During Pride Month this year, I have invited everyone to celebrate with me, a transgender woman.
I am using the strategy my mother and grandmother told me they used to defeat Jim Crow: Be the best visible version of yourself possible. Doing so will teach people more about you.
It’s tough terrain for LGBTQ+ people in prison. Most people are turning against queer acceptance. My hope is that I can help us feel more secure and accepted and decrease the anxiety and depression that is far too common among incarcerated queer people.
Perception is everything — what people see is what they believe. Show them who you really are, and you can kill their prejudices and biases against you.
Why am I so excited about Pride this year?
Because I worked hard to find outside support and even found inside support from straight allies. This is also my first Pride in a new unit in my prison.
I have planned a Pride party with music, food and laughs. I have encouraged others who are not like us to reconsider their prejudice.
Before the event, I am going to cook and donate “cell soul food” to my allies, friends and family. I cook cell soul food with love in the cell. It’s my version of healthy food — no microwave, no state food. It will be canteen-bought, only boiled in fresh water and made well. I am an excellent cook and am going to put my best foot forward. I will make a Pride punch and Big Mama’s chicken stew, coupled with lots of chips and snack cakes.
I will have a Pride playlist of my favorite jams and have made Pride tablecloths. And I will have a mock runway for the girls and boys who want to “vogue” and express themselves or walk in categories like “trans face” (no makeup), “thug-boy realness,” “women’s body” and “muscle madness.”
My goal is to share my pride with the world around me. I want to encourage higher standards of inclusion and motivate the wider prison community to accept us into the fold.
I hope to help my allies, family and friends build a fresh mindset — to make space to stop judging and oppressing us. I hope to encourage my family across the queer spectrum — those I know and those I only know are out there — to find ways to overcome self-sabotage, silence and self-doubt, and reach greatness.
Pride is a deeper love. It is the power to live and the strength to survive.
