Our Sacred Rainbow Flag, by Mala (Nim)

Our local high street in Havering, London, has had nylon St George's flags attached to almost every lamppost over the last 6 months. Recently, our MP also defected from the Conservatives to Reform, and in May, Reform also won majority control of the local council.

It has been less than a month, and already the councillors have stopped our town hall from raising the rainbow flag (a tradition for over 10 years) and have requested that all local libraries scale back pride events. My initial reaction was anger and disappointment; growing up in this area as a queer non-binary South Asian, I was well aware of the racism and homophobia, so seeing the flag at the town hall was a much welcomed sign of progress and a visual representation of change.

From Pride To Power, by Shokti

LGBTQ+ Pride was created to be the antidote to the SHAME that was forced onto queer people for centuries, and is as important today as it's ever been for that shame has deep roots. The Catholic Church long ago declared same sex relations a sin (one its priests, monks and even popes often succumbed to!)– and eradicated heretical groups who did not agree (so associated was queerness and heresy that the word buggery, derived from the Bogomil heretics who originated in Bulgaria, originally was a term for a heretic). Reformation Protestant  Martin Luther believed that same sex desire comes, “undoubtedly from Satan, who, after people have once turned away from the fear of God, so powerfully suppresses nature that he beats out natural desire and stirs up a desire that is contrary to nature.”

Love as an Expression of Spirit, by Rafael Almeida Palau

The human experience often teaches us to divide ourselves before we truly know who we are. From an early age we are given names labels categories and definitions meant to explain who we should be and who we are allowed to love. Sexuality then stops feeling like a natural flowing river and becomes surrounded by expectations fears judgments and limitations created by society culture and sometimes even our own wounds. Many people who realize they are gay walk through a deep inner journey of questioning because the world makes them feel different before they can understand that the soul was never created to fit into rigid molds.

Gender as a Field of Possibility by Caffyn Jesse

We are very pleased to feature another blog from Caffyn Jesse, founder of Ecstatic Belonging.

Caffyn writes that - Transgender and gender-expansive people often come to know—through necessity—that gender is not fixed, but responsive. It is singular and multiple. Assigned, and continually unfolding. Shaped by hormones and chromosomes, in all their complexity—and also by sensation, relationship, imagination, culture, and time.