After the party: it's fun to dance in the sun with thousands of brothers and sisters. But will we show up for our cause when we go home?

For queer writers of the early 20th century, the passionate cry of the heart was, See us! "Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world," prays the lesbian heroine of Radclyffe Hall's 1928 melodrama The Well of Loneliness--just before the lesbian dies, having ditched her lover in order to give her a chance at "normal" happiness. We wonder what Hall, E.M. Forster, and the rest would have made of the massive "queer spring break" parties that ushered in April in Palm Springs, Calif.

These days queer tourist dollars are an essential part of Palm Springs's economy. Covering the 2007 Dinah Shore Weekend, reporters from this magazine met women from France, Holland, Ireland, and Eastern Europe. Concierges, chambermaids, bus drivers, restaurant servers--all were friendly, hospitable, and unfazed by the sexual makeup of the crowd. (This may reflect the fact that Palm Springs has hosted the gay men's White Party even longer than it has the Dinah---or the fact that Palm Springs itself is a paradise for gay men and women of a certain age.)

This year the Dinah was expected to host some 10,000 gay women, according to a supportive and photo-heavy story in The New York Times. And the Dinah is still the little sister of the White Party, which has grown every one of the 18 years it's been presented.

The Desert Sun newspaper reported on April 9 that an estimated 25,000 men attended the four-day festival of pool parties, night dances, and after-parties. City officials quoted in the story expected that the men would bring in $1 million in hotel taxes alone. There's no doubt that gays and lesbians are now acknowledged "before the whole world." Yet we wonder if Hall and Forster and their contemporaries would be entirely pleased at how we have handled the visibility they imagined for us.

Getting 35,000 people--gays, lesbians, or anybody else--to a celebration in the sun is a lot easier than convening the same number to get out the vote or march for marriage equality. But remembering the battle of queer people who simply dreamed of being seen, we can't take the for granted. When the party's over, there's still a world of work to be done.