Write Better Pride Copy: Researching Your Local Queer Community

You are looking at your business’s (or maybe your client’s) copy for Pride Month and are looking to make it better. Or maybe you’re getting started and want to start off on the right foot. You’ve already read Three Tips for Writing Pride Copy, and you want more. You started researching your local queer community, but you quickly got overwhelmed. Is this a good source? Does this organization really represent the queer community? What are these websites really telling me about the community? And now does all this matter specifically to my copy for Pride Month?

I get it. It can definitely be overwhelming, but I’ve got you covered. Over the course of Pride Month, we’re going dive deeper into the three tips so that you can write or tweak your pride copy so that it serves your clients and customers.

In this blog, we’re going to take a deeper into the first tip: research your target queer audience. I’ll take you through the various questions I posed and why they are important for how to write better copy for Pride Month. In my next blog, we’ll take a look at San Antonio, Texas as an example for how to learn about a local queer community, and I’ll walk you through how I researched this vibrant and exciting queer community. Watch this space!

And if you are looking for someone to do a sensitivity read or a (re)write of your pride copy, set up a 15 minute call with me and we can discuss how I can take your copy to the next level.

Questions to Consider and Why They Matter for Your Pride Copy

In Three Tips for Writing Pride Copy, I offered some questions to get you started on learning about your local queer community. I’m going expand on why these are important and how they might help you write better copy for Pride Month.

Geographic Area: Writing to a Specific Queer Community Will Make Your Pride Copy More Authentic

You want to look specifically for your geographic area (or at a specific geographic area), because queer communities can be different place to place. We all know that people in various places across the country and across the world have a specific feel to them, and queer communities are no different. I’ve lived in NYC and in LA, and while there are a lot of similarities in these communities, they are different communities. For example, in NYC, we have a Dyke March, which is an annual protest march led by a drumline down 5th Avenue the day before the Pride Parade. In LA, we have Dyke Day LA, which is an all day event in a park with people hanging out, playing games, dancing, and watching some incredible performers. Both of these events are joyful and political, but they have an entirely different vibe to them. Think of it this way: queer communities are not all the same, but they often rhyme.

Why is it important to get a feel for the local queer community? One reason is to avoid writing so generally that it doesn’t really speak to anyone. I see this all the time in my inbox right now. Companies are trying to be part of the Pride conversation, but their writing can sometimes seem to be directed at straight cisgender people rather than towards the community because they don’t know who we are except at a very high level. It’s a huge turn off. Don’t let that be you.

Another reason is to avoid writing stereotypes into your pride copy. Look, stereotypes may have some core truth to them, but they don’t stay true to that core. They become exaggerated caricatures of real people with real lives. Your copy needs to be authentic. And knowing your local queer community will help you make sure that every “Yass Queen” dropped in your pride copy comes from a place of connection. You want to laugh with us, not at us.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: Knowing the Difference Will Improve Your Pride Copy

Sexual orientation and gender identity are both part of the broader queer community. It’s important to know the difference, though, because it will improve your copy for Pride Month.

Sexual orientation is about partners: who are you attracted to, if anyone, and how do you want to partner with people, if you do? The L (Lesbian), G (Gay) , B (Bisexual), A (Asexual) letters correspond to sexual orientation.

Gender identity is about how you understand yourself in terms of gender: do you internally feel like a woman, a man, both, neither, lacking any gender, or something else? The T (Trans) and I  (Intersex) letters correspond to gender identity. In the expanded acronym, we also have 2S, which stands for Two Spirit. This is a gender identity specific to Native, First Nations, and American Indian peoples. 

The Q (Queer) letter can correspond to either or both categories. It is an umbrella term for a person who doesn’t quite fit into the other letters or has chosen it  even when they “technically” fit into one of the other letters. The + symbol is there to acknowledge that we are constantly learning and growing in our understanding of sexuality and gender identity. The queer community is a big tent community, and that symbol tells folks that if their identity isn’t one of the listed ones, they are still part of our community.

So why does this matter to your pride copy? Most pride copy that I see or that arrives in my inbox reads like it wants to be for the whole community, but it’s clear that the writing only had cisgender gay men in mind. Writing copy for Pride Month for these men is fantastic. And it is also true that writing for them isn’t writing for the rest of us. Learning about these different groups within your local queer community increases your authenticity as an ally and will make sure that you write for the audience that you intend to, whether a specific subset or the whole community.

Race or Ethnicity: The Importance of Writing Pride Copy for Everyone in Your Local Queer Community

Race and ethnicity are key parts of a person’s identity. They are not separate and distinct aspects, but part and parcel. They inform how a person experiences the other parts of their identity. For example, a White transwoman and Black transwoman will not have the same experience of being a transwoman.

I am a White queer person, and the pride copy that comes my way seems to be primarily targeted at a White audience, even as it tries to be race- or ethnicity-neutral. We don’t live in a race- or ethnicity-neutral world, so it is important to take time to discover more about this part of your local queer community.

It is also important when we get to tip three: not avoiding talking about the queer community’s struggles. Queer people from historically oppressed racial or ethnic groups have different or additional struggles that White queer people do not. If you are attuned to all members of your local queer community, your pride copy can speak to the diverse experiences and lives of that community.

Age Range: Baby Gays and Queer Elders Might Need Different Pride Copy

Like with geographic area, we all know that people at different stages of their lives often are looking for different things. With the queer community, one thing to think about is that a person’s journey with their queerness may not align with their age. A baby gay could be a 40 year old woman who has only recently realized she likes women. A queer elder can be a 30 something who has been out for a long time and has lots of wisdom to share. We lost nearly a whole generation of gay men due to the AIDS crisis who would be our elders now, and societal homophobia can delay someone coming out until much later in their lives.

But, the times are changing. While keeping aware of this nuance, you can generally rely on your understanding of different age groups in your community. Are the 20-somethings partiers? The queer 20-somethings probably are too. You just need to know who is involved in your local queer community.

Your copy for Pride Month will need to know which age demographic you want as your audience so that you can write specifically to that life phase. 

Political Engagement and Activism: How Nuanced Does Your Pride Copy Need to Be

Queerness is political because of the world we live in. But not every queer person is engaged in politics or an activist. We are as diverse as the rest of the world, and so our political engagement also runs along the same spectrum. While you are discovering more about your local queer community, you want to get a sense of how politically engaged they are and what that engagement looks like.

This could look like reporting on issues specific to the local queer community, getting involved in local, state, or national political campaigns, or focusing outside of mainstream political activity to push for change on issues. It can also look like community organizing. For example, if there is a drag storytelling hour in your community that is being targeted, is the local queer community organizing protection and support?

Knowing this is important for your pride copy because you may need to adjust how you say things in order to speak effectively to your target audience. I don’t mean switching from conservative to liberal or vice versa (because that would not be authentic … to say the least). But you may need to incorporate more words to talk to your local queer community because of what is important to them. For example, do you talk only about trans people or do you need to also talk about gender non-conforming (GNC) people? (GNC folks are people whose gender expression doesn’t align with societal expectations of their perceived gender, such as butch women, femme men, and androgynous folks.) Another example is whether your pride copy needs to highlight disabled queers in your copy because you see that part of the community  highlighted and prioritized during Pride Month.

The more you discover and get to know your local queer community, the better you will be able to write incredible copy for Pride Month and other queer days that authentically engages with them.

And if you are looking for someone to handle your pride copy - for Pride Month or across the year - book a 15 minute call with me to discuss your goals and how I can make your pride copy authentic and effective!

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