PRIDE STILL MATTERS

Why Pride is just as important as it’s ever been

Travelling home from central London on the tube, late one night, I found myself in a carriage, deserted but for two couples. One young, one old. The older couple held hands and snored gently, letting their theatre programmes fall quietly to the floor, while one half of the young couple rested her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder while he whispered things into her ear that made her smile.

Utterly unremarkable, and yet, had either of those couples been of the same sex, the very ordinariness of the tableau they presented would have elicited some kind of response from the ethnically mixed, gender balanced group of teenagers that boarded at the next station.

At best, I’d like to think the teenagers would have delighted in the fact they were growing up in the world’s most diverse capital city. At worst, they might have violently abused the couples sharing their space, forgetting for a moment, that when 200 Gay Liberation Front pioneers first marched from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square more than 40 years ago, London was a very different place. A place where white, black and Asian youths could not mix freely without being subjected to the same levels of abuse still suffered by gays today. As for the girls in the group, well, they quite simply wouldn’t have been allowed out at all.

People did not suddenly wake up one morning and decide that regardless of the colour of your skin, or whether or not you had a penis, you were entitled to the same freedoms, opportunities and dignities as everyone else. No, these universal human rights were fought for. People paid with their liberty, some with their lives. In many parts of the world they are still paying.

“Rights can be taken away as easily as they can be granted. It’s up to us to make sure that never happens”

So for gays who would rather spend an afternoon shopping for their same-sex wedding than join a local Pride celebration, march for those who are unable to march themselves. Celebrate the rights we have already won, and take pride in defending them. Remember, rights can be taken away as easily as they can be granted. It’s up to us to make sure that never happens.

Feminism would never have succeeded without the support of men, racial equality would be nonexistent without the support of whites, and gay equality will never be achieved without heterosexual allies. Pride is a time for gay and straight to walk arm-in-arm; to express solidarity, strength and love. Essentially Pride celebrates what makes us human, when all too often a heterosexual public discourse dehumanises those whom it ignores, or denigrates.

Gay Pride matters to the schoolchildren, gay and straight, who are subjected to homophobic bullying. It matters to the families and friends of the disproportionately high number of gay and lesbian suicides. And it matters to gays from countries as diverse as Uganda, Russia and Iran, which share only a desire to punish a geneticallydetermined minority. It should matter to you too.

“But why march? Why ram it down our throats? Can’t you just celebrate quietly at home with your queer friends?” we have all been asked. After all, “Straight people don’t have Straight Pride.”

Except of course they do. 365 days of the year. Spend a night out in any town centre, any day of the week, and you will see girls in full make-up, high heels and little else, snogging the face off a young man who resembles a gay from twenty years ago, his best jeans, shirt and hair all ironed to within an ’nth of its life.

What exactly are they exhibiting, without silence or shame, if not Pride?