It's summer 2021. My family is still living in Prague and it’s my baby’s first Pride festival. He's 10 months old, wearing a green t-shirt with a rainbow on the front and the slogan ‘Always Be Kind’, and we’ve adorned his buggy with Pride flags.

The festival is held on one of the grassy islands on the Vltava River. It’s a gentle, heartwarming, needless to say, glittering scene. We set out our picnic blanket in a quietish spot and I watch parents hand-in-hand with their teenage kids, Pride flags draped around their shoulders dancing along with the drag queen on stage.

Eventually our baby takes a nap lying loose-limbed on the grass, the dulcet beats of Donna Summer and Kylie lulling him off. Sure, haven't we all needed a little disco nap during Pride occasionally?

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But no sooner is he asleep then he’s woken up by a loudspeaker coming from the river. We sit up and see two middle-aged, bearded, portly men who have hired an actual pedalo to come and chant Bible verses at the crowd.

It’s hard to convey the hilarity of the spectacle but I invite you to imagine two sweaty, zealous men on a mission, one furiously pedalling the bright yellow little yoghurt pot of a boat while the other stands shakily and wobbles his way through his hell and brimstone address.

I am outraged, mother or not, and I'm ready to swim into the Vltava myself, pull them out of their pathetic little war craft and see if they'll say those things to my face. But when I look around, a crowd has gathered and everyone is…laughing. A few people are even singing and dancing at them. Nobody is threatened by their homophobia because at least for that day, they're vastly, vastly outnumbered.

Plus, we have a DJ and several beer tents.

You might wonder why I was so invested. It’s because I’m queer. Yes, I'm married to a man. I'm in a monogamous heterosexual relationship and I'm still here, queer and very proudly out.

The Herald: A Pride marchA Pride march (Image: .)

Every time I try to explain this to people, even those in the LGBTQI+ community. I often have to go into fairly specific details about who I have had sex with and for how long.

For the benefit of readers here, I'll say that I had a 10-year relationship with a woman and then dated, quite frankly, a lot of men and a lot of women until I met my husband and fell in love. And that as they say was that.

But your sexual orientation doesn’t change just because you happen to end up with a male partner or mine doesn’t anyway. So I go to Pride and I try to be visibly bisexual, even though it would be very easy for me to pretend to be heteronormative and enjoy the relative ease of that existence.

I will always go to Pride. I will always be visibly bisexual. I will always calmly and patiently(ish) explain my situation to those who are curious in good faith. Perhaps this is unnecessary? Who cares about those things anymore? But I can tell you in many places people care about them very much.

Scotland Stonewall recently reported that, ‘One in five LGBT people (20 per cent) have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months.’ Globally, homosexuality is illegal in sixty-four countries.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, we’re on holiday and where I’d hoped to attend Pride, it will once again not have a physical even due to violent attacks on attendees in 2021 which included the stabbing of a Polish tourist, Jacek Kolankiewicz and injuring 53 journalists reporting live from the march.

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I absolutely understand, especially when our community is still facing danger and prejudice worldwide and, indeed, on our doorstep, the frustration with the mainstream, commercial nature of Pride month.

Everything from toothpaste companies, to tire fitters, to your nana’s knitting group don the rainbows for one month only. Corporations who have never particularly been invested in inclusivity and diversity, get busy ‘rainbow washing’ their marketing for the month of June and then wash their hands of any real responsibility or systemic change for the rest of the year. It’s true too, that pride is now a party rather than the protest it once was, to mark the Stonewall Uprising, a community finding safety in numbers and in each other’s solidarity for one joyful day.

But I also see progress. The reason it’s possible for it to be a party is because the chance of violence, though always present, is not the same as it is in a country like Georgia, Russia, Turkey or many others where even some dancing and a DJ can be met with untold violence. At least companies, however disingenuous, want to be seen to be inclusive now. Even if their long term policies and practices have a way to go.

I like to think things will be different for my little boy, whether he is gay, straight, bi or trans. I want to believe he’ll be able to celebrate whoever he wants to be without fear of violence or hate. In the meantime, I’m here, I'm queer, I'm proud and I'll be walking pride this year with my son and my husband in solidarity and celebration. I hope you'll be there too.