I remember the first time I felt proud of being gay. I was younger and living with my brother in downtown Buenos Aires. I was single at the time, so I had many lovers.
This one time, one of them came over because my brother was out for the weekend. He was older, beefy, silver haired, a total fox.
At the time I was struggling trying to find myself so, of course I was all over the place, a hot mess. But, apparently, he found this very amusing or so it seemed, or perhaps I was just young and very willing and this was convenient.
So this one time, right after sex he asked me weather I was going to Pride that year and I categorically said I wasn’t. “It doesn’t exactly represent me”- I uttered, to which he stood up with this “I’m not amused any longer” look on his face, mind you, a naked 1.91m silver viking towering over me. It was kinda scary, I thought he might just snap at me, I’ve heard it happened to others.

All of the sudden his expression changed again, it went back to the warm gaze I loved. And he just said “do you know the amount of privilege you’re riding on, that you’re saying ‘the struggle of the people who facilitated the freedom you have right now doesn’t represent you’ and are oblivious to the fact that the fight they fought directly affects your daily well being?
I was naked, freshly fucked, extremely vulnerable; and his tone, his patience, and generosity of character never made feel threatened, but nurtured, and correctly schooled.
From that time on, not only I never missed another Pride, I effectively learned to distinguish between situations when you need to be defensive and those when kindly educating is the best way to go.