Mine happened in the mid '80s, when it was called Gay Pride. I was out to my parents, I had my first boyfriend. We wore T shirts with an inverted pink triangle and joined a march around London until it finished in Hyde Park for a free pop concert with various big bands (Erasure, Tom Robinson et al).
I remember we stopped outside No 10 Downing Street and chanted “Gay Rights!” repeatedly, then moved on.
At the start I saw an open deck double decker bus with guys on top yelling out “Coooeeee!”.
I didn’t go again to Pride for many years - next with my current boyfriend and got to see how much it had changed - from a protest march to a celebration. It changed over the years allowing us to march initially to only registered groups - gone was the spontaneous marching - gone was the free Party in the Park.
It was very corporate and the parade was separated from people by fences. It felt like a joke. I was physically and emotionally disjointed. It was comodified and meant absolutely nothing to me as someone who got kicked out by a homophobic landlord not long prior to it. My rights weren’t helped. The western queer rights continue diminishing while corporate profit off of it and they will and already do turn their back on their rainbow merch because it no longer makes as much profit. I’m sadly single and never managed to actually date someone as opposed to just going out on dates. My background is already very niche, my interests are also niche, being queer and intersex I have an extremely tiny plausible dating pool which I’m yet to discover.
My first pride was in Toronto, mid 1990s. It was fun. For some reason I attracted the attention of the leather crowd even though I wasn’t into leather. I hung out with the leather people for like four days. It was fun and educational. Made lots of new friends, hooked up with guys who were like me, not into leather, and had a blast. The leather community back then was super tight and friendly to everybody. Still have friends from that time when I met them.
