Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Teal Aurelia offers a powerful reminder of why Pride month exists. On Monday, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed an anti-gay law that makes it a capital crime. Before anyone thinks Uganda is particularly backwards, this is the work of American evangelist Scott Lively. There is a new moral panic overtaking the real world, filled with fear of gay and trans people. Moral panics do not last forever, but they do incalculable harm while they hold sway. 
With the real world is rife with these dangers, it’s no surprise that many find themselves most free to express their true identity in the virtual world. As I wrote last year, the trans community is remarkably large and supp0rtive in Second Life:
The publisher, Linden Lab, promotes LGBT friendly communities in their Destination Guide. This is a corporate signal that the community is welcome and integral to Second Life, not an underground culture, but community embraced by the company. In search there are 694 places that identify themselves with trans in their keywords. There are also over 500 results for groups. (Though a few of those are unrelated to gender, such as one called the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.) This indicates a lively, vibrant trans community in Second Life.
One of the groups is for the Transgender Resource Center which has a in-world gathering place where they have discussions on topics in the news and have call-boards telling visitors who is online at the moment to offer help. Their Facebook page is accessible whether you use Facebook or not. They also have a secure Discord group where there are always people to talk to.
Many if not most virtual worlds have similar communities. Hamlet recently shared a survey of the VRChat community, suggesting that nearly 1 in 5 VRChat users are Trans/non-binary, or otherwise outside traditional cis male/female categories.
For more virtual world pics celebrating the beginning of Pride month, click on:
Disa Asylum’s Happy Pride 2023 is an annual celebration for her. I love her Gay Agenda. I sometimes think the “gay agenda” is too simple so people need to invent conspiracies and complications. We can’t really believe that people simply want to be treated the same as everyone else. There has to be more. So people project what they might seek if they were seeking power.
Naraelina Ordinary also wishes all Happy Pride. Her tee says “Gay and Tired” which seems a perfect expression of LGBTIQA people who are sick and tired of the backlash and the moral panic over the gay agenda. If a scary gay agenda existed, the very successful gay rights organization Freedom to Marry would not have shut down after the gay marriage decision. They would have identified another demand. They didn’t because the only gay agenda is staying alive while living their authentic lives.
Pride is a month-long event, so I hope there will be even more Pride photos this month. If you do one you want me to see and possibly feature, tag me or give it the hashtag #SLPride
All images copyright their respective artists. 
See all of Cajsa’s Choices here. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter, on her blog, and on her Ko-Fi.
Suggest images and Flickr feeds to Cajsa: Cajsa’s Choices is devoted to unique, artistic, and innovative virtual world-based images and screenshots that showcase the medium as an art form and Second Life as a creative platform. (Generally not images that fit on this Bingo card.) To recommend the best in virtual world imagery, tag the picture with #CasjaNWN or tag Cajsa Lilliehook by adding her to the photo.
Cajsa Lilliehook is a sixteen year resident of Second Life, where she owned a photo studio, spent several years as a DJ at The Velvet, and for her first SL job, cleaned up prim trash. She co-founded and runs the It’s Only Fashion blog with her best friend Gidge Uriza. She also has a book review blog, Tonstant Weader Reviews and a cooking blog, Single Serving Recipes. She spends a lot of time researching and reporting on Republican sexual predators. In her first life, she is a retired grassroots leader who has worked for economic and social justice issues most of her life. She is also the minion of a cat named Nora.