I'm going to start by acknowledging the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision. I have many many thoughts and many many feelings that I'll get to later in this post.
But first, a personal story. Because when on this blog do I shirk enormous political events to talk about myself? All day, every day. Responsibility. But my personal story is enormously relevant to the pride events this weekend both in Chicago and across the nation and I will address it, I promise. So I'm not being incredibly self involved, I'm being relatable. Anyway, we go.
As frustrated red line users and queers across Chicago know, this Sunday we celebrated gay pride with a parade, public intoxication, and shinaniganery. This year I did not take part, but did the only thing gayer than Chicago pride, which is going to suburban Virginia to meet my partner's family!
Wednesday morning Mags and I got up early, boarded a plane, and headed east. Mags had never brought anyone home to Virginia and, having never been in a relationship before, I've been flying by the seat of my pants since January. There was so much new territory to be covered and we were both pretty psyched. I was also crawling out of a weird Nyquil induced slumber because neither of us have great timing with getting sick and meeting parents. It's just a thing with us.
Mags' dad picked us up from the airport and drove us to their house in the burbs. Within 5 minutes I learned where my partner gets their incredible calmness and total lack of what might be considered road rage from. We got home much faster than expected. Upon arrival, Mags' mom hugged Mags, burst into tears, and within five seconds inquired about their mohawk and nose ring. At dinner Mags' dad told us his college tomfoolery and I got to hear about nine embarrassing stories from Mags' childhood. Mag's parents are delightful humans and I really enjoyed meeting and spending time with them. By the end of the night I felt like the meeting of the parents/partner had gone really well. We slept like rocks.
Then we woke up and went to Dinosaur Land.
Easily the pride of Virginia. In middle of nowhere rural Virginia some dude bought like 40 dinosaur replicas and set up what is best called a "theme-yard" to display them. For a mere $6, you can see 1970's replicas of dinosaurs as well as King Kong and A SHARK. Wow. I'm sold. Mags shares my love of reptiles and campy weirdness so this was a win-win. We were definitely the oldest people there and I think its safe to say we had the most fun.
Also, their gift shop was suuuuuper racist. You could get a confederate flag on anything! They sold "figurines" and "black figurines." Ignorant Yankee that I am, I assumed we were done with the Civil War centuries ago. Not the case. For real Virginia, how are you not uncomfortable with that? I mean, the store was staffed exclusively by white people, and only white people were shopping there, so maybe no one thought about how incredibly disrespectful, racist, and backwards the gift shop was? I doubt that. Get your shit together Dinosaur Land gift shop. Stop being a racist bigot.
On a lighter note, we had pie twice that day. Mags probably loves pie more than they love me, and on principle I don't turn down dessert ever, so it's worth noting a two pie day.
That night we looked at old photo albums. I saw Mags' crazy curly hair, cute phases, awkward phases, triplet siblings, etc. It was the most adorable hour of my life and I'm so happy it happened.
The next morning I woke up and Mags was like, "Hey baby, the Supreme Court just passed the marriage equality bill" and I was like "WHAT? I'm so happy and how did I not know they were ruling on this now?" I'm a terrible homo. Anyway. We were super excited and then we drove to Richmond!
After Mags waited out 2 hours of stop and go traffic with the calmness of a yogi, we drove an hour to Richmond to hang out with their lovely friend Dustin. Dustin met us at the parking garage and showed us around Richmond. If you've never been, it's absolutely beautiful.
That night we went to an event celebrating marriage equality at an old theatre called The Byrd. It was a quick, powerful little shindig both celebrating the achievements our community has made in achieving marriage equality, and acknowledging how much work needs to be done particularly in protecting the rights and lives of trans people and people of color within the queer community (more on this later). Then I got basil ice cream and the world was perfect.
From there we got a fancy dinner at an old hotel that was covered in alligators (statues, we were bummed too) that I don't remember the name of. Mags had a hole in the butt of their jeans and I was in short shorts, but luckily for us, Dustin knows what he's doing and steered us in the right direction. Mostly. There was a little bit of wine glass confusion, napkin misplacement, squash blossoms, and a general lack of understanding of anything on the menu, but our waiter was a champ and didn't make fun of us to our faces. Everything tasted like it fell out of heaven.
Then we hit up the gay bars. Richmond has a more hoppin' gay scene than I expected. Chicago's scene is primarily young gay white boys, but Richmond proved more diverse all around. And cheaper. And less rave-y. Go you Richmond. Also, go you jello shots. I had a great time.
The next morning we had brunch at a diner with Dustin and his friend who just happens to be a gay ex-monk. As if Dustin wasn't cool enough to begin with, he's friends with an ex-monk. What a gem of a human.
When we got back to Mags' parent's house we watched their old recital videos. Every requirement of our dance recital drinking game was fulfilled, air bites and all.
Potentially the weirdest part of our trip to northern Virginia was the Franciscan picnic we attended the morning we left for Chicago. Mags' parents warned us ahead of time that the group was conservative and might not be so open to a queer couple, but we thought it would be fun to see what happened so we went anyway.
When we walked up to the pavilion, Mag's dad introduced his kids. Mags' sister Jess found herself in a "go in for a handshake, but receive a hug from an elderly Franciscan" situation. When Mags was introduced, the Franciscan stared at them, gave a quick handshake, and walked off. I got introduced somewhere in there as something other than an offspring.
That was weird so we hung out by the drinks (so much diet soda) and a woman struck up a conversation with us. Mags introduced themself as Vladamir's (code name used for the purpose of this blog) spawn and I introduced myself as Mags' partner. I like the term partner because it doesn't imply a gender role, but signifies that we're together. Sometimes people think that we're married, which is not the case, but once you explain it to people, they get it. Within seconds of introducing myself as Mags' partner, this woman asked if I was their friend. I corrected her, "no, we're dating, I'm their partner." Never mind that we'd been kissing and holding hands in front of everyone for a good half hour. Despite multiple corrections from Mags and me, she continued to refer to me as a friend and it was real weird. Throughout the picnic every time we looked up we were getting stared at and it was super uncomfortable. Mags got really uncomfortable and made a terrorism joke, which went over far better than I could have imagined. But still, we'd reached our conservative Catholic limit, so we spent most of the picnic away from the group.
To be fair, we did talk to some really nice people. A few old guys sat with us and made conversation. That lady who refused to acknowledge our relationship was not outright aggressive. It went better than it could of. Some of these people had apparently never seen a queer before. And now they were seeing two of them kissing each other. So maybe they had some questions. But just a suggestion: if someone makes you uncomfortable, maybe don't stare at them. No one likes being stared at. It's super weird. And if you have a question, asking it in a way that respects that person's privacy and with the knowledge that they can chose to not be a teachable moment, is better than avoiding them.
Exhausted, we said goodbye to Mags' parents and headed to the airport.
It felt so good to be back in Chicago. When we got off the train in Wicker Park, we were in the middle of the pride festivities. Rainbows were everywhere, drunk queers were everywhere. We were exhausted. On our way into an incredibly well stocked Walgreens to grab some snacks this guy gave us some sort of congratulatory nod. Like, "way to go queers, ya'll can get married now! Thanks for representing yo!" All we wanted to do was eat nachos, drink beer, and hole up with the new season of Orange is the New Black like the good, hermity queers that we are.
And that's exactly what we did. And it was so good.
I'm obviously thrilled to pieces that any of my friends who want to get married can get married, regardless of their sexual preferences. What a bullshit prejudice anyway. We're still going to love each other, it's about time we received the same validity as heterosexual couplings. So thank you very much SCOTUS for bringing a basic human right to everyone. You made a lot of people feel acknowledged and loved and a little safer.
However, there is still work to be done. At the celebration in Richmond, Rev. Lacette Cross and Rev. Carolyn J. Mobely read some beautiful vows to rededicate the community to continuing to make the world a better, safer place for LGBTQ people. Their video is worth watching, and only three minutes long, so take a look.
Yeah, I'm done here. They said it beautifuly.
Enjoy your post pride hangovers, congrats America, and have a good week everyone.
Kaitlyn
