How Will You Stay Positive for Pride This Year?
Why I’m Staying Positive for Pride this Year
The moral arc of the universe will always point to justice
This is not a left or right moment…this is a right or wrong moment. Even if our voices shake, or our legs get weary, we must stand together…and bend the arc of the moral universe that is America…more toward justice.
— Cory Booker — United States Senator from New Jersey
After celebrating my first Pride as my true self last year, what does Pride look like for me this year? Given the current political climate, there is definitely a sense of unease and a fear for LGBTQ people’s safety. The current White House has given the green light to normalizing transphobia and bigotry. But for me, personally, I am going to celebrate this Pride with even more positivity and well… Pride.
We simply cannot give in to this administration’s bigotry and transphobia, because that is when they win. They want us to feel tired and overwhelmed by all that they are doing — and not just to the LGBTQ community.
There are the local Nazi Gestap… I mean ICE raids bursting in and destroying U.S. citizens’ homes and traumatizing them in the name of “law and order,” all the while trampling over their constitutional rights. All under a false flag of a mandate that is so blatantly racist at its core that due process does not exist for people in the United States anymore.
Mass deport… I mean kidnapping is now happening in broad daylight. I honestly do not know how anyone who works for ICE can think that what they are doing is right. The “I was just following orders” line as we know from the Hague will never hold up in any court ever.
History will not judge lightly the actions of those in power right now.
We have seen this before, but with the advent of social media we are witnessing the downfall of civil liberties in real time. The injustices are right there in plain view and available 24/7 in our pockets, streamed live on our portable television studios.
It makes you want to scream into the void, “Somebody do something!”
I know there is not a lot to be positive in the world right now, but what gets me through this hellscape moment of history is the idea that the moral arc of the universe will always point towards justice and progress, as it always has.
As Cory Booker put in the above quote, we must stand now together more than ever. We are at yet another inflection point in history where the Universe calls on us again to do what’s right…and I feel people slowly but surely are answering that call. People are slowly waking up, and to put it mildly, we are pissed off.
Have you seen any Republican Town Halls lately? I know it is about as rare as seeing a unicorn, but they are getting ugly. The people who voted for this mess are getting torn apart because it is impossible to defend what is going on right now.
The elected officials — the Republicans who are sitting on their hands letting all this unfold — are complicit in the traitorous actions spearheaded by the Trump Administration. Every single day that they do not take action is further digging them into the history books with the Nazis.
But I also know that with every single day we are one step closer to removing the people who refuse to do their jobs and uphold the Constitution. That is literally their job and we all know what happens to people who refuse to their jobs, right? They get replaced by someone who will.
I know with every single day that passes, we are closer to the moral arc bending back towards justice.
This corrupt administration is losing nearly every court battle they fight because spoiler alert, what they are doing is unconstitutional and illegal.
I am remaining positive and beaming with Pride this June more than ever, and because the courts are on our side. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from enacting a used by many nonbinary people on passports as well as the changing of gender markers. While the fight is not over on this, it is crucial step in the right direction so nonbinary people can be treated with the same dignity and respect as every other American.
Maine Governor Janet Mills, recently had a disagreement with Trump in real time during a White House reception regarding the cutting off of federal funding if her state did not ban trans students from school sports. She retorted, “See you in Court!” Well, the Court has , unfreezing federal funding for the State and thus handing another loss to Trump.
Finally and even more good news. With Montana being as red/conservative as it is, a Montana district court judge ruled on May 13, 2025 that a 2023 state law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors is unconstitutional. The judge also temporarily blocked the enforcement of another law that would have defined “sex” as only male or female. These rulings have significant implications for transgender rights in Montana and in my opinion elsewhere in red/conservative states. ()
In times like these, we have to focus on the positive and the wins.
By doing so, we are showing the administration that what they are attempting to do will not work. Our freedoms and civil liberties will always be under attack, and we have to be ready to stand up and defend them.
Complacency has no place in progress.
So, yes, I have hope and optimism. I know we will get through this, because we have done it before and we will do it again. I have often heard within the LGBTQ community to “look towards our elders.” After all, they are the ones who have been fighting their entire lives. More importantly, they have been here before and can provide the guidance and patience that we all so desperately need right now. The Universe has come calling for its moral arc, and we are heeding that call.
Just remember that we are not alone in this fight. I checked the ACLU website as of the publishing of this article. They are . This is on top of their fights over Trump’s heinous executive orders that are being overturned at a furious pace.
In my opinion, if we do not defend LGBTQ rights in this moment, then it is a slippery slope until another group in the minority loses their rights, until no one has any rights anymore. As we have all learned during the Black Lives Movement and to quote Randy Orton a famous wrestler in the WWE:
All Lives Do Matter, But…Until Black Lives Matter, All Lives Can’t Matter.
Look, there were so many guardrails in place during the first Trump administration that reasonable people stopped all these wild ideas from coming to fruition. With Trump surrounded in his second administration by loyalists and sycophants, now the onus falls on us, “We the People.”
We need to be the guardrails to secure all that has been fought and sacrificed for. We not only owe it to ourselves but to future generations. We must be the example set so that no one will ever threaten the moral arc of the universe again and must yet again be the example that the world follows behind.
After all, it is the responsibility of each generation to make the world a better place for the next generation. That progress for as long as it has ever took is now on a fast track and now is not the time to let up. We will not go back, we won’t ever go backwards against progress.
All the Best!
— Amber
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This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, How Will You Stay Positive for Pride This Year?
