For centuries, queer people have been shamed, shunned, tortured, murdered, and worse. They've been kicked out of their homes, outcasted from society, bullied by classmates, and humiliated before their peers - all because of their identity not fitting into the "norm" crafted by our civilization and its dated religious values.

Though throughout the past two decades, we've began to see more LGBTQ+ representation in media and even daily life. There are now gay characters on our favorite shows, our local Target has a pride section, our history teacher has a rainbow flag in their classroom - all things that never would've been acceptable in the past. In fact, you'd be humiliated and tortured for even thinking about it.

The annual Come Out With Pride Festival presented by The Glass Knife took place this year in Orlando on October 9th. Entire streets were littered with rainbows, gigantic glitter-covered floats strolled down the road, queer people proudly paraded through the crowds with the sort of confidence that was unheard of not too long ago.

While there are still areas of improvement, the velocity of acceptance of the community has increased at an unimaginable rate.