In the past couple of years, I have been to two Dallas gay pride parades and passed through Divers/cité, a large gay pride festival in Montreal. I have also seen pictures and heard stories of other pride festivals and parades around North America.
The concept behind the events is effective and well intentioned, but not new. Pride parades follow the general trend of mass political activism in America: gather a large group of people with similar values in a public space to draw attention to your cause. Some attendees feel an espirit de corps with previous political movements, such as the civil rights marches in the 1960s.
Organizers and participants alike market the events as semi-political functions. The gatherings are supposed to highlight gay rights, increase the visibility of LGBT organizations and challenges, and generally encourage activism on behalf of the LGBT community. LGBT-oriented businesses advertise and cater to the large number of visitors, and groups like Lambda Legal, a non-profit organization that provides legal support for LGBT rights and those with AIDS, often attend the events. In addition, corporations frequently advertise or fund the events to show support.
In this way, I fully support gay pride events. They draw LGBT resources together and encourage activism and societal acceptance.
Unfortunately, alcohol, nearly naked men and hyper-sexuality drown the message out. Attend a pride parade, and you will no doubt see many shirtless, often drunk men touching random strangers. Bars and clubs frequently hire men to stand outside in their underwear or sponsor a float advertising a nightclub with more male models in underwear.
In practice, for many of the participants, pride parades are an excuse to get drunk, wear less clothing and be more promiscuous than normal. In effect, this mentality not only negates the positive, activist elements of a pride parade, but is actually detrimental to the cause of gay rights.
The effectiveness of any event like a pride parade lies in the visibility of a large number of like-minded people. Therefore, participants in gay rights parades and marches should be more conscious of their behavior, not less. To put it bluntly, gay men are to blame for ruining the message of these events. Instead of calling attention to legal inequality and social stigmas, gay men highlight the differences in their sexuality and behavior. For some reason, I rarely see lesbian or transgender participants making fools of themselves at pride events.
For better or worse, when a minority group wants equal rights and social standing, it has to meet the majority halfway. It is not enough to demand that the government and society accept LGBT people for who they are. If gay men want to be socially accepted, they have to conform to society in highly public events. In their everyday lives, most gay men I know do not act like the men I see at pride parades. If they really do want equality, they need to act the part.
Paul is the Opinion Editor. He is a junior majoring in voice performance.
