Now that June is over I feel like I can finally say this: Pride is irrelevant.
I’m not talking about the kind of pride that helps an individual have a healthy ego, that allows us to be happy when we do a good job, and indeed motivates us to do a good job at all. No, I’m talking about the rainbow flag waving, slow and poorly organized parade where no one throws anything, has-been dance music diva’s as entertainment shindigs that are thrown all over the country during the month of June. The same festivals that completely miss the point of why we needed Pride in the first place, and of why they no longer do anything but deliver us up as a captive audience to companies that really don’t give a shit about how gay, lesbian, or transgendered people fare in the workplace or in life.
In the United States June is widely recognized as gay and lesbian pride month. The riots that broke out at the Stonewall Inn in New York city in June 1969 are commonly and widely regarded as the birth of the gay civil rights movement. 1969 saw the immediate creation of two “liberation” groups, the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance both of which took on as their missions to fight oppression by both the police and by organized crime that gay men, lesbians, transgendered people, and drag queens faced as a matter of routine in the city of New York.
Pride festivals started as commemorations of the Stonewall riots, the Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day March on June 28, 1970 being the first with other anniversary marches organized by groups in San Francisco and Los Angeles during June.
The 1970s were a time of change for gay and lesbian people in the U.S. Politicians like Harvey Milk made their sexual orientation public and began fighting through the system to secure a life for gay and lesbian people that was free of official harassment.
Some time in the mid-1980s what we now know as Pride celebrations lost their political flavor. They mutated and changed, becoming street festivals and community festivals organized from the top down often by non-profit groups whose sole mission was the management of the yearly event. I think, though, that it wasn’t until the 1990s when big business started seeing the gay and lesbian community as a marketing niche, when companies started taking out special “gay pride” ads in program guides despite not having domestic partner benefits for their employees, that Pride really became irrelevant.
The thing of it is, as you get older, even if you’re still single, Pride celebrations become hollow. There’s very little to address the concerns of the gay or lesbian person who has moved passed the bar and disco stage, the person who knows the details of safer sex and ways to not get HIV.
There is very little to address concerns of aging and trying to move in the world as an adult. I can buy all the t-shirts, leather goods, and rainbow crap that I could ever want at Pride, but I can’t find someone to help me plan for my retirement.
The way I see it, as you get more comfortable with being different, sexual orientation fades into the background, as well it should, and as it should if we ever want to be accorded full civil rights. My concerns are really no different than the concerns of a married, childless, heterosexual woman of my age: I’m worried about approaching 40 and how my body will change; I’m concerned about maintaining good health; I’m concerned that I’m not saving enough for retirement; I’m concerned that I’m losing touch with mainstream culture.
Pride is, I think, a transition event and it is for the young and the newly out. It’s a way to get into the community, to show you options you may not have known existed before you came out or you got comfortable with your own sexuality. And those ends – connected the disconnected, providing unknown options – are indeed good and worthy things, but once you know those options exist, what purpose does Pride really serve?
Maybe my perspective would be different if I were single and I needed the social/romantic outlet that Pride naturally provides by gathering a large group of non-heterosexuals together in one place. Maybe my perspective would be different if I were an extrovert or a joiner, looking for a new group to become involved with.
Or maybe my perspective would be different if my community’s leaders were fighting a civil rights battle we actually had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.
Until we can actually work on something that might bring some results, I’ll keep my Pride to myself.
How many movements have become the punchline to an ad? Sometimes I hate free market economics.
I’ve marched in Pride parades with my church group, as part of the community of Welcoming Congregations. Gives a whole new twist to the event . I have to say that while I like the idea of Pride parades as a supportive celebration, they don’t necessarily do much for those of us who don’t center our definitions of ourselves on being glbt. I honestly don’t think it makes a difference if you’re single or partnered … my experience as a single woman at Pride has been that if you’re not newly out, or into being outrageous, or if you’re not an activist (with the “right” politics), or if you’re not already part of the community … you’re left on the sidelines.
As for the whole gay marriage struggle … yes, it would be nice to have legal protections in place for glbt couples. But civil unions would do the same damn thing without pushing as many buttons … and it bothers me that so many people in the glbt community don’t find that to be acceptable. I understand that it seems like the whole “separate but equal notion”. But seriously … as long as there are legal protections in place … who cares what you call it? There are issues that have been truly life-and-death for this community … a strong stand has been important. There are other issues, like this one, where a more subtle, slower approach might work better.
Hope that makes some sense. I’m still not quite awake today.
My favorite Pride activity this year was the San Francisco Trans March – it was smaller than the Dyke March, and it had none of the commercialization of the Pride Parade. I’m not transgendered myself, but I’ve dated a couple people who are, so I went in support of them.
My sexuality is not the most important part of my identity, but my community is far more important, so I participated the most in the activities that fostered my sense of community. The really huge Pride events that some major cities have are too big to really make me feel a sense of community.
Um. Your answer is apathy?
No, my answer is to work in small but quiet ways for things that are important: such as lobbying upper management at my work place for a comprehensive domestic partnership policy.
My point, not very well made I guess, is that I don’t think we have much to be proud of considering that in the past 37 years the only thing that we’ve really managed to achieve is becoming a niche market for Budweiser, United Airlines, and Stolichnaya. Sure, we’ve got higher visibility (gay and lesbian characters on TV, but not a single one of them isn’t a characature) but we’re also pouring millions of dollars a year into red herring causes (don’t ask; don’t tell) or things we can never win on (insisting on marriage while ignoring equal protection under the law).
I love Gay Pride Day, but I do understand that you and some of my friends want NOTHING to do with it for reasons as complex and varied as what makes us gay. But in as much as we are a dynamic community I do think it is important to respect the right of young people to discover this singular, annual event and the ones who still enjoy the communal spirit of the event to do so.
Thank you.
Going to the wrong Prides, then. All the things mentioned in this article that you needed — retirement planning, support for aging GLBT folk, issues about families, raising children, etc — all were part of the Pride celebrations I went to in Boston.
But that’s in large part, I think, from our changing focus now that we can legally marry in Massachusetts. Full equality, without the “separate but equal” nonsense, makes more of a difference than I think many are giving credence to.
Just a question. Does ‘full’ equality in Mass. give you the right to file your federal taxes as married? If not, it isn’t really full equality. What federal rights does full equality give you in Mass.?
“post gay” pablum. Every year during Pride some blogger or columnist repeats this drivel.
“There’s very little to address the concerns of the gay or lesbian person who has moved passed the bar and disco stage, the person who knows the details of safer sex and ways to not get HIV.”
Um NO, so totally wrong, try looking at the list of groups marching.
And its QUIET clear, perhaps not to a lesbian, that not ALL gay men know the details of safer sex and ways not to get HIV.
Its always heartwarming every year to see the thousands of GLBTer’s that don’t live in the gay ghettos travel into the cities to enjoy for one day what they can’t in their home towns….to be around NON heterosexuals.
Thank you..I was there in New York and what you said has been something I have been spouting for years, at the risk of being called an ol’ grumppy queer! Finally someone has had the un-political correctness to offer a frank point of view. And I might add not that far off the mark!
Everytime you go to a PRIDE parade you are standing up to be counted – I think you forgot that just being there in the streets is a political act.
I think what I am reading it that PRIDE does not benefit YOU directly enough.
Your supposed to go out to PRIDE to show support fo the people coming up. To PROTECT THEM from FUTURE bigotry. Your supposed to go to PRIDE to show worldwide support for those still living in places where PRIDE CAN NOT TAKE PLACE YET.
Just get out and be counted – and stop whining.
Yes, pride needs an overhaul, but you are writing a revisionist history based solely on your own personal local experience and perspective. >>
And I cannot imagine Harvey Milk would have accepted “civil unions.” Shame on your for saying second-class is good enough just becauuse you don’t want to piss off bigoted people. You are in denial if you think gays don’t need to fight for the right to have a legitimately recognized relationship. >>
In your linked post you wrote: “The fight for gay marriage in the U.S. is based on an unhealthy desire for acceptance. You can never get people to accept something they believe is wrong.”
And with that quote, Harvey Milk turned in his grave…
P.S. Please realize I did not intend my last sentence to be literal, but just a phrase. I know Milk was cremated.