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Happy Pride Month! My favorite parts about celebrating this month are the stories shared from LGBTQ+ folks, their loved ones, and organizations looking to show support. At WordPress.com, we strive to be a platform that democratizes publishing so that anyone can share their stories regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world. This month is a great reminder for why we work hard to expand the open web.

For me, democratizing publishing means more than just my ability to publish my own story. It’s about being able to share, but also being able to receive. As I celebrate Pride Month as a young, queer person, I think back to early online communities on which I found other LGBTQ+ people and how much I resonated with their stories. I feel lucky to be able to share my own story, but there are many LGBTQ+ folks who can’t.

To this end, we wanted to provide resources, inspire, and highlight organizations to support as you celebrate Pride Month in your own way, whether that’s seeking out stories or writing your own.

Resources

The LGBTQ+ community is vast — I’m part of it, but I’m still learning new things daily. Whether you identify as LGBTQ+ or not, make sure you properly represent the community at large when you share your story with the help of these resources:  

• It Gets Better Project’s Glossary
• The Trevor Project’s Glossary
• ILGA Europe’s Glossary

We know how important it is to find an image that perfectly fits your writing and, since stock-image libraries have historically struggled to represent all experiences, we wanted to share some free image options to ease your search this month:

• The Gender Spectrum Collection from Vice
• Pexels’ Pride Images
• Pexels’ LGBT Images

Have any resources to recommend? Please share them in the comments below! Part of our company creed is to never stop learning, and I’d love to learn what resources you all have found useful.

Tip: Use the #celebratingpride tag to connect with other folks sharing their stories. Here’s more information about using tags.

Inspiration from WordPress.com Bloggers

If you want to write but are feeling stuck trying to find the words, take some inspiration this month from these writers with strong voices and varied perspectives:

• CN Lester, the author of Trans Like Me, shares their experience at A Gentleman and a Scholar.
• Sam Dylan Finch explores queen/trans identity, mental health, and self-care on his personal blog, Let’s Queer Things Up!
• Blogger and memoirist Lori Duron shares her parenting journey of raising a gender–creative child at Raising My Rainbow.
• Marlo Mack writes about her experience as a single mom of a transgender daughter at Gendermom.

Tip: Make sure to follow these sites so you don’t miss any future posts.

Organizations to Support from Around the World

In partnership with Out in Tech, volunteers, including some of my awesome colleagues, have worked together over the last few years to create websites for LGBTQ+ organizations around the world. As you look to find organizations to support, remember to think globally, especially considering there are still 73 nations with laws against being LGBTQ+. We hope this list gives you a great place to start:

• Roopbaan (Bangladesh)
• Samabhabona (India)
• Almas Cautivas (Mexico)
• TransWave Jamaica (Jamaica)
• TweetIndia (India)
• Hombres Trans Panamá (Panamá)
• Russian LGBT Network (Russia)
• Diversidad Dominicana (Dominican Republic & Carribean)
• SAIL: Stop Aids in Liberia (Liberia)
• African Queer Youth Initiative (Across Africa)
• Rainbow Egypt (Egypt)
• Rasan (Iraq)
• The Rustin Fund (USA)

Happy WordPress-ing. Happy Pride.

For those of you sharing your own stories of being LGBTQ+ in this world, thank you for your bravery and vulnerability.

For those of you who can’t share your story, please know that it gets better and that you aren’t alone this month.

For those of you seeking out other people’s stories, thank you for being supportive, being open, and seeking to expand your perspective.