Salon

Pride begins first and foremost with the ability to see oneself. Self-perception can be challenging for any human being. If you carry inside of you an identity or an experience that is disparaged or shamed by others, the challenge is magnified. Many people, not just queer people, know a lot about these dynamics. But not seeing your true self creates a problem. If being seen by others is a prerequisite for a relationship of trust, being able to see yourself is certainly a prerequisite for self-trust, which is fundamental to a consciously chosen ethical life.

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 This is not a minor declaration of the patently obvious. There are entire theologies dedicated to the idea that we do not exist as a people. The whole “love the sinner; hate the sin” trope is based on the premise that queerness is about what you do, and that it flies in the face of who you actually are. That’s why it matters to conceive of queerness as an identity marker: it is essential that we refuse to capitulate to queerphobic attempts to treat our relational lives and our sexual encounters as something separate from our deepest knowledge of ourselves.

I exist; I am queer; my queer self exists.

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Evangelicals will recognize this gesture as one in which a person lost in the ecstasy of communal worship instinctively lifts up her hands to invite the sacred into her body and soul. Lifting up one’s hands can be a way to connect to something bigger than oneself, something that might even be transcendent. Whether Hedwig intentionally invokes the religious aspect of the gesture or intentionally subverts it, it is no surprise that a show so thoroughly queer would grab people’s hearts (and, yes, our souls) with such power. In that moment, the audience members become the people to whom Hedwig is singing: me, you, all of us acknowledging our brokenness, each of us called to know ourselves, know our self-worth, and help each other to know it, too.

Pride is exactly like that. Pride is a statement of personal affirmation that extends out to others. Pride calls us together. In this way, Pride becomes a posture that makes ethical living possible. In fact, it makes ethical living not only important, but often riveting, substantive, worth the price of admission.

Reaching deep inside the individual soul/psyche, reaching out to connect us to each other, Pride is very like what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13 when he writes about love as the glue that binds a community together. That’s what Pride does for LGBTQ community. It binds us to one another. And true to Paul’s description, Pride is very like—and may in fact be—love enacted.