My Rainbow Life: Happy Pride 2026 Don’t Stop Fighting

I know, it’s been hard for me to. I grew up thinking I would die young, that that was all being queer had to offer me. But over the years, I found a home among my fellow LGBTQ+ family. My SCA journey began in 1990. The SCA made me feel at home and made it clear to me that when I was ready to come out, I would be safe. It still took a while.

Eventually, my process started, and by the mid 90s, I was an activist fighting for LGBTQ rights. However, as I entered the 2000’s, the realities of being a queer teacher in the South caused me to withdraw from my queer community. That was a hard time for me, and my life collapsed. As I entered the 2010s, I found myself more and more, and started taking up the fight again. I found a new family in the furry community, and found another place where I felt safe and at home in my own skin.

Úlfur Úlfsdóttir eldfjallaösku (Wolf, Wolf’s Daughter of Volcanic Ash)

By the mid 2010s, I began to realize that with new HIV and STI prevention and treatments available (things like PrEP, PEP, and TasP), life might not have to end early, and I thought I had found a relationship that would see me also not die alone.

Then gay marriage became a thing, followed by the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and Trans Rights were expanded. These all allowed my business to take off. Things were not perfect; I lost my teaching job after coming out as trans. Then The Election happened, but I survived. The community kept gaining ground.

By mid-2020, things began to fall apart again. My relationship ended, my business stalled, and LGBTQ+ people fell under attack. As a trans person, I feel the pressure, then and now.

Leaving for the USA from Iceland in the weeks after the 2024 election.

The moral injury caused by the failure of society to protect my rights now resides within me alongside the pain of growing up in those dark days of the 80s. The community is suffering, and we are not even ½ though this term. However, while the pain lives on in me and the scars will not heal, I move forward.

As I now take my place as an elder within all my communities, I will do my best to hold space when and where I can. I will not let my light be diminished by hate, and while the reality is that I must be open to finding a new country, the USA will never feel safe for me again. Know that I will fight to keep the SCA a safe place for my family and that I will never stop being a proud Queer Peer of Meridies.