We All Need to Appreciate Pride

Rights are not like pie, when we give rights to LGBTQ people, none get taken from straight folks

When I was growing up on Long Island, I don’t remember anyone saying anything about gay people, much less the rest of the LBTQ+IA alphabet. It never occurred to me that I might be gay but I do remember having strong crushes on male actors. My only concern about gay men was that I would fall for one and have no shot. I was a teenager and teenage love is epic.

I was born in San Francisco so maybe my parents’ experience there shaped their views on this. My mother returned to the Bay Area when I was about 11 or so, I got my first introduction to gay culture. She lived in Berkeley but later moved into San Francisco. She would take me to the Castro. On one of my earliest trips there, we stumbled upon some kind of drag show.

At home, on Long Island, I was a ghost-pale, no-clothes-owning, freak whose parents were divorced AND was being raised by her creepy/violent father. The Drag Queens I saw were like nothing I had ever seen. They were men dressed like women and doing a fantastic job of doing it. They were different and they were fabulous. They were accepted and proud of who they were. It was the first time that I saw that I could be different and accepted.