Imagine Pride

I have always imagined Pride as a party. A month-long party with Anne Marie's playlists and Maddie DJing. But that's just the surface. Pride for me takes many different manifestations, but I have to confess that I've always seen the world through queer eyes. After all, being queer has been the quite distinct quality that has made me stand out in a crowd. I'm queer, I'm here and people needed to get used to it.

First of all, I think that Pride has to do with proving the haters wrong. Pride means being proud of who I am. I did not have fundie parents, mind you. Just run of the mill Catholics, but still. Being gay was a no-no. What about the Joneses? What would THEY think? The good thing is that I have showed them that no, I was not gonna die, alone and diseased, just because I was  never afraid to say I really, really liked dick and pink t-shirts. I have outlived and professionally outpaced most of the naysayers and haters. And I look seven hundred times better than all of them. Being straight has not played out too well for most of them, now burdened by dead-end jobs, high blood pressure, four kids and two mortgages. My being living my best life and high-kicking all the way to the bank is enough to drive many of them mad. And I like that. Yes, I'm petty.

Also, Pride was a protest. Protest against injustice, against oppression and against conformism. The first Pride was a riot, darling. Didn't you know that? And I like the idea of Pride being a riot. I'm a non-conformist. Pride is a revolution against the gays who want to assimilate and against what people think the status quo is. Pride is for the Trans girls, the fat and the Fem boys, the kinksters, the Black and Brown folks and all the colors that the Lily White gays do not want tarnishing their 'image'. Pride is for the butch lesbians on Harleys. For the Drag Queens in nun costumes. Pride is a riot for the disenfranchised. It's always been that way. After all, that brick didn't throw itself.

Pride has to do with identity. I'm proud of having gotten over the heteronormative bullshit that was instilled in me from childhood. Yeah, I'm more than 'gay', obviously, but being gay was a 'problem' during my formative years. And it still is. After all, I was raised by straight people but my identity was not their identity. I was (and am) different to them. Why do you think that people still feel the need to 'come out of the closet? (Hey Carl!) My identifying as a gay man without any shame and expressing my desire for other men is still, in 2021 seen as an affront to the establishment. There's still straight and gay people who want me to 'tame it down'. To not be out and loud and proudly gay. They want only what's palatable to the masses. They don't want me 'rocking the boat'. Well, guess that? Fuck them and the high horse they rode on. SEXUAL is the last part of the word 'homosexual'. I like having sex with men. And if I want to flaunt that during Pride, well, I will put on a harness and short shorts and dance if I want to. 

Pride is diversity. Yeah. not all gay men are masc 4 masc (or want to be one or can be one). There are many shades of 'gay'. The LGBTQ+ slogan keeps getting longer and longer and it's because we didn't have a name for those identities before but now we do have them. Pride is not only for gay men. Pride must be all-inclusive. Lesbians, Trans folk and Bisexual people are also part of Pride. As are the Asexual, the Gender-non-conforming, the Intersex. Pride does not belong to white cisgender men who can 'pass' for straight.  Pride belongs to a very diverse community that needs to see itself represented. Thought I'd make that clear. Just in case.

Pride is Equality.

Because everybody has the right to be happy. If the straights are happy, why can't we? After all, we are here BECAUSE of the straights...

Happy Pride!

XOXO

P.S. Happy Birthday to Jimmy Sommerville who turns sixty today!