Let The Red-Faced Blustering Begin
The question is posed every year: why do we have demonstrations for Gay Rights – in all their facets – when Gays have already been granted the vote, can marry, have equal rights, health care, job security just the same as normal people? As a subsidiary question, from certain quarters, comes the question of why there is not a White Male Day each year, and whether this lack is somehow sexist. For most thinking people, the answers to all such questions are very clear indeed, they just need to be reiterated every single year for the hard of understanding at the back.
Last month I attended the Christopher Street Day Parade and Demonstration in Nordenham, Germany. I try to attend as many such demos each year, which run throughout the spring and summer months, and are not just confined to Pride Month, in most German cities. Some of these events are massive and gain phenomenal support, such as Bremen – the original parade ground – Berlin and Hamburg. Others, such as Bremerhaven and Nordenham, are smaller in mass, but receive the same level of support. They are all joyful events, with music and dance, posters and flags, speeches and friendship. It is rare that anything happens to disturb the event, and when it does, the disturbance tends to be small, off to one side, and in an area where those trying to disrupt can quickly escape as their bravado gives way. Attacks against members of the community tend to occur away from the main event, again, because those making the attacks are cowards, and fearful of numbers and their own capabilities.
The Christopher Street Day Parade in Nordenham was a pleasure to attend. Set in the centre of town, on a well-appointed market place surrounded by restaurants and ice cream parlors, there was a large stage for the live acts, as well as various stands with information, games, merchandise and, as these people need to show their faces and support too, political parties. The weather was a little too harsh, though, with temperatures rising up to about 35°C, dissuading many from attending, and pushing those brave enough to be there under trees surrounding the arena. Music was provided by a shanty choir as well as individual groups and singers, and occasionally one or two of those attending would venture out of the shade and have a dance to the music. Climate change is not an unknown item here, and the massive swings of temperatures across norther Germany of the last few weeks have not gone unnoticed, even while some still try to laud the glorious weather, and forget the dangers it poses, and how unprepared we are for what is to come, despite generations of warnings.
Why the need, though, for such a demonstration of solidarity and demand for Rights and Protections, when so much has been granted, so much has been achieved over the last few decades? The speeches, as much as the general awareness within the community, make it clear: there is still a long way to go before the LGBTQIA+ Community achieves the same level of acceptance and awareness in everyday life as the predominant culture of White. There is a long way to go before education begins to seep through – and here it is not just the Gay community which suffers – before the people we have been brought up with, attended school and higher education with, will be accepted by all as full and rightful members in society. The abuse simply because of sexual orientation, as with religious persecution, racism, misogyny and sexism continues unabated.
I experienced an example of why we still need these joyful parades in person in Nordenham. A young person attending their first Christopher Street Day Parade, proudly wearing a flag to designate their own direction, reduced to tears and fearful for their safety. This was not caused by vigilantes, or a group of chanting extreme right-wing fanatics, but by a small group of people who had come to the parade specifically to make fun of them. People from their own class, their own student year, in school. Fellow students they spend countless hours together in close proximity with.
Several years ago in England, someone began to take the idea of having a White Male Day as a national holiday, and began a petition to achieve just this aim. A day when White Men could just sit back and do nothing, or wander through the streets with their White Men Day flags and songs and, probably, several bottles of beer, demonstrating against the oppression they are faced with every single day by forceful minorities and those with a different idea of society and community. The petition is still there, several years later and, last time I looked, it had seven signatures.
