dykecrewleader
31st August 2009, 09:52 AM
HI, I put this up in my blog and was requested to post in a thread.
:mad: 40 years on from Stonewall, 20 years of Galway pride and it seems like we still have a lot to learn about UNITY and PRIDE.
I meticulously planned a fantastic weekend. It was my girlfriends 21st birthday present. I booked a fancy-pants hotel, ‘all in one’ tickets and we organised costumes for the parade. I was aware of difficulties in Galway - who wasn’t! I had emailed Bród Ireland West requesting information. I received no reply directly but was included in the blanket mail that was sent out explaining how everything had been sorted out and thanked the local Garda Liaison for his assistance. “WOW it must have been bad” I thought, but at least it was all dealt with. I read the article in GCN but believed that it would be OK, in my mind there was no way the LGBT community would stab each other and everyone else in the back by being petty. I decided to trust in reason and we made our way to Galway.
We arrived at the Stage Door (thanks to our new friends Patricia, Trish, Freda and Marcella) to welcoming cries of “Happy Pride!” and went in to order our drinks. I asked around to find out where people were planning on going...and maybe make some more friends...but to no avail. It seemed that I was completely mistaken. The Mr Gay Galway competition was being boycotted, as was the Rose of Pride and no-one knew what was going to happen during the parade!
Saturday morning, bedecked in our colours and ready to march we got to the Stage Door. The pride parade started off and we followed (running because we had missed the call!) Outside the city hall we waited rainbows aloft, whilst speeches were made and people took positions. There were cameras everywhere as drag queens displayed their grandeur. We greeted old friends we had not met in a long time and somehow ended up at the front of the ‘Pride of the West’, the huge rainbow flag that has now become a stable constant for nearly all the Irish Pride Parades.
During the parade I was informed that a compromise had been made, an agreement had been reached and everything would be ok. It seems the compromise was that one parade would encompass the other, and end at the party in the park, but the whole parade would continue on to the museum.
Everything was fantastic until we got to the party in the park, which was loud and up-beat as usual, but the Pride of the West was ripped out of my hands as we rounded the flower beds, by a very anxious man, and put away. That was the end of my pride parade, no cheers, no kisses, and no hugs with my fellow queers who proudly walked that flag through the streets of Galway. Our pride was ripped from us and taken away with no explanation. We were left with a gaping hole in our hearts and empty hands.
Then we were herded out of the park, followed by TV cameras, to the museum where there was another party and a really interesting exhibition of Galway LGBT History.
The confusion aside, walking away from the park was the single greatest painful moment of my LGBT activist career. I have never before felt so torn and bewildered at a Pride event. I have been ‘out’ for 21 years, this year, and attended Pride events and parades in more than one country. I have been run down by Police on horses, (back in the early days of London Pride) chased by men with cricket bats, harassed and assaulted over the years. We were subjected to a vicious attack of drive-by-egging on our way from The Stage Door to the GPO the night before this parade. None of those experiences felt as harsh or disempowering as being caught between two warring factions at the very festival that is built on/by and for LGBT UNITY.
I will not forget the feeling I had walking away from one pride to go to another, never quite sure if I had made the right decision. Each step I made got harder and harder to make, it was like ‘coming out’ all over again. I was caught between fighting factions and I felt like I had no choice but to continue. I said to myself ‘it will be ok, just keep doing what you’re doing and it will soon be over’.
I have always believed that Pride is about community strength. That it is owned by the LGBT community as a whole. I wanted to show that I am part of that community, but could not figure out which part of that community I was supposed to be walking with. We tried to enjoy the celebrations, the drumming and the samba from shOUT. But we did not feel proud to be a part of this divisive event. We stopped bouncing, we stopped singing, we stopped waving our rainbows and started feeling drained and depressed. Unable to reconcile our feelings, my girlfriend and I retired from the celebrations to go our own way.
Monetary loss aside, the emotional cost of attending Galway Pride 2009 was immense. It takes tons of energy to organise a Pride festival, but for Galway to have two, means there must be some amazing people working extremely hard. If they could have put that much energy into organising a festival together we could have had a ‘Pride festival to outshine all others’ instead of the debasing experience that made me feel so used, torn, confused, guilty and ashamed.
Happy 20th Anniversary? I can only hope that total emersion in the last Pride festival of the season (Limerick) will be able to wash this foul taste of betrayal from my mouth. I shudder to think what our sisters and brothers who put their lives on the line at Stonewall would have to say about all this.
Fd5NEyZOBUI
:mad: 40 years on from Stonewall, 20 years of Galway pride and it seems like we still have a lot to learn about UNITY and PRIDE.
I meticulously planned a fantastic weekend. It was my girlfriends 21st birthday present. I booked a fancy-pants hotel, ‘all in one’ tickets and we organised costumes for the parade. I was aware of difficulties in Galway - who wasn’t! I had emailed Bród Ireland West requesting information. I received no reply directly but was included in the blanket mail that was sent out explaining how everything had been sorted out and thanked the local Garda Liaison for his assistance. “WOW it must have been bad” I thought, but at least it was all dealt with. I read the article in GCN but believed that it would be OK, in my mind there was no way the LGBT community would stab each other and everyone else in the back by being petty. I decided to trust in reason and we made our way to Galway.
We arrived at the Stage Door (thanks to our new friends Patricia, Trish, Freda and Marcella) to welcoming cries of “Happy Pride!” and went in to order our drinks. I asked around to find out where people were planning on going...and maybe make some more friends...but to no avail. It seemed that I was completely mistaken. The Mr Gay Galway competition was being boycotted, as was the Rose of Pride and no-one knew what was going to happen during the parade!
Saturday morning, bedecked in our colours and ready to march we got to the Stage Door. The pride parade started off and we followed (running because we had missed the call!) Outside the city hall we waited rainbows aloft, whilst speeches were made and people took positions. There were cameras everywhere as drag queens displayed their grandeur. We greeted old friends we had not met in a long time and somehow ended up at the front of the ‘Pride of the West’, the huge rainbow flag that has now become a stable constant for nearly all the Irish Pride Parades.
During the parade I was informed that a compromise had been made, an agreement had been reached and everything would be ok. It seems the compromise was that one parade would encompass the other, and end at the party in the park, but the whole parade would continue on to the museum.
Everything was fantastic until we got to the party in the park, which was loud and up-beat as usual, but the Pride of the West was ripped out of my hands as we rounded the flower beds, by a very anxious man, and put away. That was the end of my pride parade, no cheers, no kisses, and no hugs with my fellow queers who proudly walked that flag through the streets of Galway. Our pride was ripped from us and taken away with no explanation. We were left with a gaping hole in our hearts and empty hands.
Then we were herded out of the park, followed by TV cameras, to the museum where there was another party and a really interesting exhibition of Galway LGBT History.
The confusion aside, walking away from the park was the single greatest painful moment of my LGBT activist career. I have never before felt so torn and bewildered at a Pride event. I have been ‘out’ for 21 years, this year, and attended Pride events and parades in more than one country. I have been run down by Police on horses, (back in the early days of London Pride) chased by men with cricket bats, harassed and assaulted over the years. We were subjected to a vicious attack of drive-by-egging on our way from The Stage Door to the GPO the night before this parade. None of those experiences felt as harsh or disempowering as being caught between two warring factions at the very festival that is built on/by and for LGBT UNITY.
I will not forget the feeling I had walking away from one pride to go to another, never quite sure if I had made the right decision. Each step I made got harder and harder to make, it was like ‘coming out’ all over again. I was caught between fighting factions and I felt like I had no choice but to continue. I said to myself ‘it will be ok, just keep doing what you’re doing and it will soon be over’.
I have always believed that Pride is about community strength. That it is owned by the LGBT community as a whole. I wanted to show that I am part of that community, but could not figure out which part of that community I was supposed to be walking with. We tried to enjoy the celebrations, the drumming and the samba from shOUT. But we did not feel proud to be a part of this divisive event. We stopped bouncing, we stopped singing, we stopped waving our rainbows and started feeling drained and depressed. Unable to reconcile our feelings, my girlfriend and I retired from the celebrations to go our own way.
Monetary loss aside, the emotional cost of attending Galway Pride 2009 was immense. It takes tons of energy to organise a Pride festival, but for Galway to have two, means there must be some amazing people working extremely hard. If they could have put that much energy into organising a festival together we could have had a ‘Pride festival to outshine all others’ instead of the debasing experience that made me feel so used, torn, confused, guilty and ashamed.
Happy 20th Anniversary? I can only hope that total emersion in the last Pride festival of the season (Limerick) will be able to wash this foul taste of betrayal from my mouth. I shudder to think what our sisters and brothers who put their lives on the line at Stonewall would have to say about all this.
Fd5NEyZOBUI