we have accomplished and our healing from oppression.<\/p>\n

Wayne Thrash, Denver<\/em><\/p>\n

I take issue with the commentary. Specifically, Krista Kafer tells us her definition of \u201cpride.\u201d In her opinion, gay folks do not use the word correctly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s understandable that people who feel unaccepted because of their sexuality use the word ‘pride’ in this way. The trouble with\u00a0identitarian usage, however, is that only some people are allowed to apply it that way. One can be proud to be a woman but not a man, proud to be Black or Hispanic but not white, proud to be gay but not straight,\u201d Kafer writes.<\/p>\n

Sounds fishy to me. I can state that I am proud of myself. No person should take issue with the usage of pride in that sentence, contrary to what Kafer says.<\/p>\n

Kafer fails to recount the root cause and the beginning of Pride Day.\u00a0 Being gay used to be something people tried to hide in many cases.\u00a0 We need to look no further than the story of Matthew Shepard to see how it could be deadly to be outed as gay, not to mention the risk of job loss or other societal privilege. I think of Pride Day as a day to be proud of who you are with no qualifications.\u00a0 Let my friends in the gay community have their day.<\/p>\n

Byron Bergman, Denver<\/em><\/p>\n