San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Pride Weekend 2019
Inside: LGBTQ celebration in high gear with pink triangle installation, Dyke March.
So many people wanted to get up at sunrise to drive footlong spikes into Twin Peaks that it was all over in 36 minutes, the fastest time ever.
That’s how long it took early Saturday to attach the giant Pink Triangle to the hillside and officially kick off another Pride Weekend in San Francisco.
“I recall being called a fag when I was a kid,” said Rick Bowles of Berkeley, who drove in the final spike. “This triangle is important. It reclaims a symbol of negativity and hate, and turns it into something positive.”
“The world is not yet done with the hate,” said Oleksiy Stepanovskiy, a visitor from Kiev, Ukraine, and another early morning spike driver. “We need to keep showing up and showing up.”
The triangle installation, said Amanda Pease of Alameda, is the most serious moment of Pride Weekend.
“The rest of the weekend is full of wonderful debauchery,” she said. “This gives you something to think about, and not just go off and get drunk.”
Tattered in spots, the giant assemblage of cloth panels is starting to show its age. Patrick Carney, the San Francisco architect who came up with idea, remembered sneaking with friends to the Twin Peaks summit in 1995 to hammer in the first clandestine giant triangle. He said it was a relief to have the giant symbol go mainstream and draw elected officials and a brass band.
“Twentyfour years ago, we came up in the dead of night so we wouldn’t be arrested,” he recalled with a grim smile.
For much of the morning, the triangle was shrouded in fog, invisible to the growing throng of revelers below. But at last the sun came out and the hillside glowed a resplendent pink.
At the hilltop ceremony, German Consul General HansUlrich Südbeck greeted Carney with a kiss and acknowledged the history of the pink triangle, a symbol gays were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps. He said people of good will must stand up “against politicians who offer oversimplifications, against people who present lies as truth, against people who bully each other.”
Mayor London Breed, bearing one of those “where as-therefore” proclamations that go with the job, told the crowd that even today, there are more than 70 countries where being gay is illegal.
“That’s something we have got to change,” she said.
There was the usual lineup of pink balloons, dogs in rainbow scarves and drag queens in rainbow regalia. The San Francisco Gay/Lesbian Marching band blasted out a snazzy rendition of “San Francisco” and the crowd sang along from cue cards.
The turnout was a bit smaller than past years because the earlymorning volunteers got the installation done so quickly this time that many decided not to wait around for the ceremony. A smaller turnout of volunteers is expected Sunday afternoon, when the triangle comes down. Putting things away — no matter what they are — is much less fun than taking them out.
As Pride Weekend revved up, hundreds of people sprawled on the grass at Dolores Park and lounged under tents decorated with rainbow flags, readying for the 27th Dyke March through San Francisco. The sounds of Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson blared from speakers as friends and strangers in rainbow outfits exchanged stories of past Pride events and paused for selfies.
For Alyshia Macaysa, 26, the annual Dyke March and rally meant acknowledging the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City and returning to the city where she and her partner came out when she was an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. The Dyke March, known as a call to action for equality, visibility and respect, has been part of a “radical, queer” culture over the past 27 years, Macaysa said.
“It’s evolving and needs to continue to evolve in terms of gender inclusivity and continuing to place queer and trans people of color at the center of it,” Macaysa said. “It started as a protest and it needs to continue as a protest. That’s why it’s a rally and a march, not just a day at the park.”
Marchers planned to pay tribute to the Women’s Building in the Mission District and other “landmarks in the Bay Are for dykes,” said organizing committee member Jocelyn Garibay, before taking a trek through the Castro.
Garibay, whose Tshirt proclaimed “We March for All Dykes!” and also bore a blue and pink upsidedown triangle representing the transgender community, said organizers wanted to ensure that “trans dykes in the community know this is a space for them.”
Macaysa joined friends in a tent decorated with the transgender pride flag, a black flag proclaiming “Femme as F—,” and a rainbow flag with black and brown stripes to celebrate the “melaninated greatness” of queer people of color, she said.
Marshanette Nunes, 28, who said she has attended the Dyke March since she was 15, said the gathering is an opportunity to “take up space” in San Francisco, especially for queer people of color. Nunes, who was born and raised in Jamaica before moving to San Francisco as a child, said the Dyke March is one of the only days when “queer folks and our allies” can do that with “intense visibility.”
“We have one lesbian bar in the city, maybe two? So today is Dyke Day,” she said with a laugh. “The message today is to continue taking action toward celebrating and supporting all queer communities that tend to be marginalized in America.”