SF Pride - or ‘How Pride Went Mainstream’

June 29, 2008 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

I headed out to the Pink Party in the gay ‘hood of Castro last night, and then swung by to catch the Pride parade and the ensuing Pride Festival afterwards.

Sure enough, this whole pride festival happening here in San Francisco had all the necessary components for a Pride weekend.  Rainbow flags everywhere.  All sorts of people wearing all sorts of outfits.  Some wearing almost none, or none.

However, it no longer seemed shocking, mystifying or unique.  It was me, my friends, both gay and straight, sharing the same street with thousands and thousands of other partygoers.  I saw all types..  gay, lesbian, transsexual, straight, threesomes, foursomes.  Any social circle you could think of, it was there.

The whole point of the night was to have a good time.  It wasn’t about getting together, like birds of a common feather getting together to affirm a basic sense of humanity, a sense of togetherness in a world that rejected them.

What once had been unthinkable had occured.  The world now no longer rejected us.

What had started over thirty years ago, when a group of outraged homosexuals fought back against the police that had conducted a raid on their own bar, their only place where they could have found solace and acceptance, and transformed itself into an annual affirmation of what it’s like to be gay.

Now in cities like San Francisco, we no longer fear for our lives.  We no longer worry about acceptance. It’s become just another facet of our lives.  Worrying about making next month’s rent has become a bigger issue for most of us than being gay.

What’d started out with a small group of bold, courageous men and women who dared show their faces to the public and say “yes.. we are gay”, has in essence become just another reason to get together and have a good time.  Not so different than dressing up for Halloween or or heading to your local Irish bar for St. Patrick’s Day.

The rapidity of this transformation has suprised me.   All night long, I ran into kids.  Kids who were in high school or barely out of high school, with what I suspect, hardly an inkling of how much of a changed world they live in as opposed to the ones that people lived in only ten, twenty years ago.

The Castro.  What once was a mecca of sanctuary and safety for gay people who left their cities seeking a more accepting place to live, now actually has become a tourist destination.

I’ve heard from many gay friends who tell me that they stay away from the Castro.  “It’s become too touristy”, and they have moved on to different neighborhoods in the city, where they feel more at home.

Any of those photographs above could have easily been taken at any common late-night destination in any major city.  Adams Morgan in Washington D.C.  East Village in New York City.  Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis.

Then the Pride parade.  Float by float rolled by.   Politicans, who in general would never associate themselves with ‘homosexuals’ decades ago, how eagerly they worked the crowds today.  Votes are votes, huh?

And the marriage thing.  Gay people in California now can get married.  Who’d imagine?

And families.  Gay parents pushing child-scooters.

Don’t mistake this for cynicism.  I am deeply happy that gay people are able to marry now.  That they have started up families and undertaken many of the things that traditional America has done.

Instead, it is just with profound realization that with the ever increasing acceptance of being gay in America, it has also irreversibly transformed the culture, the mindset of what it means to be gay.  It has become less and less of a defininig aspect of a person, and more simply, just one facet of many facets that make up a person.

Pride used to be about getting together, putting on the most shocking outfits you could dare wear, and going out in public.  Safety in numbers and declaring to the world, “We’re here, we’re queer.  Get used to it!”

And that happened.  Not quite a fairy tale anymore, eh?

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