When the Flags Waved,
I Found Myself:
A Story of Pride
and Migration
Me, a Migrant
Among the Flags of Color
This is a true story.
This is my story.
I am a migrant.
With a body that carries the scars of violence against women and a soul that has survived the storm of inequality, I arrived in this land.
The day I stepped into this country, the city was drenched in color.
Girls and boys — people — wrapped in rainbow flags, dancing in the streets under lights of joy and freedom.
Not just black and white anymore, but every shade I’d only dared to dream of.
Flags with a word I had heard before, but never truly felt:
Pride Month.
I wasn’t unfamiliar with the LGBTQIA+ community.
But the weight of violence and discrimination I had faced as a woman in my home country had left little space in my heart to realize that others, too, were victims of deep injustice — in different, yet equally painful ways.
And there, something shifted in me.
I realized that life is beautiful because of its many shades,
and this world becomes more human when it embraces the diversity of its people — in thought, in gender, in soul.
For years, my own voice and identity as a woman had been silenced. Not just by society, but by the fear I had learned to carry.
And now, standing among those flags and those free, smiling faces, I learned:
The world can be better — if we allow it to be.
Pride Month was not just a celebration for me.
It became a turning point — a gentle, powerful invitation to believe:
That every person deserves to be who they are.
That no one should be mocked, excluded, or harmed for simply being themselves.
And that fighting for identity and dignity is not just the task of queer communities — it is a human responsibility we all share.
Even in this free country, subtle and quiet forms of violence still exist — especially against those who don’t fit the norms.
And many of us have friends around us who are still caught in this cycle of silence and harm.
It is up to each of us to break this cycle — in our words, in our families, in our communities.
I understood that just as Stonewall and its brave souls stood up in 1969,
today it is our turn — to create change in our minds, in our homes, and in the way we live.
Pride returns each year to remind us:
Life is too short to let our prejudices steal someone else’s chance to live freely.
The world can be more than our limited beliefs.
And we — we can be part of building that better world.
M. S. , Project Manager of Antiracism Office / Equal Oppurtunities Project
