Community is the Heart of Pride
Posted by Website Director on Jun. 7, 2024 / Subscribe 0
Community is a very important aspect of our lives. I have found community at multiple times in my life. Starting in Maine when I was coming to terms with who I am, a fantastically queer and melanated person, I found community online. This was the early days of the internet, and queer spaces were not easily seen, especially not in rural Maine. Because of that, I sought community in people who create, with people who like to code websites, and people who like video games. Eventually, I found other queer bloggers with whom I maintained friendships with well into adulthood. Despite living where I did, I had a small queer community online, and it made me feel less alone and allowed me to see that there were other options available than what I saw around me. Last year I spoke about visibility, and it was those online friends who were living freely in various parts of the country, and sharing it online, that provided me hope that I too will be able to live a full life.
When I moved to Philadelphia for school, I knew there was a much larger network of queer people that I could tap into. It was one of the reasons I came here in the first place! It was a safe place for me for many, many years and I still love going back and seeing queer people living life out loud. However, the community is only as strong as the most vulnerable within it. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of dialogs around the art of drag and trans/non-binary individuals (two VERY separate conversations that are being grouped with the intention to confuse voters and enrage the public). Unfortunately, there are often a lot of misinformed individuals sharing their opinions, or as I call it, hate, either online or worse, in queer spaces that we’ve worked so hard to create.
No matter your race, creed, sexual preferences, or gender, when we distill everything down, we are way more alike than we are different. Members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community just want to live a full and authentic life like everyone else. And we all need to remember to uplift those who have a smaller voice within our communities. We need to look out for one another, no matter our differences, as we will always be stronger together. No matter what your community is, be it your local community, queer, of color, religious, or within professional groups like SMPS Philadelphia, we should all carry the same approach of looking out for the most vulnerable. So go out, be kind, be proud, and share joy and positivity unabashedly.
Steven Alvarez
Marketing Specialist, Stantec
Director of Chapter Relations, SMPS Philadelphia
Steven Alvarez is a Marketing Specialist at Stantec working remotely with the North Central Marketing Team. After 8 years of developing events and sales plans for for-profit and non-profit art spaces, he translated that experience into marketing roles within the AEC industry. In an effort to learn more about the industry and proposal processes, Steven has been attending SMPS Philadelphia events since 2016 and officially became a member via the DEI Membership Grant and joined the DEI Committee. Currently he serves as Director of Chapter Relations at SMPS Philadelphia and resides in South Jersey with his husband, Shamus, and their two rescue pups, Waldorf and Statler.
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