Four years ago, marchers in New York City’s Pride
March—and revelers on the streets and in parties during and after the
event—celebrated the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Empire State,
which had come to pass only a few days earlier.
This year, there was similar jubilation because, just
the other day, same-sex marriage was legalized in all of the United
States. The cool wind that blew drizzle
and rain into this city through much of the day didn’t seem to keep very many
people away from the march and other celebrations.
Something I saw after this year’s march bears a
striking similarity with something I observed four years ago. In most years, one sees LGBT people and their
allies, alone or in groups, walking around with their rainbow flags and other
regalia. One also sees couples, but many
of them have a certain tentativeness that can be seen in the almost-truncated
ways they hold hands, put their arms around each other or simply walk with each
other. It’s almost as if some of them
know that they can display their affection so publicly for that one day.
But this year, I saw none of that furtiveness. The couples I saw—young old and in-between;
men with men, women with women and cis people with transgenders—walked with
more confidence and less of the ostentation people display when they know their
moment of bliss can be rudely (or, worse, violently) interrupted. In other words, they seemed to enjoy the
sense of security—Nobody can take this
away from us—most cisgender heterosexual couples don’t even realize they
take for granted.
I was noticing change in couples’ body language and, it
seemed, in their sense of time itself, not on the Christopher Street Pier or in
Chelsea clubs or Jackson Heights bars.
Rather, I observed them in the South Bronx, where I rode my bike to meet
a friend after the festivities. I also
noticed it later in my own neighborhood of Astoria—which, while it has a
fair-sized LGBT community living openly, isn’t exactly Chelsea or even Jackson
Heights. Somehow I imagine that had I
gone to other neighborhoods in Queens or Manhattan or the Bronx—or Brooklyn, or
even Staten Island—I would have seen something similar. In short, everyone was breathing a little
freer today—even more so than we were four years ago.
Posts
