Drag Kings, women painting on beards or mustaches, binding their breaststroke and strutting around in suits acting overly manly, extenuating all our collective faults as they see them is a riot!
Drag Queen breakfasts, similar hilarity and such fun...the entertainers and crowds are a riot.
I find it incredible I lived long enough to let loose of some of my old prejudices
Omg...I was bad. Queer, ***, anyone that acted a little in that direction caught a lot of flack and words were tossed around as insults like water.
My first encounters (that I knew of) with actual gay men was in my 20s and I was appalled. But they were friends of friends and I would say it literally took me over a decade to accept their lifestyles as acceptable. I am definitely still a work in progress.
I have always been a hugger. I hug friends, male or female, and gravitate to groups that hug. Hugging a gay guy was a challenge at first...my notions of sexuality were challenged. But I also realized how my platonic hugs with not so normally hugging females might feel towards me.
Yes, hugging gay guys made me more aware, more considerate of others feelings when I hugged them. Truth be known, I still have some quietness around overt gay public displays of affection...yet totally understand that they are surrounded by hetero PDAs all day everyday. (It is sort of like folks complaining about a war on Christmas with Christmas songs in every store and wreaths on every lamp pole in town paid by taxes, and blinks lights in half the houses. (Of course now we see the occasional blue star of David and blow up Menorah) I guess they are the occasional gay couple amongst the plethora of m/f couples...yet everyone sees and points out that
Pride, I am proud that the kids can be proud.
PRIDE, we've, I've come a long way since Stonewall... I was 12 then and bathed in bigotry and prejudice... I am older than that now.
But still a work in progress!
