Happy Pride!
Happy Pride Month!
Well... sort of.
To be honest, June never really feels like Pride Month to me because Winston-Salem and Greensboro both host their Prides in the late summer/fall. Their logic is simple: drag queens do not fare particularly well in 95-degree North Carolina heat.
No tea, no shade.
Kidding, but only kinda. I've actually been thinking a lot about Pride lately.
Even though I was raised in rural Rockingham County, I was fortunate enough to come out when I was 13 years old as gay. That sounds incredibly young to me now, but Lord did I think I was grown.
I've started thinking about my journey this way:
Reidsville made me a tough gay.
Boone made me feel gay.
Winston-Salem showed me my gay culture.
And Greensboro made me proud to be gay.
I think that's fitting.
People often think of Reidsville as the small-town, conservative place where you learn resilience. Boone is the hippie mountain town where you discover yourself. Winston-Salem is the artistic and cultural city. Greensboro carries a proud history of activism, civil rights, and community organizing. Each place gave me a different piece of myself and helped shape the person I am today.
So wherever and whenever you are celebrating, Happy Pride.
This past weekend I was back talking to voters on the doors.
On Saturday, I joined Representative Amanda Cook and a small but mighty team canvassing for our judicial candidates in High Point. On Sunday, I was in Alamance County knocking doors for Coach LeVon Barnes.
And I'll tell you this: people are paying attention. I talked with so many people about Duke Energy, data centers, and the Republican power plays in the legislature. I have never seen this type of engagement and nuanced conversations in all my years of knocking doors.
On Monday's I usually bartend at a brewery and even my regulars who never care about politics suddenly are paying attention. And I've never seen more folks paying with credit cards. Has to be a recession indicator. Times are not good.
There is a deep hunger for change and Democrats have to rise to the call. It's exciting, also worrisome, but makes me hopeful for the future.
And then Tuesday I was back to work in the legislature. I had some downtown so I made a TikTok of all the great bills our House Dems filed, but will likely never make it to the floor for a vote. Watch below!
As I talk with our SEC, I hear about organizers, volunteers, and party leaders we've lost. People who built this party and dedicated years of their lives to it. I've been involved in Democratic politics since I was 19 years old. It has given me friendships, mentors, opportunities, and a sense of purpose I could have never imagined.
Has it asked a lot of me? Absolutely. Sometimes too much. And we all need breaks from the politics.
But this party, like any community worth belonging to, only survives when people choose to keep showing up.
I'm thankful for the work you do.
Dylan
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