A point about Pride

Frankly - I don’t think it’s ‘us’ that should be burning in hell. This outfit is available from a party planning company online for £54. One size. I’m sure it’s suitably flammable.

I read a short (and well-timed) note on here today that chastised parts of the gay community for its selective framing of Pride. Reminding us that Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were booed and mocked at the 1973 San Francisco rally (mostly by white, gay men who were riding the crest of a respectability wave). It’s a fair point. I’m mindful of reading recently about attempts to reframe the legacy of trans performer and homicide victim Venus Extravaganza (sadly, she will never be able to escape either title) as a sort of cultural icon, which is easy when someone presents well enough on screen but is conveniently dead, so you don’t have to think too hard about the less palatable things people do to survive.

I made a couple of comments on here recently about my frustration that many straight (and gay) people have difficulty dealing with and accepting the Trans community because of what can only really be described as ‘discomfort’ and fear of being bundled in. Most of us seem to want to be cast as either’ heroic’ or invisible (or somewhere in between, depending on who we are with). I’m all right Jack/ie.

I’ve never been a particularly visible gay man. It’s just not who I am - but I’ve never hidden it nor have I ever disavowed anyone else. I know men and women so far in the closet they buy their groceries in Narnia and others who live, breathe and shit glitter. You can’t tell anyone how to live their lives, regardless of who they are or what they think they want to be. It always makes me laugh that those commentators who carp endlessly about the dangers of so-called identity politics are the ones most desperate to impose their own brittle, superficial identities on us. Every time I look at the ‘over the counter’ tweedy, snivelling, tobacco-stained ‘everyman’ piss-pot that is Nigel Farage, all I see is another insecure little man hiding behind another kind of drag. The dickheads trolling up and down our streets wrapped in flags are just two ruby slippers (and 4 pints of Stella) away from sequins and silk. Any outward expression of who I may be on the inside is probably tempered by my being quite dull, and because I have absolutely no problem with who and what I actually am - and never have had. As a teenager, I was always confused and disappointed by my parents’ mortification that I ‘might’ be gay - they were never sure, which was somehow much worse for them than if I actually was. They just couldn’t tell and never had the balls to ask. If I expect everyone else to allow me to live my life the way I choose, then I have to offer the same courtesy to them.

I have nothing but respect, admiration and a sense of gratitude, humility and a bit of shame when I think of those who broke down barriers and ran so that I could walk (or crawl) - there are no degrees of acceptability in anything. Unfortunately, people are flawed - stupidity and prejudice know no barriers, and yes, there is just as much eye rolling, pearl clutching and bigotry within the gay community as there is outside it. I have no patience with the too queer/not queer enough culture warriors.

30 years ago, when I was younger, more optimistic and got involved in things, I was quite heavily involved in Brighton Pride for a while - including designing the program and working on the information pavilion during the event. At the time, I found Pride to be far more inclusive, varied and celebratory. I may have had no personal interest in either the Trade Tent or the Candy Bar salon - but I was pleased to see them nestling (almost) side by side.. Now I just feel like a consumer. Pride merchandise makes my skin crawl (I saw a selection of quite ugly, overpriced ‘Happy Pride’ cards for sale yesterday in a local shop. I’m also kinda bored with seeing dreary, white, middle-class types ‘going gay’ for the weekend and dressing up for the parade - like a circus sideshow - something to scratch on the calendar next to Pirate day and before the Zombie Walk. I cannot really understand why one of my local councillors thinks a shop-bought Austin Powers fancy-dress suit, complete with gold chain and fake sideburns, is the ‘thing’ for this one day. I might not ‘need’ Pride month for myself - but a lot of my brothers and sisters do, and they are welcome to celebrate as they see fit, but don’t leave anyone out. Very few of us got here under our own steam. We were carried here on the shoulders of giants.

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson (on the left, I just love that placard)

In 1973, Johnson began performing with various theatrical troupes around Manhattan, including the Angels of Light and the Hot Peaches. After the beginning of the AIDS pandemic in New York in 1980, she cared for her friends who were dying of AIDS and engaged in AIDS-related activism. She disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1992, with her body being found floating in the Hudson River on July 6. While police initially ruled her death a suicide (of course they did…), many speculate that she was either murdered, chased into the water, or fell in accidentally. She was 46 - Wikipedia

Venus Xtravaganza

On December 21, 1988, Xtravaganza was found dead in a room at the Fulton Hotel at 264 West 46th Street in New York City. Her body had been placed under a mattress, and investigators determined she had been bound and strangled. It was believed she had died three to four days prior to being discovered. Filming for Paris Is Burning was still underway, and the documentary’s final scenes feature Angie Xtravaganza reacting to Venus’s death.

Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera died during the dawn hours of February 19, 2002, at St. Vincent’s Hospital, of complications from liver cancer. Activist Riki Wilchins noted, “In many ways, Sylvia was the Rosa Parks of the modern transgender movement”.

Her legacy is so rich and complex that it’s probably easier if I just direct you to her Wikipedia page

As an aside…

Mya Taylor (left) and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez with the director Sean Baker, in an interview for Baker’s film ‘Tangerine’

Both Rodriguez and Taylor have found it almost impossible to secure mainstream work since the film was made in 2015, despite putting in exceptional performances in an industry that likes to proclaim how ‘authentic’ it is now. Last week I started reading (and blocked) someone on here who wrote a long essay in the “we need to talk about” style, about the director, Sean Baker (who is straight) being a ‘problematic man’ because making the film displayed an exploitative tendency to fetishise trans women, which is kind of weird and really fucking stupid. The writer was framing themselves as an ally to the black, gay and trans community, yet somehow seemed to suggest they should all be kept underground and not participate in mainstream filmmaking. Tangerine is one of the best films of the last 20 years. This is a hill I will die on.

Another aside

About 30 years ago, I watched an episode of Homicide. Life on the Streets (1993-95) - an above-average US detective show that was pretty much ahead of its time. In an early episode, there was a tiny sub plot that formed a bit of character development for one of the key cast member (who would later be revealed to being both gay and the victim of childhood abuse), In this specific episode - the detective had attempted (and failed) to talk a very distressed but lucid person down from a high building where they were threatening to jump. The context being that this was a black, middle-aged trans woman who had tried for years to adapt to being their authentic self in a space between a straight society that viewed them with disgust and the gay community who found them inconvenient - because they didn’t ‘pass’ well enough. The scene lasted less than 5 minutes but was harrowing and full of difficult truths, has lived with me ever since.

Kyle Secor playing Detective Tim Bayliss as a closeted gay man and survivor of childhood abuse in a mainstream TV show in the mid 1990’s - a time when we thought there might just be some real progress in the world. This performance/character kicked up quite a bit of cultural dust at the time. Seems like a long time ago, now. Much later in the run, Bayliss tracked down the man who had abused him as a child with the intention of confronting and punishing him, but finding just an old, disabled, pathetic man living in squalor, he cleaned the guy’s bedsit and cooked him a meal instead. We don’t get writing like that anymore.