Let me first take a deep breath before I try to sketch out a rough picture of what remains unseen to the rest of the world. Activist like artist create and recreate the word around them. Where they might use paint and color we use words and knowledge to show people the world around them. Fall down the rabbit hole to see that you have really been living in a wonderland and this is the world actually. It is with a heavy heart and sighs of regret that I write about this. I love pride, I do. All of the people having a great time, the drinking, the rainbows, all the glitter, none of the clothes, the dancing, its really one giant party. You meet people who are either there to watches the spectacle, support queers, or are queer and you bond with them. Making a connection with a random stranger is forever priceless; and I feel like that is the one redeeming quality of modern day pride. I have a great appreciation for the human form, especially when dressed scantily and gyrating around to music. I also enjoy getting wild, kissing random strangers, and being very friendly with everyone but that's not what pride is or suppose to be about. I love free stuff and all the things given away at the parade ( even though they never throw me a freakin shirt all I get are beads). I also enjoy that we as a group are important enough to be targeted by political groups ( it means we vote so yeah us). None of this has anything to do with pride. Pride in my city has been white washed, normalized, domesticated to conformity and commercialized. Safe spaces no longer exist and not everyone welcomed. You have now have to fit into certain boxes and jump through certain hoops in oder to be accepted. When did being proud, standing up for that fact that you have the same rights as anyone else and can be who you are mean changing everything about you to be more like white, gay, cis, men. I hate that we don't talk about the issues anymore and pretend that just because we are allowed to get married in a few places that we have won. Well for all of us who don't have upper class democratic white parents ( mom and dad of course) we still face the struggle of coming out. That war isn't over. What about all the internalized homophobia and the external abusive homophobia we face everyday. That war isn't over. Please don't even get me started on our gender issues, homos our trsns* people are not second class citizens we of all people should not treat them as such. Gender is not entertainment. People should not have to preform for us thus conforming to some form of societies gender roles. If they say they are then they are. Trans* issues are our issues we are one community and can not stand divided. That is a war we are having with ourselves and that sure as hell isn't over. Let's talk about sexism and how misogynistic the community is. Then let's flip the coin and talk about our problems with how we define masculinity. So many issues that concern gender are not over. And last but not least race because that's always a fun one, its more than just grindr people. We are like freakin' swiss chess when it comes to problems. If we were a ship we'd be the Titanic and the women and children that survived would be the white men because the dead, the rest of us, are forgotten and buried in history at the bottom of the sea never to be herd again. For all that reading we do maybe we need to stand back and take a look the mirror and read that. The real shade is when this whole thing started it was women, it was trans* folks, it was people of color, there wasn't a white person to be seen but now that we've made it through what might have been worse of times you want to reap all the benefits of our hard labor and leave us out to starve? You can't really enjoy what was never yours and that you know nothing about. Is that why you drink so much, is that why you dance, is that why you keep partying? Are you trying to achieve the same blissful feelings as they did? Do you want a slice out of their happiness pie? Well sorry to break it to you but they were pissed, angry, upset, passionate people who believe that if they all came together that their hate of how thing are could transform things in to how they wanted them to be. You can't fake your way to their high you can't artificially created it either. You will never know what it feels like to change something unless you actually change something. Pride isn't something you have or are entitled to just cuz you're gay. Its something you have worked hard for and continue to fight for everyday of your life. Pride is blood, sweat, and tears. Pride is late nights and long hours of hard work. Pride is making it better. Pride life changing, is remembering where we have come from and how far we still have to go. Open your eyes and see the world around you and question it. When you get an answer, a really good answer and begin to understand it then you can begin your journey to understanding pride.
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