Two Sides of Pride: A Plus Site Videos Shine a Light on LGBT Diversity

How was your Pride? Late last month, A Plus website posted a video series that encouraged LGBTQ participants to share what being part of the community means to them. We thought you should see it, too.

It’s the second year that senior editor Joel Lyons has put together some of the most thoughtful and compelling discussions we’ve seen on the various topics that impact our community. The video project began last year when A Plus brought together people from different ends of the age spectrum to offer their views of what LGBTQ life looks like from their vantage points.

Under the broad umbrella of “There’s No One Way to Be Gay,” Lyons and his team managed to illustrate just how disparate a group we are, at times implicitly asking if we have more in common than sexual orientation and being discriminated against for the same reason.

Rather than seeing our differences as an exclusionary, the A Plus discussions often reveal an empathy that only LGBTQs can have for one another. As Lyons recently wrote, “the annual, month-long celebration recognizes the impact lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people have had on society, both as a whole and as individuals.”

Here’s his introduction to the videos, and the conversations that followed appear below his remarks:

“Last year, A Plus celebrated Pride Month by looking at the LGBTQ+ experience from a variety of perspectives. Whether it was listening to the coming out experiences of LGBTQ+ millennials and seniors, or learning more about initiatives to make transgender people feel comfortable at salons and barbershops, no topic was off limits — which fit our ‘There’s No One Way to Be Gay’ theme perfectly.

“In fact, we loved the idea of ‘There’s No One Way to Be Gay’ so much that we decided to approach our stories this year with the same vision. We continued to explore how other identities intersect with being LGBTQ+ to show that there’s not one way each person within this community experiences their lives. And we worked with some great organizations to tell these stories, including: Grindr — the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people — and INTO, Grindr’s digital lifestyle magazine; and Apicha Community Health Center, which provides affordable health care for underserved and vulnerable people living in the New York City boroughs and on the lower east side of Manhattan.

“This is the complete series of videos you’ll see on A Plus this Pride Month,” Lyons concludes, “which explored various topics through in-depth discussions with the people who have experienced them. Check out our other clips about representation in Hollywood and health care.