With my wife being out of town for the weekend to attend a baby shower for her nephew and his new wife, I was presented with a couple of days of unfettered, full-on immersion "quality" Leslie time. And with this Sunday having been the designated day for the annual Toronto Pride Parade - one of the biggest in the world (actually, it had morphed into Pride Month this year with all of the related side activities) - well, need I say more?...... time for "Leslie" to be there and lend her support.
That said, and with attendance numbers having been in the 1 million person range along the entire parade route for some years now, I wisely decided to take the subway into the downtown core rather than driving there from the 'burbs as traffic and the attendant gridlock were bound to be a major feature of this event yet again this year. Even better, this was going to be another test of "Leslie's" ability to blend in, except that in this case, it promised to be a really up-close-and-personal experience depending on how crowded the subway was going to be. This had always been a bit of a fantasy of mine - to see if I could successfully pull something like this off - having already mastered the challenge of being out and about en femme for a number of years now, and interacting with SA's as well as the general public without ever experiencing any adverse reactions.
Well, as it turned out - and despite some initial jitters and second thoughts on my part - this ended up being a total non-event. No one gave me a second look as most people were preoccupied with either staring at their smartphones, chatting amongst themselves, or in some cases nodding off aided by the rhythmic motion of the subway cars. I had obviously blended in seamlessly - so much so that a young man actually got up at one point and offered me his seat. This is something that I never expected, and it totally blew my mind! And if that isn't validation, I don't know what is.
The parade itself was also a stunning event and stripped to its essence, it was simply a huge, raucous, happy party celebrating diversity of all types along with plenty of interaction between the crowd and the marchers. Having watched it on television in the past, to experience it live and in real time doesn't even remotely compare. Feeling the energy of the crowd first hand, seeing their overwhelming support for the LGBT community as well as their heart-felt honouring of the victims of the Orlando massacre, as well as seeing people openly being themselves in such huge numbers - it was truly a life-altering experience, and suddenly I no longer felt as isolated and as marginalized as I sometimes do. Of course, the fact that our federal leader Justin Trudeau also made an appearance at the Toronto Pride Parade - the first time by a sitting Prime minister - alongside the Premier of Ontario as well as the Mayor of Toronto didn't hurt either.
But best of all, the climax to the whole Pride parade had been a last-minute announcement that drag icon RuPaul would be making a surprise appearance to cap off the event. Sure enough, at the end of the festivities, he (I say "he" because he appeared in drab) appeared on the main stage and gave what I consider to be an extraordinary and highly inspirational speech that was directed mainly at the young people in the crowd. In it, he acknowledged just how far the LGBT community has come in the last few years while at the same time warning that there was still much work to be done to gain full and unconditional acceptance. In making these points, he drew heavily on personal experiences, and in many ways reiterated to the young people the "It gets better" theme first forwarded by sex and relationship columnist Dan Savage some years ago. Hearing the crowd periodically roar its approval and agreement as RuPaul made his various points was most moving, and nearly brought tears to my eyes.
All in all, a most momentous day for me in many respects, and one that I will cherish for some time to come.
