pride

Last Sunday, a very important event took place in Manhattan. It's been happening now for 45 years. On June 28, 1969 in the early morning hours at the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar located in Greenwich Village on Christopher Street between West 4th Street and Waverly Place, a revolution began. Police entered into the premises, announcing they were "taking the place", and began removing the patrons and alcohol from the premises. This was a common trend in those days, a way of persecuting and regulating the gay and lesbian community for no other reason then simply their sexuality. It happened a lot, but on that balmy June evening something changed and the place wasn't taken. Perhaps it was the nature of the police that provoked them, their relentlessness, the presence of their vans waiting outside to take people away. Maybe it was the atmosphere of 1969, with the beginning of Vietnam, and civil rights permeating the headlines. It could have even been the specific people in the bar, fed up, a little buzzed, the people who were thought of as less than people that made it happen, who felt that enough was enough and decided to do something. They weren't going to take it anymore, the United States was changing, New York was changing, you could sense it, something was in the air.

When the raid began at the wee hours of the night I imagine the young people in the bar who were flirting and laughing amongst each other, listening to the incredible music of the moment, smoke from the lit cigarettes clouding their already hazy vision.  I imagine what it must have been like to hear the music stop, and notice everyone start to whisper and see the faces of everyone transition from stoned happiness to alert endangerment. I once read somewhere that those forced out of the bar decided to linger outside, and watch the raid play out. When one young woman, handcuffed and enraged, yelled out at the patrons and bystanders, "Why isn't anyone doing anything?" the boos and hisses with the crowd growing larger and larger soon developed into punches and kicks, a mob of determination. Violence as a means to an end. Nothing else would have worked. And maybe at that moment, at 2:00 am on Christopher Street that was the only choice. Unbeknownst to those who participated, the riots began the modern gay rights movement, the most rapid and successful human rights crusade of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. 

The month of June has been nationally declared LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) pride month and no where in the world is pride more apparent than in the place where modern gay rights was born, New York City. As a young gay person today, it could be easy to dismiss LGBT history as something from the past, not necessary to understand or learn from. Our situation appear fine nowadays, what was a big deal isn't anymore, what used to be shocking no longer surprises. Stonewall is something you heard about but perhaps not really understood. Gay pride is just an excuse to dress up and have fun. Popular film and television have given us complex LGBT characters like Kurt from the television series "Glee" whose love life and anxieties are handled with just as much care and sympathy as those of his straight counterparts. Even a character like Sophia from "Orange is the New Black", an African American transgender inmate at a women's correctional facility, is played and written with exquisite sensitivity and bravery that would be unfathomable even a decade ago. These examples provide positive images of characters who in the past would have been relegated to the sidelines or worse, the product of a punchline. The political landscape has changed as well. Job discrimination laws have been eradicated, marriage equality is practically a reality for the majority of Americans. Pride is everywhere, all around you, reinforcing young people who 25 years ago would have been afraid, sheltered, on the outside looking in. 

What does it mean to have pride? For most of the people marching down 5th avenue last Sunday in New York City pride meant rainbow flags and pink wigs, cut off shorts and thigh high boots. The crazier you were, the louder you were, the more colorful your outfit, the better. Being proud meant standing out, standing tall, making a statement. I wasn't even planning on going to the parade, not for any reason other than the crowds and the heat, yet I agreed to meet my new friend Sue at the new Umami Burger on 6th avenue. I knew she lived in the Village but I didn't realize that we'd be exactly in the middle of the madness, and the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million people that descended upon downtown that day would make me almost an hour late. So I was in the middle of something I had no intention of being in the middle of, and while the whole experience was overwhelming to say the very least, it was one of the most illuminating of my life. 

For me being proud means being honest and let's just say I've been honest for a little over four years now, honest with myself, my family, my friends. I've had many ups and downs with the process of coming out, with the downs usually outweighing the ups. It was a mixed reaction of incredible acceptance and encouragement combined with distance and confusion, even resentment. And while I NEVER regret any of the decisions I've made, I have seen since being in New York just how small my little life is, and how many people struggle with honesty in their life, and may never find the pride in themselves that everyone deserves, everyone needs. 

Weaving quickly in and out of the crowds along 6th avenue, anxious to not keep Sue waiting I saw almost every type of person imaginable. Every color, every shape, every size, every expression, every hair color, equally represented. It was chaos, honestly a mad house, there is no other word to describe it. Amidst the madness I saw one common thread, happiness. Maybe people were late to meet up with their friends or family, maybe the subway had gotten backed up, and the train platform was so hot their makeup began to run. Maybe the street you were trying to get to was blocked off, maybe someone's 6 inch heel stepped on top of your foot, but no one was upset, there was no frowning allowed. It was possibly the first time in my life where I saw difference not only embraced but celebrated. Sue showed me around the Village giving me an abridged version of her "Big Apple Greeter" tour and I laughed to myself that I was being led around by a diminutive but forceful New York native telling me about how this little parade grew into the spectacle it is today. We watched half naked people of all ages shouting and gazing at the floats, hoping to take a picture of the mayor, dancing to the music, Policemen on every corner taking selfies with drunk spectators. 

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Pride can be a tricky feeling to manage. Many are taught to never be prideful, for fear of stepping on toes, coming on too strong. Others learn to be proud to the point of arrogance, even ignorance, a means of comeuppance, making yourself more important than those around you. When I started this blog I had no intention of diving into my personal life primarily because the focus was to be on New York, but there was also a fear of, indeed, stepping on toes, alienating certain people I love, even being self indulgent. While I still feel that way at times (even while writing this essay) and think to myself all the ways I can filter my thoughts and experiences, I realize that not only is that not interesting writing it's also not any way to live your life. I know who I am, I know what I do, what situations I put myself in, what choices I make, and I'm fortunate and confident enough to know that being proud isn't about anything more than simply being yourself and I'd like to think I'm getting there at my own pace. And New York City is right by my side at all times, egging me on, putting me in my place, lifting me up each day higher and higher.

Sue took me to the roof of her building at the corner of 6th avenue and 14th street. While she ate the cherries she just bought from the fruit stand two blocks down and texted on her phone, I watched the people below, looking like rainbow colored ants from 17 stories up, the taxis almost running over the pedestrians, citi bikes zooming through intersections. I saw couples holding hands and parents walking their babies in strollers down her tree lined street. She told me John Stewart used to live in the penthouse across 6th avenue, and I looked over quickly, foolishly realizing she said "used to." I walked home alone, possibly the only sober person south of 14th street. The pavement was littered with flyers, soiled rainbow flags, cigarette butts, ads for where to continue the party that night. Every restaurant was overflowing with people, laughing at some joke they won't remember in 5 minutes, kissing, embracing, living. After zig zagging through block after block I soon found myself in the heart of the Village on Christopher street, where everything started 45 years ago. The young people who were in Stonewall that night in 1969 didn't know that they're courage and bravery in doing something, really anything in retaliation to injustice would eventually allow all of this to happen. The parade, the celebration, the happiness. It would even allow someone like me to be brave enough to move to New York, live with two strangers, write this blog for whoever is reading it and take the subway home alone all the way back to Brooklyn.