My apologies to anyone who read the earlier version of this diary that I began when I was too tired to do it properly. Hopefully it makes more sense now.
I encountered my first pride event in 1974 in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia when a stumbled onto couple of flamboyant gay guys with signs about gay rights. I’m not sure if they thought of it as “pride” or “protest” or “visibility” or what, but having never seen anything of the kind before, it made an impression on me. I had heard about Stonewall and generally considered myself tolerant and supportive of gay rights, but when faced with public activists, I gave them a fairly wide berth and was unsure what I thought. I was a 17-year-old virgin on my way to Germany from Utah as a language student, and it did not at that point occur to me that I might be bisexual in addition to being shy and socially inept.
Apparently a late bloomer, I spent about the next 20 years jettisoning my virginity, attempting to fit into the straight and/or queer worlds, and figuring out that I was bisexual and what I meant by that in my life. This involved severe heartbreak, frequent confusion and missteps, an ample dose of craziness and mild drug abuse, acquiring a family with unofficial step-daughters and re-locating to Seattle, regrouping and surviving as a somewhat disjointed family after their mother’s (my partner’s) death from cancer, a string of gay roommates, connecting to a bi community, avoiding HIV, and watching friends die of AIDS, among other things. By the 90s I was a bi activist of sorts, participating in bi-visibility events (including marching in the Pride Parade, of course), leading a discussion group for bi men, and lobbying to get the B and then the T added to what is now LGBTQIA+. Through the bi community, I met my wife, we became parents, and since then dad-mode nearly always has taken higher priority over queer-activist mode. Raising children, your friends are frequently by default the parents of your children’s friends, and so a couple of decades later, our remaining queer friends are diminished in number and .our connections to the queer community somewhat tenuous.
This year’s attacks on transgender kids have been horrifying and revive my activist inclinations. It certainly stirred me to brave the train traffic on the ‘Pride Trains’, where everyone is packed in like sardines. A non-binary person next to me said she had never seen the train so crowded, and we were already late for the start of the parade, so the earlier trains were probably worse. I felt aglow in the pride of our Seattle queer community at the same time I felt a-steam in our collective body heat. Is this a risk for my stent?
Organizers estimated the crowd size at 300,000, which is a little hard to believe but perhaps no harder than not believing it. People came from as far as Portland, OR to participate. I could never see either end of the crowd.
I haven’t been to the parade since before the pandemic, and had conveniently forgotten the parade is now 4 hours long, apparently the longest Pride Parade yet. About half way through, as I began wondering if this could be the end coming, the guys behind me called their friends who said their group was still waiting to start. I was still waiting to see my Fred Hutch Cancer Center co-workers, so I stayed. (They never came by, so I assume they were near the beginning and I missed them).
There were tons of swag, mostly stickers and whatnot that will end up in the recycling (although I did accept a rainbow Mickey Mouse sticker in honor of my in-laws in Florida). However water bottles and pride flags were strewn out liberally. Not many beads, to my disappointment. You can’t have too many beads, or at least I don’t yet.
One of my favorite groups was the gay veterans, who were led by a guy whose shirt said:
Recruiter
Recruiter
Recruiter
Recruiter.
There were lots of kids, both watching and in the parade. I tried not to take their photos without parental permission, but I couldn’t resist the unicyclists. My three older daughters used to ride unicycles.
These are not a balanced sample of photos. No photos of churches, banks, or woke businesses, city departments, medical clinics, mental health services, professional sports teams (all of ours), etc. Each sports team seemed to have a pride flag with their logo superimposed to give away. I tried to snag one with the Seahawk logo for my daughter who is a Seahawks fan, but no luck. A stereotypical queer boy trait that I exemplify is a strong distaste for (and lack of skill at) sports, though I did come to appreciate soccer played by middle school girls when my youngest daughter played. I went to see a Sounders game with my co-workers and was impressed by how much better they were than middle school girls, and how much better middle school girls are at good sportsmanship than Sounders fans are.
Several city departments participated, including Seattle Parks and Recreation, Seattle Solid Waste Utility (rolling compost and recycling bins along), the Seattle Fire Department, and of course the Seattle Public Library had a bookmobile with banned books. For the second year in a row the Pride Committee voted to not allow Seattle Police to participate in uniform, contrary to years of allowing them. I think the first Seattle pride parade I attended had two lonely brave gay uniformed policemen walking hand in hand (or maybe that last detail is a memory embellishment) in the parade. The crowd clapped.
I actually strongly disagree with the present policy. I’ve heard it is intended to protect those who have been traumatized by police and that it shows respect for our forbears at Stonewall who battled the police for days. My guess is that a good fraction of however many gay policemen we have now were not born when Stonewall happened. I certainly don’t want all queer men to be judged by the likes of some Catholic priests or Ali Alexander, and I think police deserve the same right to be viewed as individuals, even in uniform. Despite this disagreement with the members of the committee, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them and the thousands of volunteers for making this event happen.
There seemed to be pretty good ethnic and racial representation in the organizations and in the audience. We had a couple of different Black groups; a large LatinX group, Entre Hermanos, with parasols; an Asian/Pacific Islander group; a delightfully dressed desi group (sorry no picture, my phone was dying); a queer Ukranian group; and two Irish groups that I recall. Many of the marching woke corporations had pretty diverse employees marching. I’m trying to remember if there were any groups specifically calling out the laws of Uganda. There should have been if there were not.
The audience was probably significantly more diverse than the participants. People-watching was a delight with all the smiles and rainbows, drag and leather, floral hair additions and tatoos. A bi couple sat near me, a lesbian family with small kids sat on the other side, and the woman next me yelled “Happy Pride” at almost everyone. Little dogs would visit now and then.
It wouldn’t be Seattle without nude cyclists. In my memory, these were first a feature of the Fremont Solstice Parade, and only became part of Pride in later years, but someone should fact-check me.
I had asked my daughter if she wanted to go with me to Pride, but her response was “with my dad?!!”. Her previous Pride experience was with teen partiers, which is a perfectly legitimate experience that would not be facilitated with dads around. So then she asks “You are going to Pride by yourself?” No I am going with 300,000 other people who celebrate letting people be who they want to be. This community helped me grow and become myself, and I thank them for it and hope I can help provide that place of comfort, celebration, and pride for someone else who needs it (and we all do).
I hope you all had a Happy Pride!