Real Talk!

LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

The rainbow flag has become the recognized symbol of pride for the gay community throughout the world and is often use to mark gay friendly (and in some cases, gay safe) places, people and establishments.

Colour has been used as an expression of pride for many years. In Victorian England, the colour green was associated with homosexuality. The colour purple (or, more accurately, lavender) became popularized as a symbol for pride in the late 1960s. A pink triangle, although first used to identify gay males in Nazi concentration camps, gained widespread use as a gay pop icon in the early 1980s.

The oldest existing gay rights organization in the world was founded in 1946, in the Netherlands. The first recorded gay pride parade was held in 1969, known as the March on Stonewall, it started as a protest against discrimination and violence against gays in New York City.

In 1978, Gilbert Baker of San Francisco designed the most widely recognized flag. Handmade versions of this flag were flown in the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade. The 1979 San Francisco parade used a variation of the design that had six stripes representing six colours of the rainbow- symbolic of plurality and a love of life.

Today, the flag is an international symbol under which gays and lesbians declare themselves to homosexuality. It is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers, the rainbow is flown in lesbian and gay pride marches worldwide- reminding us that ours is a diverse world — composed of people with a variety of individual tastes of which we should all be proud.

In 2000, Baker came out with an updated version, the 8 colour version, of the pride flag. Met with some controversy, I was pleased read that Mr. Baker’s response was that it’s simply the idea of the rainbow that counts. Gay pride has grown into a symbol of solidarity and an opportunity to express the vivid personalities that reflect the diverse gay communities throughout the world.

Today, pride events have become an annual ritual and have grown to include thousands of gay and gay-friendly participants, not to mention hundreds of spectators. Toronto’s Pride Week is the third largest outdoor, free, multi-disciplinary arts festiva l in the world. It takes over 20 city blocks, has 8 stages and needs over 800 volunteers to run it! Pride week 2009 is June 19th – 28th.

This year marks the 39th anniversary of the San Francisco Pride Celebration and Parade. Their two-day celebration & parade is the largest annual gathering of LGBT people and their allies in the USA- with over 200 parade contingents, 300 exhibitors, and more than a dozen community-run stages and venues.

So, what’s up with us hetero folks? Why have we been so disorganized? By all accounts other “Pride” parades and celebrations are a blast.

The online urban dictionary describes heterosexual pride as a pathetic manifestation of insecurity on the part of heterosexuals who are not simply content to be the majority but have to make sure that every other form of sexuality is marginalized. ACK and PHOOEY.

I don’t want to marginalize anybody. Personally, I’ve been advocating a hetero faction of the PRIDE community since the mid 70s. I suppose I haven’t gone public with my thoughts… at least until now. Heck, I even designed a flag-logo that compliments the LGBT symbol.

I am proud to embrace the concept that sexual rights are a set of fundamental universal human rights, based on consenting adults having inherent freedom, dignity, equality AND the right to pursue a healthy, satisfying, safe and pleasurable sexual life.

& For the record- I also believe in sexual privacy… meaning, the individual adult has the right to make decisions to engage in certain behaviours, provided they do not intrude upon others.. and you know, way back in 1917, the Communist Part of Russia declared all forms of sexual activity between consenting adults a PRIVATE MATTER... I think they may have been on to something.