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June Special: An Early 80s PRIDE
🕑 Added 2024-06-10 00:27:12 +0000 UTCLil' Clem attends a PRIDE march over 40 years ago with Alsesta, Franzie, Dandy and Barton. As you can imagine, PRIDE in the 80s was far different from what we see during June today. The AIDS crisis was new, terrifying and considered an actual joke by the government. The rainbow flag was employed as a symbol of queer solidarity, but only recently, having been first popularized in the late 70s. Corporate sponsorship was essentially nonexistent, with the possible exception of some alcoholic drink brands: LGBTQ communities came together primarily in the bar circuit, under the cover of darkness. Even when yours truly was a youngblood in the early 2000s, you and your queer friends would meet up to dance and commiserate in smoky, smoky night clubs and underground drag bars.
In the 80s and earlier, queer liberation marches would have been highly community driven, pretty much commercial free, and distressingly likely to be broken up by local authorities. The idea of a bunch of dykes and fags getting a permit to march down a city street was a brand new and largely horrifying concept. You probably didn't necessarily bring your little kids for a picnic, either, but where Alsesta goes, so goes Clem.
Oh shit, where's Franzie? Off demonstrating that she didn't escape Hitler just to be told how the fuck to live and whom to love, that's where.
When We Fly (c)Kae
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwVuJKS4WrE
Comments
Must Love Frogs
Tell it!!
Jonathan
The bigots will not win. We WILL not stop against their BS hate.
Must Love Frogs
The fact that we were doing so well and are now going backwards makes me physically ill. But pushback won't stop us.
Must Love Frogs
Great questions! Dandy and Barton are no longer with us, but they did live long and full lives; they just didn't make it as long as Alsesta and Franzie, who are currently in their 80s/90s. As for the inverted pink triangle, that's a very interesting bit of history. Originally the nazis used the pink triangle to identify queer people in the ghettos and concentration camps. It was a very terrifying and negative symbol to be sure. A few decades later, queer people reclaimed the symbol by inverting it, and wearing it as a symbol of power and resilience. In media: If you've ever seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Frank N Furter briefly wears a pink triangle on his medical scrubs.
Jonathan
It's come a long way... but there's still SO far to go.
WeirdAsIzzie
It's lovely to see Bart and Dandy again, I hope we get to see more of them! Are they still around present day? Also, sorry if this is a stupid question, but how long has the pink triangle been used as a queer symbol? I'm quite young (just turned 20), so a lot of the older, original flags and symbols I've only found out about in the past few years and it's really interesting reading up on this stuff.
Archibald Mirenopteryx
Franzie taking names and kicking ass like the Holocaust survivor she is. After facing down the Gestapo and the SS, little wonder that some punk wouldn't scare her. Teenage me would have worshipped at Franzie's feet. If she wasn't a member of ACT UP, I'll eat my hat.
Jose Rosa
It's more silly string these days, but Franzie will still spray a punk.
Must Love Frogs
A piglet's favorite guncles!
Badguy101
Franzie going full gremlin mode. Also, Dandy and Barton, yay!
