Why I'll Be No-Showing The SF Pride Parade This Year

Because if I go, there is the possibility I will never participate in the queer community ever again.

If I have to take a bus with a bunch of giggly straight girls to get on two trains with a bunch of giggly straight girls to walk out to a street corner lined up with giggly straight girls to watch a giggly straight girl lead a parade celebrating my community (i.e. not giggly straight girls), I will have to burn my zines, delete my youtube videos, take down my blog, cancel all my panel/workshop dates and go back in the closet, for I will not be able to look into the face of members of my community who actually need  the message of visibility and celebration that Pride was originally meant for, knowing that I contributed in any small way to their erasure and mockery by giggly white straight girls.

Need a better Grand Marshall for the Pride Parade? Why not Black Dahlia Parton?

My qualifications are as follows:

1. Identifying as queer, I had to come out to family, friends, and co-workers, many of whom were not okay with it. I understand the importance that Pride events play for those who feel unwelcome, unwanted, and unsafe elsewhere.

2. Sarah Silverman got this gig because she has a television show. I may never get my own television show, because I’m queer.

3. I actually know someone who’s felched another person. True story.

4. After Pride, I will go back to making zines, hosting letter parties for incarcerated queers, and doing body-positive performance art. I can’t fathom what Sarah Silverman will do, because I am not a rich white girl with her own television show, but I’m fairly sure it will be as far away from the radical queer community as real estate allows.

5. I have actually been in a non heteronormative relationship*. It was marvelous.

*Several, actually. This is typical of queer people.

6. All of the people defending Sarah Silverman’s appointment as Grand Marshall are white straight folks who think we’re not being inclusive enough at our events. Anyone campaigning for me to be Grand Marshall in 2013 is likely to have actually been excluded from a space because they are queer and, whether or not they will admit it, probably, at least once, fished glitter out of a body cavity.

And most importantly:

7. IF I WAS ACTUALLY ASKED TO BE GRAND MARSHALL OF PRIDE, I WOULD TURN IT DOWN AND DEMAND THAT IT INSTEAD BE GIVEN TO ONE OF THE MANY, MANY, MANY QUEER WOMEN OF COLOR WHO ARE VIOLENTLY IGNORED IN THIS COMMUNITY. SUCH A CONCEPT HAS PROBABLY NEVER CROSSED THE MIND OF OUR YEAR’S GLORIOUS GRAND MARSHALL. THIS MAKES HER UNFIT TO LEAD OUR COMMUNITY IN A PARADE, OR EVEN A PUB TRIVIA CONTEST. 

I have to admit, I grumbled and told ye youngsters to abscond from thy lawn when I heard that Trans March was gonna have a “no snuck in booze, plz” policy this year, but with this shit and the inevitable regiment of drunk frat guys stumbling in step at Dyke March, telling me to tongue my girlfriend and show them my tits, I won’t mind leaving my gin and tonic at home if it means that by doing so I’ll be participating in the only pride-related event even remotely concerned with the safety and solidarity of its attendees.

Gay Christmas (n):

1. A time for us to gather in cheer and goodwill.

2. A yearly exercise in self-flagellation where we force ourselves to watch our privileged, racist, sexist, ableist, classist, transphobic members of our “family” slowly murder our hope for a better future.

I’m not against Pride. I love gatherings of strangers. I love parades. I’m no naysayer. Nothing would please me more than to adorn myself in rainbow paint and scream at the top of my lungs on a throat-fuckingly hot Sunday afternoon.

I guess that’s what upsets me most. I really want to be a good little automaton. I want to be brainwashed with optimism and pride.

But you won’t let me. Because I’m not your target demographic. I’m not on the board of a Fortune 500. I don’t intend to adopt any kids and enroll them in private school. I probably won’t marry, and even if I did, I will not donate any money to that cause until our youth, our seniors, our homeless and sick are given a safe place to sleep and food to eat.

You don’t want me at what you think is your party. And I’m not sure if I’m supposed to crash it to show you that it isn’t your party, or just help start another party as an alternative to yours and expose how toolish (see also: portmanteau) yours is  when everyone sees how awesome ours is.

I’m not so full of myself that I think that my thoughts, my actions, my political gestures mean a god damn thing to you.

I’m just one woman.

You’re Pride™.

But I’m not alone.

You have no idea.

I kinda hope that Sarah Silverman possess that which Dan Savage lacks and actually responds to me. Not because I wanna hear her side of the story or anything, but because my brother has such a crush on her and having her call me an uppity humorless bitch might actually bring me and him closer together. Love ya, bro!

ETA: YES, I AM AWARE SARAH SILVERMAN IS NOT THE ONLY GRAND MARSHALL.

SHE STILL SHOULDN’T BE A GRAND MARSHALL.

FUCK. I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

A WHITE STRAIGHT WOMAN TAKING UP SPACE IN A QUEER EVENT TAKES UP SPACE REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SHE’S THE ONLY PERSON IN THE SPACE.

FUCK.