PRIDE

Trying to be a voice but not using it for clout of marketing

So, I debated doing this post for a long time. I have a long list of things I should be working on, but this felt important because I’ve never made one of these posts before—and this year, I feel like I have something to say.

Growing up, we didn’t have Pride walks, Pride flags, or really Pride anything. For me, representation looked like Jack from Dawson’s Creek and my love of the musical RENT. This was the 90’s and well your sexual preference was never a threat to me. Shit, i grew up after the term “GAY” was used as an adjective for anything and everything.

Even during my years in theater and chorus, I can’t remember a single person coming out. And if someone did, it either wasn’t public or it simply wasn’t something I thought much about at the time. Looking back now, it’s wild to realize that so many of the guys from the chorus have since come out. I’m still friends with a lot of them—more Facebook friends than “hang out all the time” friends—but friends nonetheless.

My one honest-to-goodness gay friend was a man named Jason Clark. We used to grab dinner from time to time, do karaoke, and play board games. He sadly passed away, and I still miss him. But even with Jason, I never really felt connected to the gay community just because I had a gay friend.

And I think that disconnect is part of why I’ve struggled with posts like this.

Outside of theater, I’ve had very little direct connection to the LGBTQ+ community, and because of that, I’ve often felt like speaking up might come across as fake or performative. Like maybe I didn’t have enough lived experience to say anything meaningful.

But over time, I realized support doesn’t have to come from being deeply embedded in a community.

Sometimes it comes from empathy.
Sometimes it comes from grief.
Sometimes it comes from simply knowing what is right.

The Pulse shooting hit me harder than I expected.

I still carry emotions from that day.

Maybe it was because it happened here in Florida.
Maybe it was because it was an attack on people whose only “crime” was being themselves, loving openly, and existing in a space where they felt safe.
Maybe, its my local goverment that held the place captive and still paints over the colored crosswalk daily.
Maybe it was all of it.

What I know is that it shook something in me. So, when i started writing UPHEAVAL, and i set it in Florida. I wanted to add the pulse shooting and characters that came out of a direct result of that.

These characters are my two sides of it…. THE ANGRY SIDE - MASCOT and THE COMPASSION SIDE - REVERB. This was important to me, but just as important was not highlighting it during the campaign. I see far too many people use the LGBT+ community as a marketing tactic.

However, now that the book is being released. I wanted to take a moment and tell you about it and hopefully you can see that these characters have a long life in UPHEAVAL and SUMMIT COMICS. I am proud to be inclusive in my books.

It reminded me that representation matters.
Safety matters.
Being seen matters.

And those feelings found their way into my work.

As I’ve been building Upheaval, one thing that became important to me was making sure the world felt honest—filled with different people, different backgrounds, and different experiences. That includes LGBTQ+ characters.

Not because I’m trying to score points.
Not because I’m chasing representation as a buzzword.

But because stories help us understand each other.

At my core, I believe something very simple:

Love is love.

People deserve to love who they love.
People deserve to be exactly who they are.
And nobody should have to live in fear because of that truth.

I may never feel like the loudest voice in this conversation.
I may still worry about saying the wrong thing.

But silence doesn’t feel right either.

So this is me saying: I see you. I support you. You matter.

Happy Pride.

Travis

PRE-LAUNCH FOR VOODOO NATIONS IS LIVE!! This is a very important one for me. So, please give a follow and back… ill explain more later.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/orangecone/voodoo-nations-trade-paperback