“You going to the parade?”

It was Pride weekend last year in Chicago, and my friend Jen and I were sitting on my front porch. I was trying to figure out where my people would be the next morning.

Hungover and sleeping it off? At brunch? Dancing with shirtless, oiled-up men in booty shorts under the burning sun?

Jen lazily reached for a lighter, lit the cigarette in her mouth and blew a cloud of smoke into the air.

“Baby,” she said. “Do I look straight?”

That answered that. I didn’t go to the Pride parade last year. Neither did anyone else in my immediate queer friend group. Wait, that’s not true; one of my friends did, but only because her (straight) friends were in town and really wanted to go.

Ask your friendly local queer if they’re going to the parade, and you might get a “yes.” But you’ll just as likely get a “nope,” followed by an “it’s too corporate” or “it’s too white” or “it’s too cis.” Not radical enough, too hot, parking is terrible.

Here we are, after nearly 50 years of organized queer struggle, able to sit on a porch and dismiss Pride with a casual puff of cigarette smoke. Read more via New York Times