H MU OW H C DO OP H HA W E LE VE E FT H ? MU OW H C O DO P H HA W E LE VE E H FT M O ? U W H C DO OP H HA W E LE VE E FT ?
INISIGHT
Let’s take a minute and evaluate our sense of “hope” By Paul Gallant
JULY / AUGUST 2020
The word “pride” is usually defined along the lines of “a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s achievements.” That makes it a fundamentally reflective emotion. But the celebration of Pride is also closely tied to feelings of hope, from the shallowest sense – I hope the weather’s good, I hope I’ll have a good time, I hope I’ll get laid – to a deeper hope for one’s self, for friends and family, for community and LGBT people across the planet. Parades, street festivals, arts events are certainly fun, sometimes pure hedonism – but they’re also colourful wayposts connecting past accomplishments to unrealized aspirations. Sappy as it sounds, to celebrate Pride is to be on a journey of hope.
There are lots of ways around any problem LGBT people have been thrown out of their homes, had their children taken away from them, lost their jobs, been assaulted and neglected. But we’ve always found ways to create families of choice, to recognize our relationships when others haven’t, to invent our own opportunities, to imagine and build our own communities. We live in a world that’s riskier than the world that straight people live in, and so we’ve become adept at managing risk.
I can think of many ways to get the things in life that are important to me Going back in history, LGBT people have been able to find each To evaluate a person’s sense of hope, psychologists often use a other, partly as a means of finding ourselves. Even before the scale invented in the early 1990s by US psychologist Charles community established beachheads like bars, bathhouses, websites Richard Snyder. It’s a list of yes or no questions designed to tap and apps, you could look for revealing taste in music (“Oh, I love into a patient’s sense of optimism. What if we were to apply that Judy Garland, too”) or style (“Why does she keep her hair cut so scale to Pride? short?”), a washroom or a park with a certain reputation, certain professions (interior design, anyone?) or a certain way of talking I can think of many ways to get out of a jam (the gay “accent” with its penchant for upspeak and a pronounced Yes. You want an example? In 2003, with Pride Toronto’s budget “s”). Bullies, including parents, churches and governments, have in deficit, the US economy in decline and Toronto best known for tried to erase these tells over centuries but have been extraordinarily being the North American epicentre of the SARS epidemic – that is, unsuccessful. a place to avoid at all costs – Pride organizers persuaded government to cough up more cash and hiked parade fees to make the festival Even when others get discouraged, I know I can find a way to happen. A lot of that money went into marketing to make sure the solve the problem beer gardens were busy…and they were. When the HIV/AIDS crisis hit in the early 1980s, gay men were being demonized as they were getting sick and dying. For several I energetically pursue my goals years, the cause of the disease was unknown, and the establishment Excuse me? Energetic is a bit of an understatement, don’t you was uninterested in investigating it, never mind finding a cure. An think? Look at the work going into the costumes, the work in those entire generation was decimated, the survivors left traumatized. But buff bodies. Think of the tempers that have flared through the the crisis brought us together, gay men and lesbians in particular. years over Queers Against Israeli Apartheid – or the police, or the It nurtured empathy and fellowship, all the while teaching us nudists – marching in the Toronto parade. Over Pride leadership. the impressive lobbying and PR skills we’ve been effectively Over politicians not wanting to march…or wanting to march. deploying ever since. Energy? Oh, honey. Check and check. 52
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