Happy Pride!
It’s the end of Blaugust 2023’s Motivation week, and it’s Saturday, which means I’ve got no structure for anything in a post today.
It’s also Pride Weekend in Bemidji, so I’m a bit wrapped up in getting myself together to participate in our local festivities.
Aptly, Cat Valente just shared a post on her Substack about corporations “celebrating” Pride, and kicked it off by noting that we’re in fact two months past Pride Month.
For Bemidji, I think this is the third year of consistently hosting a public Pride event. When I was in my twenties, there was a group who hosted a potluck in a city park, and one year they held an actual parade. The unfortunate thing, is that until pretty recently, the queer community of this area has seemed pretty fragmented and also insular to me. It’s not like there weren’t people within the spectrum of LGBTQ+ identities here, but it felt next to impossible to find them.
The first time I spent any amount of time with people in the queer community was over a decade ago when our state was voting on writing a same sex marriage ban into our constitution. Before then, there were a handful of people I met in college, a couple of adults I knew of as a child, and the vicious rumors generated by the teen-aged gossips of my tiny high school.
I can’t say that I’m deeply involved in the community here. I’m awkward, shy, and so easily overwhelmed when it comes to peopling at times, that even though I’ve tried entering the various LGBTQ bubbles that have been put up it’s felt akin to traveling to the moon. Even today, in theory, I am looking forward to going to the festival this afternoon, and entertaining the thought of going back for the concert at the marina tonight, but the reality is that I will go and then struggle under the weight of being perceived, even in a space where I’m “allowed” to be myself.
I think I want it to be the same as when I go to ConVergence, but it can’t be that way. I’m not driving hours away, I am still very much on my home turf, and being “out” here still feels like a gamble most days. It’s hard to turn off the mask here, because the mask means safety, even in a space where it might not actually be necessary. At best, I’m hoping to turn down the “passively queer” filter I tend to apply to myself (so as to escape the notice of the bigoted), but I have pretty low expectations of my success in that regard.
This is where that corporate Pride post really spoke to me earlier in the week. Living in an area where public Pride events are only recently becoming established, being able to walk through Target and find a section covered in various rainbows and other pride flags is just such a relief. In this age of the internet, I can order whatever I want, but to be able to have a tangible (if very temporary) footprint of my identity within the borders of where I live? It’s a respite to me.
It bothers me that things went so poorly this year for that little section in Target. I saw multiple reviews on TikTok, of all of the merchandise they were releasing, and there were so many fun and campy things, and it seemed like such a good vibe. And because queer joy is apparently antithetical to some people’s own existence, it became controversial, and suddenly we can’t have nice things. It made me a bit worried about how things would go when August rolled around here. Maybe I’ll have an update on that score after I’ve gone out into the world…
I’m happy there’s an event to go to, thrilled even. The best thing about these sorts of events is just the reminder that I’m not alone out here. It’s easy to lose sight of the others, but having a moment to congregate and remember that I’m not the only one is a good thing. Last year, it was the first bright spot after we had COVID. This year? I’m not sure exactly what it will be, but I’m pretty sure there’s joy to be found there, possibly in some unexpected ways.
