The First Time I (almost) Went to Pride

As Pride Month comes to a close, I’ve had the realization that I’ve perhaps reflected more on Pride and the LGBTQIA+ community this year than I ever really have in the past.  Perhaps it’s a result of getting older (I turned 45 in January).  Perhaps it’s due to seeing, in the same month that celebrates the expansion of rights to traditionally disenfranchised individuals, the rolling back of Women’s Rights by the Supreme Court.  Or perhaps I’m still stirred by the calling to do more as an individual and a professional to contribute – the calling that has lead me to start my firm less than a year ago to focus on expanding access to the service of architecture in lieu of just focusing on designing “cool projects” and “luxury properties”.  

Whatever the reason, this time of reflection and retrospection has led me to better understand my own personal story and struggle to come out and live my own, authentic life, and to continue to acknowledge the struggle that still exists for so many today.

There’s so many stories I could tell about my coming out.  Where I was met with resistance, rejection, and hate, and where I was met with support, acceptance, and love.  I could talk about the challenges of trying to “find myself” after coming out and the unrealistic expectations and standards many hoist or have hoisted upon themselves; the emotional toil of navigating a new topsy-turvy reality where each day is spent assessing who may be an ally and who is not, which situations are safe and which are not, and when it’s okay to let you guard down (as a white gay man I knew too that I had certain advantages that others didn’t – I didn’t already have any “strikes against me” and could “butch it up” as needed – a reality that was never lost on me).

But the story I want to tell today, on this last day of Pride, is of the first time that I went to Pride…well, sort of.  The operative word here is “went” rather than “attended”.  That’s because the first time that I went to a Pride Festival, soon after coming out while living in Norfolk, VA in 2001, I drove all the way to the park where the festival was being held, but was so filled with apprehension and fear and an inability to truly accept myself and be okay being “out and proud” that I never got out of my car.  In fact, if memory serves, I never even stopped the car, but just drove through the parking lot and kept on going.  I recall my drive back home and being filled with a mix of shame and regret, and trying to see the silver lining that I’d at least tried to go in the first place.

It’s crazy for me to look back today, as an out and proud queer man, new husband, and small-business owner, and imagine a time that I was ever that unconfident about who I really was and so fearful of who might see me and what they might think that I couldn’t park and get out of that car.  The reality, of course, is that I wasn’t ready then – and neither was my reality.

So why am I sharing this, and why now?  

Part of the reason that coming out while living in Norfolk was so difficult is because I worked in an environment where I would not have been comfortable had I been honest about who I was.  I had a boss at the time that routinely made derogatory jokes and comments about queer people (I specifically recall on at least one occassion where he quipped that there should be a website that tracked all the “gay architects”).  I brought that fear about the workplace with me here to DC, but was very fortunate to have an accepting boss that didn’t blink an eye when I came out to him (asking if I could bring my then boyfriend to our holiday get together).  This was a powerful lesson to me about the role we play in our profession to be open and accepting.  It also serves as a reminder that we never know what sort of things our colleagues may be going through.  

I was fortunate to move to DC when I did, to a city where there was greater acceptance for being gay, and it’s not lost on me that there are still many areas in the US today where this is not the case.  But we have also witnessed the continued need to expand our circles of acceptance and create greater opportunities in our profession and communities.  Within the last few years we’ve seen folks within the gay and lesbian community flinch when more colors, representative of this need for greater acceptance, were added to the pride flag.  We’ve seen our trans and non-binary community protest for their rights at Pride.  We’ve seen countless injustices against the BIPOC community and immigrant communities.  We’ve seen “bathroom bills”, anti-trans health and anti-trans athlete legislation, and a “Don’t Say Gay” bill.  We’ve seen books banned and barriers to objective education erected. And just this past week we’ve witnessed restrictions on the rights of women.  

"Whoever you are, wherever you are...there are always ways to gear your work towards progressive, radical transformation."

~Angela Davis

This all signals to me the importance of remembering how we got to where we are today.  For those of us that have found self-acceptance and success, it means that we must not pull up the ladder behind us, but must fight as fervently for the rights of others.  It means creating more opportunities and increasing the voices and viewpoints of our profession.  And we must do this genuinely…visibly speaking about and working towards inclusion and equity.

I’m inspired by the words of Angela Davis, who said “Whoever you are, wherever you are...there are always ways to gear your work towards progressive, radical transformation.”  As an architect, I can be an advocate for and agent of change in the profession and in the communities that I serve.  We all can…and must.

Thanks to that first Pride, and the many that I’ve actually attended since then, it’s given me a perspective that I needed and that, had I not gone through the process of accepting myself and coming out, that I fear that I’d never have gained: That we are all capable of so much, but only if we allow the potential in ourselves and each other to be recognized and realized and have an opportunity to shine.

Happy Pride!