I attended my first Pride parade last Saturday on Sept. 28, and I noticed that experiencing Pride is a lot different from what most people imply Pride is like. I had never been to Pride before and walked in with many predetermined ideas of what the event may entail. But after attending, I found that a lot of these were exaggerated, harmful or perhaps just blatantly false. Inaccurate myths that push misinformation can be harmful when directed against our community. I’d like to debunk these myths that perpetuate these negative stereotypes, and hopefully, work to increase the representation and attendance of these events in the future.
It’s no secret that one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding pride events is sexualization. Many people discount Pride as an oversexualized pandemonium of marchers in costume, but Pride is more than that. It is a celebration of a historically oppressed minority. Most of the parade was just that, a parade, and there was nothing inherently sexual about marchers in rainbow T-shirts.
To the uninitiated, one may believe that most people at Pride are wearing full-on rainbow drag. Contrary to that belief, Durham Pride consisted of various degrees of outfit choices. Some people attend Pride wearing casual wear, some with an assortment of rainbow attire and the occasional flag cape, and some dressed up in full rainbow costume ready to slay the game. It’s Pride, and nobody will really mind whether you decide to wear a T-shirt or full drag because Pride is all about self-expression. Even the BDSM float was focused on destroying the negative connotations behind the kink community.
The parade itself featured an array of support organizations for queer individuals, such as LGBTQ+ friendly churches, universities including NC State and local groups. There was also an activist march at the end of the parade, alongside civil rights groups and worker unions. After the parade, there was a local drag queen show, small concerts hosted by queer artists including a women’s acapella group and an expansive mosaic of food trucks and tents.
Something I did notice that was liberating to me, coming from an array of small towns and a home country that isn’t exactly the most queer-friendly, was the fact that there are a ton of LGBTQ+ individuals at Pride. To a lot of people, that is one of the most obvious factors of Pride, being a showcase of a community that is proud of its existence under oppressive circumstances. But in Nicaragua, being queer is inherently shamed upon. So to me, it was mind-blowing that there were so many people at Pride willing to share similar experiences regarding gender expression or sexuality.
It’s comforting to see support from fellow peers who are also queer and also from non-queer individuals. Perhaps it isn’t popularly known outside of the LGBTQ+ community, but there are a substantial amount of straight people who come to Pride too, many to support their fellow friends, coworkers or family. Pride itself is open to anyone who wants to support the queer movement, whether you identify under the LGBTQ+ umbrella or not.
There’s a common theme in human history regarding self-expression, which is that people should be proud of their individual characteristics. Aden Bonet, a first-year studying communications, said, “It’s a scary thing to go to Pride, and that’s why it’s so important. We need to do it until it’s not scary anymore.” Pride, while a potentially nerve-wracking event to the newcomer, is important to remind us that we shouldn’t be scared to express ourselves. That’s the main ideal that resonates at any Pride event, and I believe it’s an ideal that anyone can aspire to regardless of what label one identifies as.
