I often get depressed on Pride week-end, when it would seem it’s a big party out there… Which is probably just confirming that I’m an introvert! But this year I had a full week-end:
On Friday I was attending TransMarch, which to me is meaningful and non-commercial. I was late to it but just in time for the march itself, and ended up in front of it where… they used to have the elders in and around the trolley. Except that I realized I’m an elder now, and one of the few still around. Anyway, we were delayed at the start by a group staging a street die-out, and then on Market street waiting for the traffic people to let the cross-streets flow, and I needed to go eat and sleep… A photo of us appeared on sfgate with me very visible in the center of it:
So that was fun… Also to see the youth in all stages of gender fluidity, I remember my own youth spent mostly disconnected yet having a tiny desire to be like them, except they weren’t born yet to show me the way!
Then on Saturday morning I ran the SF Pride Run in Golden Gate Park. I had signed up as non-binary, abandoning the competitiveness of my age category, and yet noticing that the F side of the binary had very fast runners in the 60-69 age group, while I might have been leading the M 60-69 age group! I used to place maybe third, or sometimes fourth or fifth, and this was again confirming that many of us may have left during or after the pandemic. I also feel the fragility of this age, that the time will come when I’ll slow down and maybe walk part of the way.
On the way back from the run, riding the N-Judah, I had the unfortunate chance of sitting across a person who, after seeing my Pride Run t-shirt and number, started blabbering their view of what the letters LGBT (notice the old four-letter acronym) meant, and how this was contrary to their christian beliefs. I ignored it, letting myself cry inside and looking away. There was repetition in the recitation, which I have heard before as signs of mental illness (the person recites news bytes from TV, etc.), and I certainly didn’t want to engage and try to educate them! A couple of young women who had also come back from the run whispered words of support as they exited, which helped me smile back at them…
I was thinking about religion… How they condition their followers with their beliefs about other people, and those beliefs never get realigned with reality…
Anyway, on Sunday I volunteered to be a “monitor” on the Pride Parade course on Market street! I felt like doing that, almost like a “bucket list” type of thing. Some years ago I had marched with the ACLU contingent, but this year no such opportunity had made itself available. The task was supposed to be showing contingents a sign to speed up or slow down, but it became clear right away that we had no control over it. But it was great fun to help people avoid tripping on the curb of the bus shelter, and to pass the occasional gifts to the kids on the other side of the shelter! I made my own personal awards as follows: most self-centered contingent, Apple; saddest contingent, Macy’s (a few people holding a banner, a sign of the times); perplexing but courageous contingent, Target (because of how they reacted to right-wing threats); largest gap made, DHL; greatest adversary, the wind blowing against their banner.
And unlike my imagined fears, no right-wing terrorist. Hopefully they are busy harassing people on the internet and shooting cans in their backyard…
Finally on Sunday night I went back to see the closing night of ACT’s Wizard of Oz, which was so great because they had mostly local actors I knew already performing so well together in a very creative staging. I never saw the movie, and I think it would lack all the qualities I fund in this production. I was so happy to be in San Francisco…
and said I was actually proud of this bag that I figured out how to make, sometimes out of fabric remnants. I was also in the process of making my own Trans Pride Flag
from what turned out to be difficult to find pieces of fabric because the fabric store is closed and I couldn’t get similar fabric types in all colors. Anyway, I ended up recycling a shirt for the white band… Here it is, hanging in front of the house, where people hang flags, most often patriotic ones, which raises a point of thinking about what is pride for those people? Is it belonging to a group you identify with? Being part of a country that has serious issues of bullying and has a bully as its president? That they accepted for 4 years now? I wonder.
Bibiane's Blog 