Pride, Power, and Collective Liberation
June 10, 2025
Gab Lisi (she/they/he)
This year, Pride hits differently. Not because the world suddenly got better (it didn’t), but because I see more clearly what Pride has always been: a call to solidarity. Pride is often treated and referred to in popular culture like a celebration of individual identity. But I believe it’s about something more collective. It's about the hard-won, embodied freedom that only deep solidarity makes possible.
I recently had top surgery. And while that might sound like a clinical detail to some, for me, it was like coming home to my own body for the first time. Like finally living in a version of myself that doesn’t need translating. I feel more aligned, more grounded, more myself, more free.
But I also know that this kind of freedom—embodied, lived, and unapologetic—didn’t come easily. Not just for me, but for any of us who live outside the tidy lines of “normal.” I grew up queer and working-class in rural America. We were fed stories about freedom and the American dream—how it was promised to anyone who worked hard enough, stayed in line, kept their head down. But I watched my mother pour everything she had into that version of freedom and still come up short. Because the promise was never meant to materialize for the majority of us.
As a queer person, I learned early how fragile that promise was. I learned that my safety, my worth, my very existence were negotiable—used as a wedge in politics, tossed around in pulpits, erased in polite conversation. And now, as someone who lives in a body that doesn’t conform and claims a faith that still struggles to hold us fully, I see even more clearly how power works, who gets to shape the rules, who benefits from our division, who profits off our fear.
These divisions aren’t accidental—they’re strategic. We’re sold false identities, crafted to keep us blaming one another instead of questioning who really holds power. It’s what Joerg Rieger refers to as a “unite and conquer” strategy (unity around whiteness, nationalism, and moral panic, built on the backs of those deemed different).
The truth is, the stories told about queer people aren’t so different from the ones told about poor people, immigrants, or BIPOC communities. We are blamed for our conditions—accused of irresponsibility, immorality, or laziness. We’re framed as problems to be solved, burdens on society, threats to tradition. Whether it’s queerness or poverty or migration, the message is the same: “If you just worked harder, prayed harder, behaved better, you wouldn’t suffer.” But suffering is not the result of personal failure—it is the result of systematic exploitation—our labor, our bodies, and our identities leveraged for someone else’s profit and control. That exploitation isn’t a design flaw; it’s intentional. Which is exactly why our struggles must be linked.
Friends and family know my politics well. But I’d be lying if I said there’s never confusion when I share that I’m still Catholic. To some, that sounds contradictory. I believe in the right to an abortion. I believe in the dignity of queer and trans lives. I believe in justice that starts from the bottom up, not from pulpits or political platforms that reduce our bodies and social lives to battlegrounds. My faith isn’t in contradiction with these beliefs. It’s the reason I hold them. Catholic Social Teaching, at its core, affirms human dignity, care for the vulnerable, and the pursuit of the common good.
What I see from too many politicians who invoke “Christian values” is not the Gospel—it’s control, cloaked in the language of religious freedom. Policies that punish the poor, restrict healthcare, criminalize migrants, and target LGBTQ+ people are not reflections of faith; they’re expressions of power. Power to suppress our collective resistance. Power to step on our necks while telling our neighbors it’s for the greater good. This kind of power has nothing to do with justice.
This year, I’m not content with the remaining rainbow flags and sanitized slogans from corporations that have decided it’s more profitable to double down on Pride than to phase it out. Pride didn’t start as a brand strategy—it started as a riot. It was a collective act of defiance led by trans women of color, working-class queers, and people who had been pushed to the margins. Stonewall wasn’t about inclusion in a broken system—it was about demanding something radically better. And it still is.
I want us to talk about freedom—not as it’s been marketed to us, but as we actually need it. Because the version of freedom most often celebrated in this country was never meant to sustain us. It was built to control.
It’s the freedom of billionaires to hoard wealth while people can’t afford their medications.
It’s the freedom of corporations to pollute, then sell us recycling bins while dumping waste into our rivers and streams.
It’s the freedom of politicians to erase queer and trans people under the guise of “family values.”
It’s the freedom of a system that produced redlining—and so many other forms of structural violence enacted on this country’s land and people.
Real freedom—our freedom—is not about individual achievement. It’s about collective care. It’s the kind of freedom that sees a trans kid and fights for their right to grow up whole. The kind that lifts up the humanity and the labor of an undocumented worker and affirms their worth. The kind that recognizes dignity as non-negotiable, no matter who you are.
That kind of freedom takes work. It takes what Joerg Rieger calls deep solidarity—not surface-level allyship, but solidarity rooted in the truth that our differences and our struggles are tied together. Rieger writes:
“Deep solidarity is not about promoting uniformity but about actively embracing difference as a constructive element for the formation of solidarity, with special attention to the role of Black and Brown people as well as women who are at the core of the exploitative and oppressive global system.”
That kind of solidarity requires more than showing up for a parade. It requires us to build power from below, across lines of race, gender, class, and faith. It invites us to imagine a future where we don’t just include differences—we rely on it to lead us.
For me, that means believing that my transition isn’t just a personal milestone—it’s part of a bigger fight. One where queer and trans liberation is bound up with racial justice, worker justice, environmental justice, and spiritual renewal.
Because we don’t win by getting a seat at the table of the powerful. We win by flipping the table over and building something better—together. My top surgery wasn’t just mine. It was made possible by movements, communities, and generations of people who fought for the right to live fully in our bodies. Each time someone comes home to themselves, it’s a testament to what deep solidarity makes possible—and a glimpse of the world we’re building together.
That, too, is what Pride looks like.
Gab resides in Columbus, OH with their wife Sophia, and their dogs, Atlas and Franklin. They graduated from Union Theological Seminary in May 2022 with a Master of Divinity. Gab is passionate on issues of queer identity , Catholicism, and class. In their spare time, you can find them camping in their truck, reading a book at home, or convincing their wife to travel somewhere new.