All About Trey

Pride Weekend

I'll be going to the Pride Parade this afternoon. It will be my fifth Pride Parade here in DC. It's okay, not great, but nice. The parade I say in Sydney at the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was just so over the top fabulous (and I don't use the F word lightly!). But I like DC's. It's got your Dykes on Bikes, the drag queens, the gym boys on the ReSluts (I mean Results) float, the leather men, DC Bears, politicians, PFLAG, you name it. None of those individual groups really represent me, but when you take them in total, and what they stand for, it does. It really does.

I'm not a marching type (probably that conservative, Episcopalian upbringing). But I really respect those who do. I think the Pride parade is sort of a modern day non-violent Stonewall like protest. You may not like drag queens, but they have every right to walk down the street and strut their stuffs. You may not like the leather men, but they too have their right to do what they want. The media will no doubt focus on the extremes of the parades, the Dykes on Bikes and the Leathermen wearing assless chaps, and miss the rest. The groups like PFLAG, the Gay Science Fiction Reading Club, Brother Help Thyself, or the HIV/AIDS awareness groups. No there isn't a group of suburban gay families who march, but you wouldn't see them on the front page of the newspaper. It wouldn't sell copy. But that's okay, the Parade is a celebration of the whole GLBT community and I'm okay with the Dykes on Bikes, Drag Queens, and Leathermen taking the lead. They did it years ago at Stonewall. And if they hadn't then, we wouldn't be where we are today.

So I'll go out an cheer for the Parade and stand proud with the rest of my community.

posted by Trey @ 11:30 AM