Directine

I'm disappointed in the festivities that went on after the SF Pride Parade. Unfortunately, I missed the parade. But I got there directly afterwards to participate in the (supposed) fun afterwards. Well, I paid a $3 "donation" to get in, and then was surprised to find....nothing. 

Hundreds and hundreds of booths selling trinkets and garbage. A few stages with people bumping and grinding to annoying diva house music. And....that's it. 

There was one live band (stuck way back in the corner), and they were pretty craptastic. Other than that it was just loads of shtick and stereotypes. I was looking hard, trying to find people that weren't actively trying to be *GAY!*, and were instead just being people that happened to be homosexual (see example to the left). And while they were present, they were certainly in short supply. It's possible that the *GAY!* people just overshadowed the gay people in presence, rather than in numbers, but it certainly felt like former were running the show.

I'm very much of the opinion that sexuality isn't what defines a person. I hate to see people that might otherwise get along divided into camps of gay, straight, bi, poly, and so on and so forth. Sure, a Pride Parade is a place where you can get together with hundreds of thousands of other people who happen to be LGBT or LGBT-friendly....but that's no excuse to have your sexuality suddenly become you, such that now you're just one more gay person among many.
And no, my feelings on this aren't just limited to sexuality. I don't like to see people that have turned themselves into caricatures of any single characteristic. It only turns themselves into fuel for stereotypes.

It saddens me to say this, San Francisco, but Seattle has a better Pride Parade than you do. Sure, it's smaller, but it feels like it actually means something.

Posted on June 30, 2002 12:00 PM