🏳️‍🌈 Pride Isn’t Just a Party — It’s a Protest, and Your Body Needs Recovery

🏳️‍🌈

Pride Isn’t Just a Party — It’s a Protest, and Your Body Needs Recovery

By Jaque Roe

This Pride season hits differently.

While rainbow flags wave in June sun and some of us head to parades, many in our community—and far beyond it—are marching for something far more urgent: justice. Across the country, and around the world, people are pouring into the streets not just to celebrate LGBTQ+ identity, but to defend democracy, demand immigrant protections, and dismantle oppressive systems that hurt us all.

On June 14th, “No Kings Day” became one of the largest protest actions in modern U.S. history—a mass mobilization rejecting authoritarianism, calling for immigrant rights, and standing up for bodily autonomy and due process. And if you’ve been feeling it—emotionally, spiritually, physically—you’re not alone.

Pride Has Always Been About More Than Rainbows

It started with a riot. It’s rooted in resistance.

This year, Pride doesn’t look like glitter and floats for everyone. For many of us, it’s happening shoulder to shoulder with organizers outside ICE detention centers. It’s in the courtroom advocating for asylum seekers. It’s in the streets, holding signs that say “Protect Trans Youth” next to signs that say “Abolish ICE.”

We’re putting our joy on pause—or expressing it differently. Not because we’re not proud, but because solidarity is sacred. Queer liberation is bound up in the fight for racial justice, immigrant justice, and human rights.

We don’t get free alone.

The Toll of Activism on the Body

Marching in the sun. Organizing through the night. Crying with strangers. Screaming until your throat burns. Watching it all unfold on your phone with a lump in your throat, because you’re disabled or too burnt out to show up in person.

This fight runs deep—and so does the exhaustion that follows.

And this is why rest isn’t a luxury—it’s critical. It’s how we stay in the fight. It’s how we rebuild our strength. It’s how we come home to our bodies, which are doing so much to carry this movement forward.

Let Your Body Receive, Too

As a blind massage therapist, touch is how I see.

And right now, I’m seeing a lot of tension. A lot of heartbreak. A lot of people—especially queer folks—forgetting what it feels like to be gently held. That includes me.

So I’m offering what I can: safe, affirming touch. A moment to be cared for. A breath between protests. A place where your body gets to let go.

Because I know what it’s like to be burnt out and still burning for change.

Post‑Pride Self‑Care = Revolutionary

💆🏽‍♀️ Book your recovery session. You don’t need to earn rest.

📣 Let your body speak. Tears, tension, joy, silence—all welcome.

🌱 Join the movement AND the massage table. One doesn’t cancel the other out.

You can’t pour from an empty cup, and you don’t have to suffer to prove your passion. You deserve to feel good while fighting for what’s right.

This Pride: Protest Loud, Rest Loud

Pride is radical. So is rest.

So is reaching across causes to hold hands with our immigrant neighbors, our unhoused trans siblings, our disabled kin.

This Pride, let’s remember: we don’t rise by ourselves. We rise with each other.

Whether you’re screaming at ICE, marching for Palestine, or just trying to make it through another painful news cycle—this is for you.

Let your body have a break. Let yourself receive care. Let massage be part of your revolution.

You deserve recovery, community, and joy—no matter what you’re fighting for.