The pride of not having to prove anything
If there is one word I have always had a complicated relationship with, it is precisely “pride.” Perhaps because I grew up in a world that, even before asking me who I was, was more interested in making me understand what I was not. Not the child who ran. Not the boy who went unnoticed. Not the person who could afford the luxury of feeling like one among many. Wherever I went, it was as if I always had a spotlight pointed at me. A feeling similar to having a GPS always active: visible, identifiable, observed!
When you live with a disability, your body often becomes a subject of collective discussion. People observe you, interpret you, attribute meanings to you. Growing up, when I started going out and simply trying to have a little privacy, there was always someone who felt the need to define the role of the person next to me: parent, family member, caregiver.
Never simply a friend, a partner. Sometimes they consider you an example to follow. Other times, a problem to solve. Rarely a person. For years I thought that pride consisted in proving something: independence, competence… Proving that I deserved my place. Then I understood that this was not a form of pride. It was survival.
Pride, authentic pride, came much later. When I stopped considering my disability as a test to overcome or a condition to explain and started experiencing it as a characteristic of my identity. Not something that defined me, but neither something to hide or turn into a medal.
I experienced the same journey as a person belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community. Here too, for years, the goal seemed to be to obtain permission to exist. To be accepted. To be tolerated. To be included. But no one should need permission to be themselves. During my TEDx, I talked about how, for much of my life, it was others who defined me before I could define myself. First the wheelchair, then the labels, then the expectations. Only much later did I understand that the real goal was not to be seen more, but to be seen in my entirety. Not reduced to one characteristic, but recognized in the complexity that belongs to every human being. This is where, for me, the deepest meaning of pride arises: not in celebration, but in liberation. Not in shouting who I am, but in no longer having to justify myself for being so.
For this reason, I look with interest, but also with caution, at the era of permanent visibility. Today every identity seems to have to be told, displayed, transformed into content. The risk is that disability, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic becomes the only lens through which a person is read. It is a view that does not belong to me much. I believe that the person must always remain at the center: complex, unique, made up of visible and invisible dimensions. There is a substantial difference between representation and forced representation. Between choosing to tell one’s story and feeling compelled to do so in order to be recognized. Pride becomes emancipation when it gives freedom back. It becomes a cage when it imposes new models to conform to.
The same applies to organizations. Every June we see rainbow logos, campaigns and statements of support. Some are sincere, others less so. The problem is not the colorful logo, but understanding what lies behind it: do policies, investments, career paths and concrete actions really exist? Or is it just a washing operation? That is where the credibility of a commitment is measured. Because pride is not measured in communication. It is measured in opportunities. In the biases that are dismantled, in careers that become accessible, in barriers that are removed, in people who do not have to choose between authenticity and belonging.
As a professional who works in DE&I, but above all as a person who experiences these dimensions every day, I believe that the most interesting question is not what we are proud of. The question is: What are we building so that others can be proud too? Because the most powerful pride is not the one that puts us at the center of the stage. It is the one that makes the stage bigger. And allows those who have remained on the margins for too long to step onto it without having to ask for permission.