Pride

Yesterday, I went to the Fairfield county Pride. I was a little upset to put it mildly, the Pride itself was OK but they had signs that they put up around the area. The signs were of notable people and events in the LGBT history, the sign in front of our table was about the Stonewall Uprising.

The title of the sign was “Gays and Lesbian Riot at the Stonewall Inn,” a red flag went off when I read that. As I continued reading, the sign went on to say “the gays and lesbians” rioted against the police. By this time, my blood was boiling and I grabbed one of the Pride officials over to read the sign. I asked him to read the sign and as he read the sign, he immediately realized the omission and he sheepishly said that there was no mention of the trans-community’s involvement. He brought over the person who made the signs (his partner), who apologized for the omission and said he would correct it before the signs were hung in the community center.

Over and over I see this all the time both in articles and in “scholarly work.” I believe it is done because the lack of cultural sensitivity and ignorance. They just don’t think. They have to learn to look at the issue from our perspective, one of the reasons Stonewall was raided was to check if the males had on at least three items of male clothing. Sylvia Rivera was one of the founders of the “Gay Liberation Front” and she was kicked out because she didn’t portray the imagine that they wanted, the same was true for our attempts to march in the first Pride parade. Likewise, for the first ENDA march on Washington, we were not welcome.