Who knew that this weekend, of ALL weekends, was Pride Weekend here in big town Texas. Well, apparently my parents, Fil and everyone else.
Not me.
But Pride here is so vastly different from other sorts of Pride. It’s all about family, promoting the normality of being gay, rather than exposing the flamboyant underbelly that has given the gay community a lot of problems. While I agree that, that behavior offers a distinction for most, an individuality, I do think it gives the community as a whole a bad appearance. What better to fuel the conservative fire than men in tiny pink thongs gallivanting around in public… where children could see! Whatever.
“Our Pride is something that does not resemble the wild frenzies of San Francisco or Chicago or even our just-three-hours-away neighbor Houston, where street parties and festivities cause uptight suburban haircuts to quake, timid in the face of overt sexuality and intoxicated freedoms, the sort of things that are televised and played in a loop on Christian Broadcasting Network, the wild and adventurous acts that give Pride its spirit – its soul.
Or … its bad reputation. It really just depends on who you ask.
…
To participants and organizers of these larger, more established Pride parties, Austin’s may seem tame, perhaps even a bit repressed. The point of Pride in many more established, urban gay communities is to represent a certain progressiveness. Some circles within these communities feel it is a given right, their mandate, and their responsibility to remove the stigma from sexuality and to express personal freedom as gay Americans, who still suffer outsider status in too many places around the globe. Normalizing or sanitizing the sexual aspects of queer culture is viewed as assimilation or even oppression.
When we begin to duct tape the face of Pride, a “proud” celebration that is supposed to stand for freedom and bold self-expression, does the concept of Pride become a watered-down banner for mainstream absorption?
…
Ultimately, it’s about unity. The love that pours out of this unique, annual party bears the hope of making a safe space for gay people, for transgender people, for people of color, for straight people, for those reveling in the gray bath of sexual fluidity, in a sense, for everyone. It’s an opportunity to flame the fans of self-expression, the inclusion of every being who seeks to be proud of being exactly who he or she is. To that, the mission of Austin Pride succeeds. ” ~ Austin Chronicle
I agree wholeheartedly with the Austin Pride mantra. I think it’s a positive thing to portray, the normality of being gay. I seriously disbelieve that the outrageous behavior at MOST Pride warrants any support for equality from wavering or neutral voters. I think that, even in a city like Austin, the crazy version of Pride would get swallowed up by picketers or conservative groups. But something tame? Some thing docile? Even with men in tiny bikinis or women who scarcely get called “ma’am” any more, there’s nothing to picket, nothing to get angry about.
Why? Why am I such an adamant supporter of not flamboyantly displaying the queerness of being queer? Because we fight every single day for our equality. Every day that we walk out of our doors with our children and our wives, or husbands, and kiss our partners freely in public is a day we are fighting for our equality. We do not fight just to snuggle down at the TV and listen to senator after senator ramble about the outrageous display at Pride festivals around the country. That we’re “second class citizens” because we choose to, so boldly, be different.
No doubt about it, since Stonewall we’ve been Queer and Proud. We’ve done drag and gotten sex changes and had children and adopted and gone on intoxicating cruises. We’re out, we’re more out than we’ve ever been, closet doors smashing in unmeasurable numbers.
But now, now that we’re all just trying to settle down. Now that we’re trying to second-parent-adopt, or legally marry our partner, we can’t really afford to be so… q…weird, huh? Because, the Chronicle is right, that Pride DOES give us a bad reputation. What’s better than a Pride that smashes those misconceptions. That really gives the government some thing to stutter at, something for them to TRY and argue with, but fail.
And I’m not saying that we should just drop what makes us special, what makes us queer. I’m saying that maybe we should think twice before we take to the streets and shake our bits at uptight, conservative suburbanites. Because their votes are the majority, because their masses sway the tides of equality. Sadly, ours don’t. Our straight supporters, our queer masses are daunted by the impressive outpour of conservative hate. They hate us because we “defy God”, some hate us just because we’re so utterly different. None of them get the opportunity to see exactly how normal we really are, because what they loop on the Christian Network is so scary to most, they can’t imagine the swelling tide of unbound sexuality lapping at their door, let alone enjoying the sweet freedoms they enjoy.
But maybe if things changed? Maybe if Pride was more about the family, more about what makes us truly proud, our children, our wives, our husbands, our loving and supporting families and communities… maybe then they’d notice… “hey, they’re kinda like us…” Just like when you teach your child to say “I have two mommies, and it’s normal,” we would teach them to say “they are two women, and they have children, and they are normal, like us.” And then we would get equality.
Isn’t that something to be proud of?
** If you’ve made it this far, whew! I know it’s long winded and maybe a bit repetitive or just plain jumbly, but I had to get it out. It was kind of like poison, eating away at my insides. Thank you!
