Some wrote of the time when when there were no activities for LGBTQ youth and adults could barely navigate everyday life safely. But for my purposes, I define elder as anyone over 45 because of accumulated wisdom and life experiences.Įlders shared a variety experiences. One contributor described his coming out experience during the John Kennedy administration in the early 1960s. Sponsored by the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law & Public Policy Contributors range from age 18 to 75, identify as part of the LGBTQ community and have a self-defined significant tie to Western Pennsylvania.
![pittsburgh gay bars pittsburgh gay bars](https://media2.fdncms.com/pittsburgh/imager/pegasus-manager-rodney-dececchis-right-and-owner-scott-noxon-say-the-libe/u/original/1392266/48_news1.jpg)
The contributions are marvelous in their unique and sprawling descriptions of coming out, political opinions and assessments of pop culture. In 2015, I launched The #AMPLIFY LGBTQ project, describing our stories in our own words through a question-and-answer format.Ĭollecting the first-person history of community elders in particular has highlighted the disconnect among generations and opened my eyes to experiences from Pittsburgh’s queer past I had never considered before the project, experiences that I now realize must be preserved. I was fortunate to participate in some of these experiences of Pride, many of which served as a gateway to Pittsburgh’s rich LGBTQ history. Their stage was never an open mic, where any speaker had the opportunity to address the crowd for a short period of time or any interested local performer could share their music or poetry before the largest gathering of LGBTQ people in the region without gatekeepers or entry fees or content constraints. Dance parties and tea dances and film screenings dotted the calendar. They never had the grassroots Pride experience of workshops throughout the city with panelists donating their time and talent to build community. 'We sit with them': An ER social worker reflects on the trauma left by the Airbnb party shooting.Consent order could lower appealed Allegheny County property tax bills.They didn’t remember a time when no elected official or politician would come near the event, much less speak to the crowd. They didn’t know the modest Pride festivals before corporate donors or vendors were footing the costs. They didn’t know a Pride without famous music headliners because no one would headline such an event. No one else in that room had experienced marching through Downtown Pittsburgh in the early or mid-1970s while hecklers gathered and without any protection of law or visible allies. We were part of a community conversation on the history of Stonewall led by a local group of young queer activists, the Fair Moans.
![pittsburgh gay bars pittsburgh gay bars](https://res.cloudinary.com/electronic-beats/c_fit,q_auto,f_auto,w_720/stage/uploads/2017/06/Pittsburgh_ElectronicBeats_07.jpg)
The only person to raise their hand was my own partner. I looked around the room and asked, “How many of you have ever attended a Pittsburgh Pride that wasn’t held on Liberty Avenue?” PrideFest had been held there since 2007, but before then, Pride was held in various neighborhood parks and streets throughout the East End.