I choose Pride-lite every year. Whether things are in-person or virtual, I just never get around to amping up my gayness and my celebration thereof during the designated weeks on the calendar. But then, I’m not much for any designated celebrations.
Hey, everyone! It’s my birthday! Take me to dinner and join me for K-pop karaoke night to prove you’re a true friend.
Hi, Mom. Did you get the flowers I sent you because the florists are making their guilt-tripping push? I know you have to post a picture of them on your Facebook page. My bouquet is way bigger than the one Mrs. Conrad’s son sent, right?
Don’t even get me started on obligatory Father’s Day phone calls.
It may be weird, but I prefer treating a friend to dinner or sending Mom flowers just because. “I appreciate you and I don’t feel like conforming to doing things when society says so.” (To keep consistent, I NEVER do things on my birthday and I love that.)
Regarding Pride, I suppose I quietly engage in gay professional development when it feels right over the course of any year. I read gay memoirs and LGBTQ fiction when I can, but that’s certainly not all I choose. (Current reads: Bryan Washington’s Memorial (gay) and What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins (not gay).) I watch some gay content on Netflix and pass on others. (I recommend the Australian series treasure, “Please Like Me,” I had a love-hate relationship with “EastSiders” and I typically abandon everything by Ryan Murphy after the first hour. Yay, “Glee.” Meh, most everything since. Just my opinion. If you spit at me through your phone, I probably won’t feel it, but it might give your screen a nice shine.)
Parades have never been my thing. As a kid, I thought it took way too long for Santa to show up and I worried about marching tuba players knocking me unconscious if they did an energetic swivel in the middle of a raucous rendition of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” a song which itself troubled me. (What about Mrs. Claus? Is Mom a slut? Why do I keep sending her flowers?) Basically, all parades are a pass. Too long, too many gaps, always too many tubas.
There are beer gardens, too, but I don’t like beer. When it’s the only option, I load up my bottle with a half dozen forcefully squeezed lime wedges. Tolerable then, but I’d rather just sip limeade…maybe with several splashes of rum.
I’ve seen a few arty queer films during Pride celebrations, but there’s often a lot of extended scenes of water running from a faucet down a rusty drain, a close-up nipple shot, a bubble-gum feather boa blowing from the antenna of a Buick sedan and then a long, long list of end credits. (Is it a coincidence that so many people have the same last name as the director?) After the credits—it’s only polite to sit through them—I want to turn to the person beside me and say, “What the hell was that?” but they always seem absorbed in a state of reflection, dabbing their eyes with a tissue and I know I just need to leave and head home to YouTube Donna Summer songs for the rest of the day. That’s as arty-gay as I get.
To sum up, Pride is either too crowded, too tedious, too forced and sometimes all of that at once. It’s hard for me to find connection. I’m gay in my own, rather conventional, solemn sort of way.
Several weeks ago, however, I stumbled upon a different expression of Pride. I’d headed out on an evening walk, my agenda limited to picking up a tube of toothpaste and maybe getting myself an ice cream. (Nowhere near my birthday, but sometimes I just like to treat myself to Crest Extra Whitening and a scoop of salted caramel. See? It’s so freeing to go with whims instead of iPhone calendar reminders.) When I popped out of the drugstore on downtown Vancouver’s busy Georgia Street, I looked up and noticed a pair of dark banners flanking the pole for a streetlight. I was seeing the reverse side of them, but I could tell that one banner had the word “PRIDE” printed vertically. This immediately upset me. I was in the downtown business-y district where people in stuffy Brooks Brothers attire talk too much about IPOs while others wear knockoff GUCCI sweatshirts tote designer store shopping bags that are fancier than anything featured on my coffee table. This was not the gay part of Vancouver and I didn’t like the idea of some other entity stealing our word. Why hadn’t we thought to trademark “PRIDE”? I suppose we thought no one would want to use it after we made it gay…just like the word “gay” itself which no one uses as a synonym for happy anymore. (That’s why eight-year-old boys crack up every time that seasonal song comes up with people donning their gay apparel.)
Okay, so the stolen PRIDE had me riled up. I had to see what the wordier companion banner said. As pedestrians walked purposefully to the gym, toward the mall or into office towers, I faced the banners, standing in the middle of the sidewalk as the human version of a traffic cone discontented people had to dodge. I looked up for a clearer reading of the message fluttering gently on the pole:
Huh. An event in Canada’s LGBTQ history I did not know. I saw other banners running up and down Georgia and then more adorning Howe, a cross street.
No longer irked, I was excited and intrigued. I smiled as I walked each block, head up, embarking on my own Pride history tour.
I have not seen this kind of signage in Vancouver before. Whatever committee decided on what should appear on these banners gave plenty of thought to representing diversity in Canada’s LGBTQ history. Trans rights, Indigenous identity and drag queen activism were highlighted along with significant moments for gays and lesbians.
Political milestones such as Canadian marriage equality, adoption rights and the banning of conversion therapy were also recognized.
THIS is my kind of Pride event, something to take in on my own time in an area that’s a fifteen-minute walk away from Davie Street, the traditional hub of the city’s gay community. Smack dab in the shopping and business core, this allows our history to be seen by thousands of people each day who are less likely to come upon the heavy concentration of rainbow flags on Davie and Denman Streets.
This display is not sponsored by a Pride organization or some other LGBTQ association. I’ve learned that the banners were funded by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association representing 7,000 businesses and properties in the area. DVBIA consulted with Vancouver’s Pride Society and Forbidden Vancouver Tours to ensure accuracy of the content on the banners.
The project offers more substance beyond rainbows, the word Pride and expressions like Love Is Love. This is an indelible part of how I see Pride as honoring our past and reaching beyond our community. I am proud of our city and prouder to be accepted as someone under the LGBTQ umbrella.
I hope more people make a point of embarking on their own history tour.
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