So it is Gay Pride month all across the world, and well we should all take a minute to think about the world we line in. Thirty-six years ago the police of New York City were harassing queers and queens as was par for the course and those very same queers and queens finally said, “fuck off!” Some say emotions ran higher than usual that night, partially because the recent announcement of Miss Judy Garland’s death, or maybe it was just really hot out and we all get pissy when it hot and humid. Begin the Stonewall Riots.
Thirty-six years later I am allowed to be out and proud about being a gay man, and to be something of an activist. I still don’t have equal rights, but sex is not illegal any longer, and the medical field doesn’t consider me batty so there has been some progress. Pride is celebrated with great pomp and fanfare and I think it is duly justified, however slowly but surely the fight has been tempered. You don’t see many anti-police brutality contingents, but now you seem Coors and Coca-Cola floats.
I will not harp too long on the corporate adoption of gay pride, because there are plenty of lefties who bitch about it all of the time. Groups like the AFL-CIO’s Pride at Work are a great organization that is working to break down the very heterosexist culture of the labor movement.
On the topic of the labor movement and the queer movement I would like to relay a little story that has me as the main attraction. About a month a go I was shopping in the Giant Eagle for arugula, when a woman turned to look at me and said, “That is really great.” Completely by chance, I was wearing an SEIU Lavender Caucus t-shirt that a friend of mine had got for me in San Francisco. The Lavender Caucus in SEIU’s queer caucus.
I looked at the woman with an, “umm thanks.”
“Well my sister is in a labor union, and she’s not out. I think it is really great you are out in your union,” she said. I had a feeling she herself was a very proud bull dyke, but who’s to know. I said thanks, and continued with my produce shopping.
I have been working with queer people for a few years, and have heard every possible problem or coming out story imaginable. These few lines of exchange made me realize how proud I am to be gay, and not just Queer as Folk gay, but a gay activist fighting for workers’ rights.
So this June, celebrate gay pride month. Even you breeders should join in. Take in a drag show, do something fabulously campy, and remember there are a lot of people not in the streets and parties with us. An inordinate number of them of course are working class people.
To all of my comrades past, present, and future: