SAN JOSE — Rainbow flags, balloons and floats spilled onto the downtown streets Sunday as San Jose’s LGBT community revived its SVPride parade for the first time in years to celebrate just how far it has come.
In a year that saw the U.S. Supreme Court rule in favor of gay marriage, and San Jose’s Rep. Mike Honda go public with his support of his transgender granddaughter, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has reason to be proud.
“I’ve been doing LGBT activism for over 30 years, and this is the first time I’ve sensed people running towards acceptance of LGBT people rather than running away,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager, San Jose’s first openly gay elected official who served as the parade’s grand marshal. “There’s a level of energy and well-being that I’ve just never really sensed before.”
That energy and acceptance was obvious along the parade route, from the straight people cheering from the sidelines to the local politicians waving from fancy cars. The list of corporate sponsors — some of which staffed floats — included Adobe Systems, which is headquartered in San Jose, Alaska Airlines, Wells Fargo, PG&E, Symantec, Wal-Mart, SAP, and the San Jose Earthquakes. Google sent its “Google Gayglers” employees, who rewarded the crowd by handing out cards to redeem 5 gigabytes of free storage. The San Jose Sharks sent mascot Sharkie, who waved a “You Can Play Project” flag, a reference to the “if you can play, you can play” mantra of the organization that supports gay athletes.
“It’s as if people and companies are no longer worried about sponsoring or supporting gay rights,” Yeager said. “Now, if you’re supporting LGBT rights, it means you’re on the right side of history, that you’re progressive. I think the gay rights movement has gotten absorbed by this whole national identity of who we want to be, which is being inclusive.”
Gay loved ones
At the SVPride parade, the first in seven years, inclusion meant supporting the hot-pink-wig-wearing drag queens dancing to “This is a Different Kind of Love Song,” to the lesbian and gay square dancers in rainbow-colored suspenders do-si-doing to the Village People’s gay anthem, “Y.M.C.A.” song.
While the thin and scattered crowd along four blocks of Market Street to the Tech Museum of Innovation was a fraction of the typical turnout at San Francisco’s gay parades, supporters in downtown San Jose were exuberant.
“I brought my daughter and son,” said Theresa Whitney, of Los Gatos, with her youngest in a stroller. “I want them to be aware of pride and what that means. We have friends who are homosexual, and we want them to know there’s no stigma.”
On the steps of St. Joseph’s Cathedral, while Sunday Mass was going on, more families took seats to watch the parade.
“I believe God loves everybody, I just do,” said Denise Dandurand, of Los Gatos, a Catholic who watched the parade with her husband and two small children. “We’re supporting all our loved ones who are gay” including Dandurand’s sister, who married her gay partner six years ago and adopted children.
Members of several United Methodist churches in the South Bay marched in the parade to show they are welcoming to the gay community.
“The church doesn’t quite believe it like we do, but we’re pushing for change,” said 81-year-old Jean Mundell, a member of the social justice committee at the United Methodist Church of Los Gatos. “I wasn’t even aware of gays until I got really old. I thought it was really strange at first, but when I read more and more about it, I know it’s not a personal choice, it’s how they were born. You can’t change people.”
Long way to go
Drag queen Pickles Buffette, who sashayed down Market Street in 6-inch heels and a red sequined dress, says she grew up in the Midwest where “it was better to be dead than gay.”
“You wind up with repressed feelings and emotions. You get to the point you have to let that come out and what a great place in the San Francisco Bay Area to do that,” said Buffette, who lives in San Jose. “This is the next evolution of the change in our country, to let people out of that straight mode and be more colorful and interesting.”
She paused for a moment, then added, “and that’s from a drag queen at 10 o’clock in the morning. We’re not known for waxing philosophical.”
Not everyone is comfortable being so colorful and “out,” however.
One lesbian along the parade route, who has been with her partner for 13 years and married last year, said the parade represents “freedom” to her, but she still didn’t want to give her name because “there are still people in this world that are prejudice.” She works for an international tech company and would rather that her “Southern white Christian” boss in Texas not know she is gay.
“It’s not worth giving up my career to be ‘out’,” she said. “But we are so far past where we used to be. It’s getting better, but we’re not there yet.”
Contact Julia Prodis Sulek at 408-278-3409. Follow her at Twitter.com/juliasulek.
