"Happy Pride!" We say as a greeting around this time of the year. It's an easy and nice way to greet someone and show that we are more or less on the same side.

But what does Happy Pride mean to you?

We might have collective answers, we might not. You might have one, you might not. You might not even think it's a question worth asking. It's all up to you. Here is my attempt for an answer from my perspective and experience.

Around this time last year, I was handing out condoms by the API pavilion at SF Pride. After a night of an extreme sport called drinking, I was somehow all alive walking in the parade, and later in the day I was volunteering for my Queer API youth group, AQU25A, handing out flyers, condoms, lubes and some other stuff. I walked through the crowd of Queer API folks with a tray full of the free shit. The free stuff would be gone and out in a blinking moment. I got hit on by Queer API men of various ages. I ran into so many of my friends, acquaintances, and fellow community organizers because so many of my friends are Queer and Queer-friendly API folks. It was this feeling that I belong to a certain community that made my Happy Pride. I was blessed and privileged to feel that I have a community to belong to, regardless of the critical questions I ask on a daily basis about my "community" and answers that I may or may not find or be given.

Among the people––my people were those who I had had sexual encounters with. It was weird to realize that a lot of my ex-whatevers were all within the small area of the API pavilion, which was a relatively small part of bigger SF Pride 2008. I also realized how "connected" we are to each other by sexual relationships. My ex-whatevers probably had several ex-whatevers attending Pride, and some of their ex-whatevers must also have been all there. And we would find each other among the crowds of ex-whatevers to become whatever to each other. We are so connected to each other. It's a small world, really. I don't know all the ex-whatevers of all my ex-whatevers. One or a few of them could be HIV positive. One of them or I could be affected by the epidemic. But we can still love each other. It's more about love, communication, and empowerment than "protecting" and "preventing."

If Pride were to be everyday ideology, Happy Pride should be an everyday celebration of who we are and who we love. May the tools for love be there: condom, lube, or anything else. May the words of love be there: questions, affirmation, negotiation, or anything else. Because I love you, YOU, I would love you to be as physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy and equipped as possible at all times. Because I love you, YOU, I would love you to be able to love yourself.

Yes, we are connected, in good and "bad" ways. We are close to each other, in good and "bad" ways. And it's okay. We don't have to deny our experiences to be "healthy" in a way the government defines who is healthy and who isn't. We can love each other, and I believe we do love each other. And I think that's what it makes Happy Pride.

So Happy Pride to me, you and us. Let's learn together to create and use the tools and words that help us love each other.


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Some tools:
http://www.sexetc.org/
http://www.apiwellness.org/
http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/
http://sextextsf.org
http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo/
ask me for more!