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| Gay Pride marchers on Peachtree Street in the Atlanta Gay Pride parade in 2013. Photo by me, October 2013. |
Little did I know that Atlanta Gay Pride was this weekend. I knew it was coming up this month, but it sneaked up on me. Every year since the 90s the question has been, will I go or not? Since the festivities were moved to October, from the traditional June several years ago, I have attended the festival and parade fewer times.
The last time I went to Pride other than to celebrate in a club or bar was twelve years ago. Not since 2013 have I stood at the corner of Tenth and Peachtree Streets, my once usual spot, and watched the parade of rainbow flags, corporate floats and “the community” make the turn. I have not even done the bar celebration tour since 2016.
Aging out of the scene at forty-three
years old, combined with everyone I regularly hung out with having
moved to the far corners of the world, seemed like the perfect time
to exit. Hangovers and squeezing into Heretic and Blake's until three
in the morning are not indulgences to be proud of at fifty-two. Let
others have it and have their fun.
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| A gay pride logo or the Today Show? |
This year's slogan, according to the official organizers, is “Rooted In Resistance.” The companion logo is another raised fist again this year and it has the added bonus of what appears to be long green fingernails overlaying a rising sun or the NBC Today Show logo. What would Bryant Gumble, Jane Pauley and Willard Scott say about that? Oh sorry, wrong decade.
I cannot identify with the slogan or
the logo that is stamped on a community event by the official
organization. The messaging and image has a violence to it that does
not resonate with me. Where is the rainbow? Pride seems to no longer
officially represent me as being part of the community. So many
letters have been added to the community that the G for gay has gone
from being shoved to the side to being shoved over the cliff.
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| A truly terrible photo of me at Atlanta Gay Pride in Piedmont Park in 1998 when it meant something to me. One of too many film photos in my lifetime with my eyes closed. |
If Gay Pride was born in anything, it was in being proud of who we were, who we loved and not being ashamed of it. “Rooted” and “resistance” are meaningless words of the modern activist lexicon that leaves this red-blooded, rainbow-beating gay heart cold. Gay Pride needs to bring back the G, the original rainbow flag and the celebration of love in a world sorely needing it.
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