Reject The Boston Pride Theme

On Sunday, May 14th a group of concerned queer people gathered at the Community Church in Boston to discuss possible actions to counteract the theme chosen for the Boston Pride celebrations this year. We have decided to create a coalition called the Ask. Tell. Act. Coalition. We have chosen our own theme for pride, and we Will be encouraging everyone who finds the Boston Pride theme offensive to use our messages when designing their floats, signs, and other materials for Pride. We will be launching a web site, publishing a letter, and speaking to like-minded organizations to ensure visibility on Pride Day. Stay tuned for updates and more information! We are also asking everyone who will be marching in the parade who opposes the theme to wear pink in a showing of solidarity.



OUR THEME:

Ask: Why celebrate militarism?! (Beneath this heading we will discuss why the militaristic aspect of the theme is repulsive.)

Tell the truth about injustice! (Beneath this heading we will discuss why the language the Boston Pride Committee has chosen about "serving" is offensive.)

Act to transform our community, country, and the world! (Here we will encourage people to speak up and act up.)

The Gross Boston Pride Committee Theme: (Careful not to throw-up in your mouth. The more your read it and think about it - the more offensive it is!)

Ask. Tell.

Proud to Serve Our Community, Our Country, Our World.

The LGBT community is an integral part of society at every level of organization: community, country, and the world. We are your doctors, lawyers, teachers, leaders, engineers, custodians, bankers, and bakers. We are proud of our service and we are happy to share our lives with you. Just ask, and we'll tell! Please consider this theme when building your float and organizing your parade contingent -- an award will be given to the group that adapts this theme best in the parade!



We Encourage You to THINK ABOUT IT!

Is Pride a show for straight people to ask us questions? Can all of us be proud of our jobs/ways of making money? Can all of us safely proclaim our pride in what we do? Should we be celebrating our service to the dominate culture or celebrating our queer identities? Should the fight against don't ask don't tell be our community's next priority considering the epidemic of homelessness among our youth and violence against trans/gender-variant people?



JOIN US at our next meeting on Sunday, May 20th at 5pm at Community Church in Copley Square.

Congrats to Pride Marshalls

While the theme for pride still makes us throw-up in our mouths a little bit, we must congratulate the folks chosen to be marshals this year. They deserve it!



According to BayWindows:The marshals are state Rep. Liz Malia (D-Jamaica Plain), Jacob Smith Yang, executive director of Massachusetts Asian and Pacific Islanders (MAP) for Health, and the LGBT speakers bureau SpeakOut.



SpeakOut was the first LGBT organization I ever became involved with, and has made a huge difference in my life while giving me the opportunity to make a difference in other's lives. When speakers from that organization go to schools and tell students their stories, you can see instant change happen in the young people's lives. They have a great cable tv show too!



MAP is an important organization serving queer Asian and pacific Islanders who are so often overlooked by our community.



And Liz Malia was one of the biggest opponents of Romney's plan to abolish the commission on LGBT Youth.

just ask, and we won't tell

"We are proud of our service and we are happy to share our lives with you. Just ask, and we'll tell!"

The militirization of Pride aside for the moment, I find something profoundly disturbing about this part of the description. The first sentence implies that the service of which we are proud includes sharing our lives with "you." As if it were somehow the duty of the queer community to share our lives as part of our "service" to straight people. To me, this seems absurd. I do not have to share my life with anyone, especially not as a service. If I choose to share my life with someone, it's because we have built a relationship of trust, and they have also shared their lives with me. The statement from Pride makes it seem like queer people are unproblematically content to share our secrets on command, to put our sexual lives on display for the consumption of the curious straight. While coming out can be a strong political act, that does not mean that we come out and share in service of straight people. We come out for ourselves and our community. Yes, we can also come out to help educate straight people, or other queers, but this is not a service provided. If it were, I don't think any of us are being reimbursed for this service, and so are we providing these services free of charge? Should I start charging straight people every time I come out to one? I should I do this labor wage-free?

The statement also makes it seem like outing ourselves is a simple process that no one has problems with. "Just ask, and we'll tell!" Who is this "we" that they are talking about? All queers? White queers? Male queers? Queers with cash? Queers with homes? Adult queers? Some intersection of all the above? Most likely. Which members of our community have the privilege to tell so easily? Which members of our community have the privilege to even tell at all? Some queers do not want to tell, whether it's because they're post-op and passing, or because it could mean losing their lives or jobs. The reasons for not outing ourselves are endless. Boston Pride should not forget that the closet not only still exists, but it is also a necessary reality for many queers, and not all of us want to come out just to serve straight people.

As for service, Boston Pride assumes that "we are proud of our service." Again, I pose the question, who is this "we" that Boston Pride keeps referring to? Not all of us work in service, and for those of us that do work is service, it is not necessarily in service of our oppressors. Like many other queers, I work for queers. My service is for the queer community. But not all of us are even able to be "proud of our service." It's easy to be proud if you're one of the "doctors, lawyers, teachers, leaders..." that Boston Pride lists, but what if you're a domestic worker? A sweatshop worker? An undocumented worker? A sex worker? All of the above? It is not always easy to be proud of our work when we are taught to feel shame for certain labor acts.

Lastly, I am curious about why Boston Pride insists on solely addressing straight people in their description of the event with a supposedly unified queer voice. The idea that Pride exists as a performance, a service, for the straight community and that "we," queers, are doing this for "you," straight people, is preposterous. Pride should be for queers to feel pride. Not for straights to stare at and be visually serviced.