Steven LaChance Blog

Today is the first day of Pride Month, and I have complicated feelings about it.

The truth is, I wish we did not need it.

I wish we had reached the point where nobody cared who someone loved. I wish we had reached the point where a month dedicated to Pride was no longer necessary because equality was simply accepted as a normal part of life.

For a brief moment, I thought we might actually be getting there.

It was Key West Pride in 2016.

My husband Rick and I were on a sunset Pride cruise. I can still see it clearly. The catamaran was packed with people. Music was playing. The sun was dropping toward the horizon. Everyone was singing Lady Gaga’s Born This Way at the top of their lungs toward the tourists gathered along the shore.

I remember looking around and seeing nothing but happiness.

My husband Rick was standing beside me smiling.

That year’s Pride Queen, Mulysa Guard, caught my eye and gave me a wink.

A friend who looked remarkably like George Michael was dancing all over the boat.

Everybody was laughing. Everybody was moving. Everybody was together.

What I remember most was the feeling.

For a few hours, it genuinely felt like the world was changing.

Not perfectly. Not overnight. But changing.

As someone who grew up in a very different America, that feeling mattered. I had lived through the years when coming out could cost you your job. I had lived through the AIDS crisis. I had watched people argue over whether LGBTQ people deserved rights that everyone else took for granted.

Standing on that boat, I remember thinking that maybe the next generation would not have to carry quite so much of that weight.

The next morning we went to Denny’s for breakfast.

A friend walked in looking pale and asked, “Have you seen the news?”

We had not.

I picked up my phone.

The Pulse nightclub.

Massacre.

Forty nine people dead.

Fifty three wounded.

We were still in Key West. Pride was still happening around us. Rainbow flags still hung from storefronts. People were still walking Duval Street. The sun was still shining.

Yet everything felt different.

I remember thinking how strange it was that the world could change so completely while everything around you looked exactly the same.

Less than twelve hours earlier I had been standing on the front of a catamaran beside my husband believing we might finally be entering a different era.

Now I was reading about forty nine people who had gone out for a night with friends and never came home.

What I lost that morning was the feeling that we had finally turned a corner.

Somewhere deep inside, I had the feeling that things were about to get worse instead of better.

Unfortunately, I was right.

Over the years that followed, I watched old prejudices find new voices. I watched progress that seemed secure suddenly become something that needed defending again. I watched politicians, commentators, activists, and influencers discover that LGBTQ people still made a convenient target.

That is why Pride feels different to me now than it once did.

There is still joy in this month. There should be. There is friendship, community, laughter, and love. There is something powerful about looking around and realizing you are not alone. Every year I see people finding themselves, finding acceptance, and finding a community that reminds them they belong. Those moments matter.

At the same time, I would be lying if I said there was not another side to Pride. Every June seems to arrive carrying a target with it. There is always a new argument, a new controversy, a new attack, or a new attempt to convince people that our lives should be debated rather than simply lived. The only mystery is usually where it will come from this time.

Maybe that is why Pride still matters.

I still celebrate Pride. I still fly the flag. I still believe people deserve to live honestly and openly. But these days I do it with fewer illusions than I once had. I have lived long enough to know how quickly things can change. I have watched progress move forward, stall, and sometimes move backward. I have learned that rights are not maintained by assuming they will always be there. They survive because people continue to stand up for them.

When I think back to that night in Key West, I still remember the music, the laughter, the feeling of possibility, and my husband standing beside me smiling as the sun disappeared into the water. For a few hours, it felt like the future had finally arrived.

The next morning reminded me that history rarely moves in a straight line.

Maybe that is what Pride means to me now. It is not believing the work is finished. It is understanding that every generation is called upon to protect the progress that came before it. It is remembering those we lost, celebrating those who are here, and refusing to disappear simply because someone else thinks we should.