Pride

It seems that dissing Pride has become almost as strong of a tradition as the actual parade. Every year Pride is marked by the multitudes of opines about what pride really means and if we really need pride and really, what the hell do we have to be proud of anyway? After all, aren't we all integrated and accepted? Haven't we accomplished being as boring as everyone else?

We usually approach pride with a good dose of urban dyke apathy, but this year we're excited. Afterall this is OUR day and we don't get many of those. It's our day to be queer, and not just queer, but queer in community and queer in culture. It's a day for drag queens and dykes on bikes and parents with strollers and queens with corgies. It's a day to run into old friends. It's a day to march and raise our voices in protest.

Because no matter how many opinions are put forth, the only way you can live comfortably as a queer is if you are male, live in the city, are white, have no children, work at a company that happens to include you in their non-discrimination policy and have enough discresionary income that you are never truly threatened. Only then you might have a chance at not facing discrimination.

Everyone else is still out there fighting. If you are parenting, a woman, in the military, religious, in a relationship, a person of color, poor, rural, from another country, sick, and a multitude of other things it is STILL NOT EASY TO BE QUEER. The rest of us need a day to be okay and be queer all at the same time.

So we go to Pride this weekend. And for the first time I'm actually PROUD. Happy pride to everyone out there.