LGBTQ Icons Define What ‘Pride’ Means to Them

Editor’s note: For Pride Month, The Root and Jezebel are teaming up once again for JezeRoot, with content by writers of color around everyday life for LGBTQ individuals.

Pride Month is here, and JezeRoot is back!

This month, we celebrate the beauty and vastness of the LGBTQ community and its contributions to this world—and what better way to kick it off than with a conversation about pride?

After all, the word “pride” means many things to many different people. In the African-American community, we often link a sense of pride with our ingenuity and resilience: “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.”

But what does it mean to have pride as a black member of the LGBTQ community?

“As a proud black transgender woman in 2018, it means that I live unapologetically. As every aspect of who I am,” said actress Laverne Cox.

Pulse-nightclub-shooting survivor and activist Brandon Wolf says that people are afraid of what’s different. “Pride to me means walking down the street without fear of being who I am,” Wolf said. “You’ve seen over the last few decades a shifting of the tide. LGBTQ isn’t a bad acronym anymore.”

We spoke with some of our country’s most prominent LGBTQ voices at the 2018 GLAAD Media Awards to hear their definition of pride.

See the entire video above.