A Tale of Two Gay Pride Parades

Kaileigh and I have a tradition.  I started taking her to the Gay Pride parades in Houston when she was little bitty.  Jill joined us for several years, and the twins came with us a few years back here in Austin.  But mostly it's been Kaileigh and me.

The Pride Parade is much different in Austin than in Houston.  I still remember taking her to her first parade in Houston and a 5 year old Kaileigh asking me "Daddy, why do those women have beards?"  And "what's a foam party?" 

We loved the shwag they threw, from the beads to the t-shirts to the glowy things to the condoms.  Well, not so much the condoms.  I confiscated them from her when she was five.

Interestingly, this year I gave the ones I got to her.  As did the nice lesbian couple standing next to us, telling us "what the hell would we use them for?"

But besides getting a pile of condoms from lesbians, the Austin parade was unremarkable.  We got a few beads and a beach ball from Chase Bank. The "floats" were basically a bunch of employee and church groups walking together.  And some lesbians bikers.


United Methodist Church supports our gay and lesbian members!

Proud gay employees of Home Depot!

Bisexual and transgendered Baristas!

More power to them.  But where are the singing transsexuals?  The dancing men covered in oil?  The large hairy men in dresses? They're in Houston, that's where.  At foam parties (although I still don't really know what those are).

We'll continue to go and support our friends, neighbors, and gay bankers.  But I will continue to hope that they make the Austin parade a little more fabulous.