Happy Pride: Seattle, This Is What I’m Most Grateful For

Happy pride month, peopleeeee!

I’ve lived in Seattle three-and-a-half years now, the longest my adult self has ever lived in a place. I’m grateful for the mountain ranges dotting the horizon every which way I look. I’m grateful for the smell of pine trees in urban parks. I’m grateful for the abundance of bike lanes (and less grateful for the abundance of hills).

But what I’m most grateful for is how Seattle has taught me to be more open-minded than I thought I was.

I grew up in small white suburbia, and, perhaps due to my love of the Spanish language and dreams of the Amazon rainforest, nurtured a taste for culture and landscapes outside my sheltered bubble. In all my travels, I have witnessed poverty first-hand, lived in developing countries, and experienced religious ceremonies vastly different from my Catholic upbringing.

I thought that my eyes had been opened enough to accept and love people for all that they are–poor or rich, black or white, gay or straight, overweight or skinny, liberal or conservative. I thought that I saw people for their personalities, not for what they looked like or how they aligned their beliefs or orientations.

Then I moved to Seattle.

Seattle is the first place (other than a brief unplanned viewing of a drag show in Cardiff, Wales), that I met a trans person–many trans people. Seattle is the first place where I walked into a restroom marked “all genders”–and pretty much do on a daily basis when I’m out and about the city. It’s the first place I learned to ask people their preferred pronoun and a place where I use “they” instead of “he/she” frequently for people I meet.

One of my best friends out here is covered in tattoos, wears all black, and has a half shaved head. She identifies as pansexual. She is someone I honestly probably would not have felt comfortable approaching all those moons ago when I thought I was open-minded but really had a great deal to learn. I’m ashamed to admit that but you all know how I feel about being real and true, and it shows that growth is always attainable. This friend has taught me so much about the queer community, one that she is so open about and so actively supporting. And for her guidance and patience and friendship, I’m forever grateful.

I still make mistakes. I sometimes slip up because my mind sees a non-binary individual as outwardly female and I subconsciously associate this person with the “she” pronoun. But when I make mistakes, I am so often corrected with love and respect and understanding.

I’m still learning. I’m learning what it means to be anything other than cisgendered or my straight ally identity. As in literally, I’ve had to educate myself on the ever-evolving LGBTQIA acronym. (We all should, really.)

But most of all, what I’m learning is that we are all human, and instead of festering hate and disrespect, we should embrace the uniqueness of the evolution of humanity. We should actually start living by that Pride motto that’s hashtagged so often but perhaps not fully understood by people like my 18-year-old sheltered self: Love is (like really is) love.