Hey all,
My week has been spent with fairly mundane writing tasks. I’ve been focused almost entirely on doing the paperwork needed to submit my manuscript. There’s been a lot of summarizing and polishing. I also started hearing back from my beta readers, which is awesome, and I’ll give you more on that next week as I start to make changes based on their suggestions.
In the meantime, though, I am gearing up for Pride weekend. I’ll be celebrating in Toronto with some friends including a reading with J.E. Knowles. Please check out the events section of this page for more info because if you’re in the area you won’t want to miss this. After the reading we’ll watch the parade, then check out all the vendors with their rainbow kitch. We will sing Cher songs and do a little dancing. We’ll cheer for dykes on bikes and hug a drag queen because, after all, those are the people who started this revolution 40 years ago.
However, this event isn’t really about parades, and kitch, and book signings. This weekend is just a blip in a larger movement. It represents the fight for queer rights and the commemoration of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. It is a reminder of how far we’ve come from the times when it was illegal to be gay and homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder. It is a celebration of the repeal of sodomy laws, the defeat of constitutional marriage amendments, and equal rights legislation in states from coast to coast as well as marriage equality from Iowa to South Africa. It is a mourning ceremony for victims of hate crimes, teen suicides, government executions, and the world wide ravages of AIDS. It is a trigger point for all the anger and indignity that comes from being second class citizens, from being barred from open military service, from unequal protection for our families, in our homes, on our streets, in our places of worship, and at our jobs.
But, I would like to argue it’s even bigger than that, and we are part of a larger struggle affecting the entire human race, that when those bulldaggers and crossdressers took to the streets 40 years ago, they took a stand, not for gay rights, but for human rights. They stood up to the power system and said they refused to be treated as less than human. They fought against homophobia, racism, classism, sexism, hunger, poverty, greed, war, and injustice. None of us can be free until we all are. We must begin to see our oppression and our progress as part of a larger push for progress, one that strives not only to change, hearts, minds, and legal codes, but also works to revise the entire human condition, for the better of every one.
This weekend as you celebrate Pride, do me a favor. Take a moment amid minutia of rainbow confetti and disco-ball key chains to stop and reflect on the bigger picture. Here’s a start to that process.
Here’s to a productive Pride,and another 40 years filled with progress.
Peace, Love, and Revolution,
Rachel Spangler
Rachel Spangler 