As many know, the month of June is known as Pride Month. It's when most of the countries LGBT pride parades occur, and it's, in my opinion, one of the happiest months. Usually. Allies and LGBT+ members come together to simply exist. They have fun. They don't have to worry about anything.

Until this year. I've been three (four?) years in a row. It's in downtown Norfolk, by the waterfront because we have a boat parade. It's amazing. I registered to vote while I was there this year, funnily enough. It's normally a passive event. Sometimes there's protesters off to the side, waving pointless signs that most of us even care about.

Two years in a row, I've kissed a girl in front of the protesters just for the reactions. People have recorded it and it's floating around on Twitter somewhere. It made many people's day. You can see it bring light in the younger's eyes because someone passively stood up to the protesters - entirely silent.

Though, this year, there were no protesters. I had also noted that there was way less police around. When the boat parade started, many of us were sitting down on the pier with our legs draped off the edge. A few people seemed to run in at that time, and pushed about 20 of us into the water, as huge boats started to pull in the parade.

None of us were hurt, but a few of the people who were pushed into the water with me couldn't swim well enough to stay up in the harbor. It all happened so quickly and everyone was in a panic, it was terrifying.