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Underground > Switchboard >

Do We Have Any Gay Pride Here?

05:21 / 21.04.02

gay pride is due to take place in london this summer. it's name has changed, actually, to mardi gras. the pride march will take place before the festival, but *its* name has changed to the 'parade'. other cities will no doubt be holding their own, and sydney's mardi gras has already taken place.

a couple of questions:

- are any queer identified or queery allied barbefolk going? the london event has been accused of being 'de-politicized', what with the name changes and the fact that the 'mardi gras' charges £15 and it more or less is seen as just another big music festival. it used to be free - people would take picnics and celebrate after being on the march. now you cannot even take a bottle of water in with you.

- should every queer id'd etc folk go? surely, the more people on the march, the stronger the presence and visibility, the better? even if we don't feel like it represents us anymore?

- what is the deal in other cities? does the queer community feel their 'pride' event has lost touch?

i helped organise an event a few years back (queeruption) as a direct alternative to the mardi gras. it was three days of workshops, film, music, debate, readings..... and it was all FREE. other alternative events are also held in london - lahdidah, and ladyfest is here during august. is this the way forward - reclaiming 'gay pride' and the political aspect of being queer from the gay establishment, who seem to be interested only in having a commercial event?

09:13 / 21.04.02

Looking at it from the outside, I think there's a general perception of Pride as a "music festival" like you say, a fun day out where there will also be a lot of gay people. That's probably a positive thing in itself, breaking down prejudice and all but it doesn't seem like a protest, march, anything like that. No more political than G.A.Y.

09:46 / 21.04.02

I dont' know that I can be bothered with Mardi Gras any more. I remember how incredibly important it was for me to be able to stand in the pride march and be around hundreds of gay people. But now the event is just one huge outdoor event and I don't feel I have much in common with the people who go to it. The best time I've had in recent years was when Pride was suddenly cancelled and gaydom just descended on Soho and made it ours. That was the last significant political act of the Pride era - or so it seems to me...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

10:22 / 21.04.02

Never gone. Don't intend to go. I hate most of what events such as these push as being 'gay culture', washed-up pop stars or the latest transitory C-rate boyband and whilst I quite like Sandi Toksvig she isn't really enough to draw me down from North London to see her...

11:03 / 21.04.02

fridgemagnet: the last time the festival was free, it was advertised with barely a mention of it being a queer event. apparently it was descended upon by heterosexuals, some of whom gave homophobic hassle to the queers there. that was one of the reasons given for charging for the festival. i find that this usually happens when a queer event is not emphasised as such.

i still feel the march is important, despite the attempts to make it meaningless. i didn't go to the soho 'pride', but by all accounts it was thoroughly enjoyable. i don't know of anyone who intends to go to the london mardi gras this year, or even anyone who knows when it's on. this appears to be rather more down to disillusion with it, rather than some views, that being queer is so easy these days that we don't actually need this kind of thing any more.

the only other spontaneous action that i remember recently was after the brixton, brick lane and soho bombings. members of all the communities targetted marched around soho. people were distraught and very, very pissed off. at the time it was suspected that a facist group had carried out the attacks, and people were mobilising in opposition.

14:48 / 21.04.02

I'm not sure. I have a somewhat rose-tinted view of Pride/Mardi Gras stemming from a wonderful fortnight I spent in London with ZoCher, the summer after we met. Having come originally from Aberdeen I had little experience of any sort of organised gay scene, much less large-scale gay festivals/marches anywhere. It was a glorious day: from the initially nervous dragging up in gear I, personally, had rarely worn outside the bedroom, through the meetings with several scary-gay friends and acquaintances, the first experience of (very good quality) speed, to the thing itself. I remember feeling overwhelmed and exhilarated by the sheer proximity of so many gay people, both at the Pride march/festival and in central London generally. A truly carnival atmosphere.

We've never really thrown ourselves into the London event to the same extent since then but have generally attended the Scottish version, usually held in either Glasgow or Edinburgh. Sometimes it's good; sometimes it isn't.

I'm not really up on the political side of Pride, and am somewhat confused by the profusion of variants and spin-offs. ZoCher and I will definitely be going along to at least one or two, though - as much for nostalgia's sake as anything else. No matter how 'commercialised' it becomes, there's always something warm and fuzzy about being surrounded by other gay men and women openly being gay men and women in full public daylight. That's the pull of the thing for me; the whole 'C-rated boyband' entertainment side is very much secondary.

Should all queer-identified people go? Dunno. I think being out in public is generally a Good Thing and despite what others have said, I do feel I have a certain amount in common with the people around me. Going through a process of consciously examining/'deciding' one's sexuality does lead to commonalities of experience, and I'm faintly anxious that to state otherwise can be the thin end of the 'effeminite gay men are hateful and nothing like me' wedge...

I certainly don't think 'all the battles have been won'. I'm not sure that Pride/Mardi Gras is necessarily the way to win 'em but, while I continue to find the experience 'empowering', I'll continue to go.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

15:35 / 21.04.02

funny thing about gay pride.
as a hetero male who decided to get loaded one random night (not realizing it was gay pride night) i went to the local gay bar, where the drinks were less watered down and a pal of mine worked the door.
the place was packed, but, had i not spent much time in this establishment or with gay folks, i would assume that all gay men are either A) drunk and chubby B) drunk and skinny c)buff, and not really gay, just dancing in cages for tips.
Now, i understand the idea of pride, but why, unlike black history month, is gay pride day always turned into a, for lack of a better word, silly techno dayglo drunken party?

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:48 / 21.04.02

oof. because black pride is 'serious' and important and gay pride is just about hedonism, as that's all gays get up to.

Christ, I'm going to start quoting Armistead Maupin if you're not careful.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

17:09 / 21.04.02

WAIT
HE'S GAY???
j/k

11:21 / 22.04.02

Perhaps, Elijah, because many gay people spend much of their time presenting themselves and their lives in ways that are deemed acceptable to "hetero males" (be funny but not too camp, be serious but not too strident, don't ever kiss in public - unless you're suitably femme lesbians). Pride is one occasion where - notionally, at least - gay people don't have to worry about sanitising themselves for straight society. One major element is the need to celebrate, to feel good about oneself; partying is one incredibly good way to do that. Even for 'chubbies'. Especially for 'chubbies'.

Perhaps you do have a point. Perhaps we ought to have a Gay History Month too. I'm not sure you'd like it, though; it wouldn't be quite as 'feel-good'...

12:36 / 22.04.02

a gay history month? what a good idea! schools could take part, telling kids which major historical figures were gay, the history of gay oppression..... oh, i forgot. it's kind of illegal in england and wales to tell kids we're something other than disgusting tenth rate citizens.... maybe i should go on the march after all.

21:04 / 22.04.02

I love PRIDE. Here it's the last Sunday in June. Last year we were going to have a decorated car in the parade, but the car overheated and died --possibly as a result of the Marilyn Monroe wig it was wearing over its hood.

This year, I am toying with the idea of Ben Her ...a drag queen chariot race in slo-mo, what could be finer?

wembley can change in 28 days

22:23 / 22.04.02

Persephone: that's effing brilliant. I love it.

I can't believe you have to buy tickets to Mardi Gras. That's outrageous. Here in TO it's still Pride Week, and there's a big fuck-off parade with lots of firefighters and huge wigs, and more often than not Cyndi Lauper is somewhere. You can buy tickets to all the clubs (which is usually incredibly expensive but fun), but the event itself is free. There's the Dyke March on the day before the official Pride Day parade, which I think is a bit silly - separating the two events. I've only been to pride once, with a bunch of my friends. It's really for the Gay and Lesbian community, but there will be tonnes of straights in attendance as it's far and away the hippest weekend in June in Toronto. It always makes me jealous for being straight - hot damn, but those queers know how to celebrate.

23:08 / 23.04.02

We're going to get shit all achieved for gay rights if we keep persisting with the idea of novelty. Being gay, frankly, isn't anything special. I like dick, it's like a friend and a food group to me, but beyond that, what the hell is there? I've been into enough gay bars to know that I have practically zero in common with these people besides that.
And, then you have to somehow find pride in all of that, and how? It seems to me that's like being proud of your feet. They're just your feet, they're there, they do something, they do some stuff for you, but at the end of the day, they're just...feet.
Props to Ganesh for picking up on the whole straight-acting gig. Fuck it, heterosexuality is not a holy grail. We do not want to be gay heterosexuals, and there's nothing wrong with camp, or being it.