Rainbow flag flying proud at Pride
Gay Pride, Mardi Gras, whatever name we give this major annual event in the gay calendar, is an affirmation of our lives, our rights, achievements, hopes, and possibilities.
These events are meant to be inclusive (our aim to play a full part in mainstream society), and exclusive in the sense of demonstrating our particular gifts, qualities, and means of self-empowerment. What, then, are we to make of gay critics who see Pride merely as a big, brash, vulgar display detrimental to our best interests, a social irrelevance, an excuse to party and little more?
Back in the 1970s, very small groups of ground-breaking marchers braved great hostility as they snaked trembling with apprehension, holding roughly made placards bearing slogans that were more pleading than combative. Now the flamboyant millions who flock to Prides in London, New York, Sydney, or Rio, with so many battles won, seem to be preaching to the converted. They’re also there for friends who can’t be, lost to AIDS or time’s passing, the smiling ghosts of earlier decades and crusades.
In many places around the world, like Sofia, Jerusalem, and Moscow, Pride parades have been banned and participants beaten for what is dubbed shameful behavior, and civil rights taken for granted here are a far-off dream for those still living under regimes given to persecution. violence and murder. Gay men and women suffering in such places, would marvel at our freedom, and be immensely proud to join with thousands more taking to the streets.
Gay Pride London
What we also need to remember is that every year, guys from UK country areas without gay bars, who are just coming out, find Pride a revelation. To be part of a vast crowd joyfully progressing through large urban centres in the company of out police officers, firemen, disabled groups with wheelchairs, gay- friendly straights, bisexuals, transgender groups, lathers of leathermen, and even pets wearing camouflage bandanas, all cheering, waving, and dancing to disco beats in glorious sunshine - yes, to be part of such a throng is heartening, confidence-boosting, empowering indeed. Cynicism melts before it every time.
As with all large gatherings, crass behaviour is exhibited by some, and misuse of drugs and alcohol, jam-packed bars and clubs, and litter carelessly strewn everywhere can take the edge of our pleasure, but next day the memory of the best bits remains - hugs, a snog with a sexy stranger, the sense of exhilaration and hope. The guys who return to remoter areas suddenly don’t feel so alone.
We often hear that certain activities “give gay men a bad name”, but think for a moment and this can be seen for the muddled thinking it is. Homosexuals have had a bad name from the beginning, and it’s hardly the case that we’ve come to be seen as saintly, and certain behaviours now threaten a fall from grace.
Peter Tatchell, Richard Fairbanks and others attacked at Moscow Pride
Pride may come before a fall, as the proverb states, but LGBT Pride really indicates a bold assertion that we are as we are, without apology, and we demand acceptance from society as such, with all our diversity intact, and will accept nothing less.
None of us can afford complacency, however, and homophobia feeds on isolation and fear, acknowledged in slogans like “Silence = Death” and chants like,
“We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going shopping!”
Every parade is an echo of the Stonewall Riots which began in the small hours of 28 June 1969, deep in Greenwich Village. In 1999, the Stonewall Inn was added to the US National Register of Historic Places, becoming the very first gay listing among 68.ooo entries. President Bill Clinton spoke at the time of the Stonewall rioters being,
” a courageous group of citizens who resisted harassment and intimidation.”
On my first visit to New York the Stonewall Inn was a place of pilgrimage. It was an exceptionally hot day and I revelled in the associations of the bar as I sipped cooling margaritas, thinking how as LGBT people our lives would have been so different without the spontaneous actions of our gay brothers and transvestite sisters back then.
Stonewall Inn, New York
Anyone who feels embarrassed by the vulgar behaviour of some marchers today should remember that the riots that changed the world that June night began with a guy dressed as a woman, finally resisting harassment and arrest, hurling a tawdry stiletto shoe at a policeman.
By John Hartley
(c) Copyright 2010. All rights reserved.
