Hide under the umbrella with me

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searching for a memory

The above is a video shared by smrchildsadness on Twitter, showing a person participating in a pride parade exchanging a pride flag with a person standing on his (am using his pronoun based on the TikToks/Tweets of what happened) doorway who had a Portuguese flag. There are sounds of cheers and crying and the two people hug each other as they exchange the flags. The man at the doorway then waved kisses to the crowd within the pride parade.

The Tweet says: "NO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HE WAS WAVING THE PORTUGUESE FLAG BECAUSE HE DIDN'T HAVE A PRIDE FLAG AND THEY TRADED FLAGS AND HE'S SO EMOTIONAL TO GET HIS OWN PRIDE FLAG I'M EMOTIONALLY RUINED"

For context, apparently they were worried that maybe he's a nationalist because he was waving the Portuguese flag and some nationalists opposing the pride march were waving that flag. But upon interacting with him, it turns out he didn't have have a pride flag and he wanted to wave *a* flag in support of the pride march. So they had an exchange and now he has his own pride flag 😭🥹.

The image above is a Tweet by kunwara_ladkaa that says "I'm crying so much right now (Image taken by Manuel Fernando Araújo/Lusa)". The image shows the same man from the pride parade crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

The above image is a Tweet by dudz_zZzz that says "ainda não parei de pensar nele," which according to Google translate from Portuguese to English is "I still haven't stopped thinking about him." The image is a drawing of the person from the pride parade, crying as he hugs his new pride flag.

You normally think of spiritual experiences as happy but I felt sick in that moment deep in my chest because I knew I had to do it now. I’d been hiding too long. And you might read that moment differently than I did but to me that was my sign. And I was terrified the whole time but I did come out to my family that day. It was like pulling a thorn out. Painful but absolutely necessary.

Sometimes a sign from God is comforting and other times it’s Him telling you to do your homework. And that’s also a part of faith.

I’m not asking all of you to believe the same things I do. I don’t do that. Evangelizing isn’t one of my gifts or something I’m interested in. But I would ask you to make space for stories that don’t fit your idea of how being trans is supposed to work. Whether they involve religion or not.

The kind of church that shows up to pride every year not to protest but with rainbow “love thy neighbor” bracelets made by the youth and kids and t-shirts with pride flags that say “Jesus loves all.”

My church used my preferred name before my parents did, KNEW before my parents did, and not once have they messed it up. I go to church by myself because the person who brought me there was my equally queer girlfriend at the time. (I was raised southern Baptist with a lesbian pastor at a church so progressive they got kicked out of the conference for marrying gay couples).

Advocating for queer people especially YOUNG queer people who don’t have full control over their lives yet to pick between their identity and another part of their identity is genuinely one of the most hypocritical things I’ve come into contact with recently.

When I was a baby trans just figuring out that I was transgender and that God probably hated me for it according to my church, I prayed and prayed and prayed one night for hours begging God to show me the correct path forward and to give me a sign whether I could be forgiven or if I was broken and damaged and too sin-stained to be forgiven anymore.

After hours of sobbing and praying and begging I finally got into bed and, before I wiggled under the covers, something happened. The cup of water that I had on the shelf at the foot of my bed fell over, and splashed my feet with the water.

I prayed to God to show me if I was on the right path and he quite literally washed my feet. Seems like as good of a sign as anyone could get.

In reality I know I probably just kicked the wall the shelf was on and knocked the water myself. But, also...

Even if not I still wanted to let u know how much my partner n I loved the illustration! I also love your cave painting horses n the shapes in your art in general~ such good shapes!!☀️

thank you so much! i am so flattered that you enjoy my little animal drawings :-)