DC Pride Parade

I went to DC Pride last Saturday and it was a blast. My first DC Pride parade was exactly 20 years ago, right before I moved up here, from North Carolina. I had marched in several pride parades down there and one up in Boston with BiNet USA in the early 90's. I hadn't marched a parade in several years, and really haven't been either physically or emotionally fit for it as I am now. I marched with DC BiWomen, the only bisexual group marching this year. I had never been to a parade with a bi group where we got such a warm reception, so many cheers, grins, waves, and high fives. I cannot overstate what a high it is to be cheered on like that. The crowd skewed young, though there were plenty of us older folk, and it was wonderfully racially diverse.


Half the cheers we got were for this banner on the side of our van of "the bi umbrella" with its all-inclusive terms of who we are and who we love. BiNet USA is trying to tackle the problematic way the term "bisexual" reinforces a sexual binary of male/female (that denies more gender diversity) by redefining the "bi" as "self and other," and the women who designed the banner ascribe to that definition. I'm not sure I buy that redefinition and it's why I technically identify as a lesbian-identified pansexual, or far more simply, just queer, and it's why the umbrella concept is pretty neat.
( We're here! We're Queer! We just wanna beer. )

DC Pride Parade

I went to DC Pride last Saturday and it was a blast. My first DC Pride parade was exactly 20 years ago, right before I moved up here, from North Carolina. I had marched in several pride parades down there and one up in Boston with BiNet USA in the early 90's. I hadn't marched a parade in several years, and really haven't been either physically or emotionally fit for it as I am now. I marched with DC BiWomen, the only bisexual group marching this year. I had never been to a parade with a bi group where we got such a warm reception, so many cheers, grins, waves, and high fives. I cannot overstate what a high it is to be cheered on like that. The crowd skewed young, though there were plenty of us older folk, and it was wonderfully racially diverse.


Half the cheers we got were for this banner on the side of our van of "the bi umbrella" with its all-inclusive terms of who we are and who we love. BiNet USA is trying to tackle the problematic way the term "bisexual" reinforces a sexual binary of male/female (that denies more gender diversity) by redefining the "bi" as "self and other," and the women who designed the banner ascribe to that definition. I'm not sure I buy that redefinition and it's why I technically identify as a lesbian-identified pansexual, or far more simply, just queer, and it's why the umbrella concept is pretty neat.
( We're here! We're Queer! We just wanna beer. )

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