Pride 2023 DEFIES White Supremacists, Christian Nationalists
A Prism & Pen writers prompt
“Watch them!” shouted Lenny, pointing at a group of marchers a block down the parade route. “Look what the cops do!” he growled to me and to all the queer folks packed around us to take in the 1990 New York City LGBT Pride March.
Lenny glared at a cop stationed a few feet behind us. The cop tried hard to stare Lenny down. Lenny knew exactly what nastiness was about to go down, and so did that cop.
“What’s going on?” I whispered, but Lenny just pointed again at the approaching marchers.
That year was my first public Pride, my first year out of military uniform. I was almost 30, and I’d spent all my adult life (mostly) in the closet. I’d never had a real boyfriend, never been on an open date, never been free just to be me.
I’d been open to a few friends at university and in the Air Force, but I had faced the probable loss of my security clearance and a humiliating end to my national security career if I came out publicly.
I never felt free to attend Pride.
Now, free of the military and with Lenny’s prodding, I plunged into NYC queer life. He took me on my first real date, he whispered sweet nothings, he swore his love, and he walked me past the Stonewall Inn to explain its history, to tell me about the Riots that led to Pride — stories from the lips of his personal friends.
I was astonished.
The Pride March blew my astonishment into outer space.
Millions of us! Along a stretch of short miles! Millions in the parade, watching the parade, dancing in the streets, embracing one another, sometimes crying tears of joy.
Then that approaching group of marchers gave the NYC Police Department the chance to show us we had great reason to fear them and society. I squinted and read the approaching banner.
G.O.A.L.
Gay Officers Action League.
“Wooooooo! Go, girls, go!” shouted Lenny as about a dozen queer cops approached — men and women marching in civilian clothes behind their banner.
Most of them smiled at Lenny in gratitude. Two or three frowned or grimaced, probably at his over-the-top effeminacy. Lenny was a huge bear of a man dressed like a lumberjack, but his voice and mincing dancing proclaimed his queerness like a kazoo.
He cupped a giant palm around the top of my head and gently turned it toward the crowd-control cop stationed not 15 feet behind us. That cop had turned from the street to stare in the opposite direction, up into the sky.
“Now look at ALL the cops!” Lenny shouted to me and everyone. I looked up and down the block. EVERY cop in sight had turned his back on the gay cops.
They only turned to face the street again once the gay cops had marched out of sight.
I head people muttering in “our” cop’s direction. “Pig. Nazi. Bigot.” He looked defiant, proud even, in a perversion of the day’s theme.
“Never forget that,” Lenny said into my ear. “Never forget that we’re here to protest even though we’re gonna dance til the sun comes up.”
And dance we did! At the end of Christopher Street, down on the piers, and up Eighth Avenue toward home. When I remember my first Pride, I overwhelmingly remember love and and acceptance.
But I never forgot that cop’s hateful act.
I might have, but for the next ten years I lived in Manhattan, the NYPD pulled the same hateful stunt at every Pride march. I’m thankful, in a way, because they showed me that Pride had to be more than a party. They showed me that the need for protest had not faded, and that in many ways the Riots that began at Stonewall in June 1969 were continuing and must continue.
Pride 2023 DEFIES White Supremacists, Christian Nationalists
That’s our Prism & Pen writing prompt for the next two weeks. Human rights groups and government agencies are warning that racists and extremist Christian groups are openly plotting to attack Pride events this summer. Some LGBTQ groups are canceling Pride in response to violent threats and to laws that define drag queens as “adult entertainment.”
A major anti-LGBTQ backlash is exploding as Pride officially kicks off on Thursday, June 1.
Most Pride organizers remain defiant and faithful to the memory of Stonewall and the first defiant marches of 1970, which were illegal and went forward despite the law and brutal police opposition.
This year, many cops will show open support for racist, neo-Nazi groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Front, continuing a practice I reported all last Pride season.
Will YOU defy the racists and the cops this year? Will you attend Pride? Help organize Pride? Educate about Pride?
What are your plans? What do you think? What do you advise?
If you’re a friend or family member, what will you do this year in face of the most organized resistance to Pride in decades?
It’s time to write!
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