PRIDE DONE DIFFERENTLY

Okay, so this is a different kind of Pride month. No parade means I shall not be stripping down and marching in my rainbow thong this year, middle-aged belly flopping over, glitter stuck to my sweaty forehead, an opportunistically branded bottle of gay soda in my hand.

Oh, god. Virus, schmirus. I’m the reason they’ve canceled the celebrations! Sorry ’bout that.

Moving forward, I promise to leave the Speedos to the gay men’s swim team and the thonged thingies to the twenty-somethings who juggle their day calendars between tanning appointments, gym workouts and whatever it is that social media influencers do.

Alas, the world has coughed on our 2020 parade. I’m pretty sure Vancouver’s harbor cruise has been called off as well. (Don’t know how any part of the cruise industry—big or small—will ever recover.)

To be honest, I’m not mourning. Parades, cruises and beer garden mixers aren’t my thing. I’m proud in my own stereotypically reserved Canadian sort of way. I’ll probably wear my rainbow Converse and rainbow socks on June 28 to commemorate the Stonewall Riots of 1969. A splash of flash is enough.

This year seems like the perfect time to take a break from flaunting our gayness (“Does this tank top show off my biceps?”) and be more reflective, thinking about what makes us proud. (Surely it’s about more than biceps!)

I’m proud of my own personal journey in achieving self-acceptance, at least with respect to being a gay man.

I’m proud of the lovely gay men I’ve befriended along the way: some I’ve lost to AIDS and to other dreadful things like brain cancer, some I’ve lost due to time and distance, others I’ve kept as close confidants or as simple Facebook friends.

I’m proud that I’ve fallen in love a few times, even if it never ended well. I dove in, committed fully and maybe learned a few things in the process.

I’m proud, too, that I resisted many of the showier, riskier and darker parts of gay life that existed while I was figuring things out in my twenties and thirties. I found a way to be gay and still be plain old me, values and integrity intact...for the most part.

I’m proud that, somewhere along the line, I stopped caring and worrying about what others might think about me being gay. I recognize the courage that it took coming out to family, friends and co-workers, especially when some of those conversations didn’t go so well, as when I felt religious judgment from some Texas friends and when my disclosure was met with dead silence, first from my best friend and later by my brother.

I’m proud that I transitioned from dramatic coming out conversations to me just being me, casually mentioning that I’m gay as part of general introductions in mental health support groups or as the fact that I’m gay became relevant in some other conversation. It’s been ages since I’ve watered down partners and boyfriends to “friends” or altered or deleted pronouns when talking about dates. Some of this change has been part of my own evolution, but I recognize that a major nod must be given to the fact that North American society has gotten more familiar and accepting of LGBQ people. (I’ve purposely omitted the “T” because I think much more work must be done for Trans people to feel safe, much less accepted.)

I’m proud that I’ve incorporated gay topics in my writing. Somehow I’ve managed to maintain a blog since June 2008 about mostly gay things. I don’t know how I feel about the fact that a 2013 post regarding Ricky Martin remains my most seen post. (Do people read it or did they just arrive at my site when Googling for pics of him?) Still, the blog is a place where I’ve tried to be extremely open about my struggles as a gay man while also featuring items about gay culture and trying to keep people aware of how HIV and AIDS have impacted where we’ve been and shaped where we are.

I’m proud that one of my blog posts got national exposure when the Globe and Mail published it as a First Person essay during Toronto’s Pride celebrations last year. My writing also includes two gay-focused manuscripts that I’ve revised many times now and I’m ready to begin (re)submitting, hoping that an agent and a publisher will find either or both works to be worthy novels.

I’m proud that I overcame a period of gay/AIDS burnout and complacency and I thirst again for new knowledge about gay history and new expressions of gayness in literature and other media. I am aware that I am still very much unaware...of what it’s like to be a black, Asian or Muslim queer in North America, of how to become better educated and to impact change in countries where LGBTQ rights do not exist and of how to keep up with and support more nuanced identities that many people feel better align with their true selves. How wonderful to know I have so much ahead of me!

This Pride month seems like the perfect time to start digging deeper, shifting from a primary focus of raising other people’s awareness to strengthening our own. Knowledge is power.