New York gay pride’s dying a slow death. Millions of ‘mos used to march down Fifth Avenue onto Christopher Street.
The numbers, however, are starting to dwindle. Such a statement begs the question: “Where have all the homos gone?”
As New York Observer‘s John Koblin notes, there are more reasons than one.
Perhaps queer indifference stems from simple lack of knowledge. Koblin stopped by New York’s Phoenix to interview a few card carrying queers about Gay Pride. The response is less than uplifting – or intelligent. One subject, a 22-year old “poet” from that hell pit, Williamsburg, tells Koplin:
Maybe in the 60’s, it was fun when you’re like, ‘Fuck you! Fuck you, I’m gay and you’re an asshole,’ you know? Then you fast-forward from 19-whenever–whenever the gay revolution was, I don’t know, I’m not a scholar–things go on and get kind of boring.
Yikes, we’ve never feared more for a member of our young gay generation.
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Still, we agree with this ill-informed hipster: pride can be a bit boring. And tiresome. It’s two miles of screaming and cheering and generally fagging out. But for what? Has New York pride’s ever-present commercialization costing the march its message? Koblin writes:
In its beginnings, the parade was an explicitly political affair, largely the work of affluent, white left-leaners consciously grabbing the Stonewall events as a rallying point for New York’s largely closeted gay and lesbian population.
One of its great messages was that closeted gays and lesbians were working alongside New Yorkers at white-shoe law firms, big accounting firms, in entertainment, the arts, publishing, journalism, politics.
After all, the message “out of the closet and into the streets!” could hardly have been aimed at people who were living out their gay lives there already.
Four years later, an article in The New York Times described the paraders–“most of whom were white and most of whom were young”–marching “past smiling policemen, wide-eyed tourists and blasé New Yorkers who passed it off with a live-and-let-live shrug.”
But over the last three decades, as that demographic has largely come out of the closet, and gotten a little more than a “live and let live” shrug when they emerged, there doesn’t seem to be much for them to march for.
Sounds to us like the gay shamers are on to something – without an explicit message, Gay Pride becomes nothing more than a walking, talking explosion of rainbow. And with very little taste.
While the younger set, such as that buffoon at Phoenix, are simply bored of the parade, older generations may simply be too rich. Empire State Pride Agenda’s Alan Van Capelle remarks:
If you start at the top of the parade on Fifth Avenue, you see the well-heeled tourists and straight allies. In Chelsea, you see folks who own apartments and who can afford those rents and who are sitting out on their balconies with mixed cocktails that are in really beautiful colors and in terrifically shaped glasses. Then you work through the parade and get to the Village and you see more people of color.
Christopher Street, once the epicenter of the American gay rights movement, has found itself largely abandoned by the post-Stonewallers. As gays gained more dough, the racial and class divides effectively demolished the movement’s universal foundations. Former Village Voice editor Richard Goldstein echoes Van Capelle’s musings:
White people say they experience the parade as being tired and corny. They’ll say it’s unattractive to them. The reason it’s unattractive to them is because there are all these faces of people of color from all over the world. What happens is the parade gets blacker and blacker.Fewer white people feel drawn to it. The result is, to be seen at the parade is a little déclassé.
Gays may say they celebrate difference, but only in terms of sexuality. Race and class need not apply.
Another factor in New York Pride’s seemingly slow death may also stems from New York’s gay-friendly atmosphere. Simon & Shuster associate publisher Matt Davie remarks,
I live in New York, and it’s sort of like every day is Gay Pride Parade. It’s not this special day that I can suddenly throw on my rainbow flag, or whatever. That’s every day. I don’t need this special day where I’m out of the closet.
Davie and his equally upwardly mobile New Yorkers may have turned their backs on the parade, but it still serves a purpose.
A New Jersey-based lesbian tells Koblin:
When you come here, you can really just be yourself. There’s no hiding, no pretenses, no nothing. It’s just you and there’s no better feeling in the world than being able to let go. That’s priceless.
“Actually, I met a couple people today who are from Jersey City and Elizabeth, and it’s like, ‘Are you serious? You live in Jersey?” … So we’re all excited that we might be able to start a community in Jersey. So that’s just worth it all.
The revolutionary message of pride may be long dead, but much of the message remains the same: queers need to come together. Even if native New Yorkers don’t participate, it’s nice to know some people are getting something from the gay day. And, really, even the most bitter queen can begrudge them that.
Merlinator
There are more people marching in the Pride Parade Today than in the 1970’s. Enough said?
Qjersey
“Marches” tend to attracted the disenfranchised and pissed off. Some privileged white LGBT’ers ain’t so pissed off anymore
PrideFest gets cancelled and there is no huge outcry…because it was the lower income, of color and non-manhattan residents that mostly attended. Try cancelling the Dance on the Pier and watch the Queens go nuts.
Claiming that increased diversity among the marchers and crowds keeps whites away is such a bull-shit racist argument.
canadajames
I can certainly understand the general malaise of the younger generation towards Gay Pride… when you can live your life like every day is a pride parade why bother with a special day… what i’d like to see us move towards is adopting the Black History Month model and urge the media to celebrate the diversity of gay voices from the past and present…
Paul Raposo
When we stop marching, the anti-gay side wins. It shouldn’t matter if it’s passe, or over-done, (although I hate the new moneyed parades we’re seeing, but until LGBTQ’s start ponying up the cash, we’ll have to accept corporate welfare,) the point is to be seen, not only by straight people, but by those who are still closeted so they know there are people just like them–and that includes their skin colour, age, gender and size.
What we’re seeing is a new younger generation of closet cases who proclaim their sexuality, then act more homophobic towards their LGBTQ peeps, than your average, regular phobe ever could.
To paraphrase MR. PAUL MOONEY, everyone wants to be a queer, but no one wants to be queer.
nycstudman
It’s true, most of the ‘mos I know are going to FI, Hamptons, Upstate & coming in for the parties later. America has a tradition of oppressed groups (Italians, Irish, Jews …) starting radical and then, once they enter the middle class, becoming more “mainstream” – read, politically complacent. I’m not sure there’s anything anyone can do about it.
stevo
Why has gay pride become unpopular?
Internalized Homophobia – plain and simple.
We have just found new ways of being ashamed of who we are.
hisurfer
SO, according to you all, I have quite going to Pride parades because:
1. I am scared of the black folk
2. I’ve internalized my homophobia and am ashamed of who I am.
3. I’ve forgotten the revolution
4. I’m a closet case who proclaims my sexuality and is homophobic towards my LGBTQ peeps.
5. I’m offended by corporate sponshorship
And yet …
1. I live, play, and work in multi-culti environments where caucasians are a minority;
2. I’m quite out and open, and am more visible the 364 days of the year I spend in the straight-dominated world than I am in the gay ghetto;
3. American parades are not about overthrowing the system any more.
4. I don’t even know what this means.
5. Only the big cities get corporate sponsorships anyway – the rest of us should be so lucky.
Try this instead: I no longer feel that Parades serves a political agenda (we’re already visible, active, and have political power), so it fails as a march. Most Parades – even in New York – are a bit boring, so they fail as a party.
For that, I still do like the gatherings some cities have – community days in the park in Sydney, Honolulu, San Diego, etc. This is where I meet and mingle with folk outside my normal circle. These, to me, bring us together. Parades? Nada.
jdwalker84
Maybe there’s less marching in New York, if that assumption is even true, because people can stay closer to home. There are pride celebrations in so many more cities now than there were in the 1970s that many don’t see the need to go to such centers as NYC. I’m sure if the numbers of those marching around the country this summer were totalled, they would trounce those of thirty years ago. And about the racism issue…go to a pride in the south…say Raliegh, NC for example. The vast majority of people in the parade are white. Maybe it has more to do with demographics of a city than racism. I’m calling “bullshit” on Goldstein’s argument.
BillieXX
The lack of interest in the parade could simply be a sign that we are winning the debate (slowly of course but still winning).
nycstudman
jdwalker – the point isn’t that less people are marching. as noted,the march/parade/whatever is huger than ever. the question the observer article asks is why there are fewer and fewer white men marching.
somelikeitscott
Maybe some of us are tired of the same three verses and a chorus that the parades have become. Maybe we need a new song to sing. How many rainbow bumper stickers and shirts with “Pitcher” can they sell…everyone who wants them owns them all ready (sorry to say for everyone involved). Or maybe us gays are getting (dare I say it) older and because like so much of society it’s a youth oriented culture, we forty-something gays don’t feel invited to the party any more.
read my rants and more at http://www.somelikeitscott.com
Ash
I don’t know that it’s an age thing, scott. I’m twenty-one and just don’t really see the point of Pride now. I didn’t go two years ago when I was in the closet, didn’t go last year because of my brother’s graduation, and this year I just…didn’t go. The parade seems almost embarassing. I came out in NYC in 2005. In terms of the reactions of the people around me, it was like I stated I have brown hair. I would feel silly and almost old-fashioned marching. I long for a time when there is no need for Pride. If gay people aren’t any better or worse than straight people, as we proclaim, what is it we’re so proud of?
eudoxus
I’m 27 , biracial and consider myself sufficiently intelligent enough to understand that gay pride is very much a self – centered, rote, antiquated idea of “expression.”
Globalization has demanded new forms of public discourse. It no longer requires quaint marches down the same street year after year.
We’ve been poisoned by mendacity…Our generation thrives on spontanaiety.
Most young gays that I know feel the same way. We are concerned with the environment and non partisan politics. We are concerned with the common good.
Thanks for what has been done in the past, but its the past. It is not our responsibility to uphold any legacy – especially – especially – if the white elitist system has deemed us declasse….
Keep your bon bon marches….bon apetite….
Greenland is melting….
Watch your carbon footprints!
Stenar
In Scandinavia, they never had gay pride events until a few years ago when Europride staged an event in Stockholm and a few years later Oslo. The reason they never had any gay pride wasn’t because there weren’t any gays or they were too closeted, but the reverse. They were so generally accepted in society that they felt no need to protest their non-existent repression. After Europride, they realized a pride event can be a damn fun party and have held pride events in Stockholm and Oslo ever since, though.
http://www.free-america.com/
Paul Raposo
“We are concerned with the environment and non partisan politics. We are concerned with the common good.”
Think about that “common good” as each state removes all your partnership rights, especially the right to equal marriage.
White libs love kids like you and your friends; you remain seated at the back of the bus and push through their agenda, while waiting furtively for your own equal rights, which will never come.
hisurfer
“Think about that “common good†as each state removes all your partnership rights, especially the right to equal marriage.”
How can a state remove a right that we haven’t won yet?
As to No. 13 – kid, look: people have been concerned with the common good for thousands of years. It’s hardly unique to young gays.
nycstudman
“The parade seems almost embarassing. I came out in NYC in 2005. In terms of the reactions of the people around me, it was like I stated I have brown hair. I would feel silly and almost old-fashioned marching. I long for a time when there is no need for Pride. If gay people aren’t any better or worse than straight people, as we proclaim, what is it we’re so proud of?”
Sad. Try joining the military or kissing your girlfriend in Mississippi or adopting in Kansas ,and maybe you’ll see the need for people to keep marching.
stevo
Reading over these comments, it seems that we are a split, conflicted, apathetic community.
Just what homo-haters want.
Pride Malaise is for spoiled brats.
Ash
Bullshit. Marching in NYC at the age of twenty-one in 2007 would be pointless for me. I know being gay isn’t easy, but living in New York and being gay is. If I lived in Kansas or Mississippi I would march. But, alas, I am one of those smart gays who chooses to live in a gay-friendly area. Pride should not be forced upon anyone, nor should anyone be judged for a lack of interest. It’s not who I am, it’s who most people I know are, so we’re not interested. Uh-oh, since I didn’t go to the parade this year, I hope I’m not punished by not being able to marry! God forbid I miss a corporate-sponsored giant party so I can get wasted and act like an idiot. That sure woulda shown the Stonewallers how I appreciate all they did.
tommy
What a bunch of A-holes! It’s called PRIDE! That is what this is about. I started marching in 1976 and have missed a few marches but not because “I would be embarrassed to be seen with this crowd of losers!” as stated by someone in the Observer article. How dare you. This is still a fight for equallity and a chance to be visable to all. Hiding out in NYC is not the answer. I live here and still get gasps of disaproval from tourists when I kiss my boyfriend hello in Times Square. And to say that the parade is past its time…thats just dumb. Puerto Rican Day parade, St Patricks Day parade, Pan-Asain Day parade, etc….they march because they are proud and want to celebrate their heritage, and so should we. Yes, the parade should be shorter but me must not be selective on who attends. We are ALL of us. Not just the fems and the bears and the dykes but you who live in Chelsea lofts and drink at Splash till you pass out. We need to support each other in a struggle for our rights. And Ash, how you act a parade or anywhere in public is your own problem. Sure. Maybe marching at the age of 21 may be pointless to you but it means alot to most of us…and that makes you and your short, young life pointless!!!
hisurfer
For the record, I’m also proud of being Irish … but I’ve never marched in a St. Patty’s parade. No one in my family ever has, to my knowledge. No one seems to care. Certainly no one has ever accused me of internalizing my Mick-phobia, or insinuated that I’m disrespecting the Fenians.
Ash
My life is pointless because I don’t want to proclaim my sexuality at a march? I guess I’ll call up my future and cancel my career, activism, friendships, relationships and children. From now on my future years will only consist of that one week in June every year when I claim my “pride.” That seems like a pretty stellar life. Again, what is it I’m supposed to be proud of? Am I proud that I’m gay? Should straight people not be proud that they’re straight? Am I supposed to be proud because I’m out? Don’t I demonstrate my pride every day by being out in society and refusing to let my family and the religious right control my choices? Gee, I guess I have a lot of growing up to do.
Paul Raposo
“How can a state remove a right that we haven’t won yet?”
So why aren’t you fighting for that right?
hisurfer
““How can a state remove a right that we haven’t won yet?â€
So why aren’t you fighting for that right?”
I don’t see the connection here.
For the record, I’ve testified or shown up at the legislature every fuckin’ time it’s come up in the past ten years. I serve on gay-related community boards. I do my part. Be careful of accusing someone when you don’t even know their name, or who they are, or anything about them.
And I still think the Parades are boring and useless. Fine if you like them. I won’t attack anyone for going. If you like it, cool. They’re not for me. What I don’t like is the self-righteous finger pointing by those who do like them towards those of us who don’t.
Ash
Amen, hisurfer.
stevo
It’s you that are missing out, “hi-surfer” and “ash”.
Why is it such a big deal to just support your communinty? The community that has fought and died to give you the right to be apathetic.
You just want to be hipper-than-thou.
GET OVER YOURSELF!!!
hisurfer
Stevo, have you bothered to read a word Ash or I have written? I get the impression no. So, for the record, here;s the short list of how I support the community …
– On Board of Directors for AIDS housing agency
– On Civil Defense Team (crisis response)
– Active member of Save our Surf (environmental)
– Volunteer at community projects during Ocean Day and Earth Day.
– Elected member to Neighborhood Council (volunteer)
So ok, it’s not all queer. My idea of ‘community’ is a bit broader than ‘men who suck cock / chicks who carpet munch.’
Now it’s your turn. Post your resume. Impress me before you call me apathetic, or tell people to get over ourselves.
Paul Raposo
“Be careful of accusing someone when you don’t even know their name, or who they are, or anything about them.”
Then perhaps you should post your opinion, or actions, before making dismissive comments. Posting anonymously and derisively will receive comments in kind.
“And I still think the Parades are boring and useless.”
Then you should fit right in.
“Fine if you like them. I won’t attack anyone for going. If you like it, cool. They’re not for me. What I don’t like is the self-righteous finger pointing by those who do like them towards those of us who don’t.”
The problem with you, surfer, is you’re so far left, you’re right. You’re so wrapped up in the cult of humanistic altruism, that you ignore a group you’re familiar with simply because of your comfort level and familiarity with that group.
You seem to feel that things are bad for us, but oh so much worse “over there.”
You don’t want to attend pride parades. Fine. How many anti-war marches have you attended? I’ll presume many. What has it accomplished?
It seems that for people like you, because the parade has become–let’s say for now, acceptable–it is no longer the type of event to be “seen” at. You’re trying so hard to be benevolent towards your “community” that you sniff dismissively at those who view the pride parade as a political march AND something to do for fun. And that’s probably what bothers you; it’s not political enough. Unless the great society is lambasting it, you’re not interested.
In that sense, fitting in with the broader world is lovely. But when you do it while using the same tactics as those who oppose our very existence, you’re no different than them.
Ash
Interesting, Paul, and I’m tempted to agree with a lot of what you said. Even though I personally am not that into Pride, I don’t dislike the actual notion of it or look down on people going. And I’m sure I will go some day, if only to see what all the fuss is about. But you made good points about politics and visibility and youth in your last comment. Also, you stood up for me way back in the beginning of this post and that makes me full of love for you.
Paul Raposo
“Also, you stood up for me way back in the beginning of this post and that makes me full of love for you.”
Ah, Ash–blush 8^)
I love jumping in for my buds.
I have no problem with people who don’t want to attend the parade. It’s their right to go, or not go. My problem is with the sideline sniping directed at the marchers and the idea of the parade itself.
If we’re not happy with how it’s going, jump in and help change it. Enter our own float, get a group of friends and march in our own group within the parade. Do something to be seen out and proud. That’s what it’s all about.
Do attend some day, Ash, it’s an incredible party and a fantastic way to me people we would never get to meet within our usual circle of friends.
hisurfer
“The problem with you, surfer, is you’re so far left, you’re right. You’re so wrapped up in the cult of humanistic altruism, that you ignore a group you’re familiar with simply because of your comfort level and familiarity with that group.”
Damn, dude. I don’t understand why I am getting attacked for not liking the parade, by people who don’t fucking know me.
I am active in gay-related causes. I don’t hide from the community. I’m not ashamed of the community.
I don’t skip the parade because of politics. I haven’t sniped at those who go. I have marched, did the whole marching boy thing, and smiled through it though I hated it. I did it out of loyalty and obligation.
I get the impression you’re angry at somebody, and using myself and others here as stand-ins for them. You attack my leftie anti-war politics, but I don’t think I’ve ever discussed anything like that on here. My social activism is mostly environment related. Save our Surf is … a bunch of surfers fighting for clean water standards. Think Jack Johnson. It’s hardly radical. Neither is our Neighborhood Council. It’s mostly retirees complaining about potholes.
And I think Pride Parades are boring.
Why is it so mandatory that I like them? Instead of attacking me over things I have never said or hinted at, explain this: why does this strike such a nerve with people? There are 1000 ways to support our community. Why is it so mandatory that I go to a parade – and why is everything else I’ve done negated because I skipped it this year?
hisurfer
This might help: I don’t live in New York, San Francisco, LA, Long Beach, Miami, Chicago … etc. “Pride” in a smaller city is much, much different than in the big cities.
Now I’m about to slam Pride Parades – which please note that I have not done before. Because what we have in our town is an attempt to imitate what the big cities, rather than come up with something of our own. So we have:
– One dyke on a bike. Sometimes two.
– A ten minute pause
– PFlag and a few gay Christian churches. These groups are usually mostly white, which throws me as Caucasians are a minority in our town.
– Another ten minute pause
– A drag queen in a convertible.
– Pause.
– Repeat the drag queen / convertible / pause a few times
– A politician or two.
– A trolley full of guys from our main bar.
– End of parade.
End of parade, although it takes a few hours because we try to spread it out so that it appears to be a major parade.
And I used to go. I tried. I even marched one year. That was the year I lost it. The crowd wasn’t hostile or intrigued or supportive. They were indifferent, waiting for us to pass, until the end when we passed by the gay bar. Then all the boys put down their cocktails and came outside to cheer us on.
I was still excited at my first chance to see the famous parades in the big cities. Sydney Mardi Gras always blows me away, and I figured US cities would be just as grand. I saw San Diego’s Parade. It was all about checking out muscle. Which, I’m fine with … but that’s hardly supporting our community. I was bored. And NYC Pride, when I finally went, was also a let down. I turned down an invite to a private party so that I could be in the streets where the action was. I didn’t realize that the private parties *was* where all the action was.
You choose your battles. In the end, a gay parade here was not a battle I thought important enough to fight.
Paul Raposo
“Damn, dude. I don’t understand why I am getting attacked for not liking the parade, by people who don’t fucking know me.”
I’m sorry if you feel you’re being attacked. I wasn’t trying to attack you, only writing what I thought.
Tranny Talker
I am a transgender woman who last marched three years ago. The reason I’ve stopped is that I am a professional who tries to conduct herself with dignity and class, while the march displays the worst (i.e., the ones I fight) stereotypes about us.