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Don we now our gay apparel...
Dec. 4th, 2011 04:44 pmJust got back from the Pride Community Center's march in the Bryan/College Station Christmas Parade.
It's a pretty diverse parade of different community groups, from the Girl Scouts (they were dressed as cookies) to the Blinn College Dentistry School to the Ron Paul supporters. Plus various churches, the fire-fighters, the A&M Army Corps... 112 groups altogether, going down Texas Ave (the biggest street that goes through Bryan and College Station).
And we were there, the first time there's been any sort of GLBTQ group in the parade. I think everyone was a little nervous going in. It's one thing to go to a Pride CC event where it's just you and queer people and allies in a room, eating a feast or watching a movie or whatever. This, though... this was walking down the main street, and being on TV. This was "you are now out to everyone in town, bam, that's it, out."
But there were eleven of us-- seven board members and four people (mostly students) from the community. We wore tinsel garlands, and we marched down the street and handed out candy (we had about 200 or 300 pieces, with our logo and Facebook page on them, and it was so not enough-- we ran out within the first block or so), and waved and smiled, and people waved and smiled back.
And nothing went wrong at all. I mean, not every single person smiled at us... but it was kind of cold out. (After threatening rain all day, and storming for most of the morning, the rain let up for the entire time we marched. Then it started again, shortly after we got into our cars to go home. Nicely timed.) No-one hassled us, no-one bothered us. Our members and allies and people we knew cheered wildly for us.
And... there was this one kid, maybe ten or twelve, who just stared at us with this wide-eyed amazement. I don't know what was going on with him. But I have this story in my head that he saw us, and recognized what we were, and was amazed because he had not realized that queer people could just march down the street (in Bryan, Texas) with a banner, smiling and laughing and happy. That maybe he could do that one day.
I don't know if that happened for that kid in particular, but I bet it happened for somebody today.
This will probably be the last Pride CC event I take part in before I leave... there'll be some meetings, and maybe a karaoke night, but that was the big thing planned for December. But that... damn. That was worth doing.
I'm glad we did that.
--R
It's a pretty diverse parade of different community groups, from the Girl Scouts (they were dressed as cookies) to the Blinn College Dentistry School to the Ron Paul supporters. Plus various churches, the fire-fighters, the A&M Army Corps... 112 groups altogether, going down Texas Ave (the biggest street that goes through Bryan and College Station).
And we were there, the first time there's been any sort of GLBTQ group in the parade. I think everyone was a little nervous going in. It's one thing to go to a Pride CC event where it's just you and queer people and allies in a room, eating a feast or watching a movie or whatever. This, though... this was walking down the main street, and being on TV. This was "you are now out to everyone in town, bam, that's it, out."
But there were eleven of us-- seven board members and four people (mostly students) from the community. We wore tinsel garlands, and we marched down the street and handed out candy (we had about 200 or 300 pieces, with our logo and Facebook page on them, and it was so not enough-- we ran out within the first block or so), and waved and smiled, and people waved and smiled back.
And nothing went wrong at all. I mean, not every single person smiled at us... but it was kind of cold out. (After threatening rain all day, and storming for most of the morning, the rain let up for the entire time we marched. Then it started again, shortly after we got into our cars to go home. Nicely timed.) No-one hassled us, no-one bothered us. Our members and allies and people we knew cheered wildly for us.
And... there was this one kid, maybe ten or twelve, who just stared at us with this wide-eyed amazement. I don't know what was going on with him. But I have this story in my head that he saw us, and recognized what we were, and was amazed because he had not realized that queer people could just march down the street (in Bryan, Texas) with a banner, smiling and laughing and happy. That maybe he could do that one day.
I don't know if that happened for that kid in particular, but I bet it happened for somebody today.
This will probably be the last Pride CC event I take part in before I leave... there'll be some meetings, and maybe a karaoke night, but that was the big thing planned for December. But that... damn. That was worth doing.
I'm glad we did that.
--R
