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Keeping our pride: Kevin Hauswirth talks with some friends about what pride means for Generation Q.


I was 17 when I wandered out of the burbs and into my first pride parade in Chicago. I remember it clearly: Seeing that man with his hands lost Hands lost was the second statistic to be commonly recorded in baseball, was the number of times a player was called out. By the late 1850s, this statistic was almost always seen with runs in the NABBP. References
  • Wright, Marshall. D.
 in another guy's pants, hearing catcalls cat·call  
n.
A harsh or shrill call or whistle expressing derision or disapproval.

v. cat·called, cat·call·ing, cat·calls

v.tr.
To express derision or disapproval of with catcalls.

v.
 from older men. And how can I forget the man with the words DO ME shaved into his back?

Now, as a more worldly 22-year-old, I get the message--our community is diverse. But I wonder, Is humping Humping could refer to:
  • sorting rail cars in a classification yard
  • a sexual activity
 in public ever OK?

Maria Verdos-Petrou, a queer 19-year-old, remembers battling the heat during her first pride parade in Chicago as she and her friends grabbed as many candies, beads, and condoms as they could hold. For her, it wasn't about activism or the fight for equality. It was a time to come together as a community and have fun. Then again, Verdos-Petrou was just 9 years old at the time.

For many GenQers, their pride isn't much different than Maria's was 10 years ago--just add booze Booze

sold cheap whiskey in a log-cabin bottle. [Am. Hist.: Espy, 152–153]

See : Drunkenness
, a couple of hookups, and enjoy. "I see many of my peers just going to hook up," says Verdos-Petrou, who served as president of one of Chicago's first gay-straight alliances. "They don't understand the parade's importance."

But Jessie Avilez, 18, and his friends just come to Chicago's pride festival to have fun. "We're surrounded by heteros all the time," says Avilez. "This is our day to be as gay as we want to."

Brett Wobbe, 21, came to Chicago from a small Illinois town southeast of metropolitan St. Louis and considers the pride parade "a rite of passage rite of passage
n.
A ritual or ceremony signifying an event in a person's life indicative of a transition from one stage to another, as from adolescence to adulthood.
" for young gays. He refers to his first pride as the "the inauguration INAUGURATION. This word was applied by the Romans to the ceremony of dedicating some temple, or raising some man to the priesthood, after the augurs had been consulted. It was afterwards applied to the installation (q.v.  of my out life" and is encouraged by the large number of straight allies The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page.
 and politicians who take part every year.

Personally, I have a gay uncle who told me that in the '70s and '80s a pride celebration wasn't just a time to be out in the community; it was a time to rally and fight for change. By the late '80s HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States.  was hitting the community hard and the fight for gay rights was on. The message then: "We're here, we're queer."

So what's our generation's message? Thanks to the activism of earlier generations, people know we're here. We're coming out earlier and facing less adversity. So let's get the party started, right?

Wrong, say Verdos-Petrou and Wobbe. The struggle for gay rights is far from over. If we don't want our pride to become a mere circuit party, we need to rally around the issues of our generation, and we need to do it in a positive way. "The parade puts us under a microscope," says Verdos-Petrou.

And pride, she adds, "shouldn't start and stop during the parade. Pride needs to take place 365 days a year."
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No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
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Title Annotation:THE ADVOCATE GEN Q
Author:Hauswirth, Kevin
Publication:The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)
Date:Jun 20, 2006
Words:460
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Next Article:Witchy woman.(GEN Q)



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