By Ellyn RuthstromIt’s that time of year again to break out the rainbow regalia, sprinkle the glitter, and get your marching or dancing shoes on—whichever suits you best! Pride season has begun and it’s exciting to attend flag raisings, LGBTQ community forums, pride marches, history events, block parties, inter-faith services, and so much more! We come out to celebrate, we come out to raise awareness, and we come out to COME OUT!This year, we are kicking off Pride month by celebrating SpeakOUT Day on Friday, June 3. All day long we’ll be sharing information on our social media channels about SpeakOUT: our mission, our speakers, our clients and our impact in the community. And yes, we will be encouraging our supporters to make a donation on SpeakOUT Day to keep our work expanding and touching as many lives as possible!We hope you can jump in and share your experiences and insights about our work, too. If you don’t already follow us on Facebook and Twitter, do so and include #SpeakOUTDay in your posts. Some of us will be celebrating SpeakOUT Day at Fenway Park’s Pride Night that evening so look out for fun selfies from us.Most years I'm usually helping to set up a table or marshaling a parade contingent into position on my Pride mornings. And this year will be no different as I head to Government Center for Boston Pride on June 11 to hang up the SpeakOUT banner, spread out the table displays, and get ready to schmooze all day with the fascinating array of people who stop by the table.I am passionate about the work that SpeakOUT does in the community, so I get jazzed when I get a chance to talk to others about that work. By the end of the day I often realize that I have talked to folks from the ages of 13-80, from city dwellers to suburban and rural folks, first-timers as well as those chalking up their 40+ Pride year. I love meeting students who tell us how glad they are we came to their school, and meeting others who haven’t heard of us before but tell us how much they need us to come to theirs. I meet community members who get excited about our mission and decide to sign up for our next training so that they, too, can share their stories. It’s exhausting and exhilarating and not to be missed.On Pride Day, there is much to celebrate about our rich history of resistance and pure fabulousness. (Snap!) And there is also much more to continue working on together as a community! Celebrating Pride is a way for me, personally, to recharge and recommit to doing the work we need to do all year long. After the glitter gets washed away, it’s back to work. Happy Pride, everyone!

Ellyn Ruthstrom is the Executive Director of SpeakOUT Boston. Last year, Ellyn was one of Boston Pride's marshals, honoring her many years of work with the Bisexual Resource Center and the LGBTQ community. She was able to cross off her bucket list "riding in a convertible with a pink boa."

By River OlsenWhen SpeakOUT's Executive Director, Ellyn, asked me if I was ready to tell my story for the Walnut Hill School for the Arts engagement, my heart both skipped a beat and started racing off into the hills. I was thrilled and excited to finally have a chance to step up and speak out – to tell my story for the first time as a SpeakOUT speaker. But that enthusiasm came hand-in-hand with anxiety, stress, worry, fear, nerves. I ruminated like this for days: “Am I ready for this? I have only shadowed once, and I don’t feel like my story is interesting enough. I’m really soft-spoken. What if I can’t answer a question correctly? What if I freeze up? What if, what if, what if?!”Despite all my worries, I agreed to take on the engagement and spent hours working on my story – writing drafts, outlining, and trying to fold interesting hooks into its telling. When the day finally came, Ellyn and I drove out to Natick to meet our fellow co-speaker Marcy and the student leadership of the Walnut Hill School GSA (cleverly re-monikered as the Gender & Sexuality Alliance). We were greeted with lots of smiling, laughing, and warmth – my tenseness lessened a bit.At last we were all led into the auditorium where three chairs awaited us on a stage. While we were sitting on the stage as some 200 teenagers streamed into the room, I was sharply aware of a sense of ecstatic anticipation – a jumbled mix of nerves and elation. It was finally happening! Music began to play from the loudspeakers, and as I looked out into the audience, I saw several students jump to their feet and start dancing amid the rows of seats. Immediately, I grinned at the expressiveness and genuineness of these students, and my nervousness fell away.The students themselves were amazing! I could feel that they were truly listening to our stories, and they all asked such interesting questions. One question that stood out in particular was around how we handle traveling in countries and cultures that are less-than-friendly for LGBTQIA folks. I deeply admired the way my co-speakers worked together to answer the question from their own experiences, especially when I wasn’t able to think of anything to say.Another set of questions from students and faculty asked Marcy and me about genderqueer and genderfluid identities. It was a rare gem to have such an engaging and nuanced conversation around non-binary gender identity in a setting like that. It really gave me a lot of hope to see wonderful questions like these coming from folks who genuinely want to learn from experiences different from their own.When I first started to speak, I stuck pretty closely to the story I had prepared in advance. But once I spoke, I discovered – with some surprise, I might add – that I was truly moved by finally hearing my own story spoken aloud. It was liberating and validating and affirming and unburdening. And as I continued to tell my story and answer questions, I noticed that I was now speaking from my heart – an authenticity that was finally becoming transparent. That was the reason my nerves had disappeared – I was just being myself without fear of judgment.

River Olsen is a queer trans woman who lives in East Boston with her wife, Katie, and daughter, Lisbeth. She is currently in the second year of her MDiv program at Harvard Divinity School, and has been interning with SpeakOUT Boston for the last six months.

Kick Off Pride Season on SpeakOUT Day - June 3

Being Myself Without Fear of Judgment