To Our Queer and Trancestors: Time Traveling Pride Month 2021
At Lavender Celebration this year, I shared that every day we create LGBTQ+ futures and that this is a declaration and imagining of new realities. Our very existence is a declaration and a celebration. I want us to spend some time in the past as well - to time travel this Pride Month. Let’s honor the folx who have come before us and added to the imagining of Queer and Trans futures. Our Queer and Trancestors who imagined new time and new realities, who imagined and resisted and fought for new realities. Take the time to honor them, know them and thank them. 

Who are your Queer and Trancestors? 

To Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera 

To Gloria Anzaldúa and Alexa Negron Luciano 

To Tony McDade and Nina Pop 

To those who lived and loved in time past with the hopes of times to come.

I share with you this poem by Jose Richard Aviles (they/them/he) (@soynalgona on Instagram), an activist, social worker, and urban planner. I highly encourage you to check out the spoken word version of it on Instagram and we will share it on our i3b Instagram (@umbc_i3b). 

The spirituality of queerness
A force field of 
unconditional love 
The first flower to bloom in 
A post-apocalyptic heart 

Our claim to liberation 
Is in deciphering 
shadows
Queerness is a dance 
A choreography between shame and pleasure

I have grown accustomed to their wandering eyes
The essence of my being tickles 
Their blushed cheeks 
I love unapologetically 
In the name of the ancestors who had to love in secret

What does it mean for us to be a good descendant? How can we honor the legacies that have come before us, while paving the way for a time to come? How can we be the time travelers of the imagining and working towards a different time and space? All of these questions are for us to make the time to reflect and honor this Pride Month and beyond. And to remember that we too, in time, will be Queer and Trancestors. 

Further Reading:
Day Dreaming Yourself Into Existence by Alok Vaid Menon 

Digital Transgender Archives

Pride 2020 Post-June is PRIDE season (myUMBC)

The History and Legacy of the Stonewall Rebellion (myUMBC)

UMBC Pride Month Happenings:
LGBTQ+ Pride Month Art Submissions-The Counseling Center
More information in this POST!

East Coast Prides happening this summer: 
Baltimore Pride, June 13th-20th 
-Virtual Pride Broadcast and Parade on June 19, 1-4pm
More Info: http://baltimorepride.org/ 

Philly Pride 
-Moved to Saturday, September 4, 2021-Labor Day Weekend 
More Info: http://www.phillygaypride.org/ 

Capital (DC) Pride, June 1-31
-Colorful Pridemobile Parade on June 12, 3-6pm 
More Info: https://www.capitalpride.org/ 

NYC Pride 
-The March on Sunday, June 27, 2021
More Info: https://www.nycpride.org/events/nyc-pride-march 


Local Baltimore Organizations 
Baltimore Safe Haven 
https://www.baltimoresafehaven.org/ 

The Pride Center of Maryland
http://www.pridecentermd.org/ 

Free State Justice 
-Storytelling Event on June 10th
https://freestate-justice.org/ 

National Museum:
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in NYC
https://www.leslielohman.org/ 

If you want some tunes to celebrate this month, make sure to check out DJ Erin’s Spotify playlist from our 8th Annual Lavender Celebration that happened in May! 
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