PRIDE is upon us

It's that time of year again. Pride. Aka Gay Christmas. Aka the time of year when folks across the rainbow spectrum come together, party/celebrate, overextend themselves under the hot sun at day/strobe lights at night, and then ultimately crash on Tuesday morning. Pride.

For many years I didn't feel entitled to be a part of Pride. I didn't attend the parade or events, I had mixed feelings about people parading their sexuality through the streets (yay, growing up Catholic), and I didn't know where I fit into the whole "celebrate your queerness thing." As a bi person growing up, I heard about Gay Pride and Lesbian Pride but absolute silence on any mention of Bi Pride. I felt that there simply wasn't a space during Pride time that I could access, belong to, or be loudly, vocally my queer self. After doing some internet research and talking to some queer folks, I realize that I am not alone in feeling this way during Pride.

Image borrowed from Bi.org's blog. But you get the idea, right?

To this day, many queer women (and men) still don't feel like there is a place for them at Pride. In 2016, the dating app HER did a survey (approx 3,000 US women responded) and found that about one third of respondents felt unwelcome/not included at Pride. This speaks volumes. LGBTQ Nation also posted a recent article about this sense of unease and exclusivity at Pride events. Pride events tend to center around white, gay, cis-male culture - this might be because of patriarchy, racism, and economic reasons that would be hard to untangle here in this blog post. Further, even though the Queer Community writ large is supposed to be this awesome all-encompassing culture of inclusion and acceptance, there's still the "leave your opposite-sex partner at home during Pride" vibe palpable in the air. If you don't believe me, check out this Tumblr post that has been making the rounds on the internet:

From the website NotAdamandSteve.com I highly recommend that you read the article in the link.

When I started dating women, I began to come out more to Pride events...especially if I was with a same-sex partner. But when I started dating Bear, I didn't feel comfortable bringing him around to Pride events - especially ones geared towards women only. But even in mixed events, I felt awkward with him there next to me. I realized that I was feeling invisible as a bi/queer woman. Holding the hand of a big, masculine, cis-gendered Bear during Pride made me look de facto straight. Something that makes my queer insides cringe.

Truth (also, I really want to fix the grammar in this to "are most of them")

Feeling invisible happens to me daily because of my personal Femme styling and because folks may know about my husband but not about Birdfriend or Yak. Being affectionate with Bear at Pride events makes me feel as though any queer participant looking at us would see a straight couple. Bear wants to be included in Pride - both as my partner but also as my ally and support. He wants to celebrate my queerness with me. Something that I find really sweet and encouraging. In past years, I kept this joint celebrating contained to Pride Sunday, a night where the entire community tends to go all out, all together. This year, I'm including Bear in some of my Saturday festivities as well (he's coming with me to his first kink event!) because I want him to feel that he is an active participant in my queer life.

I also need to do some internal work around this issue as well. This article is something that I have been mulling over the past few days and I can relate to aspects of the writer's experience. The quote below is a personal truth I hold, but I think I need to next-level this idea and realize that it expands outwards to include being queer in public space:

Because I know in my heart that I am:

And that I deserve to celebrate my queerness at Pride.

Luckily for me, I live in Vancouver where there are several events and marches that are geared to other sections of the rainbow community other than cis-male gay events. I will be marching in the Dyke March (even though I'm not a dyke) on Saturday with Birdfriend, Meerkat, and a friend. This March is one of the most important events to me at Pride as it's my only real opportunity to be seen in public as queer with my chosen family connections, lovers, and friends. I love how the Dyke March explicitly states that this event/festival is for:

Can I get a high-five? Anyways, I'm feeling more grounded and ready to integrate more fully as my whole self at Pride this year, not just the parts of me that certain members of the community want to engage with. Further, I'm avoiding/boycotting events that are corporate, white, cis-centric focused and instead spending my hard earned dollar on events that are inclusive of POC (people of colour), accessible, and open to all genders/orientations. Huzzah!