PRIDE
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Today is the first day of June. However, for me and my "family" it signals the beginning of another month - PRIDE month. I think for as long as I have been out I have heard criticisms about "gay pride." Some of them have even come from me. "How can anyone be proud to be gay, when society frowns upon it so." One voice retorts. Another, possibly even from a former me, echoes, "I am not like those other gays, not flamboyant 24/7, not a slut, not any stereotype really."
About two years ago in June I finally found an answer for those comments. I had something to tell the people making them. Gay PRIDE is not about, necessarily, being proud of being gay, although it can be. Gay PRIDE isn't about being stereotypical, or a good chance to hit 5 bars in one night. One knows that such things can be easier when the town isn't full of people who rarely make the trip. Although, for some, sexual liberation is precisely what they are celebrating as they climb into flatbed floats in nothing but a cowboy hat and a thong.
This leads me to what Gay PRIDE IS. Gay PRIDE IS real. Gay PRIDE comes from deep inside, and thus it is different for everyone. But on a higher level, Gay PRIDE is the same too. Community wide, Gay PRIDE seems to be about celebrating the things we do have. We have friends whom some of us hold closer than our own flesh and blood. We are bound in ways many will never understand. PRIDE is a celebration of what that means to each of us, and how it affects us.
To me, Gay PRIDE is having a sense of pride in who I am. Who I have been, and who I will be. Most importantly the way in which they come together to produce who I AM. I AM a social being. So I will celebrate with friends. I have friends who prefer to celebrate alone. I will miss them. I know straight people. Some of them will join me, others will not.
I will celebrate my accomplishments. I finished a year of law school. I was nominated for the President's Advisory Council on Minority and Women's Affairs. AIDS Walk raised more money than ever before. Grace moved to Laramie. And I was on my first bowling team in almost 10 years. I have a lot to be PROUD of, and I am gay.
posted by ZEUS @ 9:37 PM,
