Pride

It’s Weird Pride…again! But, then , in my humble opinion it’s been weird for a few years. The corporate takeover of absolutely everything easily commandeered the Pride Parade. We became recognized as a profitable and viable market, we were successfully blending into the mainstream with marriages, divorces and babies. When Pride lost it’s edginess as an event. people’s private pride parties became the thing. Party hopping, laughing, eating, being excessively gay…….

Gone are the days when our friends ensconsed themselves strategically on the corner handing out refreshments as we rode by on our bikes. Gone are the days when the leather boys turned someone into a hood ornament, tying him to the front of a classic car cruising elegantly down the parade route. Or when the gay teachers marched with paper bags on their heads so they wouldn’t be fired from their jobs. It was an opportunity to express our differences, revel in our uniqueness and celebrate the community that we all worked so hard to create.
It was fun to ride our motorcycles topless with only electrical tape keeping us barely within the parameters of the law.
The last time I looked the Pride Parade didn’t seem all that much different from the Seafair parade…Boeing, Alaska Airlines, Red Bull. It took way too long and was way too boring, except, of course, for the Queens. What would we do without them? All Hail the Queens!
I’m hoping something new and creative comes ouit of this forced hiatus. Before Covid, I was having a much better time at the smaller Prides that started springing up….gatherings of happy queer people mingling in parks, selling their wares, hanging in beer gardens without a 20.00 cover charge. Bremerton, White Center, Tacoma…I’m hopeful we’ll rise from the Covid ashes, be filled with the rainbow spirit and erupt into something spectacular and FUN, FUN, FUN. “We’re here, we’re queer, give us a nice cold beer!!!”