Jess and Josh Talk About Stuff

A reader (Jess’s mom) sent in this article arguing against the flamboyance of pride parades. Freedom of expression, celebratory atmosphere, we’ve come so far, I get it, but I can’t help but agree with the article’s central question: Where’s the pride in the pride parade? My reluctance to participate in, or even watch, the annual Greenwich Village parade can be traced back to this idea that what the gay rights movement needs to emit right now is respectability, not just exaggerated sexuality. It’s not fair, and it shouldn’t matter how we display ourselves, but you know, life ain’t fair, and when life gives you lemons you can’t just throw a bunch of sequins at them and call them fabulous.

And I think that gay rights activists are starting to feel this way too; in this recent article about Washington’s pride parade, for instance, which was clearly written by and for a straight audience unfamiliar with the history of modern gay activism, notes happily that “conservatively-dressed gray-haired men and women waved and tossed candy to cheering spectators.” And look at the three pictures the article uses. None of them show muscled men in thongs and tiaras; rather, we see an amateur marching band, straight parents supporting their gay children’s sexuality, and shirts-and-pants-clad gay rights activists from the early days of the movement. I admit that thongs and tiaras can be wonderful, and they have their place in the pride parade, but I think we should move away from that wrist-dangling stereotype as the central image of the parade; the takeaway message should be that gays and lesbians don’t fit into any one “category” and deserve rights equal to their straight peers, not that gay people are, if given the chance, wild and hedonistic and scantily-clad.