Five feelings you shouldn't suppress this Pride month if you are a closeted queer person!
Pride month is that one particular time of the year when every queer person gets enthusiastic to express emotions and get along with their feelings to embrace one's queer personality regardless of closeted status. No matter what, an openly queer person always enjoys the liberty to celebrate any queer event to the fullest than a closeted person. Due to societal and social stigmas against queer people, this differentiation and segregation become quite evident. When a particular set of queer people appreciate pride month to the core, there lies another set of queer people who feel left out from queer celebrations all around the world. If you are that closeted queer person, you need to know how not to demotivate yourself to celebrate pride month like every queer person out there!
The feeling of being loved:
Do you really need to be identified as a queer person by someone else to feel completely loved? If you think you are incomplete just because you haven't announced your queer orientation, then you need to change that mindset. You need to love and accept yourself completely so that you won't find any need of getting valid in people's perspectives. You must be closeted for a reason and if that reason is valid in every possible way without hurting any person, then you undoubtedly feel the love from people who accept you the way you are. Pride month is all about celebrating your queer personality. You should feel loved, if not by others, at least by yourself. Love is love; self-love is a part of the queer celebration.
The feeling of being inspired or motivated:
When you see drag queens on media and popular queer artists exhibiting their talents exclusively on the note of Pride month, you may feel to be one of those people and when you realize that you can't, you may feel a bit demotivated. That's inescapable, and you need to accept that by seeing the reality. You can still feel inspired by those queer people and boost your queer personality so that one day you will rise an out and proud queer person. Till then, you need to stay motivated. You may not be able to inspire others by giving public speeches, but you can motivate yourself and move others through various channels where you don't have to tell that you are a queer person. Find the conventional channel to feel motivated and inspired always. That must be the spirit of a true queer person. Don't suppress the motivational feelings just because you can't do things like others.
The feeling of being entertained:
Entertainments come in many forms and colours every pride month as people celebrate in every possible way to exhibit their queer personalities. And wherever you see, you find people going for engaging queer carnivals, evolving queer workshops, and alluring queer parties. They all attend such queer events to entertain themselves and others. If you are that strictly closeted person who can't step out and mingle with other queer people publicly, you definitely find uneasy witnessing people partying like crazy by being themselves. It isn't jealousy for sure. It's just a feeling of missing out. Strictly speaking, if you know that you can't make your queer presence publicly, why do you have to miss such entertainment aspects? Instead, why can't you feel entertained by being behind closed doors, by throwing secret queer parties or by getting into such confined queer parties with other closeted queer people?
If you are a closeted person who can open up with strangers and places where no one recognises and realises your presence, then you can still try to involve in such queer events where you can be you, even though you remain quite opposite at your place or city or with your known near and dear. There are many ways to get entertained but for that; you shouldn't suppress your excitement levels to experience entertainment.
The feeling of being valid:
You are a closeted queer person and you are as valid as any open queer person. If someone makes you feel less valid, stand for yourself and shout out that you are valid. This phenomenon is mostly witnessed inside the queer community where some open queer people make the closeted ones quite invalid for the inability of being open like them. You must remember one thing; every queer person has to come out one day in one or the other way, which clearly specifies that every open queer person was once a closeted queer person. The difference is only in the closeted status, else everything remains the same, identity, orientation, likes and dislikes, tastes and preferences, needs and desires, and many more. So, don't focus completely on one sole difference when you can consider too many similarities with other queer people. If you suppress your feeling of being valid, you end up keeping your identity at stake and letting others take advantage of it, which creates a negative impact on your personal life.
The feeling of being proud:
Pride month has a history of struggle, oppression and discrimination, yet many queer people united together to fight against all the odds to blur the lines between gender identities and create equality for all the sexual orientations and this happened many decades ago. Being in the 21st century, many queer people are privileged enough to live the way they love even though they are facing judgmental criticism here and there. Hence, being a queer person of this particular era, you should feel prouder even though you can't come out as of now to the world. If you kill that proud feeling, you end up demeaning yourself which results in dysphoria and many other devaluing situations. Stay proud and celebrate your queer identity even though you live two different life scenarios altogether. Be proud of your struggle, be proud of your strength, be proud of your patience, be proud of your acceptance of the life situations the way they encounter you, be proud of your closeted status because you know you can't come out yet you always feel like coming out. That is all enough for you to be open and proud one day.
Until and unless you don't accept yourself, you try to demean other open queer people just because you can't be one among them, you target queer community by acting straight to cover up your identity, you behave extremely opposite and fake more than needed, you manipulate people by not revealing your true queer identity, you have all the rights to be a proud closeted queer person.
So, don't suppress these five feelings this pride month to celebrate your queer existence no lesser than any other open queer person.
