Every July, it happens. 

The rainbow displays come down. The stages get taken apart. The vendors pack up their booths, everybody uploads their favorite pictures, and before you know it, the world has moved on to the next thing. Pride Month is over.

I’ve never really had a problem with that part. June isn’t supposed to last forever. We all know we’re TRANS every day of the year. But I do find myself thinking about what we carry with us once it’s all over.

I hope we don’t accidentally pack pieces of ourselves away with the decorations.

One of my favorite parts of Pride has never been the big events. It’s everything that happens around them. It’s running into someone you haven’t seen in years and picking the conversation right back up. It’s finally meeting somebody you’ve followed online forever. It’s laughing with a group of BLACK TRANS folks about something that would take 20 minutes to explain to anybody else. Those are the moments I end up thinking about long after the music stops and the glitter is still being found.

Maybe that’s because most of our lives don’t happen during Pride Month. They happen on random Tuesdays when we’re trying to figure out what to make for dinner, answering work emails, checking in on our friends, looking for a new doctor, celebrating good news, or trying to make it through a hard week. The festivals are wonderful, but the everyday has always been where our lives actually happen.

That’s why I hope we don’t leave June thinking the feeling belongs there.

I hope we keep texting the people we exchanged numbers with. I hope we actually go to lunch with the person who said, “We should hang out sometime.” I hope we keep sharing resources, checking on each other, and making room for joy even when there isn’t a parade happening outside. Community has never been something that magically appears every June. We’ve been building it all year long. Pride just reminds us how beautiful it is when we’re all in the same place.

There is so much happening in the world right now that asks us to live in survival mode. Some days it feels like we’re expected to move from one fight to the next without ever stopping to enjoy the lives we’re fighting for. I don’t want that for us. I want us to protect our joy with the same seriousness that we protect each other. I want us to remember that laughter, rest, friendship, and chosen family aren’t distractions from the work. They’re part of the reason the work matters in the first place.

So yes, pack away the flags. Fold up the lawn chairs. Let July be July. Just don’t pack away the version of yourself that remembered what it felt like to be surrounded by people who understood you without explanation. Hold onto that. Keep calling your people. Keep making plans. Keep showing up for one another, even when nobody else is paying attention.

Because the best thing about Pride was never the decorations.

It was us. And thankfully, we’re not going anywhere.