Q: I’m looking forward to my city’s pride celebration later this month, but I was wondering if you had some suggestions on a “dress code” for those in attendance.
Here’s why I ask: On a day that our community gets so much attention from the news media and from straight people, I think it’s a shame that so many of my brothers and sisters don’t clean up their act, so to speak, so that we can present a more wholesome face to the country. To me, this seems terribly important as we try to get straight people to understand who we are–especially that we should have the right to marry.
I mean, do so many gay men and lesbians need to show up in full drag or leather?
A: I hope you’re not suggesting I ask Dykes on Bikes to refrain from kicking off pride parades in cities across the country. While they’re certainly front and center for logistical reasons (I don’t think you’d want to be marching in front of them), there’s also another more important explanation: They are symbolic of the defiance, freedom and, yes, gay pride, that was birthed during the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969.
For decades since, they, along with groups dressing in the particular styles you mention, have been criticized for presenting a “face” of LGBT people to the world that’s simply too provocative. In fact, two gay Harvard intellectuals, one a psychologist and the other an ad man, argued in the ’90s exactly what you are: that gays must portray themselves in a positive way to straight America if they are to win the battle for legal and social rights.
I’d suggest that there is a time and place for everything. Pride festivities are a moment during the year to recall the birth of the modern LGBT civil rights movement, which we do happen to owe to a group of drag queens, among others. Even the marriage-equality movement is about inclusion and diversity, and if we start to push our friends in the leather and drag communities to the side, literally and metaphorically, we’ll have erased the essence of gay pride.
At the same time, I think the reason we have groups like GLAAD , the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights is, indeed, to present a more “wholesome” front—complete with suit and tie—that is no doubt more effective in Congressional hearings and in state legislatures across the country.
Not that I wouldn’t also like to see more variety of images in the media during our pride celebrations. I think it’s a shame—perhaps laziness, if not homophobia—that most cameras settle on the louder, more flamboyant scenes, and miss out on great stories about lower-profile groups like the Trevor Project (a suicide prevention group for LGBT people), as well as gay athletes, seniors, activists, trans people, teen groups, and so on.
Steven Petrow’s best seller The Essential Book of Gay Manners and Etiquette (HarperCollins, 1995) remains the most complete and authoritative guide to coming out, the rules of courtship, planning a same-sex commitment ceremony, bringing baby on board, confronting homophobia, saying good-bye to a dying friend, and much more. Petrow is widely sought after by the media as a manners expert and writes regularly for a number of national publications, including the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, Salon, Out.com, and The Advocate. He can be found online at www.gayandlesbianmanners.com
