Gay Pride: It’s Not Just About Bedazzled Boobs.
By: John C. Leavitt
Tags: LGBTQ, Gay, Gay Pride, Love Yourself

…or so I am learning. But dear donut-god, how I hate Pride.

Am I allowed to say that? I mean, I am a gay guy. But does it make it even more damning to say such a thing? Well I’ve said it, and I’ve felt it ever since I came to terms with being gay.

I felt it the first time I attended a Pride festival in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jammed in the back seat of a friend’s car — “John, aren’t you excited? Love is love! Out and proud! Whoo hoo!!”

And me: “Whoo! Yes!…So much….proudness!…Let’s put the…rainbow…power…Lady Gaga!”

I almost felt betrayed by how comfortable and happy everyone seemed with themselves. How dare they!

Now years later, after making the decision to attend again, and as I got ready to brave the half-naked, glittery masses at Civic Center Park in downtown Denver, I had a thought that helped me see that Pride can be something more meaningful to me if I let it. While it may be easy to believe that LGBTQ Pride celebrates only tank tops and bedazzled boobs, I believe that at its core it is really about all of us, gay or straight, learning to be proud of parts of us that we may not necessarily love…yet.

Coming Out

Remember Anne Hathaway’s character in the timeless classic “Princess Diaries?” When she realises she is in fact a princess, a whole new lifestyle falls into her lap. And all of a sudden she is supposed to change how she acts? How she dresses and feels?

When being gay became more of an “outward thing” rather than an “inward thing,” I found myself in the same situation:

Oh, you have to worship Beyonce now.

Oh, you have to love RuPaul’s Drag Race now.

Oh, Pride is the most magical day of the year!!!

1. Beyonce is fine, but, 2. I don’t know how anyone can stand so many terrible puns. And 3., the only magic happening in Pride is my ability to conjure natural smiles as random moms give me free hugs. (Disclaimer: moms giving free hugs at Pride are actually wonderful people). You can’t expect someone to have a sudden change of taste, style, and attitude just because they come out of the closet. Mia Thermopolis couldn’t do it, and neither could I.

Coming out to friends and family at age 21 was not a happy thing, it was not a sad thing, it was just a really BIG THING. So many emotions. And for me, it wasn’t a liberation. There was no slow motion, dramatic, flinging open of a jail cell door with winged-rainbow donuts bursting forth around my rising figure. And no “automatically proud” button to push once I was out of the closet.

Let’s be real — coming out was just like waking up to find myself on a suspended portaledge over a thousand-foot drop — I was terrified and had some hard work and climbing ahead of me. For me, being proud of my rainbow slice of pie has been, and continues to be, difficult.

How to be proud when strangers’ eyes linger on you and your outfit a little too long? How to be proud when many institutions teach you that you are a mutation of the normal? A temporary glitch that will be rectified in the after life? How to be proud when you fear losing so much?

Public Pride, Private Pride

Pride became a day where I hated the LGBTQ community — I hated it for it’s happiness, for it’s openness, for it’s fearlessness, it’s relationships, it’s lack of bitterness, for it’s beauty. I hated it for being proud in public!

I could be proud…in private. I cried as I watched the movie “Milk” at 2 am in my apartment, along with “Torch Song Trilogy.” I cried for the two beautiful sheep farmers in “God’s Own Country.” (I felt nothing in “Call Me By Your Name,” because Armie Hammer is the worst). I wept as I read about Aristotle and Dante discovering the secrets of the universe out there in the desert together on the hood of a pickup truck. (Apparently my private pride comes in the form of ugly crying over movies and books). But I felt such pride for the characters, stories, and situations, that for me, alone in my heart, I saw as beautiful and deserving of celebration. And in those moments I was proud of me and my differences.

I think there are times to be privately proud, and times to be publicly proud. Private pride is an important opportunity to reach an introspective acceptance of yourself, and is, I believe, fundamentally more important. But being publicly proud allows others around you to participate in your pride. By expressing pride in the presence of others, you involve them in your resolves to love and respect yourself more and you feel a pretty cool bond.

For many people, LGBTQ Pride is an opportunity to express liberation, manifesting itself in said bedazzled boobs, glittered bodies, eccentric make up, and costumes. I love that role in the festivities and I recognise it as beautiful and important. But LGBTQ Pride has an even more special purpose and is designed for everyone — queer or not.

We’re All in the Closet

I think we all experience parts of ourselves of which we struggle to be proud — our bodies, our mannerisms, our age, our families, jobs, houses, choices, pasts, or futures. And while some parts of us can change for the better, some parts we have to work to be proud of and to accept. We all have to come out of the closet about something.

Are you in the closet about your inherited nose?

Are you in the closet about turning 30? 40? 50? (I for sure am).

Are you in the closet about your fussy kids, your past relationship, or that time you said aloud that fritters were better than donuts?

Maybe it’s time for you to come out…’cause we all pretty much knew already.

Learn to love that nose because it’s not going anywhere.

Embrace your age — no one has the power to change that but Jenna Maroney.

Let go of everything else you have no control over and that is an important part of YOU. Bring those parts of you to Pride with me in June where “different” and “paradox” and “queer” are celebrated as integral, necessary, and beautiful parts of life and society.

We can open it all up to the glittery masses, eat overly priced and suggestively-named corn dogs, watch drag queens pull off incredible dance moves in heels almost as high as their wigs, and for a few hours be free of shame, fear, and judgement. Such an experience of public pride truly helps in your growth, and you will never find a more happy and loving crowd to share with — so happy you might even feel a touch of betrayal after all the internal conflict you’ve been going through. And just because its all rainbow, doesn’t mean it isn’t a vehicle for anyone and everyone. You can even bedazzle your breasts if you want to.

Conclusion

So there it is. I may hate it a bit, but less and less every year. It is helping me to grow and therefore puts me in an uncomfortable place — that’s probably where my feelings have been coming from.

Next year we’ll go together, because it’s not just about the LGBTQ community. It’s about all of us on this planet learning to love those parts of us that we don’t quite love yet.