Pride month has already started, so - as per the title - what are you doing for Pride this week?

Are there any cool events where you live? Is the encroaching summer making it hard to choose between hugging the AC and ironing your flags? Are you still in the closet, and would you like to vent about it?

Over the past few months I've been questioning my gender identity, and so I've been doing what any good millennial does and trying to read up on what everyone else in my position did and does. I've found a few resources here and there, but I'd really like to read/watch/listen to more if I can. I'm looking for blogs, YouTube channels, podcasts, twitter users, and possibly even music... Anything created by non-cis people and which discusses their experience with figuring out their gender identity.
Hopefully my fellow Tilderen can recommend some good media to me? I'd also be glad and grateful to hear any personal stories from folks here as well, though I do know it can be a very personal thing so no sweat if you don't feel happy sharing.

My husband and I recently started listening to Tones and I who has a song called Johnny Run Away. It’s a short story about a boy who has feelings for another boy and is told by his dad to “run away” not because the father is homophobic but because he’s trying to protect his son from getting bullied:

His daddy walked by with a sigh
Said, "Johnny, sit by my side
I'm gonna give you the best advice
You've ever heard in your life
See that boy named Jimmy, yeah, he's a cutie
But no, no, Johnny, no, no, no
Johnny run away”

I like the song partially for its musicality (so catchy!) but also its narrative is genuinely touching to me. My father-in-law once told me he knew his son (my husband) was gay early on. He said that never changed how much he loved his son, but he was always worried about how much harder life would be for him because of that. I think a lot of parents support their LGBT kids but also live with the very real fear of knowing that the rest of the world won’t necessarily do the same, and I think this song captures that perspective.

Anyway, I would love to hear about other songs that feature LGBT stories and perspectives, especially if they’re personally resonant for you or someone you know.

Hello loves!

A wonderful individual reached out to me recently and proposed the idea of creating more of a community within Tildes, rather than being a smaller part of the Tildes community as a whole. As it is right now, Tildes feels like a single place with a single voice that's the average of its members, and we'd like to change that. We've started a discord server for queer individuals on Tildes. This server is meant to define itself as its own thing. ~lgbt is a place to organize posts on a topic, not a community, so we'd like to fill that hole.

Here's the invite link: https://discord.gg/FmhWYVAhFs

One particular aspect of forming a community I think is important, perhaps even more so for a minority identity, is that Tildes can be frustrating and alienating at times, even when it doesn't intend to be. This space is meant to be somewhere you can go to vent when you run into any of the many trials and tribulations you may run across on this wonderful website. You know, the times where you want to bang your head against a wall because you're just not getting through to someone else or when you open a thread, read a few replies, shake your head and close it - disappointed in the tone or direction it has taken. After all, sometimes we don't want to be direct or confrontational to people who say hurtful things when often they're just mislead, uneducated, or misinformed.

Anyhow, I hope to see many of you wonderful folks in there and I'm looking forward to knowing you all a little bit better! 💜