“Marsha, Audre, bell and Us: Pride Through the Lens of Softness, Survival, and Sisterhood”
Pride Month is more than rainbow flags and brand campaigns. For Black queer women, femmes, and gender-expansive folks, Pride is a sacred reminder: our survival is revolutionary—and our healing is political.
Long before "equity" and “DEI,” became buzzwords, Black queer feminists were building the frameworks that now guide community wellness, care justice, and bodily autonomy. Their brilliance continues to shape the foundation of what The Black Girl Health Collective stands for today.
🌺 Marsha P. Johnson: “No Pride for Some of Us Without Liberation for All of Us”
Marsha wasn’t just a face at the frontlines of Stonewall. She was a radical organizer, sex worker, and trans woman who understood that liberation had to include the most vulnerable—Black trans folks, poor folks, and those living with HIV/AIDS. Her advocacy was rooted in care, mutual aid, and unapologetic joy.
Marsha didn’t wait for systems to make space—she built her own. That blueprint still guides how we at BGHC create culturally responsive care spaces by and for those often excluded.
📚 Audre Lorde: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation”
A poet, activist, and cancer warrior, Audre Lorde called out the violence of invisibility and insisted that healing was a feminist act. She challenged medical racism and rejected the idea that survival had to mean silence.
At BGHC, Audre’s words are sacred. Her teachings fuel our workshops on bodily autonomy, reproductive justice, and collective care. She reminds us that our health is not separate from our liberation—it is central to it.
🖤 bell hooks: “Love is an action, never simply a feeling.”
bell hooks gave us the language to understand love as a radical ethic of care—especially in how we show up for each other across gender, sexuality, and difference. She interrogated the power dynamics within intimacy, systems of domination, and even within feminist spaces. Her work reminds us that solidarity must be active, accountable, and rooted in dismantling the very systems that make some feel disposable.
🌈 Tending to Complex Realities
Within our communities, there are still tensions and misunderstandings—particularly between Black cisgender women and Black trans and nonbinary folks. These tensions often stem from internalized messaging about who “belongs” in womanhood, who can lay claim to particular experiences, and who is granted protection or visibility. At BGHC, we believe that true sisterhood requires truth-telling, repair, and radical inclusion—not perfection, but practice.
We also reject outdated narratives that reduce womanhood and femininity to menstruation, childbearing, and cramps. Not only is exclusionary to our trans siblings, but harmful to cis women whose bodies don’t follow these scripts due to infertility, hysterectomies, or medical trauma or just the desire not to parent or carry a child. We must be willing to grow through discomfort—and that begins with unlearning old beliefs and having open, honest conversations.
🔥 Today’s Torchbearers: We Carry Their Fire
We also honor the living legacy of today’s leaders—Ericka Hart, Dominique Morgan, Raquel Willis, Tourmaline, and so many others—who are actively reshaping healthcare, media, and policy while holding space for healing in queer Black bodies.
Their work reaffirms what BGHC believes deeply: Our entire community deserves care that affirms, listens, and liberates.
✊🏾 The Work of BGHC: Healing at the Intersections
At The Black Girl Health Collective, we know that Black queer feminist principles are more than history—they are how we move through the present. That’s why our programs are intentionally:
Intergenerational and inclusive
Culturally affirming and trauma-informed
Centered on autonomy, pleasure, and wholeness
From workshops and wellness events to access to care and story-sharing circles, we are building what Lorde, hooks, and Marsha imagined: a future where our wellness isn’t optional—it’s a right.
💬 Final Word: We Are the Legacy
We are not just honoring the past—we are living it.
We are Marsha’s radical love.
We are Audre’s fierce truth.
We are bell’s liberatory care.
We are the continuation of a movement that sees healing not as a luxury, but as a birthright.
This Pride Month—and every month—we are remembering and reclaiming.
