thelesbianlifestyle.com

I remember so clearly my first Pride Parade. Well, it wasn’t so much a parade. I think that there may have been a parade, but we were a small city and the parade consisted of a bunch of fairly conservative looking queers walking down the street holding signs. After all, Grand Rapids, Michigan is the home of the Christian Reformed Church of America AND Amway. So, yeah, it’s conservative.

But after the parade was a festival of sorts. Lots of food and speakers and stuff to buy. I was 23, I think, the first time I went. I was a tad nervous. West Michigan back then was a land full of androgynous or butch women. I, the uber-femme, was an anomaly. A not altogether welcome one. You have no idea how many women said things to me like “How long til you go back to men?” (nearly 20 years now!) Then there’s my personal favorite “You don’t move like a lesbian.” What does that mean, I ask you. Was it my clothes? My perm? (Remember, it was the 80’s!) or was it the red lipstick?

Even that nonsense didn’t take away my sense of wonder, excitement and discovery. There were QUEER people here! There were straight people supporting us! There were books that had women like me as the central characters. Or more or less like me. There weren’t a lot of fiction novels back then with butch/femme characters. But still …. lesbians, everywhere! I was psyched.

I went every year for several years. Despite the fact that religious zealots picketed and tried to hand me tracts, I went. I had encounters with these zealots. I wore my Aquinas College sweatshirt one year and one of them knew that AQ is a Catholic college. They tried to not only get me to see the error of my ways for being queer, but Catholic! Thankfully, I had already seen the error of my Catholic ways and had moved on. It was all worth it just to be surrounded for one single day by lesbians and gay men. Unfortunately, we were still too … something – ignorant, maybe? … for the bisexuals and the transgendered to join us publicly.

It was years before I went to my first “big city” pride parade. It was 1997 and I was 30 years old. I went with friends to Chicago. Let’s just say that Chicago may only be a two hour drive from Grand Rapids, but it was a whole other world. There was a big ol’ “gay neighborhood.” There were many GLBT shops, not just one or two. There were actually BTs as well as GLs! And the parade? It was so fun! There were all kinds of queers doing all kinds of things – from the investment bankers to the drag queens to the Riot Grrrls. No one, absolutely no one, told me I didn’t belong there. There were butch women who recognized that I was femme, not straight. That was lovely. I was excited to see transgendered men and women and that they were welcomed. The queer energy in the place was thrilling. By this time, 10 years after I came out, the Pride Parade was all about fun. I no longer felt the sense of wonder or relief at “finding my people.”

I think that was my last Pride Parade. It just stopped being so vital to me to attend. I think that they are important for people at various stages of coming out. Pride Parades can help the newly out feel less alone, they can be a place for friends to have fun. The accompanying festivals can be a place to learn about other kinds of being queer, about what’s going on politically, and they are definitely a good place to buy Queer Stuff.

My partner and I are adopting three children. Well, she is since the state of Michigan will only let one of us do it. I don’t think that they are ready for a Pride Parade. I think that there are a lot of things that go on that are inappropriate for children and so I don’t take my boys. Something that gets on my nerves beyond belief is people who have children and suddenly think that everything has to be Child Friendly. Not all things are meant for children just because we have them. There are other Queer Things to which we can take our children.

Like all emotionally healthy parents, I know that my life can’t revolve entirely around my children. So, in a few years, when the boys are a little older and a little more settled, maybe my partner and I will leave them with someone and go to Chicago or San Francisco or NYC for a Pride Celebration. You’ll know it’s us … we’ll be the 40-somethings who are dancing wildly and singing loudly. Mostly glad to be ourselves again, not someone’s parents, among Our People. Come up and say hello. We’d be glad to meet you.

by Nimiiwin