PRIDE Weekend

This past weekend was the occurence of Capital PRIDE in Washington, DC. It was a wonderful time not only for all LGBTs and supporters, but for me especially because it was my first PRIDE ever. As a person that recently came out, seeing all those in celebration of their lives made me think of all the accomplishments of LGBT persons, from pre- and post-Stonewall riot times. Before this time, I had never heard of the Stonewall Riots; for those of you who don't know either, please read about the bravery and determination of these people who fought for their rights. One noteable activist is Frank Kameny, who succeeded in particular to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's manual of mental disorders. Without him, GLIFAA probably would not exist, much less out and proud LGBTs in any federal job. I believe that many younger LGBTs don't realize the amount of work it took to get to the place we get today and even though the march goes onwards and upwards, I think we should all take this time to reflect on the success and losses of the LGBT movement. For those of you not familiar with LGBT movements, please take a moment to educate yourselves on where we come from and where we are going.

PRIDE weekend for me began with the parade and the GLIFAA pre-parade party on Saturday. It was an amazing experience marching with GLIFAA and seeing the thousands of people lining the streets of Washington, DC, in order to cheer on the parade. The next day I worked at the GLIFAA booth in the PRIDE Festival. There we gave information to inquirers and maybe even recruited a few new members. One of our biggest successes that day was to get hundreds of new subscribers to our e-mail list.

I hope eveyone else in America and the world had/has a happy PRIDE, and let's keep America moving forward.