Pride in What You Wear

June is not only Pride month, but the one year anniversary of a new Rhode Island-based podcast called “Your Queer Story.” “Your Queer Story” (YourQueerStory.com), from Evan Jones and Paul Hobbs, is a weekly free LGBT comedy podcast that covers queer history, personal stories, religion, politics, sexuality and more.

Jones, an LGBTQ activist, decided to celebrate Pride through fashion and flags on his personal Facebook page. Focused on the podcast’s mission of educating as many people as possible about the LGBT community, Jones found a great way to grab attention while “sporting various work outfits this #pridemonth that coincide with flag colors and showcase the different members of [the] community.”

Throughout the month, Jones shared selfies in colorful coordinating business attire. “I just wanted to show my support for the community and I like to dress up,” Jones said. He started off with the familiar rainbow Pride flag encompassing all the communities and then moved on to 11 other flags, including those representing the communities of genderqueer, intersex, asexual, lesbian, trans, pansexual, queer POC, bisexual, leather, polyamorous and queer. Jones used socks, shirts, buttons and even a small ax. Each post’s caption was filled with its corresponding flag’s creation history, symbolic meaning, fun facts and myth-busting. “I come from a background that doesn’t have a lot of education on the queer community. So that’s what I do with the podcast and with queer issues.”

During his fashion foray, Jones was surprised by what he learned regarding the Labrys Lesbian flag. “It was beautiful and deep in meaning. I went back hundreds of years and the mythology it had for lesbians. I really liked the rich history of that flag. I didn’t see it until this year; it’s just not very popular, which is unfortunate.”

Jones is passionate about everyone educating themselves on the struggle of other communities, and one way of doing that is by listening to his podcast. “We can’t have true empathy without education. You can’t empathize and show kindness if you don’t understand the issues.” The best part of Jones’ response from his Facebook community has been that even his queer friends have shared with him that they learned something new about their fellow communities, allowing their newfound education to help them support everyone.

To see Jones’ fashion posts, view his Facebook page.