How to Be the Queer You Needed: 77 Tiny, Mighty Acts of Pride

Your Pride to-do list just got way more interesting

Kelli Dunham

Published: June 9, 2025 | Last Updated: June 9, 2025

Pride is a muscle boy covered float that used to be sponsored by a vodka brand (we see you, fair-weather friends). A dozen dancing drag queens. A glittery dancefloor meltdown.

But Pride is also protest. And joy. And grief. And healing.

And very good outfits.

It’s also a chance to do something (or even anything) that makes the world a little better, queerer and more yours. Not everything on this list is suitable for everyone, but hopefully, some of it will appeal to you. Pick a few. Start there. Share it with your ex. Share it with your future ex.

From pocket-sized gestures to community-changing moves, here are 77 things you can do to make 2025 your queerest year yet.

Support a queer person involved in a cause that bores you.
Wear obnoxiously queer socks to work. You define “queer socks,” of course, but something in the argyle family is a good start.
Offer to be someone’s plus one for a difficult event, like an extremely boring theme wedding, family reunion or a gender reveal you can’t sabotage.
If you can safely (and appropriately) do so, make up with an ex. They don't have to be your best friend, but the community is really small, isn't it?
Write the next gay anthem.
Or go to karaoke and sing the last great gay anthem. Bonus points for power ballads.
If you’re partnered, ask yourself: Are we just a couple, or are we actively part of a community?
Invite your single friends on vacation.
Join an LGBTQ+ sports club. Or maybe start one. The queers have been holding out on pickleball, and we'd probably dominate.
Smile at the local drag queen who really gets on your nerves. Performing outdoors in full makeup is not for the faint of heart, and she is probably extremely dehydrated.

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If a local church calls itself "open and affirming," give them an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment. Start with a request to produce a drag show in their sanctuary; negotiate down to free space for a community potluck.
Help someone come out to their family. Consensually, of course.
If you feel like laughing, laugh.
If you feel like crying, cry.
Actively address your own racism, ableism, biphobia and transphobia. There's nothing more queer than genuine intersectionality.
Start an LGBTQ+ employee resource group at your workplace. Or whatever ERGs are called these days. If your office already has a bowling league and a fantasy football draft, they can handle pronouns.
Commit to buying all your birthday gifts for the next year from an online LGBTQ+ book shop or from LGBTQ+ Etsy creators or whatever portal is currently not problematic. Or, um, less problematic.
If you have occasion to interact with the grief and death world (e.g., hospice, funeral homes) in your professional life, remind them of the important contributions to grief literature that came out of the early years of the AIDS crisis. Refer them to books by Mark Doty and Paul Monette.
Actively cultivate hopefulness.
If you want to actively cultivate hopefulness but don't know how to start, read Sarah Schulman's book “Let The Record Show: A History of ACT UP.” The losses in the early years of the AIDS epidemic were unfathomable. Remember, our direct action led to substantial and life-saving policy changes.
Let that really sink in. There are people alive today that are only alive because our queer and trans forefathers and foremothers and forepersons demonstrated and met with their elected officials and participated in endless tedious meetings with other queer and trans people who were probably annoying.
If you need it and have access, consider going back to therapy.
Sure you don't need it? Double check with someone who loves you — maybe your second-worst ex?
Consider going to therapy to save any relationship that matters to you. With a partner, a best friend, a sibling, a softball team...
Forgive Baby Queer You for all the bad relationship choices you made in your 20s. You're doing better now! If you're not doing better now, see No. 22.
Support a new Pride event in a smaller city than yours.
Start a new Pride event in a city smaller than yours.
Start a new Pride event in your hometown. Baby Queer You would really be impressed, right?
Bring extra servings to the potluck. Someone always forgets.
Label all the ingredients at the dish you bring to the potluck.
Bring extra 3-by-5 cards for other people to label all the ingredients for the dish they bring to the potluck. Someone always forgets.
Host a Pride craft night. Bedazzle like you mean it.
Download the 5 Calls app and make the five calls. Or at least one.
If your circumstances permit, consider trade school. The world could benefit from more queer plumbers, and queers could benefit from more union jobs.
Bring extra sunscreen or water to an outdoor Pride event.
Go with a friend to their long-overdue pelvic exam.
Go to your own long-overdue pelvic exam. Ask a friend to come with you.
Learn about Pride subculture flags you don’t identify with.
Volunteer with MiGen or another group serving LGBTQ+ elders.
Ask an older LGBTQ+ person about their coming out story.

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Re-read a queer classic. Rewrite the tragic ending.
Embrace harm reduction: Carry Narcan and test kits.
Start a worm composting colony in honor of lesbian icon Mary Applehof, aka the worm woman from Kalamazoo.
Self-publish a book about something, anything in memory of Mary Applehof, who wrote “Worms Eat My Garbage.” Don't laugh, it sold a bazillion copies.
Start a queer storytelling night. Begin with a one-off and see what happens.
Take out your headphones and listen.
Ask a friend with a mobility-related disability how your local Pride event could be more accessible to them. Do what you can to make this happen.
Ask a friend with sensory needs how your local Pride event could be more accessible to them. Do what you can to make this happen.
Ask for help. Mutual aid means mutual.
Suggest LGBTQ+ books to your library.
Write a queer poem.
Write a queer song.
Make a queer zine.
Organize a queer zine fair.
Or a queer fiber arts fair.
Or a queer comedy festival. If it’s more than one night, it’s a festival.
Teach yourself to cook. Don't let them starve us out.
Organize a speed-friending event.
Be gentle with a queer person much younger or much older than you.
Repost queer art with <500 likes. They need you more than Beyoncé needs you.
Write a love letter to your 14-year-old queer self.

Text someone who’s struggling: “You don’t have to be OK, but you’re not alone.”
Read a queer book in a genre you don’t usually touch.
Watch “Go Fish” or “Watermelon Woman.”
Write a queer op-ed for your local paper.
Compliment a stranger’s very gay outfit. Be awkward together.
Write “You are valid” on 50 Post-it notes and leave them everywhere.
Host a trans clothing swap. Include binders, joy and snacks.
Help a teen get ready for prom, graduation or court.
Learn how to use encrypted messaging apps like Signal.
Say “I’m proud of you” more often. Mean it.
Offer child care so someone can attend Pride.
Attend your local school board meeting and say “queer” into the mic.
Vote in that school board election.
Introduce a younger queer person to "Closer to Fine." Maybe learn to play it on the guitar.
Tell someone younger than you, “I’m so glad you exist.”
Start a Pride gratitude list. One queer joy per day.