As small and localized as it is in the grand scheme of a chaotic world, I live near some prime terrain for political demonstrations in my area, which I sometimes attend and some of those sometimes photograph. I also live not too far from a prevalent parade path, particularly for Pride, which is held every year around the beginning of June when the weather can be sweltering mugginess or shivering rain, but sometimes (if we're lucky) between those two. I've attended nearly every local Pride parade since 2006 and photographed many of them. (You would think people would run out of ideas by now, but I guess there is no limit to a queer imagination; the corporate floats, however, keep handing out the same free shit year after year.)
These types of events are similar and different. As much as Pride is supposed to be about protest, nobody here has quite figured out so far how to get the funding for their events without the two mythical overlords of this artificial nation, Big Telecom and Big Banks, being invited; and how would we get the numbers we do if all of their cishet employees didn't volunteer to march in their floats?
While protests can certainly spark a good time (or at least did in the days when I had the time to pursue the hobby of ideas, ideals, and ideology), such fun has been dampened in recent years by fauxppressed fascists - the ones who like to terrorize neighbourhoods that are not theirs with weeks-long noise pollution and weapons on wheels, with edgelord stickers of upside-down maple leafs saying "F*** TRUDEAU" as if that's transmitting any intelligible message of their principles.
But sometimes, when we're lucky, pride and protests come together and show up to outshine anti-queer bullshit that claims "FaMiLy VaLuEs" and "pArEnTaL rIgHtS" are under threat because we're starting to listen to children with open hearts. These are photographs from some of these events, with shining smiles when that's the point, or fudged faces when a sign says it all (and nobody needs to know who was holding it). There is so much more that has happened than I've documented, both what I've been there for and what I've heard or seen from a ways away as I live my life within my limits; but I hope you can enjoy the visuals of what's available, and perhaps one day I'll Write Things about even more.
