June is L.G.B.T.Q.+ Pride Month, a month in which people in the community affirm their identities, celebrate their culture, demonstrate their solidarity and assert their humanity.
It presents a concentrated opportunity to be seen, in jubilation and triumph, to recognize the struggles, to commemorate the fallen and to honor the progress.
But I must say that I have had real struggles coming to embrace — and be embraced by — the institutional structures of the gay world. (As an editorial note, I use gay and, more often queer, as shorthand for the lettered grouping.
As The Association for L.G.B.T.Q. Journalists has advised of the term queer: “Originally a pejorative term for gay, now reclaimed by some L.G.B.T.Q.