San Francisco’s Gay Pride is almost here again. This year, it’s turning 40. This is wonderful, of course; I enjoy a big sparkly gay parade as much as the next fag, corporate sponsorship and all. In fact, I have enjoyed each and every San Francisco Pride I have attended since my very first, at the tender age of 14 when I was just coming out. Back then I was overwhelmed just by the spectacle of so many queers in the same place. I’d seen nothing like it. It gave me an incredible sense of belonging, of knowing I wasn’t alone.
Although my subsequent Prides have been a lot of fun, the last couple of years have been bittersweet. While I’ve continued to enjoy mingling with my queer brethren, I no longer feel that euphoric, Utopian sense of community that I once did. In fact, I’ve felt increasingly like an odd man out, perhaps even a persona non grata. The reason why is no great mystery. It has everything to do with being trans.
Trans visibility, or lack thereof, is a real problem at San Francisco Pride. Last year provided a particularly depressing example, when Trans March abandoned its former route, which had ended at Civic Center, to wend an obscure path through the Mission.
The reasoning behind this decision was sound. As I understand it, the hope was to increase trans visibility in the Latino community. After all, Trans March began in response to the murder of Gwen Araujo. Awareness about trans people of color is extremely important, since they bear the brunt of hatred and discrimination for the entire trans community.
But all the good intentions in the world can’t change the fact that last year, nobody saw us. There were virtually no spectators on the streets. Few people cheered us on, or paid us much attention at all. It got even worse when we turned off of the main drag onto a residential side street. There we held a rally of sorts, with a soap box which few people seemed inclined to mount and a megaphone which nobody wanted to hold. Nobody was watching us at this point. Not a single face looked down from the windows of the houses around us. I left in frustration.
Apparently this year’s Trans March will be going down Market Street once again. I think this is a wise decision. Market Street, after all, encompasses a multitude of San Franciscan social strata. Routing the march down such a busy street will allow us to reach a wide range of people and will much more effectively disrupt what could be a routine Friday evening in the city.
Of course, it’s not fair to blame Trans March for the lack of trans visibility at San Francisco Pride. While it may not be perfect, Trans March, more than any other Pride event, is a force for such visibility. The real issue is much stickier, and no single person, factor, or organization can take sole responsibility for it.
Part of the problem is that most cis folks actually have no idea what a trans person looks like. They don’t recognize us even when we are out in force because they expect us to look much more flamboyant. So they remember the drag queens, and maybe the two spirit people, and anybody wearing a big sparkly dress. Big sparkly dresses seem to be the definition of “looking trans” in the mind of mainstream society. I think anybody just wearing jeans and carrying a sign with a trans rights slogan is generally assumed to be just a cis ally.
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