Long Beach, California – 2018 Pride! by Marie Cartier

Last year I published a photo essay with pictures of Long Beach, CA’s Pride week-end. You can see last year’s photo essay here. I also published a photo essay of the Los Angeles Resist March from last year here.

It feels more important than ever to re-member/ re-attach ourselves to the normality of resistance, freedom, solidarity, courage and joy. I hope the pictures here help you FAR family to re-member your activist selves and re-invigorate them if they are in need of it. I know mine was before the past week-end. Here are photos from the Long Beach Dyke March on Friday night, and the Long Beach Gay Pride parade on Sunday morning.

I re-attach myself to my activist self; to the self that knows change comes from the growth of those seeds that they buried. The Greek poet, Dinos Christianopoulos, was the first to write homoerotic poetry in the early ’50s, writing, “They tried to bury us; they did not know we were seeds.”

The LGBTQ+ community can not be deterred, despite the best efforts of those who would squash us. We belong; we grow; we thrive; we love.

As we screamed during ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in the 90s, “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.”

Note: And if you’d like more photos of Long Beach, CA pride– you can check the photo essay here published in the Long Beach Post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marie Cartier has a Ph.D. in Religion with an emphasis on Women and Religion from Claremont Graduate University.  She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall (Routledge 2013). She is a senior lecturer in Gender and Women’s Studies and Queer Studies at California State University Northridge, and in Film Studies at Univ. of CA Irvine.