Pride Month 2025: Celebrating in the Midst of Chaos

by Gwendolyn Kiste

Bittersweet—that’s what I recently called this year’s Pride Month in a social media post. It’s difficult to celebrate when the world is falling apart around us. It’s difficult to celebrate when you know your neighbors want to see your rights dismantled. It’s difficult to celebrate when each and every day we’re waking up to news that’s worse than the morning before.

But here’s the thing I keep telling myself: it’s more important to celebrate now than ever. We need to use our voices and raise each other up. We need to remind each other—and ourselves—that our queerness is more than just our suffering. Our queerness is valid, and we deserve every moment of joy and celebration we can get.

And despite the terror of living every day here in America, there are truly some very good reasons to celebrate, too. This year marks an incredibly special anniversary for the LGBTQIA+ community in the United States. On June 26th, we will honor ten years of marriage equality in America. Yes, we’re all deeply afraid that particular right will be stripped from us, but growing up in small-town America, I couldn’t imagine we’d ever have marriage equality in this country for even a moment, so being able to commemorate a full decade of that right being protected is definitely worth celebrating.

What I want more than anything else is for future generations to not know the same fear that I did growing up queer. I want them to have families that embrace them without question. I want them to have schools and communities that respect them just as they are. And the only chance we ever have of achieving that goal is to keep going, putting one foot in front of the other.

Horror is uniquely suited to deal with the current times in which we’re living. As a genre, it’s visceral, it’s honest, and it’s unafraid. For queer writers, horror is the ultimate outlet to help us cope with how the world treats us, namely as the “Other.” It also gives us a chance to explore our identities and to reach out and connect with each other. In short, horror provides us a place to exist, to be exactly who we are.

For those readers and writers who aren’t part of the queer community, queer horror provides a window into the unique experiences of the LGBTQIA+ community and offers perhaps literature’s greatest gift: an opportunity for empathy. And what we need now more than ever is more kindness and more understanding.

If I have one regret in life, it’s not fully embracing who I am sooner. That means I won’t waste another moment. I love celebrating Pride Month because I love celebrating all of us. So don’t let the world steal your joy. Keep letting your pride shine through, this month and every other month of the year. And let’s celebrate all the amazing queer authors in the horror genre. Because there are so many of us, and we are truly powerful—and of course fabulous.

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Gwendolyn Kiste is the three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, Boneset & Feathers, Pretty Marys All in a Row, and The Haunting of Velkwood. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, CrimeReads, Titan Books, The Lineup, and The Dark. She’s a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Premios Kelvin, Ignotus, and Dragon Awards. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their excitable calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com