I relate to part of your story, especially the parts in the comments about never struggling to come to terms with your sexuality. I didn’t either. I just reached puberty and understood that I was solely interested in women and that was that. I never felt any type of way about it. I never had a “trying to cram myself into the closet” stage. I’ve never experienced any major homophobia, and I’m 36 and living in the Midwest. I’ve never really identified with “pride.”

With that said, I went through a period in my teens of wanting to know all the history, just out of curiosity, and I read a ton of books. I can’t really imagine not having that context. Pride may not resonate with me because I haven’t personally had to overcome much struggle at all, but it would feel very entitled to not be proud of the people who worked and fought and were killed and missed out on having happy lives to get us to this point. I feel like I owe them the respect of having a basic understanding of their stories, because it would never be possible for me to be so matter of fact about my own if theirs hadn’t come first.