A friend of mine was very surprised when I told her that I’ve attended almost every Chicago Gay Pride Parade in the last 15 years. Naturally, she mistook my sometimes-misanthropic attitude toward the gay community for disdain. Nothing could be further from the truth. After all, the LGBT community is supposed to be one of diversity, not just of color, ethnic background and fetish, but also of diverse ideas and attitudes, right? Right? RIGHT?
…crickets chirping…
So I don’t always walk lockstep with my gay brethren. Does that mean I can’t go out and enjoy a day of sunshine, shirtless men and public drunkenness? I’m fairly certain the current incarnation of Pride wasn’t what the founders of the original Gay Liberation Day March intended when they started it the year after Stonewall. Over the past 40 years it’s transformed from a call to political action into a highly commercialized party in the streets. I feel that it’s mostly lost it’s meaning. But hey, who doesn’t love a party, right?
My tradition for Pride has always been to stand with a group of friends, drink as much as possible and make snarky comments at every contingent or float passed by. If I was lucky, I’d be entertaining not only my compatriots, but also other onlookers. If I was unlucky, I’d been surrounded by humorless lesbians. It happens.
This year I chose to work a half day and arrived well after the parade had begun. I met up with my boyfriend and his friend, Mike. We were all well on our way to getting loaded and the smart-ass comments were starting to fly. We even had a cute straight couple in front of us clamoring for more color commentary. All the pieces were in place but something was wrong: I was just not into this year.
Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t drunk enough or my mind is just on a hundred other things. Or maybe it was both or neither. I’m maybe I am just “over the rainbow”, as one of my readers put it. Whatever the case, there wasn’t enough beer on Halsted Street to make it worth staying.
I drunkenly rode my bike home, where I washed up, changed clothes and headed to Big Chicks, my favorite gay watering hole. I was hoping that a trip to my favorite queer tavern and some familiar faces would lighten my mood. But the dark cloud that shadowed me at the parade followed me to the bar. It was official: I was done with Pride.
It makes me sad that it’s come to this. I used to look forward to Pride. Even though most days I feel like an unwanted immigrant in the United States of Gayrods, Pride was the one day I did feel like I belonged. Most people are nice to you, even the straights come out of the woodwork to show their support. In fact, the annual Pride Parade is the largest in the city and draws an estiamted half million people. It’s hard to be in a bad mood in such a huge crowd of revelers. The positive mood can be emotionally overwhelming if you let yourself feel it. (Liquor helps.)
I was feeling noticably underwhelmed this year. Pride is starting to feel like we are all just going through the motions. No meaning, no real activism, just sex, drugs and disco beats.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t totally take it for granted. The right to have these gatherings was hard won and not achieved overnight. There are still places in the world where gays would not even think of such public displays and others where they face open opposition, harassment and violence when they do. So yes, we’re lucky. Quite lucky. But I think we’ve really truly forgotten what Pride was originally intended to be.
What makes Pride even harder to, ahem, swallow this year is that fact that despite our many gains in the last 40 years, we still seem to be sitting at the back of the bus. At least that’s how the Bush years felt. What’s worse is that now, under the Obama administration, it feels like we’re being thrown under that bus by a guy we strongly supported. He talked of hope and change and all I can think about is a Cyndi Lauper lyric:
“Same ‘ole fuckin’ story / With your two different sets of rules…”
I was biking down the main drag of Boystown today, the day after Pride. The city workers were out in full force, using power sprayers to rid the streets and sidewalks of all the left over gunk. Right now that is what it feels like to be gay in this country. We get our one day of fun in the sun and then the government comes by to cleanse the street of our filth, washing us away down the sewer until next year.
I know I’m being a Debbie Downer here. (Insert sad trombone.) But with the state of things, I can’t help but feel that Pride is a little hollow this year. I’m hoping to attend the National Equality March on Washington, DC in the fall. Maybe that will recapturee my enthusiasm. Maybe it will open the eyes and minds and hearts of my fellow gayrods and on-the-fence straights, show them that there’s more to this movement that simply a party in the streets. -fin-
