Culture Slut: Gay Gifts and Pride Parades

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Ladies and gentlethems, I must be honest with you: I’m very depressed right now. Brighton Pride has just announced the cancellation of the annual Pride Parade (and associated events) for the second year running, which makes me want to lay down in the woods for an eternal sleep. I know that the reasons for it are solid, I know that its probably the best and safest decision, and that it cant have been easy to make. I know that the dangers of Covid aren't over, and that we still need to be cautious and careful. I also know that mainstream Pride events have problems with corruption, racism, exclusion, erasure, transphobia, rainbow capitalism, assimilationism and patriarchal oppression, but GODDAMNIT I JUST WANT TO COVER MYSELF WITH GLITTER AND RUN THROUGH THE STREETS WITH HOARDES OF MY QUEER COMRADES. I want to mix a giant bottle of vodka with diet coke and drink it sitting on the curb. I want to agonise over which party I’m going to go to at night, try to have a recharging disco nap and accidentally sleep straight through ‘til 1am but still make it out again. I want to have the world’s worst hangover on the Sunday but still head out to the street parties and then the closing parties. I want to see the giant street sweeping machines out and about on Monday morning as I head home, vacuuming up the glitter and confetti from the gutter. But most of all, I want the few days we are permitted each year to truly live as unapologetically as possible.

We’ve come a long way since that fateful week in 1969 when Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Storme DeLarverie and the other queers of the Stonewall Inn stood up to the oppressive New York police and started the gay liberation movement, but sometimes it doesn't feel like much has changed. 71 countries still criminalise homosexuality and trans* expression, people still live in fear of being sentenced to death for leading queer lives, either by the government or their own families, and many are turned out on the streets, disowned and abandoned. Even in countries that claim progressive stances on gay rights like the United States of America and the United Kingdom, the treatment of gay people can still be horrendous, not to mention the very real attacks being made on the rights (and bodies) of Trans people. I remember being slapped across the face in a McDonald when I was about 16 by a woman I didn’t know in front of her children because of I dared to wear women’s clothes in public. Every single gay person I know has been called a faggot by someone in a moving car on the street. I make my boyfriend wait close by if I have to use a public toilet whilst out and about in a dress. Our safety is still not a given. Homophobic attacks and hate crimes are reported constantly, as are the murders of trans women, most of whom are women of colour.

 ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Our fight as queer people is constant and never-ending. We have to fight the outside world just to let us exist, we have to fight within ourselves for the self-love and self-care we deserve, and we have to fight with our brothers, sisters and siblings for our voices to be heard within our own communities. None of this is easy, but it is essential. So after all this, this eternal struggle, when there comes the few days of the year that the hetero-patriarchy allows us to celebrate ourselves, it feels so liberating to finally let go. I've tried explaining the particular joy that Pride can give to us as queers to my straight friends, but I think it really is a unique feeling. Its not just about the chance to party, to dress up and drink in the day time, not even just to celebrate our history, it feels like a day to finally be able to breath easy. Pride is a day when the normal anxieties of just existing as a visibly queer person can somewhat dissipate, and you are invited to share yourself with the world.

A few years ago, I heard Travis Alabanza give a speech just before the march at Brighton Trans Pride (the first annual trans pride in the UK), leaning out of a window above the now defunct queer pub The Marlborough. Their words were illuminating, and have stuck with me ever since. “We, as trans* people, are The Gift. We are The Gift to The World.” We are. We allow the human spirit to transgress, to transcend all boundaries. We are the ancient secrets of the old gods, we are the celebration of nature and sacred thought, we are the ineffable mystery in the dazzling darkness. Those early Trans Pride marches for me represented a radical queer joy that I thought I had outgrown and wouldn’t find again, but it brought it back for me in droves, even for something as seemingly old hat as mainstream Pride (or Corporate Pride).

Pride may have grown its own set of dodgy politics over the decades, but we need to remember what it was, and what it can be. It was a day we stood up to our enemies. It was a day we fought back, together, the day we started forging a better world. It was the day we were finally SEEN. Now its a day of joy, a day of self celebration. Its a day for our connection with our communities. Its a day to walk openly and freely as ourselves. It is a day where we can share The Gift with the World. I am a gift, and I want everyone to partake in it. I want to share my beauty, my strength, my love, my everything. I have fought long and hard to love myself, to celebrate my body, my resilience, my failings, and I want everyone to feel that about themselves. I want to spread joy. I want to dance ‘til my feet bleed. I want to drink ‘til my thirst has been slaked. I want to sing with my friends in the streets. I want to wear the most ridiculous clothes I can find. I want to sweat my make up off at a party under the starlight. I want to swim naked in the ocean off the gay beach. I want to make out with strangers I will never meet again. I want to be held in the arms of every man there has ever been or ever will be. I want to know what its like to have the world at your feet. I want to feel the crushing weight of the ocean of love that I know I deserve. I want to go to the annual closing party where strawberry scented foam is sprayed in to the crowd, washing away the grime of the last three days. I want to find glitter in my clothes, my hair, my bedsheets for weeks afterwards.

So now that this opportunity to share ourselves has been taken away for another year, I feel as if all the wind is gone from my sails, that I’m drifting aimlessly at sea again. I knew deep down that a return to regularly scheduled programming by the summer was perhaps overly optimistic, but I cant pretend that this isn't a blow. As far as I know, Brighton is the first of the big Prides to formally close this year, I’m sure London and Manchester are having serious talks about it too. Trans Pride had to announce their cancellation earlier in the year, who knows what will happen to the smaller regional Prides. I didn’t realise how much it would affect me until it happened, and I guess this column is my way of exploring all the emotions and sense of loss I've been experiencing. 

Pride isn’t perfect, its politically complex and sometimes mismanaged, but it is still our day. There are other things I can and will do. I will have a party with my friends. I will still dress up. I will dance to Diana Ross, Donna Summer, and Diamanda Galas. I will drink shots of Tuacca, and every time we toast our glasses, I will be praying for the future when we can share the gift of ourselves with the world again.

Now, all we can do is wait. Wait, and stay safe, keep others safe. Wait and dream. Dream of dancing, of warm mouths in dark rooms, of sunlit bodies and laughing shouts. Dream of no more loss, of togetherness, of love and admiration. I will wait, and dream of Pride and how it could be.

Words and Imagery: Misha Mn