Inclusive Representation in the LGBTQ+ Community

During Pride month, we got a question in the comments on one of our social media posts about how we can make the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community more visible during pride month. Specifically, why are “everyday, boring gays” not highlighted as much as “drag queens and leather daddies”?

This is a great question. Here’s the original question and our response (context: this was a post of pictures from the Daytona Tortugas Baseball Pride Night event):

Why does Pride always focus feature drag queens, leather daddies, dykes on bikes, bears, naked twinks, etc… what about the everyday boring but quite populous and still marginalized gays, how is this diversity if its always the same? No offense to any of the groups I mentioned, just asking an honest question because I go to the games as a big homo and I’ve never seen any that I called out above at more than one game, if that. To me this just gives less authenticity and more pomp and circumstance. And for those of you that want to berate me for sharing my slice of experience… please show up to games as you are. Express yourself in the stands and enjoy the tight pants and fast pitches.

Hi, thanks for your comment, and sorry about the delay! 

Obviously, the “flashier” queer representation is proportionately more visible (and of course Aaliyah is one of DeLand Pride’s ambassadors as this years Miss DeLand Pride). 

We also regularly highlight other DeLand Pride members, who work in the background — for instance, also highlighted at the game was DeLand Pride Member PJay Peck, as Community All-Star.  If you are speaking specifically about homos in the stands — well, we all know there are plenty of those . 

In other words, we believe pomp and circumstance have a place, because visibility matters. This doesn’t lessen authenticity, for us, because the beauty of pride is making a space for everyone.

But your point is well taken. Inclusive representation matters too. That is one reason we’d love to start a series highlighting everyday community members. 

Let us know if you’re interested in being one of our first participants, or if you know someone in DeLand who would!

If you’re interested in being highlighted, reach out to us via our contact page!