🏳️‍🌈 I Will Not Hide Who I Am

In a country that has taken a headlong dive into utter darkness, I've made a promise to myself that feels both utterly terrifying and absolutely necessary: I will not hide who I am.

The shadows of authoritarianism in the United States grow longer each day. I see it in the headlines, in policy proposals, in casual conversations that suddenly turn venomous. I hear the whispers suggesting that people like me should make themselves smaller, quieter, less visible. That, maybe for safety's sake, I should tuck away the parts of myself that might become targets.

I cannot and I will not.

There's something that happens when you start concealing who you are. Pieces begin to atrophy. The bright, vivid colors that make you unique start to fade. Your voice, once clear, once real, becomes a hesitant whisper or worse, it disappears altogether. In that silence, in that slow fade, those who would prefer a homogeneous world claim a victory.

I remember many stories from history in which those who lived through darker times had to decide how much of themselves to reveal and how much to conceal.

Some survived the necessary hiding. Others did not. The ones who made it through would undoubtedly wake in the night decades later, still feeling the phantom weight of their hidden selves.

I don't want to live like that. I refuse to.

I don't want to spend my days calculating risks, measuring words, modulating my existence to appease those who find my very being uncomfortable or threatening.

This isn't about heroics or martyrdom. It's about something much more fundamental—the right to exist fully and authentically in this world.

To love openly. To speak honestly. To create freely. To worship or not worship as I choose. To stand in my skin without apology.

Yes, there are risks. The knots in my stomach when I walk into certain spaces aren't imaginary. Concerns from choose family aren't entirely baseless. But there is also power in visibility, in community, in the simple, profound act of living truthfully.

I want to honor those who came before, who fought so that I could live more freely than they did. I want those who come after to know that even in difficult times, especially in difficult times, there were those who refused to disappear.

I will continue to fly my Pride flag. I will speak up in meetings and protests. I will write words that matter to me. I will pray in my way. I will love who I want to love without shame. I will be stubbornly, persistently myself.

Because in the end, fascism doesn't just want our silence or our compliance, it wants our souls. And that is the one thing I am absolutely unwilling to surrender.