Pride

The queer community is hairless twinks and leather-clad dykes with close-cropped hair. There is a smattering of drag queens for flavor, none an hour over the age of twenty-five. Everyone knows that.

This gaggle might upset some in flyover states or the deep South, but they make for photogenic stock photos for inflammatory articles or supporting roles on Bravo series. They are straight from central casting -- the only way anyone could call them straight -- not a purple hair out of place.

The announcement ushers us into the Church of the Messiah. Quilts cover all the pews. Not AIDS quilts, but I do not understand their importance then unless it is to prevent too much gay from soaking into the wood.

The existence of most of the crowd suggests LGBTQIA+ people don't have a hard expiry at thirty ala Logan's Run. Based on those finding seats, there is a slim chance queer people can survive into their seventies.

Sitting in the church as we wait for a (gay) minister to introduce a (lesbian) pastor, it feels closer to preparations from preachment than the opening act of the first annual Rhinebeck/Red Hook Pride. The invocation is the operatic tones of a blonde woman in a shirt that flows off her body like a gossamer waterfall. Though our programs have lyrics, I do not do more than glimpse them. She could well have been canting Biblical verses used to condemn same-gender attraction -- though that would be in poor taste.

Amber, their mother, and I had done a lap of the few booths in the churchyard before the announcement told us everything would close until after the ceremony. There were booths where one could craft, a profusion of pins and stickers, a place to make a votive holder, free sunflower sprouts, and other wholesome activities. The Trans Clothes Closet did not seem to have packers or other such phallic offerings, but it may be more that they ran out rather than that the church would prefer they not peddle plastic penises at present.

This Pride was humbler than the one we attended a day before, which began with a parade (we missed it because we didn't wish to rush out of the house; we have seen parades and did not feel it necessary to see another sans elaborate floats) and terminated in a few dozen booths and a stage on which a furry and an enthusiastic person of indeterminate gender dancing to mashups of songs a Hollywood movie would insert as lazy shorthand for Gay: Lady Gaga, Madonna, disco. While a few Elder Gays traipsed through, the age range there learned toward youthful exuberance and aesthetic appeal.

I do not include myself in either. As far I could determine from the outside, I am some goony white guy with a camera, photographing the exotic plumage of the extravagant. Leonard (nee Melanie) suggested I ought to go to Pride in drag, but I had neither the courage nor the accessories. Amber joked that I could raid the Trans Clothes Closet to change that, but trans people had a better claim to falsies and skirts. Plus, I would have to spend close to an hour shaving to accomplish the look, and who wants to endure weeks of itchy regrowth for forty-eight hours of prettiness? (I would be pretty. We can all admit that, at least with a wig and some contouring.)

I walked by a booth -- I cannot remember the moment after I left it what it offered -- and a woman asked how I was. I stated I was fine.

"You said that a little quickly."

I smiled. "My mother was just criticizing me for saying I was fine since, to alcoholics, fine means 'Fucked-up, insecure, neurotic, emotional.' But she's not an alcoholic, and I'm not an alcoholic, so--"

"Those dimples of yours sure help."

Her compliment so threw me that I retreated, blushing and beaming, to Amber and Julie, "That woman likes my dimples."

Amber nodded, but they did not echo.

This was not the weekend for me to enjoy one Pride event, to say nothing of two. (We also had a board game brunch at Veronica's house the morning of the latter event, further depleting my battery.) My mental health had been rocky -- probably for physiological reasons relating to a hacking and wheezing coworker who would not believe that antibiotics do not affect viruses. On the drive to Poughkeepsie Pride, I pestered Amber with a staccato litany of how I am melancholic, touching on the Kafkaesque pointlessness of my day job, my borderline dysphoric irritability with my body, and my inability to make and maintain intimate friendships. Amber said she likes my body, and I've sustained deep intimacy with her for over a decade. She had nothing to say to redeem my job except that it allows me to write. (At no point did I bag on my writing, which is my favorite part of me. Granted, I am under-read and under-published, but I am far from under-talented.)

We ended Poughkeepsie Pride sitting on a rock near a drag queen so tall that I was startled to realize they were not on stilts. Amber ate a strawberry mango Italian ice that was mainly mango -- the less appealing fruit -- and I ate nothing. I had wanted birthday cake Italian ice, but they had none, and I craved no other option, which we can agree justifies a malaise or two.

I cannot say I had some profound revelation about gender or sexuality on this rock beset by Pride flags. I am pleasantly nebulous on the former, bodily and aesthetic concerns aside, and my sexuality is firmly rooted on Amber and beings like Amber, who skew toward cute and feminine or androgynous with breasts and vulvae. If I am attracted to you, it is an indicator you would not proudly call yourself cis and straight, but this has rarely steered me wrong. In high school, I had too frequent dalliances with a friend who swore she was a lesbian but eagerly whispered her wish to end my virginity in the backseat of her parents' car. (In her defense, she was topless, and we had not coincidentally ended up there; she had good reason to make the offer.) Of the five women I have slept with, maybe one considers herself straight, and that's only by omission; I did not stay connected with her. Otherwise, it is "lesbian, formerly married to a man," "queer of some stripe, married to a man," "lesbian who had her breasts removed for aesthetic reasons, having a particular fondness for trans girls over cis ones," and "nonbinary, married to me." One lesbian ex is a curiosity. Two is a pattern.

On the rock in Waryas Park, breaking apart the tiny wooden spoon the woman slinging Italian ice had handed me, I was morose, and no amount of my rambling affected that.

On the drive home, I stated that I resent how instantly my mask slips on whenever in a social situation. No one would suspect I was other than delighted, though I am internally trying to find a way to cry so I can ease the pressure. I tried to explain this to my therapist years ago. She thought I was doing better than I was because "Therapy Session" translated in my brain to "Performance," and I could not break from this long enough to be vulnerable. She instead thought I coped so well I had become boring. Just as was the case with the crisis hotline when I was a frequent caller, it is difficult for people to process intelligence and humor are two ways I mask vulnerability.

I can tell Amber these things because she accepts the totality of me. However, I still consider my reiteration placing on them the emotional labor of listening and placating -- though they do not do too much of the latter. It doesn't do much good. I know I am being unreasonable, so reasoning with me is wasted breath. I say the same things to myself that Amber could. The only difference is the pitch of the words.

Rhinebeck/Red Hook Pride is easier because I had decided my depression was allergies and medicated appropriately. Amber also spent ten minutes lying on me that morning, trying to press the mental illness out, which was more effective than it might seem. By the time we arrived at Veronica's, Munchkins in hand, the mask didn't dig into me as much. I could feel normal enough as I watched Coley make cucumber sandwich after cucumber sandwich.

At the Pride fair, I misgender Amber from habit -- even though they have on a They/Them pin, nonbinary heart, and pansexual flag (they note that pansexuality should be a heart and nonbinary, a flag). I then tease out their preferred pronoun.

"Thomm is being annoying about my gender," Amber says to their mother.

"No, I'm being supportive in a way you find obnoxious. There's a difference."

Photographing gives me an excellent excuse to engage with the event and wander around without finding it awkward. I try to explain to people that they do not have to pose. I did not ask them permission to cause them to give a cheesy smile, but only because it is inappropriate to do otherwise.

Over a decade ago, I went to Pride in New Paltz. By the end, I was vexed because this was a ready-made community, and I did not belong. That my girlfriend, then named Melanie, had just left me because I was not enough "polyamorous lesbian" for her likely contributed some under-processed resentment to the stew pot. The people there would have had no idea why I was upset, but it was also not their problem. They had no obligation to make me feel better -- though I am sure a few would have.

"You went to Pride to pick up women," Amber -- my nonbinary, pansexual spouse whom I met days after that Pride -- notes.

"I didn't not do that," I admit, though it was only a portion of my angst there. Probably not even half.

I pass the Thrift 2 Fight booth, a secondhand clothing store in Tivoli that donates a portion of its profits to the Trans Clothes Closet. Here, they are giving away clothing, all of which is intact and fashionable and none of which is gendered. I get a few items, then speak to one of the proprietors, a sweetly elegant woman in a blue baseball cap.

"You are a musician at Bard, right?"

She brightens. "I'm a flautist!"

"A few months ago, you were getting a lamp fixed at the Rhinebeck Repair Cafe while I failed to get my vacuum repaired, and I overheard you mention that."

"You have a good memory!"

This is not exactly true. I remember this because her coworker and she were striking, and I complained to Leonard that I did not know how to have people like these as friends except by being so socially in demand that one would be indifferent. I do not change this today except that she is marginally aware I exist. She asks if I am photographing the event for a publication. I lose utility when I tell her I am taking pictures because I like to. I can't blame her. I was at the Pine Bush UFO Fair the weekend prior and can attest to the gulf between "This will be in the newspaper" and "This will end up unseen on some cloud service."

This Pride demands less of me and asks for no money. It also lacks birthday cake Italian ice -- and Italian ice at all -- and the only costuming is teenagers in rainbows, but it is a comfort. I do not feel so out of place here, not queer enough, though I am the only person who bothers to care.

last watched: The House
reading: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell