Sixpence (the dear!) recently asserted that despite volunteering multiple hours per week for the Lurkville LGBTQ+ center, I had more work to do in the community. Thus chastened, I attended a Pride event last weekend. No, wait. I attended two Pride events last weekend. No, wait. I attended three Pride events last weekend.
Lurkville
After spending the morning planting some trees (not a euphemism) I went home, cleaned up and carried out the first part of my sentence at Lurkville Pride. Long-time Spo-fans may recall my dissatisfaction with previous Lurkville Pride events, and this year was really no exception. It was busy, and now that the Pandemic Is Over ™ I was the only freak wearing a mask, and the food truck lineups were so long it was hard to visit the booths.
On the positive side, I did talk with people from the Lurkville LGBTQ+ center I had not seen since before the pandemic. I also paid an in-person visit to a group of people from the older adult group I attend virtually. I guess those conversations were fine. There was a fellow from the older adult group who was rawther distracting. I am sure he had showered that morning, but he must have been giving off some strong pheremones. Furthermore he was wearing a T-shirt (in public!) that put his HAIRY FOREARMS on display for all the world to gaze upon. I suppose Pride means abandoning standards of modest dress.
Having staffed booths in the past, I ought to have visited the booths, but I really wasn’t feeling up to it. I did learn about one group organizing a long gay bicycle ride for charity, but as it turns out I am too slow (not to mention too fat) to participate.
The tone was definitely muted compared to big city prides (there were no nudists or D/s puppy play, as far as I could see) but people wrapped themselves up in their flags and there was a lot of strange costumes and makeup going on. As usual, everybody except me was festooned in rainbows.
There was a big loud Pride stage hosted by a drag queen. Just after her “drag isn’t dangerous” speech where she boasted of doing a Drag Queen Storytime that was perfectly appropriate because she knew the difference between kid-appropriate material and 19+ stuff, she invited a “community organizer” on stage to discuss his experiences of living under awful oppression as a queer person of color. Naturally, this community organizers unleashed a bunch of f-bombs during his speech. Fucking f-bombs, people. Yes, the crowd was full of kids, and yes, I understand that to the leftist radicals swearing is anti-oppressive or something (unless somebody swears at them, in which case it is a microaggression or genocide or something), but forgive me for feeling that wasn’t exactly the family-friendly vibe this Pride celebration was aiming for.
Other than the discussions with people I already knew, it did not seem like there was much for me at Lurkville Pride, so I got on my bicycle and off I went.
The Lurkburbs
Officially the Lurkburbs are a city with its own long history and culture. Although the vestigal downtown has lots of lovely old stonework, in practice the Lurkburbs are a bedroom suburb. Many of the people there harbor the NIMBYest, most regressive opinions I have heard north of Florida, especially when it comes to poor people. (One notable proposal was that homeless people on drugs should go to their family doctors to shoot up, so that there would be no need for a supervised consumption site. It might be excusable for you to be so ignorant that you don’t realize that (a) many drug addicts don’t have family doctors, (b) regressive NIMBYs don’t want poor people shooting up at their doctor’s offices, and (c) many poor drugged-up people have a tough time keeping appointments, but you might be forgiven. The author of this fine proposal was elected Lurkburbs mayor.)
Despite this, people in the Lurkburbs are trying hard to establish themselves as a real community that has real culture, and (I’m guessing) somebody got funding to put on some Pride events there. This is a bit of a schism: the Lurkburbs are pretty close to Lurkville, so many Lurkburbians just attend Pride there. But this upstart Lurkburb event decided to hold its big Pride day on the same day as Lurkville Pride. That probably was not great for their attendance, but so it goes.
This event was significantly smaller than its Lurkville counterpart. It was mostly an excuse for restaurants on the main downtown street to soak up pink dollars from patrons on the patios. There was a small kiddie play area and a few booths (with no overlap with Lurkville Pride, as far as I could tell), and of course a loud Pride stage hosted by a drag queen. This host seemed to remember that Pride started as a riot, because she did her best to lead a protest chant: “I say Happy! You say Pride! Happy!” “Pride!” “Happy!” “Pride!” . The irony, of course, is that nothing about the chant came across as particularly happy.
Again, I skipped most of the booths, and I didn’t stay long. Overall, though, I guess it is good that the Lurkburbs are putting up a good fight, and trying to establish its identity as a real city.
St Lurkestine
The next day was Sunday, which the Lord God decreed we keep holy by riding bicycles. So I decided to ride out to the small rural town of St Lurkestine, about four hours away (three or less if you are a competent cyclist, and not slow and fat).
This was the second year of the festival. It had some money (and apparently sponsorship by the Pride committee of the nearest city) but it was a low-key affair. When I arrived a man with a cowboy hat and a guitar was singing a catchy rendition of that Pride classic, Sixteen Tons. I think he was the only musical entertainment. He also played “Stand By Me” and some Eagles songs. I don’t think he was gay, but one can always hope.
There was not really a stage, but there was a sound system (which thankfully was not too loud), but the emcee appeared to be the main organizer of the event, and not a drag queen. Rather she came across as somewhat Lesbyterian (but one must not judge by appearances).
This event was definitely not as well attended as the one in the Lurkburbs, but there were definitely some people there, and I don’t think they were all straight. There were some booths to the left and right of the “main stage”, and (feeling guilty about the day before) I made the mistake of visiting a few. Some people were selling art. One fellow made attractive (and rawther pricey) cutting boards out of wood planks and epoxy glue. One woman made granite coasters embossed with art. There were also some rainbow booths, including one which made slogans out of cut-up license plates. Paying attention to the booths was a financial disaster, because I ended up buying some art. (In my defence, the art reminded me of Dr Spo. Incidentally, if anybody has Dr Spo’s mailing address, please DM it to me.) While some of the art booths were explicitly queer, other booths were not. Some of the granite coasters featured artwork of cartoon characters in love, but as far as I could tell all the pairings were heteronormative.
There were also more standard booths. There was a PFLAG booth and a GSA booth and a few booths from the organizing committee (none of whom paid me any attention or even made eye contact with me, despite me offering a donation. Why would any of them want to engage some old fat guy?) It did occur to me that the GSA kids might have been the only GSA in town.
The main entertainment consisted of a raffle where people bought tickets for the opportunity to throw pies in the faces of important local figures, including the emcee/organizer and the mayor of the town. I don’t think it was any grander commentary on Anita Bryant. Maybe it was part of the local culture? People seemed to enjoy the spectacle, anyways.
Ever the hipster, I found the St Lurkestine Pride event charming, and I would have found it much less cool had it been teeming with people. Although they certainly had outside funding, this Pride struck me as a grassroots effort in a way the other two Prides did not. It was mostly local people putting their resources together to hold an event, and although the amateurish nature would be beneath the contempt of many, I think it worked. Clearly a bunch of the attendees were straight families with their kids, and I think most of them felt welcome.
St Lurkestine is a reasonably rural town. Much of the surrounding countryside is farmland, and it sports its fair share of biblical billboards and admonishments to repent. I think some city people have impressions about what country people are like, and in my experience some of the negative stereotypes are mostly wrong. I have no doubt that many people in the St Lurkestine area disapproved of Pride, but it seemed they stayed away. There were no Proud Boys and no picketing that I could see. I don’t want to romanticize country life too much, but from my limited interactions with rural community there is a spirit of “live and let live” here. Mind! This is not exactly West Texas. There are lots of religious people here, and it tends to vote for right-wing parties, but that nearest city that helped sponsor St Lurkestine Pride is well-known for having more than its fair share of queer people, and no doubt some of those queer people visit the small towns and spend some tourist dollars. I am guessing the people of St Lurkestine have been exposed to gay people and have learned to tolerate them.
I find myself wondering about the kids in that GSA. Are they biding their time until they can escape to the big city, the way so many of their elders did? Or do they think they can stay in rural St Lurkestine and have safe, comfortable, rewarding lives there? I kind of hope so. I am probably always going to be a city slicker, but I have found lots to appreciate in rural areas too.
Bad Gay
So did I put in the work? I am sure Sixpence will grade my work in the comments section, but my suspicion is not. But then I also suspect that this is not about what I do, but what I think and what I am. I am guilty of Wrongthink, and I can be critical of the cultural axioms the (left-wing) queer community has adopted. Unless I change what I think and/or what I am, I don’t belong.
Honestly, I don’t know how much I care. I am a pariah in many other ways. People in my ethnic community consider me a race traitor because I do not take up their pet political causes and because I am not fluent in “my” language, and I have learned to accept that. I think I have also learned to accept that I’m never going to be accepted into the rainbow community either. At best I will find some groups (such as the older adult group) which tolerate me, and I will find some ways (such as my volunteering with the Lurkville LGBTQ+ Center) in which I feel comfortable making some small contributions, but this is not my tribe. That is moderately ironic given that Pride is supposed to be where LGBTQ+ people feel less alone, but it is not something I find surprising either.
Did I make any difference by attending three Prides this year? I think not. Certainly no Republican lawmaker quaked in their boots or reconsidered oppresive anti-queer legislation because of my attendance. I do feel Pride serves some purposes, and maybe some of those purposes are tangentially related to protecting queer civil rights, but I don’t think it is a meaningful way in which social change happens. These days, I think most Pride events are marketing events first, celebrations second, and political movements barely at all.