The pride flag is a rainbow, because it represents a coalition. It represents unity amid diversity. The perspectives and life experience of those of us who are gay, is just not the same as those of us who are transgender, or those who are asexual or bisexual or intersex. The flag says “we will have your back whether you wear lipstick or flannel, whether you are married to someone of the same gender, a different gender, or think marriage is an institution of the patriarchy that needs to be dismantled.
When I as a young adult and coming out to myself as bisexual, I heard about Kinsey’s spectrum- do you know about this? The idea that on one end of a spectrum are straight people and on the other end folks who are just gay, and then there are folks all the way in between. I really identified with that in between place, and I wondered if maybe everyone felt that way, and just didn’t know how to explain it, just like me. So I asked a group of friends one day “do you think that everyone is actually bisexual?” my bi friends gave it some thought, but a straight friend said- no I am definitely just straight. A gay friend said “no, I am definitely just gay.”
We all move through this world looking through one set of eyes, thinking with one brain, moving in one body. It’s easy to imagine that life for other people is pretty much like life is for us. I falsely concluded from my own experience that all people were attracted to all genders to a greater or lesser degree. When my friends set me right, I chose to believe them. I chose to believe that what they reported of their own experience of the world was valid, and I enlarged my world view accordingly. I could have rejected what they told me, because it was different from my experience- I could have assumed that because I haven’t experienced something it doesn’t really exist. That’s not a big deal, unless I’m someone’s parent, teacher, lawmaker, minister. If I’m making decisions, judging others in ways that impact lives and spirits based on my limited view of the world, that is a big deal.
Clearly the scientists who came up with the Kinsey scale back in 1948 experienced gender in a binary way. Even the word bisexual assumes there are 2. A newer word, Pansexual, breaks down the binary notion of gender, honoring greater possibility of attraction. But that doesn’t include the rainbow of folks who identify as asexual and many other folks[i]. The Kinsey spectrum that was taught to medical students and therapists for decades, even though it was ground breaking thinking at the time, still has a limited point of view.
As a cis woman, I always felt my body was a reasonable fit for my sense of gender. I often felt like the laws and social norms about who women are and what they could or couldn’t do, were not always a great fit for me. I’m kind of femme, I loved dressing up in frilly dresses as a child, and I still think they are fun today. This scandalized my mom, a feminist who felt kind of trapped by all that. She told me when she was little that she was given dolls, when what she really wanted was an erector set. She was kind of mystified with I kept asking for dolls. Even among 2 cis women who identify as feminists, with very similar genes, our inner experience of gender is very different.
In our history of becoming this rainbow coalition, we have sometimes not listened to one another, we have not understood how radically different our perspectives across that flag have been. As we have begun to understand and center the experience of the true diversity of our community, the flag has changed. “In 2017 under the leadership of American civil rights activist Amber Hikes, Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs developed the rainbow flag to incorporate black and brown stripes to include black, brown, and people of color”. “Building on that in 2018 Daniel Quasar redesigned the flag to include trans people, creating the Pride Progress flag.”[ii]
Today this evolving flag centers the unique experience of queer people of color, of trans people, and this year some will wave the
flag that includes the experience of those of us who are intersex. It’s not enough for me to hang a rainbow flag and tell my own story of being queer, but to remember that I am just one stripe, one thread in the flag, and to give space for all the other heroes to be heroes, to live their story, and to tell their story, and to let our shared flag evolve to reflect the living evolving relationships it represents.
There is a fancy word for this- “intersubjectivity.” I think is very helpful concept. In psychology. It refers to common understandings between different people. In a story about me, a story I tell, I am the subject. In a novel about the heroine, she meets folks that help her on her journey, folks who get in her way, dangers she faces, things that bring her joy. The heroine is the subject, and everything else, including the people she meets are objects. Hence phrases like “the object of my affections” “the object of my desire.” I’ve been noticing this in the grocery store. When I go in, I have a goal, a direction in mind, and a point of view. I am a tired working mom, just trying to bring home food for my family. My goal is to try to do this as efficiently as possible, to save time and energy for my other responsibilities and plans -- finishing a workday, making dinner, or just relaxing on the sofa with my dog and husband.
When I am solidly inside that story, the store is an obstacle course on my grocery journey- anything that speeds me up or gives me energy is a helper, anything that slows me down or thwarts me is an obstacle, a frustration. When I am able to remember that each and every person in that store is living their own story, similar in some ways, different in others, that the two people who have stopped in the middle of the aisle to talk are not ONLY the obstacles preventing me from getting to the much needed box of pasta, they are also the subjects in their own stories- perhaps they haven’t seen each other since covid began. Perhaps there is some great drama afoot in their lives, and this is an important moment of connection and support. Perhaps they are just having a normal ordinary day, living out their own stories, and just didn’t notice the short lady trying to get to the pasta.
I think one of the most important things we can work on to become an anti oppressive people is to realize that every person in the world experiences life differently, is like the hero in their own story. When cis male politicians make bathroom laws, it seems to me that they are imagining that everyone experiences the world as a cis man- what it feels like to have a room that clearly matches your gender- how easy it would be to use that room, and to feel safe doing it. That they can’t even hear someone say “there is no bathroom at my school that I can use safely” That is what Poet Theresa I Soto shows us in their challenging poem "Notes on a Napkin (White Supremacy)":
“you tend to think that
the place from which you
view the world is common.”
…“here at the top we have traditions,
customs. And why are you yelling?
that is not the way we do it here,”
It might be easy for me, as a bi woman, to imagine that people really could choose who they loved, who they were attracted to, to make laws or preach sermons or teach my son that everyone could or should choose, unless I really listen when someone says “that’s not my lived experience.”
German theologian Martin Buber described two types of relationships- “I-it” a relationship between a person and an object that is separate from us that we either use or experience, and “
I Thou” a living relationship with another self, similar to our relationship with the divine. By practicing “I Thou” relationship is not only helping us become anti-oppressive, but a spiritual practice bringing us closer to life itself and with the divine.
There are a million opportunities, every day, to practice listening for those differences of perspective, of purpose. I live with 2 other humans and a dog, and so home is a good place for me to practice. Our lives are very similar, same house- same food in the fridge- same family routine, and yet even so we often talk at cross purposes, we often have different goals and directions and perspectives. For example, I’m about a foot shorter than the guys I live with, so there are things they see that I don’t see. I’m also the only woman in my household, so sometimes I have to say “it’s not like that for me.” I’ve learned to recognize that moment, when another person will say something totally unexpected, nonsensical or otherwise baffling, to remember “Oh, right, they are a totally different person from me, seeing the world from a completely unique perspective.” Our family life goes so much more smoothly when we remember to start with “I think I have a different perspective on this, tell me about where you are coming from” instead of “well I know what I know so you must be wrong.”
The world is so much bigger than we can see, experience, even imagine. When we run into these moments of disagreement, or even just notice a discrepancy between my point of view and yours, it is like finding a little door into another world, a wardrobe into Narnia. This is the magic of the I-Thou relationship. We have stumbled into another person’s story, and we can choose whether to go through, and try to imagine the story, to hear the story, that another is living, or whether we will shut the door, because it does not match our own story. This year at pride, let us celebrate our own stories of identity, of love, of overcoming obstacles, and let us also take time to listen to the stories of others, noticing the differences in what they have experienced in how they see the world, heroes in their own story.
Notes:[i] There is an “x for “No socio-sexual contacts or reactions” which is assumed to refer to Asexual folks, but the ACE community is also a complex rainbow that is not adequately represented by that x. For more info check this out: https://www.asexuality.org/?q=overview.html
[ii] https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/06/theres-update-updated-update-pride-flag-better-include-intersex-people/
I suggested to Renee Ruchotzke that it was time to just let our fields lay fallow, as they mention in the bible, but she is a permaculture gardener, and she reminded me that when you let a field go fallow, just let anything grow, sometimes opportunist plants and critters will come fill in the vacuum left by our usual crops. She reminded me that wise farmers use cover crops- things like clover or rye that bring nutrients back into the soil, and yet protect the soil from erosion, from invasive things. 
Sometimes I am so depleted, I can’t even thing of a single thing that would help. And, in fact, we have been changed by the events of the past year, and it’s possible that things that worked before may not work now. I have found that when I am stumped about what my spirit might need, this is the perfect time for what Ian Frasier called “higher sort of un-purpose,” I have found that if I can make it to the front porch and just sit, eventually my attention will be captured by the twitter of the birds, or the antics of the squirrels, and somehow I can (as Berry says) “rest in the grace of the world.” 
Other times my spirit needs a container, something with a beginning, middle and end. Sometimes just going for a walk and coming back can be enough. For those of us who have a preference or a need to stay inside -- from a comfy chair one can journey through a handheld labyrinth, or listen to a favorite album, or enjoy the quiet repetition of knitting. Lately, I like to color mandalas and listening to music. Sometimes even washing the dishes can be restorative and grounding. 
