Beyond the rainbow: Pride, therapy and support all year round

Every June, the world becomes more colourful. Pride flags appear in windows, companies release their annual rainbow logos, and there’s a buzz of visibility and celebration. And while it’s heartening to see queer and trans lives acknowledged, as a queer therapist and member of this community, I often sit with a deeper truth in my client work: for many LGBTQIA+ people, visibility isn’t the same as safety – and Pride isn’t just a party. 

It’s survival. It’s a protest. 

And most of all, it’s a reminder that acceptance and self-worth must last far beyond one month a year.

Wearing the mask: Fitting in vs belonging

So often in my therapy room, I hear stories of people who have spent years, sometimes decades, trying to fit in. They’ve become experts at reading the room, hiding certain parts of themselves, adjusting their voice, behaviour, or appearance to feel more acceptable. Sometimes, it’s not even conscious. It’s just what was needed to get through school, to keep family peace, to survive a workplace, a relationship, a society that made them feel “too much” or “not enough.”

These are intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful people. People who have had to contort themselves into versions they hoped would be loved, accepted, or – at the very least – left alone.

But fitting in comes at a cost. It requires us to leave parts of ourselves at the door. And over time, this repeated self-abandonment can lead to anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders, disconnection from the body, low self-worth, and a deep sense of loneliness. 

What we actually need isn’t to fit in. It’s to belong. True belonging doesn’t ask us to shrink or adapt. It allows us to show up fully, messily, humanly – as we are. Therapy can be one of the first places where that kind of belonging is possible.

A space to be fully seen

Sometimes the mask starts to loosen in therapy – not all at once, but gradually. There can be grief in that loosening: grief for all the times it wasn’t safe to be fully seen. For the moments of rejection – being judged for who you loved, how you identified, or the pronouns that felt right for you.

There might also be a quiet rediscovery. Of joy, of desire, of softness that’s been buried under years of hypervigilance. A part of you that wants more than to just get by.

The psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott wrote:

That tension runs deep for many LGBTQIA+ people – the instinct to protect what feels vulnerable or precious, and the ache of not being fully seen or known. Hiding might have once been necessary for survival. But over time, the cost of not being found – of not being met in your fullness – can feel like its own kind of wound.

The pain can come from many places – feeling alienated in a religious community, pushed away by family, or invisible in groups where cis-het norms dominate. Even when everything looks “fine” on the outside – when the job is going well, when you're the one others turn to for support – there can still be a heavy undercurrent of doubt, exhaustion, or shame.

Beneath it all, there’s often a deep yearning. Not just to survive, but to thrive. To live with more ease. To feel at home in your body. To connect with others without having to dilute who you are.

And maybe, most importantly, to finally believe that you are enough. That you are worthy of love, of rest, of belonging, just as you are. 

Being found is not something to fear. It is something you deserve.

Internalised shame and the long journey to self-worth

Many LGBTQIA+ people grow up without mirrors – without seeing themselves reflected in ways that feel safe, powerful, or whole. The impact of this invisibility runs deep. Even in adulthood, the echoes of early invalidation can show up in the form of chronic self-criticism, perfectionism, and relationship patterns built around people-pleasing or withdrawal.

Therapy can offer a space to name this shame. Not to pathologise it, but to understand it as a natural response to unnatural conditions. And slowly, through compassion, curiosity, and co-regulation, we can start to loosen its grip.

Part of my own healing – and what I invite clients into – is reclaiming the fullness of our queer or trans identities. Not just the trauma, but the resilience. The creativity. The sensuality. The joy. The fierce humour and depth of connection that can grow when we stop hiding and start belonging.

Why Pride is more than a month

It’s important to remember that Pride began as an act of resistance. The first Pride marches commemorated the Stonewall uprising – a rebellion led by trans women of colour, sex workers, and working-class queer people. And the fight continues today.

Pride was never meant to be a marketing campaign or a single day or month of visibility; it was – and remains – a call for justice, dignity, and the right to exist without fear. It is a refusal to be erased. A fight for rights that are still under threat, particularly for trans people, people of colour, and others living at the intersections of multiple oppressions.

Yet Pride is also about joy. Joy, not as escapism, but as a radical act of survival. It’s about connection and celebration. These are not luxuries – they are essential to well-being. For many LGBTQIA+ people, community spaces, chosen families, and cultural traditions are lifelines. They offer belonging where there was once exclusion.

That’s why we must move beyond the idea of Pride as a month-long event. LGBTQIA+ people don’t stop needing safety, support, or affirmation in July. The work of self-acceptance doesn’t follow a calendar. And allyship is not a seasonal accessory - it’s a daily commitment.

Keeping the spirit of Pride alive

As therapists, allies, and members of this community, we need to remember to honour Pride all year long. 

Keeping the spirit of Pride alive means:

• Creating spaces – whether in therapy, schools, families, or communities – where people can bring their whole selves.
• Offering therapy that is actively affirming, culturally humble, and intersectional.
• Recognising that healing is not linear, and belonging is a process.
• Staying curious about our own biases and privileges, including within the LGBTQIA+ community itself.
• Uplifting the most marginalised among us – not just with words, but with action.

And for those of us who are LGBTQIA+ ourselves, it means remembering that we are already enough. Our worth isn’t conditional on productivity, assimilation, or approval. It is inherent.

In the end, it comes back to this…

Acceptance is not a goal – it’s a practice. A practice of choosing compassion over judgment, authenticity over hiding, connection over shame. And that practice deserves to be nourished every day of the year.

If you take one thing from this, let it be this: there is nothing wrong with you. The problem was never your queerness, your transness, your way of loving, living, or being. The problem was and is the world’s inability to hold you. 

And the journey – whether in therapy, community, or quiet self-reflection – is about returning to the truth that you are enough. You are worthy. You belong.

Not just in June. But every single day.