I did not think it then but looking back now that was a huge shift. We were used to the press picking up on the more provocative sights of the Parade, but there were kids watching now and since public nudity is, well, you know, frowned upon, we began to debate what was appropriate behavior the one thing that struck me was that there WERE kids and families watching. We have survived and we are still here.' I was there when the guy on stilts wearing nothing but a kilt flashed the crowd and caused a scandal. I was there when a well-meaning group from ACTUP the AIDS Awareness group started by Larry Kramer yelled at us 'Thousands dead what are you celebrating?'Īll I could think of was 'That we are still here. I was there when the March (now a Parade) got too big and city officials tried to end it early but we walked right through and past the police cars blocking Arlington Street.
I also remember people covering their face because they feared reprisals at home or in the workplace. I remember feeling emboldened by the simple fact of being in a crowd of gay people that large marching down the streets of Boston. It was called a 'March' back then and did indeed have a more in-your-face, political feel to it. It was about a decade after the 1st Boston Gay Pride March in 1971, which commemorated The Stonewall Riots in NYC a few years before. My first Pride was probably somewhere in 1982-1983.
