Show us your Pride!
2003-06-27 @ 2:21 p.m.
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Happy Pride weekend!
When I came out about 12 years ago the media was still covering Pride weekend as a phenomenon rather than an event. They loved to print the most outrageous photos they could get of biker chicks in leather and bearded men in dresses. Of course those people were my heroes even though the photos were designed to shock and titillate the masses.
The first Gay Pride march I walked in, my mother walked with me. I didn't know very many people, and she was visiting for the weekend. I walked with my arm around her shoulders most of the way, and at one point she whispered to me "you could be ruining your chances to meet someone like this." I didn't realize until much later how proud I should have been of her that weekend.
It was a fairly simple march, almost quiet even. We walked past churches that had held services early or not at all to avoid us. The streets were almost empty of people to watch and cheer until we got close to the park, our destination. Floats were rare and usually carried the best of the local drag shows.
This weekend I'm still proud of my mom for walking with me that first Pride. But other things have changed. Gay Pride is now GLBT Pride (and friends). Today�s Atlanta newspaper included the Pride weekend events in their regular weekend guide. NPR is doing a daily show this week on various queer issues. Businesses know how to (and do) plan for the weekend. We know, for instance, that we�ll do most of our Pride business on Thursday and Friday, selling vodka and champagne to people who live near the park or the parade route and have brunch plans. Saturday everyone is in the park, and we won�t see them at the store. So I schedule accordingly.
And the parade! It�s now a parade, and it�s so full of corporate logos it looks like one big advertisement. There are a multitude of floats that still include the drag queens and the leather queers, thank you very much! And the streets are full of people watching from the side as well as marching. The churches have tables full of cups of water with the church folk passing them out and encouraging us to attend their services (First Baptist Church moved off of Peachtree St.).
The first year that I noticed these changes taking place, I missed the �good old days� of fewer crowds dominated by the most outrageously fabulous of us. But, of course, it had to come to this to show progress. People come from all over the southeast to be part of one of the largest Pride celebrations in the country, and they aren�t afraid to walk down Peachtree St. and be identified as a possible deviant. (I�ve seen pictures from Atlanta�s first march showing some people with bags on their heads.)
This year the United States Supreme Court has given us something to celebrate, though it will be a long time before the great state of Georgia legalizes gay unions. Still, we celebrate the steps as they come.
The very first rebellion at the Stonewall bar in NYC, dominated by drag queens and bulldaggers (I�ve always assumed the bulldaggers were leather daddy types or fierce bottoms), set off the streets of Greenwich Village for days and started a fire under the rest of our butts. Now we can say how far we�ve come in 34 years, thanks to the pride and courage of guys in dresses and girls in leather.
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