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This past weekend I went to Montreal Pride with a dozen other people
from my college. We were an interesting bunch —diverse enough to make
the admissions office weep with joy, and all over the spectrum in terms
of how far we were out. Now, it’s been a few years since I’ve been
to a big Pride —one can find more gay people in one square block in
most major cities than show up for Delaware Pride—and the last big gay
event I went to, the Millennium March, seemed more of a cross between a
circuit party and an “Aren’t we great? Give us a cookie!” pat on
the head for HRC. So Montreal—in all of its bilingual excess—was
very exciting. Dear Lord, I have never seen so many gay people in one
place—it was as if the Village had redecorated in rainbow and invited
everyone over for canapés and champagne. Fabulous doesn’t even begin
to cover it.
The
best part for me was watching three particular girls in our group who
had never been to Pride before. They were all very newly out, and this
was their first exposure to gay life outside of our small campus. They
were kids in the biggest candy store ever. I think that it’s easy to
convert our first exposures to gay life into sentimentality and forget
how important they were. One of the first “gay things” that I did
was go to Lambda Rising with some other gay teens, and I’d forgotten
in the many times I’ve walked in since then just how important and
earth-shattering that first time was. To have something as large as
Montreal Pride be the first experience of some of my friends was
wonderful—you don’t get much better affirming lifelines, really. And
the weekend was nothing but affirmation—these were queer people from
all sorts of places and backgrounds, and all of us were normal. It’s
nice not to be an other every now and then.
I’d
never been to a pride with a large group of friends before, and this
trip was also a study in supporting each other. The women in the group
went to a lesbian dance Saturday night, and it was at that point that I
realized how important we all were to each other. There’s something
about 700 lesbians dancing together that lends itself to deep
introspection. No, seriously.
I’ve
often felt like the queer community should, to whatever reasonable
extent, do their best to support each other. Pride is, above all else, a
statement of solidarity and affirmation of existence, but it only comes
along every now and then. Gay businesses and community centers,
particularly bookstores, are a far more permanent reminder. Or rather,
they should be—like all small town businesses in the age of warehouse
stores, many are going out of business. Montreal’s L’Androgyne, one
of the very first, is going out of business after 20 years. A gay
bookstore in Boston has similarly closed up shop. I’m a broke college
student, so I appreciate a bargain just as much as the next person, but
I can’t picture the local Buns and Noodle warehouse being able to
provide a conduit for the local gay community to a questioning and
curious queer teen. Sit out in the CAMP Courtyard on any given weekend
and now and then you’ll see a teenager walk back and forth five times
in an hour, often furiously chain-smoking. They get their nerve up
eventually, and when they do walk those few steps, a lifeline to a
community and its resources is available. This is in sharp contrast to,
say, a cup of pretentiously overpriced coffee. In short, we shouldn’t
forget the whole “uniting together under the rainbow flag” the
minute that the street is swept clean.
This
particular trip was a bit of a pain to put together. The main group who
funds field trips wouldn’t give us all the money that we asked for,
stating that they believed the trip wasn’t “educational enough.” I
beg to differ—I learned more about walking in heels, makeup
application, and French Canadian insults directed towards Americans in
one weekend than I have in 20 years, thanks to just one drag queen. I
also maintain that it is educational to be able to walk around the
street and think “Wow. If women who date women look like these women
then the world is a beautiful place.”
It
was educational, though. My concept of who gay people are is based
entirely on the queers that I am close friends with. To walk around
thousands of queers—parents, elderly couples, newly out teens, and all
and sundry others—reminded me that we are the most randomly composed
community on the planet, and that is a wonderful thing.
Kristen
Minor is a member of the class of 2004 at Dartmouth College, where she
randomly attempts to get large groups of people to chant “We’re
here, we’re queer, our parents think we’re studying.” She has a
bitty rainbow flag that she is very proud of and can be reached at kristen@youth-guard.org.
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