Pride is not silence.
Not assimilation.
Not self-erasure.
Not apology.
Pride is showing up.
Speaking out.
Being visible, even when it’s inconvenient.
Walking with intention.
Dressing without fear.
Speaking with your hands.
Taking up space with your body — even when it doesn’t fit expectations.
It’s queerness expressed through gesture, attitude, volume. Through what some call “too much.”
To be proud is to be loud.
As in visible, unmissable.
As in: “I will not dilute myself so you can be comfortable.”
Because yes — femininity in men, masculinity in women, gender nonconformity in everyone — that too is pride. And it deserves the mic.
We’ve been told to tone it down.
To act straight.
To fit in.
But flamboyance is not a phase.
Butch is not a costume.
Queer expression is not a problem — it’s power.
And that’s why we turn the volume up.
Being oneself: visibility as power
In queer life, visibility is never just about being seen — it’s about being interpreted. And not always correctly. It can be both liberating and dangerous. A gesture, a pitch, a haircut can carry more meaning than a full sentence. Sometimes it signals safety. Sometimes it invites violence. But often, it’s not a choice — it’s simply who we are. Unapologetically.
To be visible is to risk being read before being known. And yet, choosing to be visible remains one of the most powerful things we can do.
For some, that visibility takes the shape of softness in a body expected to be hard. For others, it’s in the refusal to smooth out edges, to "pass", to explain. Whether it comes through butch masculinity, femme flamboyance, or a quiet defiance of gendered codes, this expression is rarely casual — it’s built on years of tension, observation, resistance.
Writer Flanagan McPhee tweeted: “Every time I speak, I feel like I’m undoing years of being erased.” That feeling — of pushing back against centuries of misrecognition — is familiar to many. And it reminds us that visibility, when claimed on one’s own terms, is not about performance. It’s about presence. Not about standing out. But about no longer being asked to disappear.
Love Is LoveTM
Each June, the flood begins. Rainbow logos bloom like clockwork. Collections rebrand as “inclusive.” Campaigns speak of love and liberation. But come July, the colours fade — and so does the noise.
In the age of marketing, queerness has become a currency. A tool to boost relevance, to signal progressiveness, to momentarily “diversify” the grid. But what happens when that spotlight is borrowed, not lived? When queerness becomes aesthetic, and solidarity a seasonal strategy?
Queerness isn’t a trend. It doesn’t follow seasonal logic. It doesn’t fit the marketing calendar. It doesn’t flatten itself for convenience. It lives in the everyday — complex, contradictory, and deeply embodied.
Representation without structural change is just performance. Support without commitment is just branding. And too often, we’re offered tokens where there should be presence. A flash of colour. A borrowed face. A curated moment. But if there’s no one queer in the boardroom, no one behind the camera, no one in the creative brief... what are we really celebrating? Are you here because it matters, or because it sells?
Still, there are gestures that resist simplification. When “Protect the Dolls” moves from a printed phrase to a political demand. When Alex Consani takes the runway not just as a model, but as a trans woman refusing to be exceptionalised. When Lauren Chan graces the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit and brings queerness and body politics into a mainstream that still struggles to hold either. When Hari Nef or Hunter Schafer appear in campaigns without hiding the tension they carry — and without being asked to.
These aren’t diversity checkboxes. They’re cultural forces. Interruptions. Frictions. Refusals to be tamed. And they remind us that Pride doesn’t ask to be included — it claims space.
Why we raise our voice
At UNO, we don’t believe in representation as an afterthought. We don’t believe in celebrating diversity when it’s convenient, or in spotlighting identities only when the algorithm rewards it.
We work in an industry shaped by images — and images shape how we’re seen. Who gets to be looked at. Who gets to be hired. Who gets to be imagined.
That’s why we’ve made space not just for different faces, but for different ways of being. For bodies that carry stories. For identities that aren’t always easy to define. For voices that don’t echo the mainstream — and never intended to.
From day one, our job has never been to polish or neutralise. It’s been to accompany. To amplify. To insist that beauty isn’t found in erasure, but in specificity. In presence that isn’t asked to compromise.
We don’t raise our voice because it’s fashionable.
We raise it because too many still don’t get to.
