Boston Gay Pride 2,009

Pride Queen, Gay Pride Boston, 2,009

I went to the Gay Pride March last Saturday here in Boston and found the pot of gold at the beginning of the rainbow, and here she is.

I arrived at Tremont Street where the parade was forming and boom, I was immediately drawn into the festivities by the above celebrant’s shimmering auras and I started snapping pictures. I was so excited I forgot to ask her/his name, drag or otherwise, so if anyone can solve the mystery please contact me via ‘comments’ on this blog.

When I came-out in San Francisco in 1969 just a month after Stonewall, my ambition was to grow my hair long, smoke dope and kiss boys. I hadn’t a political bone in my body and even if I had, there was no organized Gay movement that I was aware of and certainly no parade. Pride was the bravado cry of a few outraged drag queens and nothing more. 

Our Lady of Perpetual Giggles, Gay Pride, San Francisco, 2,000

Over the years I have marched in or screamed on the side lines of many Gay Pride parades in; San Francisco, New York, Boston and Montpelier Vermont.   The passing of the millennium found me back in S F where in the spirit of a never to be repeated holiday I donned a nifty wedding dress and a feathered fan. 

In the seventies we used to reefer to drag or the mask as “gender bending” and we had a dishy disregard for sexual role playing. We were advocates of pansexual freedom, feeling that each individual had the sexual, emotional and spiritual potential to be male, female and all the rainbow hues in-between. It was this intoxicating ambiguity that sent us singing and dancing into the streets.

I think of Gay Pride as our birthday party. We have been given the gift of true love by our fairy Godmothers’ who are having such a great time they absolutely refused to stay at home and cry.