Sunday, June 28, 2009

"When I blow my whistle, people cheer!"

Got back from Pride about 2 hours ago. I didn't get heatstroke (yay!), but my legs are SO sore and I can barely move! I think we're all exhausted after standing around in the hot sun for so long. There were about 22 people in our contingent, from an impressive array of locations: San Francisco, the North Bay, the Peninsula, San Jose, Sacramento, the LA area, Portland, Seattle, Kansas and Washington, DC. However, despite our smallish size, it was said that our matching purple shirts and signs helped us stand out. Some brave marchers handed out fliers about asexuality to the crowd, and I saw quite a few people reading them. Since about 1,500 fliers were handed out, some people will hopefully be led to AVEN.

Some people in the crowd seemed excited to see us, others were stunned that we actually exist, but I didn't register any outright negativity. I'm assuming today was the first time that a lot of people ever heard of asexuality, and I can guess that a few minds might have been blown. As far as I know, today was the largest meeting of asexuals and allies to ever take place in America. I think we can all be proud of that! I really want to thank all the marchers, our many fans, and everyone, including readers here, who encouraged me to go forward and organize this. I hope that everyone had a good time and is pumped about visibility stuff, and I hope that I can go to more of these kinds of events in other parts of the country.

I want to say profound things, because I think it really is a historic day for the asexual community. However, to me, it just seemed so normal that we should be there. It was exciting, but didn't seem out of the ordinary. Yeah, it's a little weird that a totally DIY group like us was marching in front of Kaiser Permanente, but that doesn't have anything to do with our sexuality. No matter what the acronym is, or what individuals think, we're really pretty queer. If "queer" means "rare", we're the queerest sexuality there is. We belong as much as anyone else in the non-hetero pantheon. And now...I think I need to lie down...

9 comments:

Carsonspire said...

What a historic moment, Ily! You're so lucky to have been there.

Anonymous said...

Nice one!

Ily said...

Hurrah! :-D

Queers United said...

I am so very proud of you, what a beautiful turnout. More pictures, and post videos please!

Anonymous said...

I was excited to see asexuality represented at Pride! My friends and I cheered.

Anonymous said...

Yay!!! This is so awesome. I am so proud of all of you for getting out there and showing the world your asexiness! I wish I could have been there.

Ily said...

I think lots of you were there in spirit :-)

Anonymous said...

You should have handed out slices of cake! People would have loved you! I wonder if there are any Pride Parades near DC....

Anonymous said...

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