According to official figures about
one million people attended yesterday's Gay Pride march. We had the most fantastic day, our dressing-up costumes were superb, and the weather was absolutely perfect!
Many people criticise Pride for its apparent lack of focus on the real issues that it was founded for - the tendency to ignore the fact that it began as (and still should be seen as) a protest against injustice and inequality. After all, this is
meant to represent our continuing struggle against homophobic bullying and intolerance (and solidarity for our brothers and sisters across the world who remain without the rights that we in the UK almost take for granted).
The organisers say
"If we were heavily politicised, there's no way we would be in Oxford Street and Regents Street. The traders wouldn't want it and they have a lot of clout with the council, but when they can see it attracts people into the city, they're happy." What rubbish.
But many of those people who complain about the "commercialisation" of Pride tend to stay away from the march yet will gladly go to the parties afterwards.
As I said in yesterday's blog, I am a stalwart of gay rights activism. I do not, though, have any problem at all in making a statement while dressed in feathers, sequins, diamanté and glitter.
Paul Burston encountered
ridiculous amounts of hostility when he attempted to bring some genuine political messages to the march. He is also quite right to draw attention to some of the uncomfortable observations in
Suzanne Moore's article in (of all papers)
The Daily Mail.
However, as far back as I can remember, Pride was always about celebrating fabulousness as well as highlighting the reality of homophobia - although I agree this year's "official" theme of "Come Out And Play" was vacuous in the extreme.
Because I understand the reason for the march being held every year on the anniversary of militant protests in America (
read my article on the Stonewall riots), and because I also celebrate the joy of being a camp, feathery, diamanté-clad outrageous queen, I will never miss a Pride march - and I (and all of our coterie) always plan our outfits almost twelve months ahead. This is Gay Xmas, after all!
Our favourite moment (apart from flinging cock-shaped confetti at the homophobic Evangelists in Waterloo Place, and cheering Peter Tatchell's banner "Gordon & Sarah can marry - gays can't") was probably the synchronised turn to the Gay Catholics as
Tainted Love was playing -
"I'm sorry, I don't pray that way!".
I hope that somehow, some way we made a difference. We are not just some kind of fouffy freak show, and I rather hope that maybe next year we may have a Pride committee that will actually get the word "Gay" back into its title, do some work with the commercial businesses of Oxford and Regent Streets (Gap had a rainbow flag!) to make certain that they do not have such a say over what defines a march that passes their door, and realise that gay people have still got a lot of work to do before we can honestly say "this is just a parade".
