Representation Matters: Pride, Belonging, and the Everyday Visibility of Queer Lives

Me and my gf at Pride in Edmonton 2025

Attending Pride this year was more than just a joyful event; it was a moment of profound affirmation.

In Alberta, where LGBTQ2S+ rights and visibility are under heightened attack under Premier Danielle Smith’s government, gathering in community felt like both resistance and renewal.

As I stood among thousands of people (families, elders, youth, drag performers, allies) I felt the kind of collective energy that reminds us why Pride is not merely a celebration, but a lifeline.

Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by Karen E. Fields, Free Press, 1995.

Sociologically, public gatherings like Pride are more than symbolic displays of rainbow flags and floats.

They are living demonstrations of what Émile Durkheim once called collective effervescence: moments when individuals come together, transcending their private struggles to experience the strength of shared identity.

In times of political hostility, when policies and rhetoric attempt to isolate or marginalize queer communities, these collective moments carry extraordinary weight.

What struck me most was how ordinary it all felt, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Watching queer families dancing and singing, teenagers painting their faces with glitter, elders holding hands; these are not extraordinary spectacles. They are human, everyday expressions of care, joy, and belonging. Yet, in a province where queer and trans existence is increasingly painted as “controversial,” the very ordinariness of Pride was radical. It reminded me that we are not exceptions to society; we are integral to it.

And yet, outside of Pride, we don’t often get to feel that. Life pulls us back into work, bills, school runs, and the thousand distractions of the everyday. Unlike dominant groups, queer and trans people do not constantly encounter mirrors of ourselves in daily life. Walk into most stores, open most books, or turn on most televisions, and our presence is still disproportionately absent. Visibility remains uneven, and absence takes its toll.

This is why Pride matters. This is why representation in books, media, and public life matters. It is well known that visibility is not superficial. It directly shapes belonging. When children see queer characters in stories, when families encounter diverse bodies and relationships on television, when everyday products carry signals of inclusion, it normalizes our presence. It tells us that we are part of the social fabric. Representation combats stigma not by arguing for our humanity, but by simply assuming it.

For me, the memories of Pride have been serving as an anchor. In moments when the political climate feels suffocating, I flash back to those hours when joy was public, unapologetic, and shared. I remember that we are out there. We are many. We are strong. Most importantly, we are ordinary: part of the norm, part of the everyday, part of the story of Alberta and beyond rose country.

There is a deep paradox here. On the one hand, queer lives are under constant scrutiny, legislated against as though our very existence demands justification. On the other hand, queer lives are simply lives: filled with the mundane tasks, the ordinary loves, the small joys, the resilience required to survive. Both are true at once. Pride allows us to see this dual reality: to hold both the extraordinariness of resistance and the ordinariness of simply being.

This is why we must continue to build spaces, both physical and cultural, where queer people can see ourselves reflected. Pride cannot be our only annual gathering. We need our stories in classrooms, our voices in legislatures, our books on store shelves, our art in galleries, our images in advertising, and our families in everyday public life. Not because representation alone solves systemic inequity (it certainly doesn’t) but because invisibility isolates, and visibility connects.

I am often reminded that visibility is never neutral. Who appears in public, and under what conditions, is always a reflection of power. Pride interrupts the everyday power that says queer lives should remain hidden, private, or shameful. It says instead: we are here, we are many, and we deserve not just survival but celebration.

Leaving Pride this year, I carried with me more than just photographs and souvenirs. I carried a reminder that community is not an abstraction; it is alive, embodied, and accessible. Even in hostile times, especially in hostile times, we are still here. The danger is that in the rush of everyday life, we forget. We forget how many of us there are. We forget the strength that comes from gathering. We forget that joy is itself resistance.

So when the news cycle turns grim, when policies threaten to erase or silence, I return in memory to Pride. I picture the laughter, the music, the rainbow families, the elders who paved the way, the youth carving out new futures. I remind myself that we are part of the norm, that our presence is not negotiable, that we deserve not just a month but a lifetime of visibility. And I fly my queer flag proudly and queerify the world around me.

Representation matters. Gathering matters. Pride matters. Because in those moments of collective effervescence, we remember that queer lives are not margins to society. We are at its heart, and that truth cannot be legislated away!