I hate pride.  I hate the concept of being proud of things you didn’t actually achieve.  ‘Proud to be American’ rankled me from the moment it hit bumpers nationwide.  And being proud to be gay makes almost as little sense, although you could argue that there is something of a hurdle involved in achieving comfort with one’s open gayness, and no one needs to have a horrible conversation with your mother wherein you come out as an American.

(Actually, that would be a very amusing sketch, for a British sitcom, maybe.  “Mum, Dad, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.  I’ve decided to have been from Muncie.”)

The other component of pride is it’s completely inaccurate.  I don’t mean to shit on anyone’s parade, because in about nine hours I will start eating a huge vodka-soaked watermelon and run around San Francisco wearing lots of makeup and no clothes, and if I have a threeway with my boyfriend and some hot guy it will be a really good day.  But in terms of taking pride in the history of gaiety–that is certainly not what June 28 is about.  It’s about diva house and rainbow merch.

It would be a tough sell to include LGBT rights milestones in history classes.  Look at the abysmal job of incorporating black history into “the mainstream.”  I bet 95% of Americans can’t tell you who Marcus Garvey was, although they probably know to avoid the neighborhood that the street named after him runs through.  I for one couldn’t tell you the date of when people stopped getting arrested for not wearing at least one piece of clothing appropriate to their gender-at-birth.

So I’m totally chastising myself here, too.  But rather than beaming with pride over whatever combination of damaging interpellations and misfit activities in my youth made me into the gleeful sodomite I am today, I’m honestly just goddamn grateful.  If someone offered me a pill to wake up straight tomorrow, I’d throw a cosmo in his face and shudder at what a hideous dystopia that would be.

No, that’s not true at all.  But duh, I wouldn’t take it (obv).  However, it needs to be said that having accepted deviance as my personal lord and savior, it’s such an intrinsic part of my whole shtick that it couldn’t be any other way.  (Although it would be amazing to be campy and straight).  My gratitude is directed less towards the universe for making me a faggot than to the people who came before, and who are almost entirely forgotten even within “the community.”  A lot of boys got arrested for dancing with other boys, and a lot of people got fired for being lesbians and a lot of people have gotten their asses kicked for almost no reason at all.  I’ve never been fag-bashed or, really, experienced any overtly negative or physically painful action as a result of being queer.  That’s insane; I’m not that young, I’ve lived in bad neighborhoods, and I’m kind of a big fucking faggot.  I really appreciate all the exceptionally brave people who’ve made that possible.

Of course, the downside is that homosexuality is a market niche and family-friendly commodity now, and gay marriage is imminent due to the pervasive non-horror with which educated people under 40 regard their dyke and faggot peers.  It’s getting harder and harder to be dangerous and disruptive, but we can try.