What It's Like to Attend Your First Pride at 32

Before this June, I had never been to a gay pride. It's not because I'm not proud of being bisexual, and it's not because I don't believe in the importance of a strong, united, and vocal LGBTQ community, especially in the wake of the horror that befell the victims of last month's Pulse nightclub shooting, an unspeakable act perpetrated by a man who, for all intents and purposes, was too ashamed to embrace his own queerness.

I'm just bad at actively being queer, in much the same way that I'm bad when it comes to all interpersonal relationships. I've never patronized gay events or dance clubs for one simple reason: I don't patronize events or dance clubs, period. I am, by my own ready admission, insufferably and relentlessly uptight. The sound of anything other than Black Sabbath played over 90 decibels is, to me, unacceptable. Having someone within 10 feet of my person—and a gyrating someone at that—makes me want to call the fire marshall. And so on.

After all, it's easy to be queer in 2016 and not outwardly do anything about it. Unlike the pioneers of the gay rights movement, I don't have to go to a club, to pride, or to anything else to prove I'm part of the community. Hell, I don't even need to leave my house. Anyone with a Twitter account can (and usually will) loudly type their truth from the comfort of their couch.

I, for one, prefer not to leave my house under any circumstances. But after Orlando, and the rallying call of LGBTQ visibility that arose from it, I felt I should become a more engaged member of the community to which I belong. So I decided to leave my fetid studio apartment for once, squint into the sun, and head to San Francisco Pride late last month.

I wandered in blind, a relative infant in a world within which I'd long self-identified as a member. I expected chanting. I expected flags. I expected wild outfits. I expected, in short, what I'd seen in movies like Milk, about the kinds of political events and marches that earned us our hard-won right to have pride events in the first place. And because I'd never made the effort to experience public queerness before, that's all I expected. While some of what I witnessed matched those expectations, it was very evident that times had decidedly changed.

The festival was, in short, like any other American street festival—a boisterous party, with all the good and bad of American culture that comes along with it. A mediocre band playing Bowie and Prince ("Purple Rain," natch) provided a soundtrack for drunken dancing. Corporate logos were ubiquitous (albeit with a rainbow flair); booths sold cheaply manufactured merchandise; overpriced Bud Light poured freely; folks chowed down on shitty barbecue and corn on the cob while they gawked at their fellow pride-goers.

Despite the fact that Orlando had happened mere days before, nobody seemed particularly fearful to be out in public, mostly just perturbed by the overzealous police presence. Two middle-age lesbians next to me in the security line chugged their canned cocktails, lest they be found and removed from their backpacks. And the only negativity I encountered throughout the fest was in that long, long line. The man behind me hemmed and hawed to no end as we snaked to the front. "This is ridiculous," he muttered. Yes, I concurred. Waiting a seeming eternity to pass through a metal detector in order to listen to a cover band and purchase a $14 beer is ridiculous.

Because that, essentially, was what pride turned out to be. Sure, there was chanting, flags were brandished, the occasional chapped ass sauntered past. But by and large, it was a garden variety street festival. I was more surprised by the straightness of my surroundings than anything else. Even the patrons were mostly the same—the number of Coachella-esque teen-to-20-something girls wearing flower crowns and tutus rivaled that of any other demographic in attendance.

One of the first things I saw upon entering was a young man cooling himself with a Gap-logo-emblazoned rainbow hand fan. A multiethnic group of millennials wearing rainbow Burger King crowns, the kind you'd get in kids meals, walked by laughing. Google, Apple, and Facebook employees wandered in packs, sporting custom shirts with hashtags, rainbows, and company logos to demonstrate their employers' PR-friendly support. Even Walmart got in on the fun with #WMTPRIDE shirts. (Apparently, the "#WalmartPride" hashtag already taken by their white supremacist consumer demographic.)

"Orlando Thrives," a Kaiser Permanente sign read. A crumpled-up poster on the ground, only the bottom of which was visible, held the hashtags #PrayforOrlando, #OrlandoStrong, and #WeAreOrlando. It was signed "With Love, Meghan Trainor." My inner cynic found these items pandering, and hated their bland, capitalist co-option of queer politics. My optimistic side hoped they were sincere. But even if the gestures were empty, they still counted as gestures. One by one, they added up—better, at least, than indifference or hostility.

I, as a queer person, have experienced outward displays of hostility. I was spit on in high school. Told I needed a good dicking by a misogynist when I expressed interest in a dickless human being. It was, y'know, the norm. But you know what's more the norm today? Tolerance. Because there's power in visibility and numbers, and the more of us who stand in the hot sun and refuse to apologize for our biological proclivities—and celebrate those proclivities by eating distinctly mediocre American cuisine like corn on the cob—the less we can be ignored, or pushed aside. If Walmart thinks we're people, we're people.

The only real difference between San Francisco Pride and every other gratingly packed, overly expensive, heavily corporatized street festival I've ever attended, in fact, was the presence of a young, single, nude man in the middle of the crowds, his flaccid phallus swinging in the breeze, gawked at by no one. It was the sole link between the pride I attended and what pride celebrations of yore must have been like, before corporate sponsorship and what measures of gay equality we've been able to achieve. Those Burger King pride crowns are there today, however, whether we like them or not. My inner cynic cringed, but the optimist in me loved them, as I knew they signified a social shift toward acceptance and visibility. They were an indicator of the new normal, a world where I could participate in queer society both passively and actively, to whatever degree I wished. And that's a beautiful choice to have.

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