What Real Pride Looks Like

Sobriety, Self-Acceptance, and Saying No to The Fantasy

I know what it feels like to be in the grip of a compulsion. Today’s the day I pick up my 9-year medallion in Alcoholics Anonymous. But I didn’t just walk into a meeting one day and never look back. I got sober the first time in 2010. I stayed sober until August of 2014—and then I struggled. Four relapses over the next two years. Four brutal reminders that even when the physical addiction fades, the mental obsession can come roaring back without warning.

I remember how fast it hit me. I could go months doing “fine,” thinking I had it under control. Then something would trigger me—a stressor, a disappointment, even a random Tuesday—and it was like a switch flipped in my brain. I didn’t want a drink. I needed it. It felt like life or death. Even knowing exactly where that first sip would lead wasn’t enough to stop the compulsion in the moment.

#SoberPride (Image by Grok)

In AA, we learn that alcohol isn’t really the problem. It’s our solution—a bad one. A way to numb out life when we don’t know how to live with ourselves. But the more you use it, the worse your life gets. And still, that voice in your head keeps whispering that the answer is another drink.

That’s what I see when I hear people talk about gender dysphoria. Especially when they describe that desperate, all-consuming feeling—that if they could just change their body, or change their pronouns, or be seen differently, they would finally be okay. It sounds so familiar. That kind of thinking doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from pain. And like alcohol, transition becomes a solution that stops working. But by then, you’re deeper in the hole. Your body’s changed, your social world has shifted, and you’re still hurting. Maybe even more than before.

For me, recovery didn’t begin with feeling better. It began with not acting on the feeling. The only way out of the obsession was to stop drinking—and keep not drinking—long enough for the fog to lift. That took time. It took honesty. It took other people who had walked the path ahead of me, who told me the truth even when I didn’t want to hear it.

What these kids need isn’t a new identity or a prescription pad. They need space. They need time. They need someone to say, “I see your pain, and I’m not going to lie to you. This won’t fix it. But you’re not alone.”

Because healing doesn’t come from chasing the compulsion. It comes from walking through the fire and realizing you didn’t die. That’s what AA gave me. That’s what I want for these kids. Not a new body. Not a fantasy. Just the chance to grow into who they really are—without being sold a lie.

What Real Pride Looks Like

Protesting at ENDO 2024

Last June, I saw members of the LGB Courage Coalition standing outside the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, holding signs and handing out flyers. And something inside me lit up. It felt like the most real Pride event I’d seen since the days of ACT UP and the AIDS crisis. No corporate floats. No glitter-soaked compliance. Just truth-telling and courage. I didn’t even know yet that there was talk of the LGB splitting from the T. But I knew these people were doing something tangible—something that mattered. And I wanted to be part of it.

Because let’s be honest: “Pride” today has been hijacked. It’s been commercialized, politicized, and queered into meaninglessness. Trans has become the craze, and anyone who questions it—especially gays and lesbians—is treated like an enemy of the community we helped build. I’ve lost count of how many lesbians have told me they don’t even feel welcome at Pride anymore. I’ve felt it too.

But real pride? Real pride isn’t a costume. It’s not a marketing campaign. It’s not a corporate slogan slapped on a rainbow for the month of June. Real pride is what happens when you face the truth of your life—your pain, your past, your difference—and you keep going anyway. When you stop running. When you stop pretending. When you learn to live, fully and honestly, in the body and mind you have.

As a lesbian, I know what it means to stand against a culture that tries to erase you. As someone in long-term recovery, I know the difference between relief and healing. And as someone watching this movement try to rewrite biology and medicalize distress, I know we are handing these kids a lie and calling it “affirmation.”

But pride should never be about pleasing others or fitting in. It should be about becoming real. Pride is what you build in the ashes—after the compulsion fades, after the fantasy dies, after you find yourself still standing.

Coda: The End of a Toxic Relationship

Back in the old days, when being out could get you fired, arrested, or worse, the gay bar was more than just a place to drink—it was a lifeline. It was where you found your people, where you danced and flirted and existed without apology. So it made a certain kind of sense that alcohol companies were among the first major brands to sponsor Pride. For a long time, bars were the only safe gathering place we had.

But times have changed. Today, most people meet online. Community looks different. And with that shift, maybe it’s time we reassess who our “allies” really are. Companies like Smirnoff and Anheuser-Busch have started backing away from Pride sponsorships, and while some are crying betrayal, I think there’s a deeper truth here worth facing.

We have some of the highest rates of drug and alcohol abuse in the entire population. That’s not just a stereotype—it’s a reality. And maybe, just maybe, the end of this long, boozy sponsorship era isn’t a loss—it’s a step toward sobriety. Toward clarity. Toward a Pride that doesn’t depend on numbing out or getting wasted to feel connected.

I saw that clarity on X in the tweet outside the Endocrine Society last June. I see it in every young gay person who resists the pressure to conform to gender ideology. And I see it in the sober folks who’ve made it out the other side of pain without needing a drink or a new identity to do it.

If St. Louis Pride has to charge ten dollars now, maybe that’s not the tragedy we think it is. Maybe it’s just the price of something more honest. More grounded. More real.

And real pride? That’s something worth paying for!