The Magic of Belonging: A Love Letter to the Queer Community & Why Pride Still Matters 🌈

I still remember the first night I walked into a gay bar.

I remember what bar it was—now called Beaux, but at the time it was Trigger. Hell, I even remember what I was wearing: a blue and purple leopard print dress I'd borrowed from my friend Maja.

The year was 2010, I had just turned 22, had recently moved back to the Bay Area, and was very much trying to figure out who I was and where I belonged.

What I didn't know at the time was that this neighborhood—and the community within it—would go on to shape my life in ways I never could have imagined.

This was the first night out where I didn't find myself comparing my body to every woman in the room or wondering whether any of the men there would find me attractive enough to talk to. Instead, I found something I hadn't realized I was looking for.

Freedom.

Not confidence. Not self-love. Not yet.

I didn't know it then, but that night was the beginning of the journey that would eventually lead me to the year I first fell in love with myself.

And while there are many reasons 2016 became that year, the queer community played such an important role in that journey that it deserves its own story.

Brittany Before The Castro

I've touched on pieces of this story on Instagram before, but never really here on the blog—a topic for another day, perhaps. The short version is that confidence was not something that came naturally to me.

Between being bullied growing up, an alcoholic mother, and an abusive first boyfriend, I spent much of my early life believing there was always something about me that needed fixing.

Particularly when it came to my body.

Looking back, what strikes me isn't whether the criticism was fair. It's how much space it took up in my head. By the time I reached my twenties, I had spent years viewing myself through other people's eyes, constantly wondering what needed to change in order to be worthy of love, attention, or acceptance.

And it wasn't just my body. My personality seemed to be under scrutiny too. I was too loud. Too opinionated. Too much.

So I learned how to make myself smaller.

By the time I was in my early twenties, I had figured out a version of myself that kept everyone else comfortable and left me happy enough, I suppose. Like most women that age, I went out to bars and clubs with my friends. But while everyone else seemed to be having fun, I was busy comparing myself to every beautiful woman in the room and wondering why the men weren't looking at me the way they looked at them.

Then I found the Castro.

Or maybe the Castro found me.

After years of bouncing back and forth between the Bay Area and the Central Valley, I finally moved back permanently and found myself spending a night out in San Francisco's most iconic neighborhood.

And for the first time, something felt different.

All around me were people of every race, sexuality, shape, size, and style imaginable. They wore whatever they wanted. They danced however they wanted. They laughed loudly. They took up space.

Under a blanket of rainbow lights and to the soundtrack of Britney Spears and Lady Gaga, there was an energy I'd never experienced before.

It felt like liberation.

I remember feeling like I had unlocked a new version of myself.

As fate would have it, that night I also met my new gay bestie, Brian, and over the next few years we became inseparable. Mondays became Magical Mondays—a weekly tradition involving 80s music, suspiciously strong $2 vodka sodas, and dancing until we forgot what time it was. I am so grateful for that era, that version of myself, and for Brian, who supported me through that period of self-discovery in a way few people ever have.

The transition into a confident queen wasn't instant. Far from it.

I still struggled with confidence. I still found myself searching for where I belonged. But the Castro became a breath of fresh air during a season of my life that desperately needed one.

It was also during this chapter that I had my first relationship with a woman. While I've never written this publicly before, I identify as bisexual. At the time, I wasn't making some grand announcement about it. I was simply learning more about myself. And there was something incredibly freeing about doing that in a community where it didn't need to be explained, defended, or justified.

It simply was.

The Castro gave me space to explore new versions of myself long before I had fully grown into them.

Then came 2016.

The Year I Fell In Love With Myself

One of my favorite questions to ask the women I interview for Meet the Muse is:

"When did you first fall in love with yourself?"

For me, the answer is easy.

2016.

Now, to be clear, there wasn't one magical moment where everything suddenly clicked into place.

There were a hundred small moments.

Maybe it was the confidence I gained from falling in love with lifting. Maybe it was the sweet, needy little furball named Ruckus who stole my heart. Maybe I had simply grown tired of being treated poorly by people who didn't know how to love me properly.

Whatever the reason, something shifted.

For the first time in my life, I stopped putting my worth in the hands of people who could never fully appreciate me. I stopped shrinking myself to fit inside other people's comfort zones. I stopped apologizing for my personality, my ambition, my body, my voice.

I started taking up space.

And apparently, people noticed.

One day, after posting photos from a boudoir shoot I had done as part of embracing this newfound confidence, my friend, Jorge, reached out with a question.

"Hey. I'm a promoter at a few clubs in the Castro. Would you ever want to go-go dance?"

A few years earlier, I would have laughed.

In 2016, there was only one possible answer.

What the Queer Community Gave Me

So it turns out saying yes was the easy part.

Showing up and showing out was a whole different battle.

My first gig was at The Cafe, where I would spend most of my go-go dancing career, on Folsom Street Fair weekend. I arrived with only one outfit—a mistake I would never make again—a black thong bodysuit, fishnet leggings, black boots, and a handful of accessories.

The moment I walked into the dressing room and saw the other dancer, the famous Viktor Belmont, one thought immediately entered my head:

What the fuck am I doing here?

I had been a junior high cheerleader and a high school dancer, but this was different. Those routines were choreographed. Someone told you where to stand, what move came next, and when the music would end.

This?

For thirty minutes at a time, my body's only job was to orchestrate joy.

No pressure.

And yet somehow, I mustered every ounce of courage I had and climbed onto that stage.

The first few minutes were awkward. Painfully awkward.

Then something happened.

Someone from the crowd walked up, smiled, told me I was beautiful, and handed me my first dollar tip.

It was only a dollar.

But to me, it felt like a million.

As someone whose love language has always been words of affirmation, that tiny moment of encouragement was all I needed. Well, that and perhaps a couple of tequila sodas.

Somewhere between the awkward dancing, the flashing lights, and that first dollar bill, I met a version of myself I had never known before.

She was confident.

She was playful.

She was proud of her curves.

She moved her hips without overthinking them. She took up space without apologizing for it. She whipped her hair around that stage like she had been doing it her entire life.

Most importantly, she wasn't worried about whether she was too much.

She simply was.

And every single time I stepped onto that stage after that, I found her again.

It never mattered how anxious or insecure I felt beforehand. Like clockwork, those thoughts would creep in while I was getting ready, questioning whether I looked good enough, whether I belonged there, whether people would judge me.

Then the spotlight would hit.

And they would disappear.

I still get chills thinking about it.

But what made those years so special wasn't just the confidence I gained in my body.

It was the people.

It was the incredible dancers I shared the stage with and the stories they trusted me enough to share. It was watching people from every walk of life step into versions of themselves that felt authentic and joyful. It was the drag queens who hosted the nights, inspiring me with their talent, confidence, and larger-than-life personalities. It was the friends who packed the dance floor below me and cheered louder than anyone else in the room.

It was beautiful.

It was powerful.

It was celebration.

And that, to me, is what the queer community has always been about.

Why Pride Still Matters

I could never repay Brian, Jorge, or The Castro for what they gave me.

But I can acknowledge it. I can express my gratitude. And I can proudly celebrate the community that helped me become the woman I am today.

Every June, I hear people ask questions like:

"Why do we still need Pride?"

And my mind always goes back to the person I was at 22, walking into a gay bar in a borrowed leopard print dress for the very first time.

Someone who was still trying to figure out who they were.

Someone who was desperately searching for somewhere they belonged.

Somewhere, right now, there's someone walking into a bar in The Castro or Hell’s Kitchen for the very first time.

Maybe they're questioning who they are.

Maybe they're finally ready to be honest about it.

Maybe they're simply looking for a place where they don't have to explain themselves.

They're about to experience what it feels like to be welcomed, celebrated, and accepted exactly as they are.

They're about to discover that there are entire communities built around the idea that nobody should have to make themselves smaller in order to belong.

And maybe—just maybe—that experience will help change their life the way it changed mine.

Because that is what Pride has always been about.

Community.

Belonging.

Joy.

The freedom to be exactly who you are.

And is there anything more beautiful than that?

I don't think so.

Et voilà. We realize that belonging was the magic of it all 🌈