What Does Your Pride Look Like?

I’ve been reflecting this month as it is Pride month for our LGBTQ community. There are a lot of events and awareness campaigns–a homophobes nightmare, I’m sure. What people aren’t aware of though is that Pride Events themselves are a mix bag in the community for many and there is much debate around them for the following reasons:

1. What should be permitted with the growing families that come out?
2. The greater growing presence of corporations conflict
3. Have the events lost touch with the original purpose of Pride?

Pride began as a commemoration of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City — after being subjected to relentless police brutality, arrests, and raids on gay bars, nightclubs, and bathhouses, LGBTQ people stood up and fought back. The first Pride march was held the next year and became a symbol of resistance as well as a demand for LGBTQ lives to be recognized as equal. In the very roots of Pride is a resistance of norms (especially sexual and gender ones) that insist you “should” be a certain way or you are not accepted or welcomed. It was the underground elements, not the Church, that were safe havens and that also sent out healing hands like lesbians and the leather community during the AIDS crisis for decades upon decades. This means places that were nonjudgemental about promiscuity, drugs, or how much prison time you did.

Fast forward to today and about in the mid 2000’s, as more holistic opportunities have been afforded to gays, like such things as gay marriage, we now have far more gay families. Bars and Bathouses are not the only option left for gays. There are gay sports leagues, gay choirs…heck, there are even gay churches. We’ve come far though we surely have far go. Just last summer, I was fired for being gay. So yes, we still have far to go. But in the mid-2000’s arguing began about the 3 issues I posted at the top of this article:

1. What should be permitted with the growing families that come for Pride
2. The greater growing presence of corporations at Pride
3. Have the events lost touch with the original purpose of Pride

Despite all the debating, I haven’t seen a forced pull back of fetish, kink or people out in skimpy gear at Pride events, so I think that argument has somewhat died off. It is a tough topic because I want a family friendly space too. In looking at photos from one local city event, so many looked like they were on drugs (I know because I have been around that). But, we have so few spaces to express and celebrate our sexuality and though I’m not going to be dressed in leather chaps, a bikini, or a furry costume, I don’t want to prevent someone else from doing so. I don’t know what we can do. Maybe we do something like Disney. We always talk about “Gay Disney World” when we refer to something being ideal. So maybe a good ideal version of Pride is to do theme park like areas that aren’t necessarily policed or restricted but more mapped out so people know “this is the family friendly area” and this is “the more adult” area. Or have some Pride Events specifically for families too. I’m not sure what the answer is to that one but those are some ideas.

As to corporations, I really like what Alex Abad-Santos wrote on Vox back on 2021 on this whole issue:

“The corporatization of Pride has been a disappointment for many queer people, including LaFleur and, frankly, myself. As she explains, it’s more about selling a product and asking consumers to purchase their way to some idea of equality than it is about wrestling with the issues — health care for trans people, incarceration, homelessness, sex work, and substance abuse, etc. — that face the LGBTQ community. 

If Pride has become so corporate, then at what point does Pride become a product itself? Does all this corporate gesturing rob Pride of measurable political impact? ” https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22463879/kink-at-pride-discourse-lgbtq

That is a very good point but overall, I still find Pride to be a bigger community event than just a corporate event. In actuality, one big corporation, Ford, has pulled out. But it’s almost like we can never can be pleased. We want to be recognized and now that we are, we say it is too much and too controlling of them to come in like that. Are we drama queens or what?

Last, the question is have the Pride Events lost touch with the real purpose of Pride. I would say maybe not. The purpose was resistance to societal pressure and norms to conform. I think Pride Events are still doing that, don’t you? For whatever reason you may even dislike them or not take part, they do challenge societal norms just by merely holding a gathering of LGBTQ folks. The only reason I can’t say an emphatetic yes is there no event I walked away from feeling more equipped or knowledgable to fight equality on our cause. There is so much focus on entertainment and stands selling items or trying to get your membership or business, I think Pride has lost the potential of how it could get the lot of us into great activism around any certain bill or cause presently facing our community. Even teach us what steps to take. Motivational speakers. Legistlative Guests. Not just drag queens and gay choirs alone. Empower us, Embolden us. I think Pride would really make a big difference rather than being a vendor mart/dance party that is primarly today. There is potential here. What would happen if we took ahold of it?