I’ve written many times about the first time I watched a Pride Parade. Because of the lurid press coverage I had seen before that, and even some of the critical things I heard from certain queer acquaintances, I was expecting something very different that what I actually saw. So what did I see? Mostly a lot of very ordinary looking people. There was a group of people in shorts and t-shirts who were marching with their dogs on leashes. There was the group of people driving a particular small foreign car. The drivers were wearing matching t-shirts, and I suspect shorts, though it was hard to tell. There were many, many groups where most of the people were wearing matching t-shirts and shorts and walking behind a banner that declared they were with one non-profit organization or another. A lot of them.

There were a lot of pink triangles. There were also rainbows, some lambdas, and some labryses. A lot of people had pink or purple hair. Most of the groups had at least some members who had their children marching along beside them.

There were people dressed very scantily. There were banners and floats that had some sort of sexual innuendo as part of the theme. There wasn’t any actual nudity, but there were a few costumes that were very close to it. But the thing is, not quite a year before my first Pride Parade, I had attend my first Seattle Torchlight Family Seafair Parade with a bunch of co-workers. And at that parade—an official city parade with the word “family” in its title—I had seen a whole lot more near nudity, many more sexual innuendos as themes for floats, and a whole lot of drunken participants in the parade.

I should mention that there didn’t seem to be many queers in the pride parade who were under the influence. Certainly nowhere near as many as I saw at the Seafair Parade.

The difference was, that all of the sexual content and near nudity in the Seafair Parade was clearly aimed at the heterosexual male gaze. Just as I see a lot more sex in the typical set of Super Bowl commercials that I have ever seen at a Pride Parade. And that’s the thing: straight people are so used to straight male sexual desire used to sell everything from cupcakes to beer to automobiles, that they don’t even notice it any more.

Heck, in Seattle we have another annual parade called the Fremont Solstice Parade, and it is famous for have scores of nude bicyclists in it every year. Under Washington state law, if you have body paint on, it counts as not being nude. And it was a community parade put on by mostly straight people who was doing it for years before the queers in Seattle started doing it in our Pride Parade.

So if you’re one of those people who objects to Pride Parades because you think they’re too wild or sexy or whatever, I am just going to laugh at your cluelessness. I’ve written a few times about the people from within the community who hate it, and I have yet to meet one whose arguments didn’t boil down to being equivalent of the bigots. So if you’re one of those people you don’t get my laughter, you get my pity and a hope that someday you will stop being a self-loathing hater.

If you’re one of those people who think Pride isn’t needed because bigotry is somehow far behind us, please take this does of reality:

• Religious leaders want to devalue and outlaw our families
• The attorney general thinks it’s fine that queers are being murdered in other countries
• 40% of homeless teens are on the streets because their parents threw them out for being gay or they suspected they might be gay
  
• People want to ban trans young people for school activities
• People still insist, despite overwhelming medical evidence to the contrary, that we’re sick and dangerous
• A small mob can beat and taser gay men on a train and witnesses will stand by in silence
• Gay men are assaulted on the streets of the so-called capitol of the free world
• Police routinely treat missing persons and violent crimes cases where the victims are queer as low priority
• Trans people continue to be murdered just because of who they are
• Queer children continue to be bullied and driven to suicide in shameful numbers
• Government officials and private citizens are actively fighting to take away what rights we have

Finally, if you’re one of those people who asks, “If you’re born this way, what’s to be proud of?” First, look up at that list. Remember that that is barely scratching the surface of the hate, bullying, and oppression that every queer person has survived. So, what do we have to be proud of? Some people want us dead, but we’ve survived. Some people wish we were invisible, and we have stepped out into the light and shared our beautiful glittery freaky selves. We have been told we aren’t worthy of love, but we have found loving friends and chosen families and yes, even someone to call husband or wife. People have tried to bury us in hate, and we have shown the world our love. They have knocked us down again and again, and we have gotten back up, fiercer than ever. They have tried to force us into the shadows, and we have shown the world our light.

I’ve quoted before the old Jewish joke that the meaning of all Jewish holidays is, “They tried to kill us. We’re still alive. Let’s eat.” In the spirit of that sentiment:

They wish we were dead or invisible. We refuse to hide.

Let’s dance.