The First Pride was a Riot
In case you missed this in your American history class, (you did) the first Pride was a march honoring the one year anniversary the Stonewall Riot in NYC on June 28, 1969. The riot was a response to police brutality and harassment that was being perpetrated against the LGBTQ+ community. The police systematically raided queer safe spaces, like the Stonewall Inn, to intimidate a marginalized and nearly invisible community. The Stonewall Riot was not the first of its kind. In 1966 San Francisco, there were the Compton Cafeteria Riots. This event is also the beginning of the trans rights movement. Before Compton was the riot at Cooper Do-nuts, in Los Angeles in 1959. There are three significant commonalities shared by each of these events. All the riots all took place at all-night establishments, they were led by trans women, and all the riots were a response to police brutality.
Given Pride’s history, how can I write about Pride without discussing power, pleasure, revolution, and isolation? How can I talk about Pride without talking about race? How can I talk about Pride without mentioning the trans movement? How can I talk about Pride without discussing the significance of queer spaces, or the police brutality against them?
I cannot.
Pride is not just a kaleidoscopic pageant performed by the sexually eccentric as a means of garnering acceptance by the pedestrian masses of our society. Pride is not the garish backdrop that encourages one to dress extravagantly and get wasted with their friends. Pride is a rallying cry and a wake-up call. Of course, members of the LGBTQ+ community want Pride to be fun for everyone, if not only for ourselves. It must be clear by now that we love to have a good time. But fun cannot be had without safety. Safety for the LGBTQ+ community is acquired through legal equality, education, outreach, and greater societal support/acceptance. So, before we have fun, we need to work on some things.
First, a little about queer spaces.
Much like LGBTQ+ communities of the 1960’s, many queer people depend upon queer spaces for safety, community, and self-expression. For many LGBTQ+ people, community is formed around spaces; the spaces that remain open to people who have no one and nowhere to go. Many people cleave to these spaces for survival. When the spaces are threatened and violated, it can feel as if one’s own body is under attack. In this new reality, in which we are all physically disconnected, the value of queer spaces has increased, rather than diminished.
This year, San Francisco is celebrating Pride without The Stud. Partially due to the pandemic, but more truly due to the shifting socioeconomic culture of San Francisco, the safe places are disappearing. Remember the Lexington? Mission Control? The loss of The Stud is felt keenly throughout the Bay Area’s queer community, particularly amongst our members who are gender nonconforming. The Stud was not a lesbian bar, nor a gay bar, but a holistically queer space. A space in which all people are welcome, in the clothing and presentation that makes them take pride in themselves. For many people, I imagine it may be difficult to empathize with us over the loss of a bar. But think, what if a single bar was the only place you felt safe and welcomed?
Secondly, I am formally inviting you to use your power.
To be a modern ally, one must be willing to talk about race, trans activism, able-bodied privilege, and silence/violence. We could never afford to separate these issues from the greater LGBTQ+ movement, and we certainly can no longer continue to do so. I have the privilege of being a an able-bodied, white, straight-passing, queer, cis woman — the world is my goddamn oyster. So, what am I going to do with all this power and privilege? I am going to use it for the benefit of others. Why? The obvious answer is — Because it’s the right thing to do. More than that, by uplifting the people who are different from myself, I am participating in the growth and culture of a community that I would like to be a part of. Being part of a community in which everyone looked like me, thought like me, and had similar values, sounds incredibly boring. It also sounds small.
Having power is a responsibility, not a fucking license to watch the world burn.
Finally, an encouragement to riot.
Today, Pride is a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community; how far we’ve come, and what we have accomplished. But Pride is also a reminder that we still have so much to fight for. If nothing else, our government has taught us that we must always fight for our liberties and often for our very humanity. The United States was founded on the assertion that all men are created equal and are due the freedom to determine their own destiny. But what of the rest of us? The un-men? The un-white? The unusual? The un-free? Where is our liberty?
It is nowhere, if we do not take it for ourselves.
