Ever since it became evident that the right to a safe abortion was going to get the boot, experts have been speculating that marriage equality could be next. Despite the reality that many queers reject the idea of marriage altogether, the fact that our right to marry is even up for debate proves that queer people are still not deemed equal citizens. No matter how many commercials you put us in, queer people still face the daily risk of hate-based violence , abuse, addiction and suicide. All of these harsh realities made this past June, aka corporate rainbow-washing season, feel like an exhausting performance of mass cognitive dissonance .

For many of us, participating in Pride now requires a type of queer double consciousness . What used to be a celebration of and for queer communities now includes a deeply performative element that uses us as a viable market demographic in a capitalistic culture that is seemingly never actually going to see us as valid members. Im so tired of prancing in parades to win acceptance into cis-het society that I skipped it this year. I refuse to masquerade in respectability drag to be a more palatable mascot. My identity is not brandable content .

Pride hasnt always been this way. It was different when the summer glitter parades really were just for queer people, but now theyre for everyone. And while that sounds nice in theory, allied sponsors have begun to take up so much space in our parades that it doesnt feel like theres enough room for the complexity of our experience anymore. Its not too late to take back our stolen celebration. But if we want what is rightfully ours, we must tap into our rage .

A few years ago, Them Magazine dubbed July Queer Wrath Month . It finally seems like its catching on . Maybe its finally sunk in that we can take nothing for granted in this post-Roe hellscape and we might want to start fighting for our rights before they begin to dissipate. We cant glitter-gloss over the fact of our threatened existence and we cant sashay our way out of prison. Not only do we as queer people need to enthusiastically embrace our rage in this post-Roe moment, we need everyone who reaps the rewards of our long struggle for liberation to get pissed and fight with us.

You dont have to work very hard to find the queer battles already being fought with force you just have to look past the mainstream headlines. In May, as normies obsessively planned their Pride itineraries, queer activists in Louisiana were locking their bodies in solidarity to protest the states vote to ban trans women and girls from playing on female school sports teams. Protesters from The Real Name Campaign a New Orleans-based grassroots group that fights for trans people in Louisiana occupied the state Capitol until they were forcibly removed by security guards.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, thousands of queer people (and real allies) opted out of Pride parades and organized abortion rights protests instead. And some Pride parades in major cities such as New York and Chicago turned into equal parts gay parade and abortion rights protest . Not only is the coexistence of joy and rage the real spirit of what Pride means, its also a reminder that we dont have to choose between recognizing what we have and demanding what we need.