Gay Pride started in June of 1970 to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots- a week long uprising of New York City queer youth against local started by trans women of color. In 1970, queer residents of New York marched on the same street that the Riots had happened in- Christopher Street, and marched all the way to uptown Manhattan and Central Park.
Today the tradition continues, despite advancements toward acceptance the LGBTQ community still faces many threats and therefore gathers each summer to support one another.
I attended Gay Pride for the first time three weeks ago in Charlotte, North Carolina- a state where it hasn’t felt very good to be LGBTQ for the past year. With the infamous HB2 Bill that denied protections to queer people and made it illegal for transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice, my state hadn’t felt like home for a while.
I arrived to my first Pride late and with a leftover suitcase trailing behind me from an event I’d attended the night before. After putting my luggage away in my friend’s Prius I began to make the long walk into the rainbow heart of the city.
On my way there I saw small instances of pride on the outer streets. Couples with rainbow shirts on, a family all wearing gay pride pins- subtle things, but more than I had seen for a long time living in suburban North Carolina. It made me anxious to get to the festival and see the whole city enveloped in this acceptance.
When I finally turned onto the street where the parade was being held, it only had five minutes left, but the overwhelming joy and companionship that I felt from seeing so many people like me, all at once, made up for my lateness.
Everyone knows what a Pride Parade looks like- rainbow everything, glitter on faces, clothing and jewelry, men, women, and every gender dressed down to only underwear or pasties. We all know the image, but to be there, to feel that love, that happiness and just overall sense of being free, even if it’s temporary, was an amazing thing to experience.
You see people love with a fervor and pride you’ve never seen before, couples hold hands as a communal fist to those who would try to tear them apart and it is such a beautiful and strong display of love as something that cannot be broken. You see the protesters, standing hateful and hated on the sides of the streets, brandishing their wayward messages in the love-laced air as if anyone actually cared, woefully outnumbered against the community that’s gathered. You see defiance, you see queer not as a death sentence but as a title to be worn proudly, a label everyone struts around with pinned to their chest like the blessing it is.
Pride is still important, more now than ever, because it lets us know that we are everywhere. We are found in the darkest, holiest holes in the earth and we will not cease to exist because someone things we do not deserve to. We will find each other in every place the world tries to keep us apart. We are a proud, invincible group of people, and Pride will always help us remember that.
