It seems ironic that one of the more tiring months in which to be queer is Pride Month. And this year, it feels more intense than ever. I don’t want to complain about it too much for fear of being seen as, I dunno, ungrateful? Pride is a strange concept in the first place. It feels like a platitude to say it now, and still it bears repeating, that when it started it was a protest. A protest in response to a raid on the Stonewall Tavern where the police were looking to arrest people who were breaking the ‘three-article rule’ — a rule that policed people wearing three or more items of clothing that did not belong to their perceived gender. For years after, Pride remained a protest, a set of demands.
Since I was old enough to fathom the concepts of pride (and therefore shame I might add), Pride (note the capital P) has become increasingly distant from these roots. Already in 2013 at my first ever Pride, the brilliant Act Up London, which I was lucky enough to be a part of, stormed the front of the parade and carried a coffin that bore ‘PRIDE’ atop it in flowers. And now, its borders are so porous that the police have marched, BP (which is trashing the environment) marches, while more queer friends than ever take to social media to report rising hate crimes.
