PRIDE Heeeeeeey, Happy Prode, everybody! Party Radar’s been on a wee hiatus while I finish this crazy book, sorry. I miss getting nuts on the dance floor and/or bathroom stall with you! The book is a history of protest in the US for young people, which, surprise, happens to also tie into this year’s big Pride celebration theme, on the 50th anniversary of Stonewall—Generations of Resistance.
Yes, we still live in a time of online #resistance, which is fine. But honestly, we need to get out of the group chats and into the streets. There are trans people dying from lack of adequate treatment at the border (and being murdered everywhere else, it seems), and queer people without a home are being actually swept out of sight. Queer youth still face tremendous challenges. And let’s not even get into the mess that is national politics, ew.
And partying can be revolutionary, too. As Melissa Hawkins’ awesome recent show of queer club photography from the 1980s and ’90s at the GLBT History Museum pointed out, AIDS activism was based in nightclubs and bars, in communicating face to face, in meeting one another, dancing together, and making a plan.