‘We haven’t arrived yet’
Despite celebratory nature of Pride, there is still progress sought
Jared Riddle attended his first Pride parade in the 1980s, the early years of the HIV epidemic in the U.S.
“It was a very different time. It was a time of fear and anger. People were fighting for their lives,” the 49-year-old Hobart resident said.
It was also a time of anger and remorse among the gay community at the way the disease was being presented in the national dialogue, he said.
When Riddle attends this year’s Chicago Pride parade on Sunday with his partner, Mitch Frey, 31, the atmosphere will most likely be more celebratory. A large and diverse group of fest goers is expected to be on hand to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot between the gay community and police in New York that sparked the first Pride event a year later and the strides the LGBTQ community has made in the years since.
“Chicago has its first lesbian mayor, we have the first known gay candidate for president (South Bend Mayor Peter Buttigieg) and Taylor Swift just dropped a song dealing with Pride. She tells people you need to calm down,” Riddle said.
But while there is much to celebrate now, both Riddle and Doug Bauder, director of the LGBTQ+ Culture Center at Indiana University Bloomington, said the road hasn’t always been smooth. There have been a number of ups and downs in the 50 years since police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Manhattan, starting a riot and the beginning of the gay liberation movement.
1969 to 2019: A time of progress and change
In 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to land on the moon and thousands of young people traveled to a dairy farm in upstate New York, near Woodstock, to enjoy three days of music, peace and love.
But it was also the midst of the civil rights movement for AfricanAmericans and the year of the Stonewall incident.
In the Greenwich Village area of New York City, police raided the Stonewall Inn during the early morning hours of June 28, igniting a series of violent demonstrations by the gay community. The following year the first gay pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, commemorating the anniversary of the riots.
The parade would grow in size and diversity over the years, but there would be a number of struggles along the way, including the HIV epidemic, discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere and hate crimes committed against gays.
“It’s been a long haul — all movements for equality are,” Bauder said.
“When I was growing up, homosexuality was a sin, a crime and an illness,” Bauder said.
He said he watched peoples’ fear change to sympathy regarding HIV patients.
“Now people are taking care of their own,” he said. “In Indiana, Ryan White’s life made a huge difference.”
White was a Kokomo 13-yearold hemophiliac who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion in 1984. He faced AIDS-related discrimination when he returned to school after a hospital stay and became the face of AIDS education. He died in 1990.
Riddle attributed the Pride events for helping bring exposure and a greater awareness of the gay community to others.
“We believe love is the greatest gift of all, it matters to all of us,” he said.
Bauder said a lot of the progress made, or lack of it, depended on who was in the White House or governor’s mansions at the time.
He thanked President Barack Obama for saying he evolved on the issue, and Vice President Joe Biden for adding his support.
As for Buttigieg, Bauder said he considers the veteran and man of faith to be a Pride festival of his own.
“He’s not just a one-issue person, but he’s not ashamed of this issue, either,” Bauder said.
Bauder also gave credit to a number of IU students — both straight and gay — who he said helped defeat a movement among some conservative state legislators to block chances of marriage equality. He said once this roadblock was cleared, advances for and acceptance of the LGBTQ community moved quickly.
“Straight kids were arguing for their gay friends. It made this issue so personal. It’s something that impacts families,” Bauder said.
“The students said this is the civil rights movement of their generation,” he said.
Hope for the future
Riddle said moving forward, he hopes the future includes more protection in the workforce.
“Nobody should be fired for who they love,” he said.
Bauder said despite the gains made, there are still some people being harassed, including transgenders.
“People don’t understand them,” he said.
He said some discrimination remains at job sites and from certain members of the faith community, and at IU, some students are still being cut off from their parents once they come out as gay.
“We haven’t arrived yet. There still are battles to fight,” Bauder said.