Pagan pride and decisions

Considering if I want to put in for pride or not this year. On one hand I’m the first to say that we can’t make change unless we work towards it. That said…

It gets tiring going year after year and witnessing so many troubling things. To begin, the site is not handicap friendly, many are rude towards those with invisible illnesses (have gotten shit for sitting on one of the very few benches because someone that NEEDS it might want to sit there. I fucking need it, and you don’t get to judge of I do or don’t.). The site was barely friendly previous years, but a recent site move means very little shade, often ninety degree days and three benches for all who might need a break.

That said, if I felt even remotely welcome, I would be more than willing to endure the pain and illness that would come from such a day. Sadly I rarely do.

Beyond the velvet and tie dye crowd who openly and rudely judge those not “witchy/pagany” enough for their tastes based on their attire, there’s the fact that the entire even locally is purely neowiccan based. There is a huge focus on nature worship being the one right way to be a pagan – which was thrown in my face when I once spoke to someone about the lack of shade and seating (I was told there was grass anyone could sit on which would help me to ground and center myself as well. Didn’t I know about grounding and centering if I was actually pagan? By a volunteer, no less.) All ceremonies and events have neowiccan circle casting and calling of the quarters, as well as being heterocentric, Lord and Lady, MMC in all they say and do.

Yes, I’ve tried talking to them about this. At best I was assured they were doing their best to target the majority of the people in attendance and, well, they couldn’t make everyone happy, could they? Another made a slight along the lines of: We can’t make it suit everyone. Would you want us calling on Lucifer too? Down to being told that as a pagan I should be able to adjust to any situation, just ask the goddess to see me through it.

I’m just not sure anymore it’s worth giving up the time and the trouble of a weekend schedule change to feel like an outcast because my practices have no wiccan flavouring in the least. (Not to mention being told by someone there that worshiping Hera meant I was a man hater and did I think that did anything for balance?)

Yes, I know pagan’s have their own opinions, their own views, and one asshat slighting Hera does not the entire festival make but after four years of this I’m tired. It’s exhausting, mentally and physically, to go and enduring all of this.

Yet I know that I can not make change if I do nothing. Even if only one person listens then I’ve maybe started the path to change, to acceptance, to actually being opening and welcoming rather than enforcing a strict binary, heteronormative path that judges those who revere other than nature.

Blah being a responsible pagan activist is tiring.