Excuse My BEAUTY!
Happy Pride Month you homo…sapiens! Ayyyee. But for real, I hope you are all out there being your best Queer selves, remembering our foremothers, who on that June night at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, exhausted and fed up with police harassment, they threw hands, literally and figuratively. Their hands, bricks, and later their words are the foundation for the Pride event we celebrate today.
Ahé’héé’ nitsáago
asdzaan nabahe / enby / gnc
warriors in heels and dresses
lacquered nails on fingers clasped around mega phones
bricks
Sylvia Rivera
Marsha P. Johnson
And many, many more (yet) unnamed
queens, drag queens and kings
holding the frontline (not by choice), aunties, tired, angry,
(to become elders)
Ahé’héé’ warrior asdzaan
Remember the first Pride event was active resistance to police violence
Say that again: Pride’s history is founded in active resistance to violence
We make our spaces safe for us with bricks, fire, words, love, tears, sweat,
Minds, art, music, literature, songs, poetry
But before Stonewall Inn, before bricks and fists, and nails were broken on Christopher Street, before Mattachine or STAR or GLF, prior to ACT UP and the Die-Ins
Before Laramee’s dream brought us Two-Spirit, before Cuthand’s Indigiqueers
Hastiin Klah lived on Dinétah
identified as naadleeh
changing
changing one
always changing
morphing
like water
like a pendulum (never in the same spot for long)
queering and changing all that they touched
Providing context for future nadleeh
so we can witness the magic of Stephanie Yellowhair who’s like me
and my effeminate cousin, and my uncle on my dad’s side and many many k’é’
like shí
I hope you liked and enjoyed this Pride-inspired poem, Happy Pride! Have a blast however you chose to celebrate Queer resistance, history, and joy!
Don’t forget Diné Pride, Saturday June 29th in Tségháhoodzání (Window Rock, Arizona!
There’s so much about 2SLGBTQIA+ history available online and beyond, here’s a few links to resources for your reading enjoyment:
The Library of Congress made a beautiful online guide to the Stonewall Uprising, as well as pre-Stonewall Gay Rights groups, including a digital archive of early Lesbian publication The Ladder! Enjoy this foundational Queer masterpiece Stone Butch Blues!
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