The Groovy Like A Movie studio came to the Wedding Expo at the Center in San Diego to interview people for a project called 30 Years of Pride on May 17, 2004, and I was one of the people they interviewed that night. The studio gave me permission to share this on YouTube, and since I can now post longer videos to YouTube, I’m posting the original video with only a couple of minutes trimmed off here and there.

It is timely that I am publishing this video on the day of Phoenix Pride’s 15th anniversary. Thirty years of pride for fifteen years of pride. This is the beginning of the pride parade season, so it is timely. I hope that it inspires, educates, informs, and entertains.

I’ve always been just a little bit of an activist. I wrote research papers in high school about the Nazi extermination of gays and about the Stonewall riots when I was only 16 and 17. I really wanted to learn and teach my history.

In 1983, when I was 15, I was in my final sex education class (all about sexually transmitted diseases), and they didn’t teach HIV prevention at all. They said they hadn’t received any training about it and they didn’t have a curriculum. They let me stand up in front of the class and teach my peers everything I knew about the disease and how to avoid contracting it / spreading it. Looking back even now, what I said was correct. Less than five years later, the school district not only had a curriculum to teach HIV prevention; they changed the name of sophomore Sex Ed to something like AIDS and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

I never make a secret of the fact that I love men and chose to spend the rest of my life with one. My husband and I hold hands wherever we go. We enjoy it, and it’s the least we can do to keep pushing the envelope in all sectors of society. We’re here, we’re queer, enjoy it!

I am thrilled to be a part of this. My Flickr friend, Jon Gilbert Leavitt (jglsongs on Flickr), asked if he could use my photo Rainbow Flag Above Me in this video to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first gay pride parade that occurred after the Stonewall Rebellion. A longtime gay activist of sorts, I wrote a paper on the Stonewall Rebellion for a history class in my senior year of high school in 1985. Now, 24 years later, I’m contributing again to the commemoration of this important historic event. Enjoy the video and the song written by Jon and sung by his partner and another artist. Watch for my photo in the montage near the end.

I thought I’d put out some feelers at about 7 PM (#evfn started at 6), so I sent three @replies to people I know at least a little bit. None of them responded to my messages. This was when I began to imagine myself a social outcast. I thought, “They’re having too much fun to bother answering me,” or worse, “They’re having too much fun hanging out with the cool kids and they don’t want me to come and spoil their fun.” I hate it when I get like that. It could be something as simple as they don’t have their mobile devices set up to alert them to @replies right away; it could be that I should have sent them Direct Messages. In fact, when I finally did send someone a Direct Message, he responded. But by that time, it was already 7:45, the Tweetup was officially over at 8, and even though Evo said it might run long, I was afraid I would show up just as everyone was leaving and feel like the biggest loser for driving all the way out there for nothing.

By the way, I didn’t even notice the “end time” on the Upcoming event page until about 7:30. By that time, I was kicking myself, saying “I should have just driven out there at 6:45.” It’s ironic that the event description specifically says, “yes, you are invited.” Perhaps they meant that for insecure souls such as mine. Or… maybe they just meant that for the cool kids.

At any rate, I decided to stay home and watch The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with my husband and our two dogs (the dogs don’t watch much, but they sure do cuddle). In the movie, the character played by America Ferrera of Ugly Betty fame says to an erstwhile friend, “You reminded me that no one can diminish you but yourself, so thank you.” This is a lesson I’ve learned before, but oh do I have to learn it again and again! It seems old wounds are hard to heal.

So, let’s look on the bright side: someone did respond to me when I sent him a Direct Message, so apparently that’s a better way to get someone’s attention on Twitter. Check! The whole oh-my-god-i’m-a-social-pariah thing was probably all in my head. Check! I shall let no one diminish me, especially myself. Check! And, last but not least, there’s another #evfn next week! This time, I’ll just go and get there when it starts and skip all the drama. Whew!