We’ve lived in the Dallas area for the last 8 years and have gone to to three of the Pride Day events.
We decided to skip going this year.
In the 1970s, starting in 1974 when the events were held to commemorate Stonewall and were very political they seemed important to attend.
Later during the AIDS Crisis they still seemed important to attend.
By the 1990s though the Gay and Lesbian Communities had started to be turned into a marketing demographic and the the Pride Day events lost their political meaning. Gradually they became corporate sponsored parties where politics were sidelined.
Then came the rise of the Transgender Borg who expected me to march with them in solidarity even though the group was actually more composed of Transsexual Activists than actual transgender folks who were more likely to be found riding the bar floats presenting sexbot/fembot stereotypes for the male gaze.
This was especially strange as I was a volunteer at the LA Gay and Lesbian Community Center in those days and wanted to march with the Center.
The loud, “Transgender and Proud” crowd reawakened the Lesbian Klan with their insane and often contradictory anti-transsexual lunacy. Now post-transsexual lesbian women are facing the same shit we faced in the late 1970s.
Then we have to contend with the emerging homophobia on the part of both the heterosexual transsexuals and the whining Transgender Borg who are throwing a tantrum because Gays and Lesbians won’t drop the pursuit of marriage equality to tend to the special interests of the Borg.
Some where along the line the whole Pride Day thing stopped being much fun either as a political act or as a party.
Perhaps it because I’ve gotten old and the effort to get there and stand aroud for several hours in the blazing sun wipes me out.
But that isn’t going to stop us from going to the Texas State Fair, which can be equally exhausting.
We’re old dykes.
On Friday night we went to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Granada Theater, one of our favorite music venue, big enough to draw reasonably recognized artists, small enough to enjoy the show without having to watch it on a screen. There were a number of older lesbian couples in the audience.
Tina and I are clean and sober, we don’t go to bars. We are a long time couple who live in suburbia.
That alone sort of removes much of the purpose of the “Lesbian/Gay Communities” which is their being a place to go and meet someone for a short term or long term relationship.
The other thing is gay and lesbian people have left the ghettos. as we got older the exorbitant rents for tiny apartments in the gay and lesbian ghettos made less and less sense. Many of us live in suburbia, where we are home owners or at least paying a mortgage instead of rent.
At my last job I worked at a big box store where my partner and I shopped on a regular basis. Coming out wasn’t required, because as soon as I started people asked about my partner and how long we had been together.
We are members at a gun range where we get the “Family Discount” membership. The same is true of the Dallas Museum of Art.
When we go to Gun Shows, the rednecks, who are supposed to be so homophobic and bigoted are nicer to us than many gay men, lesbians and transgender people are. this is because we work at our sport, which is target shooting with center fire handguns and are reasonably good at it. It is amazing how many of these right wing red neck guys like the idea of women entering into sport shooting.
We have assimilated both as women and as older lesbians into a world beyond the ghettos.
When it comes to rallies and other political events we are more likely to go to something regarding the environment, Social Security, something anti-war, pro media reform, anti-corporate or feminist than something specifically LGBTT.
Women Born Transsexual 