- Activism. Being queer is political. Right now more than ever trans youth needs our support. Get involved by contacting your congress people, donating to organizations, educating all youth about gender identity and acceptance, and sticking up for those cool kids in your life.
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Books. The Library. Because reading is fundamental. Start the conversation about gender identity and sexuality with youth and adults! The more we talk about something, the more we normalize it. The more we purchase queer books, all the more queer representation will exist! PICK UP A BOOK. Seriously.
Picture Books: Pride Puppy! by Robin Stevenson and Fred Gets Dressed by Peter Brown
Elementary Reads: Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff and What You Don't Know: A Story of Liberated Childhood by Anastasia Higginbotham
Teen Reads: Pet and Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi
Adult Reads: Females by Andrea Long Chu and Rainbow: Stories by Lydia Conklin -
LEGENDARY. We’re giving it 10’s across the board! Legendary, the HBO show capturing voguing ballroom competition and community, is a queer, femme, masc, trans, gender is a construct dream. For a history lesson, watch Paris is Burning.
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Elliot Page. 'nuff said. Read his Esquire interview right now! It's incredible. It's activism. It’s gender euphoria. It's exactly what we needed this Pride.
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Poetry. Sappho wasn't just sliding into the DMs. Check out this incredible collection of queer poets from the Poetry Foundation. Maybe send one to a cutie, your lover, or HELL use one as an IG caption. Honorable mention not included in this list is Ocean Vuong's new book, Time Is a Mother.
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Parades. Cher once said "gayer than balloons", and honestly this applies to every Pride parade in the world. Here is where the Pride events in Wilmington and Raleigh will happen this 2022.
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Playlists from or for a cutie. Our team has collaborated on a playlist to groove to this Pride. Play it for friends, yourself, or to the hottie next door! Pro tip: keep it on shuffle.
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Coming of age stories, but make it queer! Check out these new releases like Anything’s Possible, Fire Island, Dead End: Paranormal Park, Heartstopper, and First Kill. Representation in media is imperative to the normalization of queer families, communities, and people. And with all of the egregious bans on drag shows and children attempting to be made right now, this is safe and family friendly way to ingest content that represents the queer people in your life. There is justice in enjoying queer media.
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Ziwe. She’s not queer, but damn everything she does is incredible AND POLITICAL. Her new video poking fun of queerbaiting music artists is beyond what I thought what someone with such a platform would do in defense of the Queer community. She may not be gay, but is truly a queer icon.
- Consistency. It's super cool to be invested in celebrating Pride each and every year. But it's not an element of Queer culture to take lightly nor be inundated with rainbow capitalism. For a listicle that includes more on the history of what Pride means check out our LGBTQ resource page created last year. There is no sense in celebrating Pride, if you don't do it all year long.