Pride London 2009

I can still remember my first Pride in 1994. Stonewall’s Michael Cashman said ‘we are everywhere’ – I’d never been so inspired in my life. Nowadays Pride is only faintly political, although there were political interests on display in the parade – largely basing themselves on Stonewall’s campaign against homophobic bullying in schools – but we really did show we were everywhere. Gay Christians, Muslims, Hindus, soldiers, nurses, teachers, you name it – being gay was very clearly mainstream in ways it wasn’t in 1994.

I have my own reservations about the event being apolitical, much of which I’ll explore in my next post, but Tom suggested a very good point about it yesterday: that isn’t the way forward anymore. The haters really aren’t going to be swayed by Pride marches or gay visibility – not the true ones anyway. That’s down to better policing and better community organising, and of course the more the police for example are integrated into gay community events like Pride the better. So the awful standard of stewarding ultimately didn’t matter that much – it was not just a party but a great event, further mainstreaming gay visibility in areas of public life previously unthinkable. The usual Christianist haters were there, but barely noticeable this time, and clearly ever more out of step with the public mood. Being out is a good thing.