Pride Postmortem: Did We Succeed?

By all quantitative measures, North Jersey Pride accomplished a lot this year. We accumulated more than 4,500 fans on Facebook inside of three months. We expanded from one day to a full week of Pride events. We had 40-plus sponsors, more than 85 vendors, and a host of supportive ads in the North Jersey Pride Guide. An estimated 3,000 people attended the Pride Festival in Memorial Park, representing more than 500% growth over last year.

Those numbers are gratifying. But to me, they are not the most significant measure of North Jersey Pride’s success this year.

In the small Orthodox Jewish suburban town where I was born and raised, there was no such thing as gay. The only reference to being “like that” was when a grownup called somebody a faygele, which is the Yiddish equivalent of “light in the loafers.” I didn’t understand it exactly, but I got from the inflection that it was most definitely not a compliment.

As a teenager, I still had no real proof that gay people existed, other than the occasional negative image in media. I attended Yeshiva University High School for Girls, which was actually situated in bustling midtown Manhattan, but we were shuttled door-to-door by van and, for all the access to cosmopolitan culture, the school may as well have been an island in the Dead Sea. By some impossible miracle, I came upon a copy of the Village Voice and found references to a gay community. I remember sitting on the floor of my closet on Friday nights, reading the women-seeking-women ads by a single dim lightbulb. (We did not use electricity on the Sabbath. And yes, I do see the irony that I was discovering my sexual orientation in a closet.) Of course, I had no intention of answering any of the ads, but reading them was reassuring because it meant those women existed. And that meant that perhaps I existed, too.

It’s incredibly challenging to explain the pain of invisibility to members of a majority. In many ways, to not be able to see your own reflection is even worse than the slurs and stereotypes. Today, LGBT kids are coming out to themselves earlier than they ever have. The average age of self-awareness has dropped from mid-20s for my generation to mid-teens for the Millennials and younger. But because LGBT individuals and families still lack fundamental civil rights in our country, because politicians and religious leaders openly vilify the LGBT community, because anti-gay slurs are still commonly used by university coaches, professional athletes, police officers and on every social media platform, because parents disown their own children, LGBT kids still have trouble steeling themselves against shame and nurturing a sense of pride in themselves. As a result, suicide among queer youth remains an epidemic in this country.  

We need to be their mirror. LGBT children need to see themselves reflected back in strong images that are loving and positive. I saw the power of that myself at Mayfest, an outdoor festival that was held in Maplewood on Springfield Avenue last month. Several times during the day, our North Jersey Pride table was approached by nervous, hopeful middle-schoolers who perused our flyers and T-shirts and wanted to know more about us. I’ll be honest—having lived through decades of portrayal of gays and lesbians as predators, I am skittish about saying anything to anyone under age 16 about Pride. But one of the boys who approached us, around 11 or 12, had tears in his eyes when I told him we were having a festival for LGBT people and their allies in Maplewood. I gave him a flyer to show his parents and let him know it would be family-friendly. He folded it up tightly and put it in his pocket. He lingered for a few moments and I had the very strong sense he wanted to say more, and couldn’t. But our being there at that table was enough. Our presence sent the message: You exist, you are not alone, and you are welcome just as you are. 

To me, those small moments are the measure of our success. If just one straight person who was previously on the fence about marriage equality changed his or her view. If just one ally was motivated to call or write to a legislator demanding support for marriage equality or chose to donate to an organization like HMI: Newark, the Tyler Clementi Foundation or Triad House. If one child of same-sex parents felt like a member of the majority for one day. If just one young LGBT person looked out over the lawn in Memorial Park, saw the crowds of people celebrating equality and diversity, and thought, I do exist. I'm not alone. I’m okay just as I am. That would make all the hard work and the tireless efforts of our volunteers worthwhile. It would mean we succeeded.

I think we did succeed. And I can’t wait til next year.

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North Jersey Pride will be hosting events throughout the year, but here are five things you can do right now to keep the Pride going: 

1) Sign up for North Jersey Pride email updates. We will never share your contact info and will only update you with important news about upcoming events. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

2) Download our 2013 North Jersey Pride Guide and learn more about marriage equality and about the organizations helping our youth.

3) Give a little more this year to organizations like the Tyler Clementi Foundation, HMI: Newark and the Triad House. If you like what North Jersey Pride is doing, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to help us run our events.

4) Find out how your legislators voted in the 2012 marriage equality election. If they voted no, let them know what this issue means to you and ask them to change their vote. If they voted yes, show your support with a quick thank-you. 

5) Talk to us. What does North Jersey Pride mean to you? Drop us a note at info@northjerseypride.org.

Oh, and mark your calendars now: North Jersey Pride 2014 will take place on Sunday, June 8th. It's gonna be big.

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