The first time I went to Pride was an accident. I was studying abroad in Florence and met up with one of my best friends in Rome. When we exited the subway to wander the Forum and Colosseum together, we noticed the surrounding roads were closed and Google Maps showed a rainbow parade route winding around the city. Rome was celebrating Pride.
The parade shifted my feelings about the trip as a whole. Italy was a place where I had grown used to being an outsider. A place where I’d speak in Italian and my American accent would warrant a response in English, where my appearance and style let everyone know I was not Italian on sight. Even travelling through Italy from Florence to Rome, where I struggled to understand the dialect, reminded me how new I was to the language. I was open to new experiences, learning new things, and adapting to a different culture. But Pride was different. In that moment, I wasn’t an outsider, but someone who belonged there just as much as anyone else in the crowd.
We ended up watching the parade from the walls of the Colosseum, peering at the signs below and quietly translating the cheers to each other. L’amore non si odia (love cannot be hated), seemed to be the most official slogan, printed in bold capital letters at the top of a small billboard truck and echoing slogans I’d heard in the United States. We noted the huge contingent of Canadian flags and pirate flags in among the rainbows, and the food and drinks area a block down from the main parade labeled simply “GAY STREET.” Neither of us had gone to Pride before and it was exciting to be there.
Seeing the pink, purple, and blue stripes of bisexual pride flags mixed in with the others, I felt a sense of belonging I couldn’t get in my tiny, rural Indiana hometown. Here was an endless stream of people in the street, all marching together. There was the occasional party bus blaring pop music and thanking a corporate sponsor, but even these were surrounded by people in one large, joyous mass. The majority of the parade was groups of people united with pride, waving flags or homemade signs. The parade was about the community, not money or the appearance of inclusion.
The second time I went to Pride was on purpose, only a couple of weeks later. I was back in Indiana, and some friends from around Indianapolis wanted to go to Chicago Pride. They parked at my house and we spent the train ride into the city carefully arranging rainbow leis, buttons, pins, and glitter on ourselves amidst the commuters, herds of parents and children going to museums or the American Girl store, as well as a few other passengers also rainbow-ifying themselves. We grew more excited as the Red Line brought us close to the parade route, and on arrival pushed our way toward a good view. We passed countless signs on the doors of every business on Halsted Street declaring that their bathrooms were for customers only– but we were free to pay extra for the rainbow version of whatever we bought to gain bathroom access.
It felt strange. Unlike in Rome, every other float or group walking by was covered in corporate logos, and everything was carefully spaced out, with each group leaving about a minute of walking time before the next passed. The crowd cheered loudly for drag queens on roller skates and people wearing costumes made of elaborately twisted balloons and walking dogs festooned with rainbow bandanas, but fell silent when BP drove a party bus slowly down Halsted.
“Are we supposed to cheer for the oil company?” asked someone standing nearby. “The Deepwater Horizon spill people?”
A similar quiet came for various banks. It may have been 10 years since the great recession, but it felt weird to cheer and shout for the companies that caused it. Had I traveled over two and a half hours between cars and trains and the “L” to clap and shout for a billion dollar company that slapped a rainbow on its logo?
I heard similar qualms from others around the country.
“Absolut had a huge [presence], and that makes me feel bad because alcoholism is definitely a big problem in the LGBTQIA+ community,” said Amelia Windorski of Minneapolis Pride. “I hate to think that some people might stay away from pride because of alcohol triggers.”
The ubiquity of alcohol at Pride affected my experience of Chicago Pride as well. I was 21, but my friends were 20. Many events were 21+, even in restaurants normally open to all; the alcohol served kept us from legally being able to participate in much more than passively watching the parade.
Still, there were some who seemed to care about the giant floats. A few people near me would yell in delight at any free things tossed toward them, then boo at the smaller floats that didn’t bring plastic beads, stress balls, or temporary tattoos to hurl into the crowd. This bothered me. I’d read stories online of people who met their best friend, their future spouse, their found family at pride. But these people didn’t seem to care about finding community at all, only about grabbing some junk from the street.
I felt lost in a place where I had come to find my people. The parade was long and elaborate. Many of the more corporate floats and buses were skillfully designed, but so much of it seemed disconnected from queerness. It felt like thinking I was going on a trip to France, but landing at Epcot instead. Or like thinking Valentine’s day was about true love, then finding it was actually about chocolate and roses.
Not everyone felt the same way though, and speaking with other LGBTQ+ people has given me a different perspective on the corporate sponsorships. E.O., an American living in South Korea, for example, sees them indicative of increased acceptance.
“This year was momentous because one of the country’s largest brewers came out with one of the first inclusive campaigns,” she said.
Arainbow-covered can of CASS beer is symbolic of changing attitudes in a socially conservative country. The symbolism rings true in the United States as well.
“The mayor of the city walked in front of me with his bisexual wife and biracial kids,” said Lauren Anderson of a trip to New York Pride. “I’m not a person who gets mad at all of [the corporations]… I looked up and a bank was lit up in Pride colors. That’s powerful.”
Corporate sponsorships also allow communities to afford bigger parades and festivals, like those in Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco.
“San Francisco Pride feels huge and historic because it is,” said Michael Acton, a resident of Sonoma County, California who has attended San Francisco Pride several times. “It shows that we matter here enough historically and now to be represented, to celebrate, and to keep fighting for all of our rights.”
The 2015 San Francisco Pride “was like nothing else in my life,” said Dale McNeil, a librarian from Dallas. With an estimated attendance of 1.8 million people and a theme of “Equality without Exception,” that year SF Pride was held only one day after the Obergefell Vs. Hodges Supreme Court decision, which legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States. At the age of 54, McNeil said that before that day, he never could have imagined such widespread support and celebration of the LGBT community. Amidst the larger celebration, a highlight for him was attending a party thrown by the American Library Association’s GLBT Roundtable, the first gay professional organization in the United States, at the Harvey Milk Library.
I am still frustrated by the problems I saw at Chicago Pride, but can also recognize that I’d much rather complain about overpriced rainbow things than not be able to buy a rainbow t-shirt at all. The key is balance, and knowing what makes a trip for pride meaningful on an individual level. In the future, I’m looking for smaller experiences, even in large cities. The giant parade in Rome was what I needed in 2017, when I hadn’t yet had the chance to attend pride and needed to see other LGBT people in huge numbers, out loud and proud in a joyful crowd. Now, I know who I am, both as a bisexual woman and as a person. I will seek out events that I find personally meaningful, and there I will find my pride.
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