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I hope you’re not suggesting I ask Dykes on Bikes to refrain from kicking off pride parades in cities across the country. While they’re certainly front and center for logistical reasons (you wouldn’t want to march in front of them after all), there’s also another more important explanation: They are symbolic of the defiance, freedom and, yes, gay pride, that was birthed during the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969. Ever since, they along with groups dressing in the particular styles you mention have been criticized for presenting a “face” of LGBT people to the world that’s too provocative. In the 90s, two gay Harvard intellectuals, one a psychologist and the other an ad man, proposed exactly what you are: that gays must portray themselves in a positive way to straight America if they are to win the battle for legal and social rights.

I’d suggest that there is a time and place for everything. Pride festivities provide a brief moment every year to recall the birth of the modern LGBT civil rights movement, which we do happen to owe to a group of drag queens and trans people, among others. Even the marriage-equality movement is about inclusion and diversity. If the more mainstream parts of our community push the leather and drag communities to the side, literally and metaphorically, we’ll have erased the essence of gay pride.

At the same time, I think the reason we have groups like the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Human Rights Campaign, is, indeed, to present a more “wholesome” front—complete with suit and tie—that is no doubt more effective in Congressional hearings and in state legislatures across the country.

Not that I wouldn’t also like to see more variety of images in the media during our pride celebrations. I think it’s a shame—perhaps laziness, if not homophobia—that most cameras settle on the louder and racier scenes, and miss out on great stories about lower-profile groups like the Trevor Project (a suicide prevention group for LGBT people), as well as gay athletes, seniors, activists, teen groups, and so on.

 

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