Summing up Pride

Trip Start May 19, 2009

Trip End Jun 16, 2009

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Flag of Israel Tel Aviv, Israel
Sunday, June 14, 2009

I've tried several times to write about Tel Aviv Pride and I just can’t find the words. But I have so many great photos that I thought I would try again in a pre-caffeinated state (less editing, more writing).

The clerk at Sexy Shop (billed as a sex store where the clerks know everything that is going on in gay Tel Aviv) had told us that we should march in the parade as it’s very important and it will be short—only 20 minutes or so because it is so hot here.

Our other information about Pride was that it’s a huge citywide celebration and gets the entire city dancing.

The reality was, of course, somewhere in between, though I think the official city marketing of the event was a bit more in line with the actual event than the "20 minutes" info from Sexy Shop

Drag Queen Librarian

. Perhaps getting information from a shop where they have a back room and glory holes wasn’t the brightest idea we had, but the guide map did say that we could get information there. I think “20 minutes” might have been code for the maximum time we were supposed to stay in the back room. Since I’m a front room kind of guy, we didn’t explore behind that curtain.

One more source of information: the day’s events were mapped out as “The Happening” starting at 10 AM at the park, the parade starting at 1:00 PM, and the events at the beach party starting at 3:00 PM.

Not knowing exactly what to expect, we prepped for a full day out of the house like we would for Pride in Seattle. Water bottle, sunscreen, cameras. Check check check. Rich wore his bathing suit under his shorts just in case the beach party turned into a swim party.

A quick note about Tel Aviv: we’ve been here 8 days now and have seen the Rainbow flag in almost every neighborhood and, on some streets, at every street pole or on many shops. The mayor has declared the entire month to be Pride month and there are a series of parties and events—both an official schedule of events and spontaneous parties organized online.

So still now knowing whether we were sitting on the sidelines and watching the parade or if it was more like a political march, we went to The Happening in the park. At first, it wasn’t too crowded, but there were booths from the various social services organizations and some early sightings of drag queens

Two bears

. The park quickly filled with people though. Within an hour, it was a mob scene. Wall-to-wall people, though oddly, no major indicators still that it was going to be a parade. People weren’t organizing into groups, there didn’t seem to be any effort made to stage the parade floats or groups into any kind of order, announcements from the stage were that it would be starting soon, but they gave no other directions. We happily snapped photos and either tried for candids or asked people to pose. The Seattle Gay News asked Rich if he could provide photos and write up an article about the Parade, so Rich felt a little more compelled to try for a cross-section of attendees rather than just the photos he wanted.

Around 1:00 PM, with still no sign that the people in the park would be marching in the imminent parade, we cut over to the parade route and found a spot in the shade. At the front of the parade staging area, we found Dykes on Bikes (or since this is Tel Aviv, really Dykes on Scooters). Ah, it’s nice to be on familiar ground. Dykes on Bikes are usually the first group in pride parades (they usually help clear the parade route by biking up and down signaling the start of the parade). Here, the police cleared the road, sort of. People walked back out into the street almost immediately.

It turns out that Pride is both a parade and a march. In this country where it is important to show yourself and be counted, people both watch and march. Which is what we did. We watched for a while, and then we joined in and marched along with everybody else. At one point, one of the drag queens making a speech at the park had thanked all the foreign tourists who came for Pride. We were included! We were counted! And maybe we made a difference!

(Just a quick note on the beach end of things: if you like loud house music, then you would have enjoyed the beach party. For us, it was a little overwhelming. But the party at the beach went on for hours and, in my mind, the music never varied.)