Happy Father's Day

In Portland we celebrate Trans Pride the day before Pride, which this year also falls on Father’s Day, and as I was making photographs today (hundreds of them) I heard someone say, “This is what Pride used to be.” Festive, kind, with free water for everyone and nobody selling merchandise, rainbow or otherwise. Men, women, non-binary people, intersex people, and people who refuse to be gendered all strolled around a couple of thickly crowded park blocks, admiring each other and holding up signs that say things like, “You’re Beautiful,” “You Are Valued,” “You Are Loved.” There were many political signs: “Dump Trump,” “Trans Liberation Not U.S. Occupation,” “Queers Demand Demilitarization,” “Abolish Prison Slavery,” and so on. There was a sign-making table, and one little girl around six years old decorated a sign with flowers, stars, and hearts and wrote, “Let People Be They/Them.” There's a lovely Extra, if you can see it.

There were people in flamboyant costumes, people in everyday clothing for whatever gender is right for to them, people with flags draped over their shoulders, glitter paint on their faces, fancifully-dyed hair, wigs, piercings. It was a creative extravaganza, a chance to admire and be admired. No corporate sponsors. It was people celebrating their right to be who and how they are, listening to a few speakers offer tributes to Trans people who have been murdered. The police seldom find anyone responsible for the deaths of transgender people. The murderers remain free and may murder again. Heartbreaking. Most of the deaths are Black Transwomen. There were moments of silence, there were tears, and then celebration resumed. My guess is that there were about two thousand, give or take a couple of hundred.

Police were not invited. There were community defense people present, but fortunately there were no haters, no threats, no counter-demonstrators, no incidents, as far as I saw. 


If you’d like to see more photos and can access Facebook, and if the link works, which I can't get it to do, I have made two albums, one of portraits and one of the march.