It was several years before I realized the great folly of trying to fit into a gender box of someone else’s making. Shallowness and empty spaces in our lives can serve as wake-up calls, after all. Why would I follow someone else’s prescription of how to name and live my gender, my sexuality. Wasn’t this mine, and mine alone? Why wouldn’t I want to celebrate being queer? Being trans? Being connected to my sisters and brothers, my people from across the spectra of gender and sexuality? When I finally woke up to the beauty of queerness—mine, yours, the many other ways that it exists—was when I finally felt free. Once I was able to claim the Pride flag, I put together some musings on what the rainbow colors stand for. I took a little creative license because I’m cheeky. In addition to the recognizable rainbow colors of purple (spirit), blue (serenity), green (nature), yellow (sunlight), orange (healing), and red (life), I added two additional colors from the original Pride flags in the ’70s: turquoise (magic) and pink (sexuality). And I included the important colors from the Philly rainbow flag: brown (inclusivity) and black (diversity). So whereas no actual Pride flag has quite this representation, it felt important to do it this way because, to me, it’s the story of all of us.
What Do the Colors of the Pride Flag Mean?
Purple is the Color of Spirit. So often, we forget that we are spirited and spiritual beings. We get caught in the mundane tasks of daily living and forget that there is something essential to ourselves. Many of us in the transgender community experienced spiritual trauma that warped our belief system and left us feeling shut out. Acknowledging our spirit is a celebration of our loving presence, our gifts, our relevance as queer people. Blue is Serenity, as eternal as the ocean from whence all life sprung. We are a part of a great life-giving force, as are the generations of queer people who came before us. We’re being called to lay down our burdens, the conflicts, the problems, and acknowledge that we are a part of something much larger than ourselves. We have a right to serenity, to peace, to acceptance of all that we are in this and every moment. Turquoise is Magic. Oh, we queer folk are a magical bunch aren’t we? Look at the beautiful things our people have created. The art. The architecture. The societies. Look at the advances we’ve made in the sciences, literature, and engineering. Look at how we’ve invented and reinvented ourselves throughout time, always finding ways to do queer things in even the most oppressive of cultures. We transform and shape our lives and identities as we see fit, casting off the heteronormative values that do not suit us. Our existence is itself an act of continuous magical creation. Green is Nature. Of course it is. We’re discovering what is real, what is natural for us, and we’ve been doing it from as far back as we can remember. Some of us spent years denying our nature; even as Mother Nature herself called us back. “This is who you are,” she said. When we finally learned to listen, we came to know ourselves. What’s more, we came to understand that we are a part of the natural world, that we are worthy and obvious and require no more explanation than is required by the trees, the grasses, or the vines of the forest. Yellow is Sunlight. It is a thing to celebrate ourselves in June, the month of the summer solstice. We have the purity of sunlight, the source of all that is warm, shining into every part of our being, illuminating the dark corners that we tried to keep hidden. We are luminous, radiant people, alive in our queerness and celebrating our humanity in its fullness. May we each bask in the sunlight of our truth. Orange is Healing. Many of our journeys have been marked by healing, repairing, rebuilding from coming out histories. Homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and the hatred that these brought into our lives were coupled for some of us with the pain of racism, ableism, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of profound othering. Healing has been our way; and even in the face of tragedies, we have shown the world our resilience, coming together to heal ourselves and our community. Red is the Color of Life. It is our vitality, the force of humanity that is ours. It’s the blood in our veins, the aliveness in our bodies, the force and intensity of our queerness. We are passionate people, people who care deeply about the world we occupy and our role in it. We live zestfully and with intention, knowing that we do so for all of those who could not live their lives for fear of recrimination. We treasure the day and rejoice in the moment. We. Are. Queer. Pink is Sexuality. Sexuality is ours to proclaim, to express, to celebrate in whatever way we wish to do so. It doesn’t matter what our partner status is, for our sexuality is an enduring and natural part of our being. The expression of sexual freedom came for many of us after a long and hard battle, first with ourselves, and then with our family- and culture-of-origin. Now we recognize our sexuality and choose family who cherish this quality in us, just as we cherish it in them. Brown is Inclusivity. As queer people for whom rigorous honesty has been the path for our freedom from heteronormativity and gender conformity, we must willingly confront barriers that we’ve placed in front of members of our family whose skin color, religious background, physical or neurological features, or culture are different from our own. We must refuse and unlearn the system of othering that brought so much pain into our own lives, continually examining how to add one more place at the table, and one more, and one more, for every queer person on the planet. Black is Diversity. And what beautiful, diverse people we all are. As we reach out with our mind’s eye, we see the beauty of people in the many nations around the world, and in our own nation. Some have suffered for their sexuality, their gender expression, their way of being in the world. It is our job to see these injustices righted, to embrace our community, to reach out with love to all of the beautiful humans who express their queerness in infinite ways. I see you.
A Guided Meditation to Reflect on the Colors of the Pride Flag
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