Why I Don't Attend Pride Parades

Don't get me wrong, a not-insignificant percentage of recent headlines makes it very clear that we still need Pride, because the fight for equality is far from over.

But marching at Pride Parades isn't an option for everyone, and that isn't something to be ashamed of.

Many people still run the risk of being fired if their boss spots them on the Highlights News Reel. Some people are still in the closet, and aren't ready to take that step. Some people have Agoraphbia or Social Anxiety to the point that a family gathering is too much, and a parade of any kind is Orders of Magnitude too much.

I can barely deal with New Years Eve Fireworks in person, and not just because Mum insists on buying the grandkids flashy noisemakers every year. I sympathise.

I used to attend Pride Parades. I'd spend weeks and months leading up to the event helping to plan the costumes, shopping for materials, helping build the floats... every spare waking moment was spent working towards something that would go into the trash the day after the parade.

It's exhausting, a lot of effort for a single day and as much as I love my current job, it isn't as flexible as my previous one, time wise.

Like many big events, Pride Parades involve a lot of "hurry up and wait".

For an event that starts at 7:00 PM, participants have to be queued up in the staging area by 2:00 PM. There will be portaloos and a few enterprising food trucks nearby, but you'll be waiting in line for at least 30 minutes to get to either. Even the disabled portaloos, the years I was there as a Carer, had long queues, plus all the people lining up to use the larger space because their costumes didn't fit in the regular portaloos.

There's nowhere to leave a backpack, either, and you don't want to be lugging anything heavy on the full length of the march. That means any entertainment you bring for yourself has to be small, light and portable. Since you're limited to a single bag that doesn't ruin the lines of your outfit and won't leave your back screaming at the end of the march... well, your options are not varied.

You can only bring what you can carry into the staging area, too, so while you might get away with a folding tri-leg camp stool, folding chairs are out. And since the floats are covered with, well, the float, your options are to sit on the ground, lean against something, or stand. For five hours. Plus however long before your float actually starts moving.

Oh, and did I mention the flashing ights and pounding music and thousands of people trying to talk over each other? Even with noise cancelling headphones and sunglasses to dim the input, it's a sensory Hellscape. Even people who don't have sensory issues will admit that it's a trial.

And that's just the 'normal' issues.

For the past several years, Pride has been interupted or co-opted by causes that have nothing to do with LGBTQ+ issues, but will cheerfully ruin the one occasion of the year that is dedicated to a persecuted minority, rather than organising their own protest on literally any of the 364 other days in the calendar year.

Protesting against the current Political Party, Climate Change, Immigration... whether I agree or disagree with those issues, you don't win any popularity points by making a Pride Parade to be forced to stop while we wait for police to show up and move you on. Especially when the police presence at Pride is already such a contentious issue...

Most infuriating of all has been the Pro-Palestine protests of the last two years.

You know, the place where coming out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community gets you thrown off the nearest rooftop? The place where a lesbian hostage's girlfriend had to spend 15 months claiming that they were just best friends, because no amount of bargaining or hostage negotiations would have saved Emily Damari if her Gazan Kidnappers knew she was Queer? Palestine can be a state when they leave behind the death cultists and join the civilised world.

Leaving aside the Palestinian tendency to start conflicts they can't win, Pride is not the place for supporting people who murder anyone even suspected of being LGBTQ+ and call it a good thing.

Finally, there's the dirty secret: Pride isn't always a welcoming place for me.

I'm Asexual, and while I'm included in the '+' part of the common shortened acronym, and in the longer LGBTQIA version, not a year has gone by that I haven't had someone waving a black-and-white flag scream at me that "A is for Ally!"

It isn't.

Even if your're an 'Ally' who uses it as shorthand for 'closeted' or 'still working that out', the A in LGBTQIA is for Asexual, Aromantic and Agender people, and we're more than a bit tired of being excluded because a Straight person wants to feel special.

A real LGBTQ+ Ally doesn't need to brag about it, and they don't shut Queer people down to make themselves more visible. If telling an Ace, Aro or Agen person to stop stealing your visibility is your idea of being an Ally, you're not the kind of Ally we want.

It's a running joke that Bi, Pan and Ace members of the Queer community are unicorns, because no-one knows one, everyone gushes about us when we aren't there, and as soon as one identifies themselves, hunting parties form up.

From sex-repulsed Aces who aren't comfortable being surrounded by the amount of near-naked people and phallic immagery commonly found at Pride, to sex-positive Aces told that they can't be Asexual and like sex, stop faking for attention, to sex-indifferent Aces being told that they just haven't found the right person yet, Pride Parades are yet another place that seem to have no space for us, and that doesn't seem like it will change anytime soon.

Maybe one day, I'll find a solution to the problems that keep me away from Pride Marches. Maybe I'll re-find the joy that they once inspired in me.

But until then, Pride will have to go on without me.