My first few prides are murky in my mind as my mom took me when I was about 9. She took me to Pride, Santa Clause and Carabanna ….ect well the last one was my dad but you get the idea. My mom wanted to expose me to all the different communities in Toronto.
I’d not venture to my next pride until I was 13 by accident. I was looking to hit my favorite comic shop at Yonge & Wellesley and had no idea it was the day of the parade. I mean I still wouldn’t come out to my mom for 2 more years, so going to pride seemed a miss for me looking back on that day. I saw a bit of the parade, got my comics and went home to read. Fast forward past high school and into college when I hit pride a few months after my 20th birthday with friends. Even though I was a homo in high school. I had no interest in guys or going to pride. I was so focused on doing well in school and working to afford my life style of comics, technology and video games.
I marched in the parade in 2004 for Humber College and did my cowboy outfit proud. Friends came and went out of my life for the next 9 years and sometimes I made the tough choice to cut ties and respect myself first and foremost. A few are still around to this day and that makes me go wow at knowing anyone for almost a decade now. What I’ve not said is I’ve moved almost 14 times around Toronto growing up. So I never had a stable set of friends. So the fact I still know Ben almost 9 years later is crazy.
However, as I approach almost a decade of going to pride, a few things stick out to me in my mind. It’s all about seeing my friends and the parade is an opportunity to do that. Pride is nothing without the people you love most right by your side. Pride is really what you made it and if you don’t see something you want… then help create it. We’re one huge ”community” and many times we don’t cater to everyone.
Regardless of what Pride Toronto, City of Toronto and everyone else decides to do. I’ll be calling up my friends to make plans with them on June 27th because that’s a day for us to get together and I don’t need pride to do it anymore.
P.S. Feel free to join us…. You won’t regret it!
