We’ve won significant civil rights victories in the past decade, but our community’s enemies are putting in hours somewhere between the devil and Kris Jenner to hurt us.ĭuring Pride, we as queer people remember what we’ve individually and collectively overcome, and who our community has stolen from us, through both violence and neglect. It has the joy of your best birthdays, a sacred mix of camp and ceremony usually reserved for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and the nice weather of Memorial Day Weekend. But it’s still one of my favorite times of year.
There are plenty of reasons for queer people to rightfully take issue with Pride-such as the season’s commodification by corporate sponsors and politicians, who seize the opportunity to rainbow-wash the negative impacts their policies make on the LGBTQ+ community the other 11 months of the year. As we emerge out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we're all re-evaluating and re-imagining things, and that includes queer life and how we observe Pride. Happy Pride, Portland! This week, the Mercury is running a series of opinion pieces and personal essays from LGBTQ+ Portlanders on the theme Pride 2021: Queer Beginnings. Imagine a Pride without corporations-and without the swoosh.
