What Happens After The Pride Campaigns Disappear? Kath Ebbs Has A Few Thoughts

Refinery29

5 days ago

Pride Month used to be one of the busiest times of year for Kath Ebbs. As a queer content creator and advocate, it meant working with brands, creating campaigns, and showing up for the community. But this year, something shifted. 'I didn't do a single job for Pride,' Kath says. 'And that's not me being like, I care about working or not. I'm more just saying that it is very apparent to me, even from a commercial standpoint, where we're at in the world.'
The silence wasn't just professional, it was political. Companies across the globe that once filled June with rainbow logos and 'love is love' slogans didn't even bother this year. 'They're not even doing that anymore,' Kath says. 'We've given up, actually, on that too. And you know what? Maybe we want that.' It's a line delivered without bitterness. There's a heavy fatigue in their voice, one that's been born from watching queer visibility be commodified, then quietly dropped when things get hard.
'There's been a cultural shift that I've seen through the political landscape,' they continue. 'We're at a really interesting, scary point in society right now, and we haven't been in that position for a long time. My generation — our generation — have never experienced that quite as intensely.' It wasn't just a muted Pride Month that made this year different for Kath. It was personal as a very public relationship breakdown became a spectacle. One that exposed them to intense online harassment.
'I went through a very public breakup, and that led to a lot of trolling and a lot of homophobia,' they say. What followed was brutal. 'I felt very invalidated in my experience. And I experienced a lot of violent language online, just by existing.' Online, Kath was being picked apart. Offline, they needed to get away.
'I decided last minute to go to New York,' they say. They went to the NYC Dyke March, a grassroots, protest march against discrimination, harassment, and violence in queer communities. No brand banners. No rainbow capitalism. 'It was incredibly healing just by existing with a bunch of other queer people in a shared space,' they say.
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It was this unspoken language. It made me feel so seen and heard and safe and calm and understood.
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They didn't have to talk about the breakup. Or the backlash. 'You don't need to talk about anything. You don't need to explain yourself,' Kath says. 'You just feel this sense of, I'm understood.' That clarity of being witnessed and not consumed for once is what grounded them and reminded them of their purpose. 'When I'm with queer people, I remember my why,' they say. 'I want other people to experience that and feel seen and heard in my presence because I know that community has done that for me.'
That's been the underlying thread through Kath's last few years, not rainbow campaigns or viral content, but finding places to land. And in the most unexpected way, they found that through line dancing. It started in Los Angeles, when a friend invited them to a queer country night called Stud Country. 'I walked in and saw all these queer people partner dancing,' Kath says. 'I fell in love instantly.'
At the time, they were grieving the sudden loss of a close friend. 'I was in a really weird place,' they say. 'I didn't have the words to talk about what I was feeling. But the dancing through repetition and unison, it almost mimicked the grief and let me move through something I couldn't articulate.' Twice a week, they showed up. Mondays and Thursdays. Same dancers. Same music. 'It created this weird sense of stability in my life,' they say. 'And I missed it so much, I literally flew back to America just to dance.'
Eventually, they came back to Sydney. And something they'd been dreaming of — creating that same space here — was already in motion, a queer line dancing group had started locally. 'I'd had the idea like a year and a half ago,' Kath says. 'But when I came home and saw a group had already started? I was like, oh fuck yeah. Now we can build something together.'
And that's what they're doing now. Building beyond just events and dance floors, but spaces where queer people don't need to perform or be consumed in order to belong. What started as a community gathering is now a national tour, with Kath's Cowboy C*untry tour taking queer line dancing to cities across Australia. Creating safe, affirming spaces where queer people can show up, dance, connect and feel held. 'You don't need to be a good dancer,' Kath says. 'You just need to show up.'
Kath's clear on why these spaces matter. 'There's a collective grief that queer people carry,' they say.
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That grief doesn't just disappear. You have to hold it. Share it. Move with it.
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And showing up is what Kath continues to do, even and especially when it's hard. 'Some days I show up to events in full glam. Some days I'm in trackies, crying in the car beforehand. Both versions of me deserve to be there.'
Pride Month didn't give Kath the visibility it once did. But it did remind them of what matters.'Usually around this time, I'm saying to brands, corporations and allies that they need to show up for us all the time, celebrate us all the time,' they say. 'And those things still stand. But this year? I'm having a different conversation.'
That conversation is about queer joy that doesn't rely on permission from others. That doesn't need an audience, but instead exists in a dance hall, or a street protest, or a quiet kitchen with people who get it. 'More dancing,' they say. 'More softness. More spaces that don't ask you to explain yourself.'