On Friendship and Fountain Swims, Reclaiming Pride and Fighting the Sex Police.
Arriving with the kids.
For me, pride weekend has always been a time for friendship, lusty, blurry, joyous elegiac friendship connecting through time. First, I always think of my elders, Bob Kohler, who was there the three nights of Stonewall, in the beginning, Steven Gendin, who I met at my first action meeting in NYC, with purple leopard skin hair, chatting about safer promiscuity, bridging treatment and prevention activism. I marched with Steven in 1999 with the SexPanic, sex police, swirting water guns at the crowd as a couple of ladies made out on the front of our police car, sex mobile. He was dead the following spring. RIP Steven. HIV sucks.
Of course, these feelings followed me on Sunday, greeting Mel, who pushed Tim in a wheelchair the last two years as ALS gripped him. This year he was carrying a sign with a picture of Tim. He was standing with members of ACT UP, several carrying photos of Tim.
Alvin wrote:
“Honoring our dear departed friend, ATimothy Lunceford-Stevens, the longtime Rise and Resist and ACT UP New York activist, with his husband, Mel Stevens, Brandon Cuicchi and other ACT UP activists at Queer Liberation March for Trans and BIPOC Lives, Reproductive Justice, and Bodily Autonomy. Rest in power, Tim.”
RIP Tim. Rip Elizabeth. RIP Hunter.
In a first, my whole family converged for the march, the two kids, Caroline, everyone together, marching, greeting friends, taking in the free spirited vibe. We arrive, march with GAG, ACT UP, Reclaim Pride, greeting everyone we know, running into neice Mav and her buddy, and Babs and Laurie, and Andy and Lulu and Micah from the Judson Memorial crew, and St Lydia’s, and the Stonewall vets, randy, on and on, through time.
Andy Humm was there, pointing out ways out of the mess, from the NY Times, snapping photos.
Take our rights away, we will disobey, said one sign
It's about freedom. Everyone's still in shock. But ready to fight back.
If the war on sex is fully upon us, with the Supremes eyeing criminalizing contraceptives and creating new penalties for sex, the the crowd seemed a healthy anecdote. They are not going to be easy to control. No one is going back.
Bodies of all shapes, sizes, colors, sharing space, marching, not sure who was in front or back, just together.
I’m always particularly moved by the kids, the young people and rainbows… knee high rainbow socks, flags, paint, sharing space with the cohorts of comrades, with faery wings, many in thongs, others without shirts.
By Washington Square, we swam in the fountain with everyone..wow... in a defiant show, open sex and nudity and kindness…
Overheard one kid say, can pride be every weekend? Some years It's our mardi gras!!!! Others it's a riot. Always.
Talked with some young people smoking on a park bench. This was their first pride. We chatted about the absurdity of the moment, and the feeling of warmth.
"Its not like getting an abortion is on anyone's bucket list," said one.
They laughed about their mom’s response when they came out.
It's ok to laugh, to be alive, to be a part of a city of friends.
Friends texted.
There were too many of us us to meet.
Instead i talked with strangers.
Bands playing.
Pot smoke in the air.
Less and less shirts.
Gushing and greeting.
Dancing.
As our movement really felt like it could be that orgy of resistance we imagine.
Bodies laughing in the fountain, waving the rainbow flag, reveling in being alive.
On I walked East to see Rev Billy and company perform on Ave C.
Find that secret place, that unknown place... throw some faery dust on it...find that place.. that place where rollerina skates... where we stumble into each other....screw the church screw the state you cant make us procreate... hallalullia...whisper into the trees…
I felt it, dancing with the ghosts and the kids in their rainbow socks in the fountain.I know Steven would have loved it.
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