It’s time to take our Pride celebration back to its roots: visible and defiant
We all know this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. Most of us also know that the first predecessors to today’s Pride parades began the following year, on the first anniversary of the riots. Several major cities held parades and marches on June 28, 1970. These events were not the beginning of the gay rights movement, but they marked a tremendous change in tone, goals and effectiveness. It was at that point in history that advocates for gay rights turned away from polite, quiet attempts to make society accept “us” as “just like them.”
Post-Stonewall activism was all about being loud and proud of who we truly are. Pride celebrations back then were all about two things: visibility and defiance.
Visibility was important because we needed to show the world how many of us there were. People are more comfortable ignoring us when they think we are few. People are more apt to discount our existence as mental illness or passing fads when they don’t realize that we are in every corner of society, in every profession, in every locality. People are more able to hate us when they are unaware that we are members of their communities, schools and churches, their friendship circles, and even their families.
Pride was in part about coming out of the closet as a community and telling the world that we are here, and we are queer.
Defiance was important as well, because society wanted us to live in shame and hiding. They were afraid of us because they didn’t understand us. They shamed us into the closet where we hid our true selves from them for near eternity. What began at Stonewall was a sense of defiance against the very notion that we ought to be ashamed of who we are, who we love and what we do to express our love. We finally decided to stand up and fight back.
Fast forward 40-some years, and travel to Dallas, Texas. What have we here? A city that is a liberal safe haven, in many ways, in a small corner of a huge, conservative, hate-fueled state. In a state that pushes hard for bathroom bills and “religious exemptions,” this city has tremendous local protections for the LGBTQIA+ community — protections the state is working to take away as we speak.
We have the colors of the rainbow flag light up the skyline annually to celebrate Pride. We have gay city council members, the largest LGBTQIA+-inclusive church in the world, a thriving gayborhood and a true sense of acceptance for most of us, compared to other cities in this part of this country.
And we have a Pride Parade scheduled for Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 2 p.m. . . . in the biggest closet in the city . . . on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Why? How did this happen?
A lot of factors went into moving our Pride parade and celebration from Cedar Springs to Fair Park. A big part of it is money. We were told that we could no longer hold the parade on Cedar Springs because the crowd is too big for the area (a great problem), and the roads will be under construction this year.
Fine. The parade never belonged in the gayborhood anyway. What do we accomplish by screaming “support gay rights” to gay people? Parades belong downtown. The first parades in Dallas were downtown. That’s where they need to be to have the biggest impact, to serve their purpose of visibility.
But it would be far too expensive to hold the parade in downtown Dallas, so it will be held in Fair Park — visible only to those who choose to be present there.
Visibility, then, is dead for the LGBTQIA+ community in Dallas, right? One might suppose it is no longer needed anyway; gays have all the rights straights have now — with marriage equality and employment protections most places, right? Wrong! Visibility is alive and well — as is the need for it among many in our community.
It is true that the situation in society has vastly improved over the past 50 years for affluent, white, gay men. Meanwhile, they are only a small part of our community, and there is much more work to do.
The transgender community is being attacked at every angle. The federal government is trying to force us out of existence, and the Texas government is helping. Local governments are doing precious little to protect us, and they are losing the power even to do that.
We need change in the way society treats us on an institutional level and on a very personal level. We need employment protections, but we also need employment opportunities. We need the freedom to marry, but we also need people who date women to recognize that trans women are women, and those who date men to accept that trans men are men so that we can build the relationships that might lead to marriage.
We need protections against housing discrimination, but we also need trans-inclusive policies at homeless shelters. We need people to stop murdering us because of who we are, and we also need police and other authorities to stop harassing us, misgendering us, dead-naming us and housing us according to our genitalia in direct contradiction of federal law.
We need the citizens of Dallas to know who we are. We need huge societal changes. We need visibility like never before. That is why we MARCH!
Transgender Pride of Dallas is hosting a “Pride is a Protest” March before the parade on June 2. We will rally at City Hall at 11:30 a.m., then march from there through downtown Dallas, through Deep Ellum, to the gates of Fair Park. We will arrive by 1 p.m. and have an hour to settle in before the parade begins.
We will be loud, proud, and visible! We will remember our sisters, trans women of color, who were instrumental in making the Stonewall Riots the turning point we needed in the history of the gay-rights movement. We will bring the Protest back to Pride in Dallas, Texas. Join us!
Jayla Wilkerson is founder of Transgender Pride of Dallas.
Right on!
I disagree with “And we have a Pride Parade scheduled for Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 2 p.m. . . . in the biggest closet in the city . . . on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Why? How did this happen?” This is happening AT FAIR PARK! How is that closet? It’s a HUGE CITY venue! A great venue! Beautiful even! While I agree on many points I also totally disagree when it comes to “Pride is a Protest”. “PRIDE” is not one thing..it is many things! Pride is strength, celebration of that strength and celebration of living ones truth! Instead of dividing a community with this article why not help bring it together?!!! We have enough with Trump and his administration we don’t need it from within as well. If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work but it hasn’t even happened yet! We don’t know if it will be bad or good! At least give it a shot and then go from there. Change can be a good thing if you allow it to be!
Celeste, I don’t know about you, but I’m a native Dallasite NEVER more than 5 miles from the center. Fort Worth used to go along Main St or Jennings, by it’s bars, but then moved to downtown Fort Worth. With Sundance Square and an ACTIVE downtown, that was logical. Jayla is ABSOLUTELY correct !! being in Fair Park IS A CLOSET, nothing less !! and here in the Democratic Epiceenter of North Texas, it’s Pathetic !! We need to be VISIBLE !!! If not Cedar Springs. then downtown, but 1 day of inconvenience and cost, I DON”T CARE. At a time that hate crimes have increased, ‘Trumpism’ and Civil Rights are being come after in every way possible.. Fair Park is NOT an Option.. BRAVO !!! JAYLA, you sound like we conspired before you wrote this article !! Thank You !!
Celeste, I’d like to politely and respectfully respond to your comments and questions, but I fully respect your right to disagree and voice your opinion as you have.
First, how Fair Park is a closet is that it is closed off to the general public. Activities in Fair Park are visible only to those who have intentionally and purposefully made themselves present there at the time of the events. As an example, the Texas State Fair is held annually at Fair Park. At the beginning of the fair, they host a parade. They host that parade in DOWNTOWN DALLAS. Hosting it at Fair Park would be useless, because no one would see it other than patrons already there. Same for Pride.
Next, Pride is in fact a lot of things, but I argue that all of those things, at bottom, are protest. Having fun while publicly displaying affection toward members of your same sex and/or flaunting nonconformity to gender and sexual norms is a protest directly against those norms and society’s desire that you adhere to them. The very fact that we have a pride celebration and parade is to protest those ideas that we should be ashamed of who we are. If there is not such a protest element of Pride, then it is true that there ought to also be a “straight parade.” The reason that there is not is because Pride is an effort to increase equality for the LGBTQIA+ community through visibility and the breaking down of fear and hatred toward our communities. The straight community does not need such a movement because they are perceived already to be the “normal majority.”
Finally, and by far MOST IMPORTANTLY, you misunderstand the nature and purpose of this article and the march if you think it is “dividing a community.” The purpose of the march and the article is to give people like myself, the rest of the transgender community, and others who remain concerned with visibility in Pride the opportunity to participate in Pride as it is in Dallas today AND ALSO work for visibility of our lives and our issues and needs. We are working WITH Dallas Pride to ensure that one event does not detract from the other. The March ends before the Parade begins – at the site of the Parade – in order to accommodate those who wish to participate in both. This is not divisive, but in fact very intentionally inclusive. All are welcome to march with us. We do not protest Pride. We protest the society in which we live and the laws that are still working against many in our beautiful community.
I hope this response was helpful and informative. If you’d like to discuss more, please find Transgender Pride of Dallas on Facebook and send us a message. Thanks.
I am a gay white male, I am not a liberal I am a conservative. My partner is a black man who I love dearly. I have many problems with this story. One being that as a gay male I am expected to be angry and a liberal. Gays are some of the most judgemental people I know. They also have little tolerance for anyone who doesn’t think or agree with how they do. There have been tremendous strides in how far America has come in a short amount of time. Yes it took protest, examples, and maurders to get us there. But the very thing that slowed down the progress even further is an article like this one. Being angry at this point will do less to teach the hearts and minds of people who don’t understand, if anything it alienates them further. Not everyone is going to be liked. What we need to do is embrace those who embrace us and build off of that, and stop shoving who we are in everyone’s face and sue them if they have a different opinion than ours. If we want tolerance than we must first be tolerant to people and their opinions also. In America it’s been said, I may not agree with you? But I’ll fight to my death to defend your right to say it! Not everyone will agree with what I wrote, but I respect your right to not agree. This? Is America… Not fair, not perfect, but still the best country in the world….
Andrew, respectfully, the reason you have “many problems with this story” is because it does not apply to you. You are a gay, white, presumably cisgender, presumably affluent male. Your community was marginalized fifty years ago at the start of this movement, the same as mine. Yours no longer is — at least not to the same extent. Transgender people, and other still marginalized individuals, still have a lot of work to do. That is why we still need to march. That is why we still need to protest. That is why we still need visibility. White, gay, cisgender men are widely accepted in society today. You needn’t concern yourself with what restroom to use, how to access proper medical care, how you will be housed if jailed, how you will be identified if murdered, how likely you are to be murdered on a date or other encounter . . . You say “yes it too protest to get us here” but you fail to recognize that not ALL of US are “HERE”! Your community was angry and fought back against police raids at gay bars in 1969 (and the trans community of color was there to help). Your community fought in recent years against marriage inequality (with help again from the trans community). The trans community is angry about how we are being treated by government and society TODAY! We are standing up and fighting back. Can we count on your help?