Pride Santa Fe 2019

Went to Pride Festival in Santa Fe with Denise and the dogs, Benni and Gilbert (our house guest while his dads are away).

New York it ain't...but....It is amazing that this festival takes place (or can take place) here and around the globe 50 years after the Stonewall riots. 

Stonewall...the protest that came as a result of so many years, so many centuries, of oppression. It is an oppression that we all carry within our collective and individual memory and in our consciousness and in our viscera. 

Liberation from that oppression is sweet. But we are definitely not there yet.

It is amazing that I can be there with my rainbow hat and a young woman comes up to me and says "I love your fedora!" and high fives me. We've come a long way baby.

I wonder if the youngsters know that the music they're dancing to is by Bronski Beat and released 35 years ago in 1984!

(Sorry for the delayed flip - it will go horizontal momentarily)

I remember going to Gay Pride in NYC in the late 80s or early 90s with a group of the kids from Your Turf - the youth support group I and Leon and Joyce and Robin facilitated. One of the "graduates" of the group had a job driving school busses and was able to rent a bus for the day. About 15 kids and 10 adults went to Pride on that bus. We never even thought about getting "parental permission" or whether we needed special insurance, or if it was illegal to transport kids across state lines. Most were in their late teens or early twenties, so I guess we were OK.

Me and Leon

I was moved when the "Gender Non-conforming" contingent marched by. 

I was thinking how wonderful that these individuals can express their "I Am What I Am-ness" and how they deserve the basic human right to be who they are and who they choose to be without some right-wingnut, fundamentalist christian judgmental bigot telling them otherwise and trying to deny them that right...so...

For the finale: