Over the years, my Toronto Pride experience has ranged from the tame to the absolutely ludicrous. I have had the pleasure of doing everything from volunteering/marching with the Bears of Toronto and/or York University/TBLGAY, to playing on a Pride stage with my band Casey vs. Jon, to wading into the pond at Ryerson University to fetch my inebriated friend Laura from some dark force that never materialized to anyone but herself. After much thought, one moment in particular stuck out to me and that was my experience last year as Co-chair of the Bears by Nature (BbN) entry in the 2009 Toronto Pride Parade.
When Don (Collymore) and I set out to participate in the Pride Parade under the Bears by Nature banner, we had two goals. One, to create Bear community visibility which had been lacking prior to BbN’s entry in 2008 and two, to employ grassroots ethics and practices to meet our ends. Determined to raise all the funds ourselves, we had our work cut out for us hosting monthly events at the Rhino and later on Gladamen’s Den. Thankfully, we had good enough turn out and support from the community to not only raise the funds we needed but as well, rope in the volunteers necessary to build the float. Come Parade Day, we, true to Murphy’s law, almost didn’t make it into the parade due to last minute assembly and technical issues. Just as the police convoy was coming up aside us to close out the parade and end our months of effort, everything fell into place and we took off running just barely edging out the police cruisers. You can imagine the relief that was felt by all as we emerged from the staging area into the sea of people cheering us on and the subsequent high we felt as we cruised through the streets of Toronto flying our sail proudly. This is what pride is all about.
To me, Pride can not be essentialized down to one quality. As diverse as my own experiences of my sexuality and identity have been, same have my experiences been with Pride and how I choose to express my pride. It can be something as simple as a shared favourite queer rock act or something as complicated as a shared identity politic but I believe it is at these intersections of commonalities where we find our common pride and where we unite as a community.