“Please report the video. I hate that your faces are on there with no consent. Getting everyone to report it.”

It’s 2023 and I’m at a bar on a first date. He’s in the bathroom when I get the text from my work wife; it’s accompanied by a Twitter link, posted by an account I’ve never heard of, Libs of TikTok, with the caption: “Elementary school in Vancouver held a pride parade today. Homeschool your kids!”

Even before playing the video, I recognize myself in the thumbnail. 

The video starts with me walking by shouting “Happy Pride!” followed by my students and several parents, waving, cheering. A few more clips of students walking by, smiling, waving rainbow flags, before it ends.

My date sits back down, and I show him the video, and proceed to chuckle about some of the comments. 

“Give me an S, Give me an I, Give me an N, SIN!”

“Those boys look “sissified” to me”

“It’s a free for all, next is orgy day”

And my personal favourite, the one that, to this day, I still lowkey want to get tattooed on my body: “Homeschool > homoschool”

Already the video has hundreds of thousands of views. I want to keep reading the comments, but don’t want to be that guy, so I put my phone away, and break the tension with a quip.

“How does it feel, knowing you’re on a date with a queer icon?”

The next day our staffroom is buzzin’. Coworkers tell me they’ve reported the video, my principal checks in to see if I’m okay. The video quickly balloons to 1.4 million views. In the comments, someone posted a screenshot of me from the video, wearing a rainbow cape and shiny cowboy hat, with the caption “Found the groomer!”

Another person comments on my picture, “He’s just a flat-out molester. He doesn’t even bother with grooming.”

My friend at the union reaches out, says there’s a lawyer on staff if I’m interested in trying to have the video taken down. We all report it, but all that does is hide the video on our accounts.

Repeatedly, I say I’m okay. That we’re celebrating Pride for the kids who don’t know they’re queer, or don’t feel comfortable being open about it yet, and if it makes things easier for even one of them, then it’s worth it. 

But writing this story and revisiting that video in 2026—thankfully stalled at paltry 1.7 million views—my whole body still burns.

I scour the video’s comments section for the funniest pull quotes, trying to discern what’s awful in the entertaining-let-me-read-this-out-loud-to-strangers way and what’s awful in the oh-boy-I’ll-probably-have-to-talk-about-this-in-therapy way. The margin between them is narrower than you think.

I was bullied and called gay before I even knew what that word meant, but I knew that I was supposed to vehemently deny being it.

In sixth grade, I received a friend request online from the email account “jjisgay99@hotmail.com,” one of those memories that’s hilarious now, but at the time, felt like someone had ripped the uvula from the back of my throat.

I’d stay in the closet for almost two decades longer, dating women, participating in casual misogyny. Talking about which actresses I thought were “hot,” but really, I probably just thought they had a nice smile. 

It wasn’t until 2020, when, after having my first session of therapy, I knew I was ready to start living authentically. The next day, my 30th birthday, I came out to the majority of my close friends at a socially-distanced pie-themed hang in the park, scrawling “I’M GAY” on the inside of a pie box—the pie was peach-cardamom, obviously.

The atmosphere was one of compounding disasters: sitting on blankets six-feet apart, unknowingly about to embark on the second wave of the pandemic. The sky was muggy and thick with forest fire smoke and a recent looper moth infestation surrounded us with thousands of fluttering bugs.

It was one of the best days of my life. 

After coming out during lockdown, I struggled with how to relate to the queer community I suddenly found myself identifying with: my main connections being gay meme accounts on Instagram and a parade of COVID-safe dates that always ended back at my apartment. Dr. Bonnie Henry would certainly agree our activities involved a curve, though none flattened.

One first date, after a guy spent most of the night talking about how much he wanted a boyfriend, we ended back at my apartment, carnally making out on the couch, before he climbed on top of me, squeezed my cheeks together, and hawk-tuahed a single oblong strand of saliva slowly into my mouth. “Sir, we are in a pandemic here, you can’t just spit in people’s mouths, especially without asking first.” We still had sex, of course.

Fucking this rogues’ gallery of strangers felt necessary at the time. Fleeting connections to the gay community, sharing coming-out-stories with cum still leaking out. Hearing about Internet chatrooms and early cruising. I was a cultural anthropologist, absorbing every detail and mentally cataloguing to better understand where I fit.

Later that school year, I was recruited to help organize my school’s first-ever Pride celebration. Starved from no parties in almost 15 months, I brought a finely-curated selection from my personal tickletrunk for my kindergartens. Flamingo sunglasses, a taco hat, sequined fans, an inflatable telephone.

Suddenly, at 30-years-old, I was marching in my first Pride parade.

For the past six years I’ve helped organize and grow school Pride celebrations, each with their own lil’ moments. After our neighbourhood parade in 2024, we headed to the school’s backfield and performed a flashmob to families, all to the song “Born This Way.”

When I’d talked to my kindergartens about what other Pride celebrations involved, my students globbed onto the idea that people sometimes dress up, and asked if they could wear costumes—which is why, in videos of that flashmob, you can see Disney princesses and superheroes dancing to Lady Gaga.

I want these to be the stories I share about school Pride, but it’s important to know it’s not all rainbows and five-year-old Captain America dancing to Gaga. 

Like when kindergartens from my class are noticeably absent the day of the parade, because their family “doesn’t celebrate Pride.”

A parent’s venomous email to a colleague, calling everyone at the school pedofiles; the same parent who, later that month, smiled and cooed to me about how she hoped her son would be in my class next year.

The idea that schools are somehow brainwashing youths by showing support and normalizing words like “bisexual” and “trans.” 

“I’ve been teaching for decades, and I can barely teach these kids math. And I’m a math specialist!” a colleague shared with me, exasperated. “They think I can somehow influence these kids enough to change their whole ideology or gender?!”

Knowing teachers who’ve been doxxed, received death threats—putting themselves at risk while trying to make things safer for queer youth.

There’s decadent irony that, in tandem with writing this story, I’m helping organize this year’s Pride at my school. 

We’re going bigger, bolder, louder. A coworker designed a Pride 2026 logo with our school’s mascot, and managed to get custom stickers donated. We’re inviting neighbouring schools. We have a whole spirit week planned, a dance party, a photobooth. We’re getting T-shirts made as a fundraiser. I get giddy thinking about how amazing this year will be. Usually that excitement drowns out all the what-ifs. 

I’ve been working on a handout, highlighting statistics about queer youth, for families to help understand the importance of Pride. Pulling from Statistics Canada empirical gut-punches like how queer youth are twice as likely to describe their mental health as being poor; they’re more likely to be targeted for bullying, experience homelessness, and twice as likely to consider suicide; how trans and non-binary youth are twice as likely to experience cyberbullying.

I triple-check my sources with a diligence I wouldn’t have dreamed of during my English undergrad, knowing these stats will be scrutinized with the vigor that only a bored, privileged suburban parent can muster. 

I hate having to take the more thoughtful high road. Having our “We want every kid to feel safe being who they are” met with “You’re all pedofiles,” coming from zealots whose churches, businesses, and governments knowingly protect actual predators. But I digress.  

Progress can sometimes feel small.

The odd joy of when reading a book to my class, a student refers to someone as “gay,” and my body seizes up like they’re using a slur, when in fact, the book has a family with two dads. Gay as a descriptor, not an allegation.

It took until my mid-30s before I saw being gay as a gift. A hard-won title after a lifetime of being teased for liking things I didn’t even know I liked yet; the finally-satiated hunger of someone who spent years eating what they weren’t craving. Let’s hope the next generation gets to feel this lucky some day.

And if you need to contact me or have any questions about this story, you can always reach me at jjisgay99@hotmail.com.