Pride Event - Cleveland, Ohio

Yesterday, I was at the Cleveland Pride event. The event was pretty awesome, there was a pride parade, people generally having a great time being themselves.

The event was wonderful, and I was happy to have the opportunity to be there and to share that time with my friends as well.

The main thing I wanted to bring up is that, well, trans visibility at this event was pretty low. They had thousands of people, and a ton of tents for various things set up, but out of all of it, I saw one booth for Trans - and that booth was for the local trans support group. Out of all the pride items on sale, I had to scour the whole grounds just to find one booth which had a few trans necklaces.

This is really kind of messed up. I'm not sure what the cause is here. Is it because a majority of us would rather just appear invisible, even at pride? Is it because we've just wrote off pride as an LG event, with BT tacked on? Or is it just that there's so few of us we can only manage to secure one tent?

I'm not sure what the reason is, but I'm going to look into what costs would be incurred in running a tent myself. I figure the problem of trans representation won't get better unless someone takes the initiative. Why not me?

I make no promises - it's a pipe dream at best right now, but one I hope to follow up on. If nothing comes of it, so be it (I don't even know if individuals CAN put up tents there. This may be impossible). But I'm hoping that it can be figured out and made real. I've already got someone who would run the tent with me, and ideas about what to include if this happens.

-Lyn

(Incidentally, the reason my blog hasn't updated recently is a lack of questions to answer. The blog thrives off of the questions of my readers, and when nobody asks anything, production slows. That said, anonymous posting is enabled, so if you have something you would like me to write about, submit it below!)