‘PRIDE MONTH’ Prompt
Announcing a Counter Arts/Rainbow Salad Collaboration.
1.LOVE is always LOVE.
Whether it shouts out loud from rooftops, Or dares not speak it’s name, Whoever it is your heart beats for, Gender different or the same, Love is always love, All that matters, Worth the pain, Deserving celebrating, Shining joyful, all the same.
2.The Love That Dares: Letters of LGBTQ+ Love Friendship Through History by Rachel Smith
This collection of letters, with foreword written by the fabulous Mark Gatiss, is an excellent choice of read to pick up for Pride Month.
It features correspondence from a range of writers including:
- Sappho
- Anne Lister (of ‘Gentleman Jack’ fame)
- Emily Dickinson
- Susan B. Anthony
- Oscar Wilde
- Walt Whitman
- John Cage
- Allen Ginsberg
and many more.
“For a community which has lived too long with shame and oppression, this is a wonderful snapshot of a timeless and continuing presence. From ancient texts to Instagram posts, we are here and have always been here with the same current of desires, thwarted loves, pain and pleasure resonating throughout.”
— Mark Gatiss, foreword, ‘The Love That Dares’
3. I am a mother
I am mother to an adult child, who identifies as belonging to the LGBTQ+ spectrum. I love my child more than anything, they are the colour in my life and I would do anything to protect them from the pain I have seen others go through during my fifty plus years, around forty of which have been spent loving and supporting LGBTQ+ friends and family.
One of my greatest regrets in life springs from my time at university when I had a ‘thing’ going with a gorgeous guy I was mad about. However, according to college gossip, my lover was in fact gay. I didn’t believe it was true, but I asked him outright to talk to me about it.
This was in the 1980s in the North of England. My boy denied everything.
Not long after, though, his interest fizzled. He said he wanted to concentrate on his studies, that he had exams coming up.
In the time between then and his graduation we stayed friendly, we hooked up occasionally, but he always went back to maintaining that he just wanted to be friends. I was mad about him, deliriously infatuated, but I really wish he’d just felt comfortable and safe enough with me to tell the truth. Perhaps he wasn’t one hundred percent certain himself at that point, but he was gay — he is gay. I would have been disappointed, of course I would, but I would have supported him, in any way he wanted me too, had I known.
I’ve known for a number of years that my child identifies as LGBTQ+ and my college guy has been on my mind a lot. He was terrified by the rumours, he didn’t ‘come out’ until years afterwards. I hate that he had to go through that — and I hate that my child spent years agonising over his identity, trying to fit a label, even within the LGBTQ+ spectrum.
I so wish that people everywhere could simply just relax and be themselves. It distresses me that even in countries like the U.K. where such progress was being made, fantastic inroads towards equality and acceptance being carved out within the last decade, we now seem to be losing whatever ground we’d gained.
I want better than this for my child. For everybody’s children. So this month I’m joining the celebrations, enjoying the show of solidarity and Pride all around the world. After all, we are all human, we are all deserving and worthy of respect, safety and love. Whatever else we might be, we are all Human first and foremost.
Most of all, Love Is Love.
THE PROMPT
Will Hull, new owner of Counter Arts, and Sadie Seroxcat, new owner of Rainbow Salad, are joining forces this month. We are celebrating our new positions at these wonderful publications, the connection between the two as ‘sister’ publications, and all of our marvelous writers and readers.
So, we would like to invite you to write something which fits with the prompt: ‘Pride Month’.
(See short examples provided above)
Responses in the form of poetry or fiction should, as ever, be submitted to Rainbow Salad and non-fiction essays go to Counter Arts (either way with Equality and Prompt Response as two of your tags please!).
If we particularly enjoy what you submit, it may be pinned to the top of the list for a week or so.
If you’re not already a writer for our publications and would like to be, please let us know in the comments.