The usual spirit of jubilation and joy that Pride brings has been replaced by a more somber tone - namely, righteous, justifiable anger and activism. Defending these rights also brought many of us a greater understanding of all of the different ways these fights overlapped.įour years later, Pride month feels very different in America and across the world. With the election of President Trump - and the support of the divisive rhetoric that came with his platform-came four more years of fighting for trans rights, gay rights, the rights of the Black community, Indigenous people, and non-Black people of color. Unbeknownst to me and the rest of the world, the next four years would bring seismic shifts to the way spoke about LGBTQ rights and the way they intersect with other disenfranchised communities. Four years ago, I acknowledged that although focusing on emojis as activism may seem silly, representation is important, and I still hold that to be true. I designed several new emojis based on my knowledge of queer history. The country was still in mourning following the horrific Pulse night club shooting in Orlando, Florida, a city I had lived in for eight years prior to moving to New York, and I wanted to do anything I could to help with LGBTQ representation. The Rainbow flag emoji was only added in 2016. I decided, with the support and encouragement of the editors, to write a piece for Pride month about the then-lack of inclusion of LGBTQ emojis on the iPhone. I was immediately taken by the actions of my peers and wanted to get involved. It was my first job in media, and I was immediately impressed by the level of political and social involvement displayed by my new colleagues - even then, Bustle’s writers and editors were using Bustle’s huge audience and platform to publish messages of diversity and inclusion. It'd be cool to see the rainbow flag and trans flag up with those flags as well.I started as a senior designer at Bustle four years ago, in the summer of 2016. “If you ever see pictures of them up there, they got this whole string of flags for all the different people that have come on the International Space Station. “I want to see it on the International Space Station,” she said. While she hopes it doesn’t impact the White House’s decision, Helms admitted she has an “even higher goal” than seeing the Pride flag waving at a foreign embassy or the world’s highest peak. A trans mountain climber is planning to plant it at the top of Mt.
There’s no reason not to be optimistic: Although the design was only created in 1999, it has been flown on all seven continents, including Antarctica, and put on display at the Smithsonian. Helms has yet to hear back from the Biden administration regarding her request, but she remains hopeful that the Trans Pride flag will soon join Gilbert Baker’s rainbow banner at U.S. “At least I know that I’ve made a little dent in the world,” Monica Helms tells them. And maybe it will be a better time for them, too.” “I want them to see that this is going to be a better time for us. “Everybody else in the world saw all the things that he did to us,” Helms said.
More than 150 municipalities in Poland have passed resolutions since 2019 declaring themselves “LGBT free.” Last year, Hungary banned trans people from correcting the gender marker listed on their birth certificate and outlawed same-sex adoptions. While Helms was “totally elated” to see that Biden has begun turning the page on the last four years, she wrote the letter because she knows that many countries around the world continue to suffer under anti-LGBTQ+ administrations. It prevents everything from a federally funded clinic from turning away trans patients to a Section 8 housing center refusing the application of someone living with HIV. Hodges ruling to areas like housing, education, and health care. This includes signing a historic executive order affirming the government’s commitment to LGBTQ+ equality, a sweeping declaration that extends the Supreme Court’s Bostock v. “Everything that we could have taken away from us, we did.”Īccording to Helms, Biden has already done “more in a week than Trump ever would ever have done” for LGBTQ+ rights in office. “Every week was something new, and it just went on and on and on,” she told them. Helms, a veteran who served in the Navy for eight years, was particularly devastated after Trump decided to ban trans people from serving in the military - a decision that was overturned during Biden’s first week in office.