The beauty of baring it all, with Pride and heads held high

For a certain kind of person — especially the kind who become pundits and populist politicians — there is no story more resonant and formative than “The Em- peror’s New Clothes.”

The message, about the power of an unsophisticated, observant child puncturing societal pretence and hypocrisy by having the willingness to say the thing that everyone else is thinking but is too afraid to say, is irresistible to them.

They spend their careers looking for opportunities to point out the obvious, impolite thing: “Beneath those fancy words, the expert isn’t saying anything at all! The sky is blue! Water is wet! That dude is totally naked!”

And every year, the Pride parade presents almost too literal an opportunity for them to overlook.

I mean, it has so much in common with the original story: it’s a grand parade that all the city’s people come out to watch, everyone stands around saying, “how wonderful,” and “how fabulous,” and “how beautiful.”

A good many of those watching are perhaps silently coaching themselves to overcome their own discomforts and insecurities.

There in the parade comes someone, or someones, dressed in nothing but the outfit they were born in, their heads held high.

“But he isn’t wearing anything at all!” our grown pundit will shout, every year, and smile to himself. He knows this story.

He has been preparing for this moment all along. “How can we take this seriously when, when, when . . . he’s naked?” People hearing this will start to laugh. “What? What did he say?” they might ask, incredulously. Some get angry. They will shake their heads in disbelief. Except in this case, unlike in the old folk tale, they will be pointing their mockery and scorn at the pundit. Not because he’s said the thing they were all thinking. But because he’s unable to see the truly obvious thing.

Unlike the emperor in the folk tale, the people marching in the parade here are not celebrating vanity but proclaiming pride, which is a far different thing, and a far more necessary thing.

Because the history of our society and of our own city — the very recent history — has been to decree that many of the people in this parade should be shamed. Not just shamed, but persecuted.

The point of that outfit, to walk the parade naked and bare, is to fight persecution and reject shame

Not for parading around in public in their outfits — although people did gather to throw eggs and beat up drag queens and gay men dressed for Halloween on Yonge St. in the 1970s. But also shamed and persecuted for what they did in private, in their own homes and in bars and clubs, in places they thought were meant to be safe. The LGBTQ people who the Pride parade celebrates were shamed and persecuted for who they were, for what they were, no matter what they were wearing.

It was less than 40 years ago in Toronto, in 1981, that police raided four gay bathhouses — 286 men were arrested for being inside them. It was less than 20 years ago, in 2000, that a queer women’s bathhouse party was raided by police.

During those events, many were wearing no clothes when they were arrested. Many who had covered up were stripped by police conducting searches. That parade outfit means something.

Far more recently, same-sex couples were unable to marry their partners, right here in Canada. Today, recognizing school support groups or discussing LGBT sexu- alities and identities in the classroom remain constant struggles. In many U.S. states, using the washroom is a legal issue. Very recently, a gay nightclub was the target of the largest mass shooting in U.S. history.

The point of that outfit, like the point of the whole parade, is to fight persecution and reject shame.

When people see a naked person walking, with pride, some like how it looks, some find it interesting, some are made uncomfortable by it, some prefer to quietly look away. Some are even bored. But when they say, “it’s magnificent,” they are acknowledging how beautiful and important it is that someone can be in that body without hiding, however it is clothed or unclothed, and march down the main street of the city without ridicule or fear.

Even if it looks the same on the surface, that is not the emperor’s outfit. The story of this nakedness on parade has very different lessons to teach, and a very different point. A point still made each year, for all the progress society has made, and a point that still needs making.

How wonderful. How marvellous. How beautiful.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire