AUSTIN, Texas — Pride Month is a way to commemorate how members of the LGBTQ+ community has struggled and continues to fight for civil rights and equal justice.
But when it comes to being a person of color and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, the experience can be much different.
On a hot evening in June, a sweaty crowd stands in line outside the Playland Skate Center in North Austin.
Beaming with pride, and dressed in rainbow colors, the crowd is ready to let the good times roll and hit the rink to celebrate LGBTQ+ history.
On this Rainbow Skate night, quite a few people, including Mario Brown, are ready to see and be seen.
Brown says his life as a black and queer man has been an interesting journey, and he's learned to carefully navigate the world to avoid as many pitfalls as possible.
"I like to travel a lot so I always have to see if A) they're accepting of black people and B) if they're accepting of queer people," Brown said.
Brown, like other queer people of color, spent years wrestling with his sense of self, and with the expectations of the black community.
"In the black church especially, so it was very ... I didn't come out until later, I was very afraid of what the black elders would say," Brown said. "I was very lucky that my parents and my friends, I had them. Not everyone can say that."
It's a story all to familiar to Amber Davenport.
"Being black and being queer is kind of like, something to be looked down on, people view black males as a strong individual, football players, basketball players, that wasn't my thing," Davenport said. "I came into my own shortly after my aunt passed away, when I was in middle school, she was my biggest supporter, and is the one that let me know it's ok to be feminine."
And Davenport knows the battle against homophobia and racism, even from within the gay community, isn't going away.
"I've encountered it too," Davenport said. "You may have to fight way harder than everybody else but you'll get that top goal someway somehow."
For Davenport and Brown, the essence of who they are and how the world sees them gives them strength to continue fighting for equality and equity.