28 COSMOPOLITAN AUGUST 2019 FOR MORE GREAT STORIES, VISIT COSMO.IN

At the 2019 Manchester Pride, brown and

black bands were added to the Pride flag.

Our columnist—an outspoken Indian

lesbian— tells us why she isn’t exactly

thrilled with these changes...

OUR MONTHLY COLUMN!

upfront

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“THE NEW

RAINBOW

FLAG IS NOT

MY DEFINITION

OF PRIDE”

I

feel inspired’, exclaimed my

partner before drifting off

into a sea of LGBTQIA+

parade, all seemingly having

the absolute time of their lives. There

we were—at a party-cum-protest,

attended by an estimated 1.5-million

rainbow family, flaunting flags and

banners, kaleidoscopic eye shadows

and glitter, plumes and unicorns, and

an admirable display of latex—an

Indian same-sex couple holding

hands, dancing, with no judgment in

sight. This was the London Pride

2019. It is one of the biggest and most
      diverse Prides yet, coinciding with the
      50th anniversary of the 1969
      Stonewall uprising in New York,
      which had paved the path for the

modern Pride movement.

Until this year, I didn’t totally grasp

the meaning of Pride with regard to

being proud of a facet of my identity.

The thing about swimming against

the tide—being a queer woman in

India—is the constant heartbreak of

hiding who you are and whom you

love. Heartbreak pounds you, makes

you who you are. Feeling that you

don’t belong is universal—and there

is a poetic paradox in feeling seen as

‘they are kind of like me’ by an

outsider. But how you wish to be

identified is subjective and complex,

and the vernacular of LGBTQIA+

identity continues to evolve. The

choice to evolve without much care

for how we categorise one another on

“

”

“‘ There we

were, at a

party-cum-

protest with

1.5 billion

others

flaunting flags

and banners,

glitter and

unicorns.

Lena Waithe

at MET Gala,

2018