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Welcome to San Francisco Pride Week!

By Cecilia Chung

“Queerific? Yeah Baby, We’ve Come A Long Way!”

What kind of theme is that? What does it mean? Why can’t we have a regular theme like everyone else does? When I was writing this article, these were the same questions that came up over and over again. I have come to this decision: I will try not to justify but to speak to the process which, I believe, is relevant to the selection of this year’s theme.

Historically, the word “queer” has been a term of hatred and abuse. It has been used as a weapon against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders — in short, against anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into the rigid categories that heterosexuality depends upon. More recently, however, “queer” has acquired a positive rather than negative meaning.

For many of us, it’s how we identify — it’s how we think about our communities and ourselves. What does it mean to identify as queer?

It means to occupy a position that stands outside of and questions the rigid rules of society. It means to resist the limiting conceptions of human sexuality that for too long have kept people from living up to their fullest potential. To identify as queer is an assertion of strength and self-determination; it is an assertion of pride in who we are.

Many would agree that Pride is a continuation of the LGBT movements in the 1960s when our predecessors rose and rallied against social oppression. Most of us are familiar with the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969. There was a not-so-well-known incident that happened three years before Stonewall when young San Francisco drag queens, “hair fairies” and hustlers, fed up with police harassment, rioted at Compton’s Cafeteria at the corner of Turk and Taylor Streets. It was this time that marked the beginning of the modern gay liberation movement that has transformed our oppression into calls for pride and action.

Nationwide, the 1970s saw an explosion of gay activism, a growing gay community, the exponential proliferation of gay organizations, and a significant expansion in civil rights for lesbians and gays. Victories in the 1970s included the passage of municipal laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the repeal of sodomy statutes in almost half the states, and the rescinding of the ban on employment of lesbians and gays in the Civil Service. The 1970s also saw the adoption of the pink triangle, once used to identify homosexual prisoners in Nazi Germany, as a popular symbol for the gay rights movement. Today, the pink triangle represents pride and solidarity for many. During the 1980s, the gay rights movement suffered a setback as the AIDS epidemic swept across Europe and North America. In those regions, the disease first occurred mainly among gay men. Although AIDS also occurs among — and is transmitted by — heterosexual men and women, many people blamed the gay community for its spread. The nature of the epidemic changed by the mid-1990s when the FDA approved protease inhibitors to treat the disease. It wasn’t until then that we saw the rekindled sprit of the community, rising once again like the phoenix.

Where are we today?

Although the battle is far from over, the community has never been so visibly diverse. The gay and lesbian movement has finally matured to what has become the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement. San Francisco is setting new standards for LGBT rights generally, and most notably for the transgender community. In addition to the Transgender Civil Rights Task Force, San Francisco may become the first city to extend its medical benefits to cover gender reassignment surgery.

The fruit of this process is a community so diverse that only the word ‘queer’ can encompass all of our sexual and gender preferences. Such power to embrace stigma and to ameliorate it is the true strength and spirit of Pride.

Yes baby, we have come a long way!