My 1st Pride

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:15]Uh my first and only pride experience was this past year. Um I went with my girlfriend.

[00:00:20]>> And I actually um wasn't planning on going to pride that day.

[00:00:25]>> I was nervous.

[00:00:26]Um didn't really know a whole lot of people. Never really experienced so many people like just being open with their, you know, sexuality and >> All I remember is having extreme amounts of fun, feeling like I was finally free, that I was with people that I belonged with.

[00:00:43]>> Uh it's always a a question as to whether you'll be accepted as a trans woman, especially when you're as large as I am.

[00:00:50]I'm 6'2" and uh with my 5-in heels, that puts me above everybody else in the location. No problems whatsoever and it I kept getting people coming up to me and welcoming me and uh saying how pretty I looked. And it just was a wonderful feeling to be accepted by not only the uh GLBT folks, but the general population.

[00:01:14]>> It was a beautiful afternoon, um hot but beautiful afternoon and we were just I mean, all this color and all this everybody was so festive.

[00:01:24]>> Yeah.

[00:01:25]>> And we were trying to figure, you know, they're all smiling and we're trying to figure out what it was and >> Finally it clicked.

[00:01:32]>> Oh.

[00:01:33]>> But I think it might have been a banner or or they may have had um people running down the, you know, they were coming down the sidewalks along with the parade >> Oh, yeah.

[00:01:41]>> to talk to people.

[00:01:43]I think that's what it was.

[00:01:46]But I remember uh having having both being delighted and having a huge laugh once we figured out what it was.

[00:01:55]>> My memorable experience I I got hit in the face with lube, like a big packet of lube, but I got hit in the eye with it and my friends were laughing at me.

[00:02:04]Um cuz you know, everybody's like, "Oh, yeah, great for the beads and everything." And I remember like having a horrible experience just because I got like hit in the eye with a lube packet.

[00:02:13]And that's be careful when you go to pride parades because it's definitely a hazard.

[00:02:17]>> Um it wasn't a very high-key. It was just um a typical march um of solidarity. Uh but what we could really remember at that time was the imagery um of uh many different people just walking together.

[00:02:33]>> Everything from, you know, from your protesters, but there wasn't that many.

[00:02:38]But it's just what I love about it is you have all these um smaller communities, like you got your leather community in the gay community, and you got your uh the drag and the performing, and you know, and they all come together as one, and it's so great to see that all united. I wish I could see that more throughout the year. That was such a big experience, and it and everything was really, really overwhelming, and and it just gave you that warm fuzzy feeling, and and it's not so bad being gay.

[00:03:06]>> [laughter] >> It was '72, and so there were people were used to uh marches, they were used to protests and everything like that.

[00:03:14]And here was this group basically of kids um marching down the mall or walking down the mall shouting things like gay pride, and people, of course, back then thought, "Oh, well, they're you know, happy.

[00:03:31]They're they're proud to be happy." was kind of their interpretation of it. They didn't understand what gay pride meant.

[00:03:37]So that in some ways that was a little bit of a letdown for us.

[00:03:40]>> Liberating in a number of ways because it made me feel like there's other people out here. And it also made me feel as though I have a social responsibility to be honest with myself and to other people because if I were to come out with who I am and my sexual preference and and my identity, which is a lot of that is being gay, then how are other other people supposed to? And I think we all influence each other and we all help each other by being honest with who we are.

[00:04:10]>> You had gone to a place in time where the rest of the world stopped still stood still and you just, you know, enjoyed your lifestyle, enjoyed the people even though they were strange even though they were strangers it was all like one big happy family.

[00:04:27]>> It was a lot bigger than I expected and I didn't get to see everything, which was sad.

[00:04:32]But it was really cool cuz like I could see like the two moms like wheeling their kids around or two dads and it was just I've never seen more GLBT people in my entire life and it just it gave me a perspective cuz I live in like this small town where there's like no GLBT people whatsoever.

[00:04:51]>> We would sit on a hillside and there'd be two or 300 people and um >> [laughter] >> some of them would bring out a guitar and now I mean, look at what it is. It's unlike anything that I would have ever believed possible from the 1970s and to seeing it today, I would never believed it and it's it's a wondrous thing. I mean, it it's taken a life on of its own and I think that what is happening today and how gayness is viewed today is very different than what it was when I came out and the fact that they don't have to look at these issues, they don't have to face them, they don't have to go through all the BS that we went through is probably a good thing.

[00:05:49]>> It was it was the kind of realization of something that I knew existed. Like I would read about, you know, San Francisco and New York City. That's what I would read about as, you know, that it was they were they were the gay meccas and um so I think, you know, just the yeah, I think it was just that, you know, kind of a maybe a an actual physical coming out process.

[00:06:15]You know, of course you got to do that internally, but but just to to be able to see it visually was you know, it was it was kind of surreal.

[00:06:25]>> When you're watching something like that for the first time, you know, you just you're awed. You're just you're looking at everything. You're trying to take it all in.

[00:06:32]Um but it's like, you know, I just knew you know, this is where I belong. You know, if it's just that that spot, that that day every year in Chicago.

[00:06:46]>> Some of them have become kind of corporatized in the sense that it's really not community based anymore. It's kind of all about making money and, you know, let's feed off corporate America.

[00:06:56]But um that being said, I think that they're still important in the sense that it gives us a chance in the entire community to kind of get together one at least once a year all together, be really visible.

[00:07:08]>> Pride to me means the I I think it's just a day for the gay community um to come out and to celebrate the fact that, you know, you you are gay, that there are people with you. There are a lot of people that look like you, um who look like your neighbors, who look like your co-workers, um who look like your family, who are also gay. So, I think it's most helpful um to someone who's from that small town who gets that opportunity to go to like a large larger community where they have a big pride celebrations to feel a part of something that's whole.

[00:07:47]Um I think pride it gives you an opportunity to reflect and hopefully um for me and talking to you, I guess I never really thought about it, but it gives you an opportunity to think about, you know, um how you've grown, you know, um how you can um you know, really I hope to contribute, you know, to the gay community, you know, in a positive manner.

[00:08:10]I'm less reluctant to say that pride is about I know I I hope pride is not about simply, you know, um the parades, you know, and the parties, you know, which I think a lot of people or the um straight community can easily look at this like, "Oh, it's gay pride weekend.

[00:08:33]Oh, they're going to be walking down the street in the high heel shoes." And you you know, and it because, you know, on television they always show the most outlandish looking character. Um and and that's not that's not what pride is to me, you know. But I think it is an opportunity for the community really to get together and to um to celebrate, you know, one another.

[00:08:54]>> My parents are part of that and they've come out and and, you know, they're proud of their gay son. So, yeah, and it's pride.

[00:09:01]>> It's a tremendous outpouring of support among each other and then also a lot of the population are looking and and aware that you're there and you're out and you're in public and you belong there. The one thing that I think is tremendously important is for people to get out and reserve their place in society. We need we belong in the population. We are part of society.

[00:09:26]Although we have a unique culture of our own that's tremendously rich and diverse and wonderful in its own way, we need to belong in the public and that's one of the things that pride does for us, but then taking it beyond the next step is we need to do that for ourselves.

[00:09:45]>> I think as a community, um, you know, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, we all sort of feel fragmented. I mean, now that we're trying to integrate and become mainstream, but I think it helps us to connect, um, as a group and remind, you know, each other that there's still a long way to go. You know, as much as it feels like we're we're being accepted into part of into mainstream, there's still and I think it's really great that we can get together and just feel comfortable to be ourselves, to be individuals, and not feel like we're going to be, you know, ostracized for that. And I feel like pride experiences still offer that for people, and I think it's still very much needed.