Me @ Pride 2006
I remember so clearly my first Pride. I was 15 years old. Staying with my father for the summer and fresh on the discovery of the Carlton Cinema but not yet aware that Church and Wellesley was just around the corner. I had just told my dad that I was going to see Problem Child 2 at the Eaton Centre but what I actually did was sneak out to a matinee of “Paris is Burning”. There is a scene in that movie where there are two kids just like I was at the time. Talking about he’s gay and I’m gay and we are like family. I had such a palpable energetic visceral reaction to this… I knew in that moment that I was definitely exactly like them, for sure.
I hadn’t ever thought too much about whether I was or wasn’t before that. In retrospect I suppose I thought it didn’t require definition or declaration even to myself.
After the film I walked around the Eaton Centre for hours looking for two guys just like the ones in the movie. I was seeking out my people, with full intentions of finding them and linking up from there until eternity.
I was only fifteen of course.
So that day it wasn’t in the cards and I found my way back to little India and my dad.
He had a friend at the time who was around often enough. Alot of his female friends would find themselves the opportunity to quietly tell me that if I was gay, it was alright. I would always say ” yeah, I know… but I am not”. This time I took it upon myself to tell her that I thought I was gay and that there was this thing called Pride happening on the weekend and I really wanted to go.
She said she would be more than happy to take me.
Gosh, I still remember what I wore that day. My best jeans at the time. I approached that day with the fearlessness of a child. Why I was only excited and absolutely free of any nervousness or apprehension is unknown to me. Most of my prior social endeavors were less than successful. I basically hung out with my sister and we never went to parties. We had just stopped attending the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses three times a week for the first time ever in our lives. When we would sneak out or somehow manage permission to go to an event, I was usually scared shitless of what people were going to do to me.
For some reason this day, it never entered my mind.
This was when you could watch the parade and when a float went by with music you loved, you could jump behind it and dance the rest of the parade route. We did just that. I was in the middle of Yonge Street surrounded by gay men and women, all of us dancing and shining and shouting and sweating. It was amazing. I don’t even remember ever seeing an actual gay person in real life other than myself and the cast of “Paris is Burning” that day in the theatre. I had never known such freedom or safety or joy.
The people who were dancing down the street beside us decided amongst themselves to hit the beer garden at the parade’s end. My dad’s friend CeCe piped up and imposed us on them. I was so shocked, we didn’t even know these people. We all ended up in Cawthra Park and I was drinking beer with gay people… a paradise on earth, one I had never even imagined.
One of those people we didn’t know that day turned out to be my first boyfriend (and still my oldest friend and best friend in my life). We spent the next two years together and experienced so many firsts with each other. I learned about Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald that summer. Janis Joplin. Gay wednesdays at Go-Go’s. Bar One. Church and Wellesley. S-E-X. Disco. Pints. Club Colby’s. Freedom and my right to it. I learned about making a joyful noise and taking it to the street to rejoice. Working it out on the dancefloor. Men. Women. Anthems. Myself. What it feels like when love takes over…
That summer I learned about Pride.
