There are plenty of reasons for Pride
Stonewall started long before Stonewall.
In December 1890, the San Francisco police arrested Oscar Johnson on Kearny Street for wearing “a complete woman’s outfit.” She identified herself as Bettie Portel and was given a sentence of six months in San Francisco County Jail. This police policy continued until May 1974, when the police arrested 10 men in the Tenderloin for wearing women’s clothing.
But the resistance began here. Three years before Stonewall, Compton’s Cafeteria prohibited transgender people from entering, starting a riot in the Tenderloin.
And even though the gay bar may not have been invented in San Francisco, like Irish coffee, it was perfected here. The poet Allen Ginsberg described the Black Cat Cafe as “the best gay bar in America. It was totally open, bohemian San Francisco.”
The story goes that one of the entertainers, Jose Sarria, stayed inside the law by dressing in high drag yet wearing a label that said, “I am a boy.” As the bar closed, Sarria announced, “There’s nothing wrong with being gay — the crime is getting caught.”
He often led the crowd down to the San Francisco County Jail, where he serenaded those who had been arrested in the antigay raids with “God Save Us Nelly Queens.”
And then came Stonewall, and the LGBTQI2 community told the police that we were people too.
Irony Part 1: For almost a quarter century, I’ve walked the Pride March in my Class A sheriff uniform. Brian calls that green wool Eisenhower jacket and black polyester tie my deputy drag. But then, Brian, who actually was once a drag queen and has never had so much as a speeding ticket, doesn’t understand my ACT UP years. Yes, I may look a lot more like Barney Fife than I do Dirty Harry, but I still take pride that I, who once stood outside the law, am now enforcing the law, and I’m helping make the San Francisco County Jail a platform for change.
Irony Part 2: Zane’s first steps were taken at the 2005 Pride March: 10 months old in a tie-dyed rainbow onesie. I bring out that picture whenever it is necessary to embarrass him.
Irony Part 3: Gay Pride weekend was also the weekend of Zane’s first date: He and a lovely damsel went to the movies on Friday, June 23. They had planned on the Tupac movie, but settled on “Transformers,”
“Show your love. That is how we have won. That is how we will continue to win.” Mark Leno
as Zane said that it was easier to cuddle through. I wished him luck, then drove to the Diamond Heights Safeway. As Anne scanned my chicken breasts and green beans, she asked, “How does that work? Do straight kids have to come out to gay parents?”
“No,” I demurred. “A father just knows.”
Yes, as we marched along Market Street, it was official. Only half the Fisher-Paulson contingent was gay. The other half was hetero, maybe even forming the junior chapter of PFLAG. This is the last Pride when I will be taller than Zane. My younger son, Aidan, 12, thought to take advantage of this fact. He considers anything other than playing on the iPad to be extra work, so he asked, “Why do I have to march? I’m not L,G, B. T, Q, I or 2.”
“Didn’t you hear, Aidan? This year we’re calling it the ‘LGBTQ2 and Children-Who-Want-Their-Electronic-Devices-This-Afternoon Parade.’ ”
One of my readers, Mark Hetts of San Francisco, told me that I should not write about gay pride but rather “blended family pride.” I’m proud to wear the uniform, this year with a rainbow patch. But I’m more proud that after 32 years, I still walk with my favorite dancer, and for 12 of those years I’ve walked with my favorite sons, a crazy-quilt family of blended races and ages (and now orientations). This year we celebrate straight pride as well.
At the Alice B. Toklas Breakfast before the march, former state Sen. Mark Leno said, “Show your love. That is how we have won. That is how we will continue to win.”
We don’t get arrested for dressing in drag anymore (which is a good thing, because drag is definitely not my skill set). We can wed our partners or serve in the military or become captains in the Sheriff ’s Department. But resistance is needed now more than ever. The thricemarried, twice-divorced president of the United States has stated, “I am very much for traditional marriage” and has supported discrimination against the LGBTQI2 community.
Proud is not the past tense of Pride; it is the future tense. The LGBTQI2 community fights for immigrant rights, and women’s choices and Muslim freedom, because we are all one in the struggle.
Stonewall must go on long after Stonewall.
Kevin Fisher-Paulson’s column appears Wednesdays in Datebook. Email: datebook@ sfchronicle.com