Proud to be Proud; June 9 2019

It’s Pride month! Have you indulged in YOUR seventh deadly sin today?!

I’m not a huge one for Gay Pride. Not because I’m ashamed of who I am, or anything – I’m quite content to be queer, or else I’d have chosen a pretty terrible url. It’s not Pride as a concept I’m opposed to, either. I love the idea of Pride. I want to get all my gays together, throw some bricks through some exclusionary windows, and riot ‘til the queers come home.

(Unrealistic; in this economy, we queers will never afford homes of our own! Too real.)

No, all of that is great. I don’t like the Pride Parade.

I could go on about the commercialization, and how far the parade has strayed from its roots. We all know that Stonewall was a riot (and if you didn’t know, Google it! It’s a great piece of our history and no one-off summary I could write could do justice to the tremendous event initiated by Marsha P. Johnson). I could go on about cops and how they have no right to show up at an event they tried to repress, for people they actively oppress.

My issue is a personal one, and that’s the inaccessibility of Pride. It’s not a friendly place for disabled queers, underage LGBTQ+ people, asthmatics, people with weird hang-ups about being sprayed with water guns...

That last one might just be a ‘me’ thing. I really dislike water. Liquid without known origins gives me anxiety attacks.

Pride goes hard on sex. In trying to be include the kink community or celebrate sex positivity, it inadvertently alienates sex-repulsed folks with an abundance of nudity and phallic/yonic imagery. More phallic than yonic. Pretty prevalently phallic. I’m not one of those parents that believes kids need to be shielded from imagery or explanations, but I do think there’s a line you can cross. Society pushes sex on youths through media already, then denies them the opportunity to educate themselves on it. That’s the case with heteronormative sex! The second you make it gay, you have even more questions that you’re shutting down before they can even be asked!

I think Pride needs to be a little less pushy with sex. Imagine all the opportunities for safe learning Pride could offer. (Disclaimer: that’s just how Pride events are where I live. If you know of any education-centric Pride events in Ontario, let’s get the word out. They deserve as much attention as the Parade).

Speaking of the Parade, the Pride Parade is what screws me over the most. Last time I went, it was blistering. Sun beating down, hardly any wind. As a solution, people marching and on floats had loaded water guns that they were firing at the onlookers. This was Not Good for me. To escape that, I tried to hang back... only to join the many, many smokers at Pride.

My lungs don’t work so good. I had to make a choice between getting sprayed and having an anxiety attack, or being totally unable to breathe. I took the third option, which was to leave altogether, feeling isolated and depressed.

The people running Pride, going to Pride, all have to collaboratively decide to open the event up to everybody who belongs there. And, frankly, everyone under the rainbow belongs at Pride.

(Except for you TERFs. I’m not sorry.)

Anyway, speaking of Pride, did you know that there’s an entire anthology of queer short stories, all from talented LGBTQ+ authors? And did you know that they let me join their ranks and publish one of my very own short stories?!

If you’re interested in some good reading, check out ‘Shades of Pride: LGBTQAI2+ Anthology’ from TL;DR press, available in paperback and ebook! ALL the proceeds go to True Colors United, a charity dedicated to fighting homelessness in the LGBTQAI2+ youth community.

Anyway, no time like story time!

I stripped him pretty deftly, considering how uncooperative he was. All dead weight and stiffening limbs. Self-conscious, I closed his blank blue eyes and righted myself upon putting my new supplies in my pack.

Kiphes, the goddess of birth and death, descended from the heavens like white smoke and encircled greedy arms around Leander. “Do you want to say a few words before you go? It’s customary.”

“What’s the use? I don’t think he’d hear me if I said sorry.”