Trans Pride Seattle 2026 / World Cup "Pride Match"

06262026-01

My plan for last night actually worked out quite well. I left work at 4:15, and walked directly to where Laney had her van parked quite near Volunteer Park, aiming to get there by 5:00 and then I got there about 7 minutes earlier than that. Laney showed me "around" her van, which is actually a bit bigger than the one she used for her travels in 2021 and 2022. We then headed right into Volunteer Park for Trans Pride.

They're still asking attendees to wear masks. Their messaging is technically consistent, but can feel inconsistent. I looked at their website yesterday afternoon and their FAQ section about this is more expanded than it has been in the past, and sometimes comes across as kind of defensive, but to be fair, trans people are well within their rights to be defensive. Anyway, they present the event as "Masks Expected," and they even clarify in the FAQs that they can't call it "Masks Required" because it's outdoors in a public park and they have no legal means to enforce mask wearing. When we were there, I did see some signs that said "Masks Required," but when you looked more closely that was referring to when you were inside any tents—something they can enforce.

Laney and I stepped outside the booths for a brief moment to talk about this, because even she, the most consistent mask-wearer I know now (I don't tend to wear them really anywhere anymore, not even on transit, and I was very strict about that for a long time), was surprised they were still asking people to wear masks outside. I shared with her that some of the points they made on the website were actually fair points: 40% of trans people live with one or more disabilities; that health care access is a whole different ball game for trans people. So as kind of irritated as I have been about this in the past, even if the risk at an outdoor event really is minimal (admittedly not so minimal in tightly crowded areas), if a disabled trans person were to get really sick, with covid or anything else, their access to medical care is statistically far more difficult. So now I'm kind of like: "Oh, okay, fine."

Most people at Trans Pride did have masks on, but maybe a quarter of them didn't, so I could have gotten away with not wearing one pretty easily. It's just that they finally convinced me, so I wore one, and so did Laney, who always has one hanging from around her neck anyway. Shobhit, on the other hand, did not bother—to be fair, I never had this conversation with him, but he would also have been ignoring pretty obvious signage around the event. Whatever.

He met up with us a little while after Laney and I got there. The event technically started at 5 p.m., and Laney and I entered the park at 5:11. Shobhit caught up with us at 5:35, and we were all together, with a couple brief periods of Shobhit breaking off, for roughly another 75 minutes. Thanks to my attending with two people rather than just one or sometimes on my own, I got 42 shots (photos and video clips) for Trans Pride this year, actually a record (the previous record being 37 in 2024).

The most notable thing this year was Shobhit's decision to sit in a chair for someone, in this case a woman (the other chair was manned by a guy in heavy makeup of his own, but he was doing someone else), to put eye makeup on him. I don't think he had ever done this before. The woman chose a sparkly blue eyeshadow that actually worked very well with his skin tone, and some mascara.

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Shobhit later found a rainbow-chalk like applicator to draw rainbows on skin, and he added swishes of it to both his cheeks, and another sort of "rainbow bindhi" to his forehead, which he then wore to the so-called "Pride Match" for the FIFA World Cup.

We actually walked home from Volunteer Park first, dropped off our bags and stuff we had gathered from various vendor booths, and made a quick dinner of a microwaved taco salad. We then went over to wait for the RapidRide G bus, where I got a great photo of Shobhit leaning against a fire hydrant. He looks like a model in that photo.

As for the so-called "Pride Match," somewhat as I feared, there was very little "Pride Visibility." You could find some of you had eagle-eyes, and I got a few photos of it for my 28-shot "Pride Match" photo album, but only 12 or so of them either directly or indirectly reference it being a Pride Match. All this shows is that all the media coverage about it was wildly overblown, and I'm certain there was far less Pride stuff just because the competing teams were from Iran and Egypt, and their fans were generally uninterested.

Laney did tell us to "be careful" down there at the Pioneer Square Pedestrian Zone, because some people didn't want the Pride stuff happening. I really didn't think we had anything to worry about; people were generally far too focused on the game to even be thinking about it.

There was a booth manned by the Capitol Hill Pride Festival people, which is different from PrideFest Capitol Hill and has long been a pathetic shadow of what they used to do with their own separate organization during Pride Weekend on Capitol Hill. I saw really no one engaging with them, and the irony is that most of the local Seattle queer community really doesn't either.

It was kind of fun just to check out the area regardless; there was a viewing party in front of a huge screen in Occidental Square that was super packed, largely because we got there right after the game had already started. We walked past Lumen Field, which could only be called "Seattle Field" for the World Cup so it cracked me up to see "Lumen" covered up; it looked to me like [REDACTED] FIELD.

It wasn't quite as crowded right outside the stadium, probably because all the fans were inside watching the match. It might have been a little different of an experience had we gotten there a bit before the game started, but we didn't. They did have these odd areas marked as "Designated Protest Zones," but with not a single soul at them; maybe they expected more culture clash that did not happen? Neither Shobhit nor I could see much in the way of iconography in the stadium crowd, but we were quite far away; I guess there were some. I'll have to read that follow-up New York Times article when I have time. Right now I'm already behind, but I wanted to get my photos from yesterday processed and uploaded (69 in total between last night's two events) before I move on to the three things I'm going to today, counting Tess's graduation party this evening. Right now I need to post this so I can go get ready for my day!

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[posted 9:09am]

safety check

06282024-17

— छह हज़ार बावन —

No major plans last night, but a lot to do that I did not to wait until next week for because I have two Pride events each day between today and Sunday, plus Tess's graduation party tomorrow night! I was about to say I can't believe she's 18, but you know what I just realized? She'll be 19 next month! Holy shit on a stick.

Shobhit was already out getting his steps in, so he met me at the office when I left work at 4:30. We walked home together, stopping at Walgreens so I could get the bottle of shaving cream I've been forgetting for several days now; the one at home is perilously close to empty.

The most critical thing I needed to do was laundry, so as soon as we got home I put the first load into the washing machine.

Then, Shobhit walked with me to take my bike to 20/20 Cycle, finally. I have two more weeks before it's advisable for me to ride my bike again—really more like a week and a half at this point—but I really wanted to take it in, have it looked at, and just make sure nothing looked perilously out of whack.

There's a ton of work that needs to be done on it, actually, but I don't think any of it has to do with crashing the bike a month ago. I really think the bike is just as good as it was before, but it was in need of many improvements already, and now is not the time to let any dangerously out of date improvements go unattended to.

So: he's going to replace the brake pads (the back ones have been very worn down for a long time, to such a degree that I do wonder if that was at all a factor in my crash); straighten the slight wobbliness of the back wheel (this may or may not have been the same before the crash); replace the chain; replace the "cassette" which is the back stratified wheel the chain links to; and tighten the brake elements. The guy's estimate was that this would cost around $250, but other things may come up. I feel like maybe I should be prepared to pay at least $300. I haven't budgeted for this at all, but, oh well. I almost never pull from my savings account, and I'll be doing it for three different things this month (most notably for medical bills), but that's kind of what it's there for, right? Now I just need to try and go another couple of years without needing to touch it.

— छह हज़ार बावन —

06212026-03

— छह हज़ार बावन —

I seem to be doing perfectly okay without taking the daily Extra Strength Tylenol, the last dose of which I took Wednesday morning. I'll still feel a slight strain in the left side of my abdomen when, say, getting up off the floor, but that's it. It's hardly different from several days ago when I was still taking the Tylenol. Plus, the nearly-diarrhea seems to have stopped, and the gas, though sill present to a degree, is nowhere near as incessant. I have a feeling all this was related to taking Tylenol every day for four straight weeks.

That said, I did get a headache last night. I sure as shit didn't want to take more Extra Strength Tylenol. So, for the first time since the accident, I took a couple of Aleve. The headache was gone within maybe half an hour, thankfully.

I needed to check the bike in and leave it at the shop, which I figured was a possibility, maybe even a likelihood. I can pick it up on Wednesday probably. The reviews for Supergirl are so bad I'm going to take that movie off my calendar.

So anyway, Shobhit walked with me, I walked the bike there, then we walked back together without the bike. I didn't even get too out of breath coming back up that hill, so that seems like a good sign. We stopped briefly at Trade Joe's and then we went home and had a sort of "huevos rancheros" using broken taco shells and leftover veggie chili, putting fried eggs on top. It was actually quite tasty.

In the meantime, we watched The Hitman's Bodyguard on HBO Max. This is a 2017 movie I never bothered to see, probably because of not-great reviews (MetaScore 47). But I had looked up action movies set in Amsterdam, and this movie came up. And indeed, there are multiple set pieces in both Amsterdam and The Hague (which we also plan to visit), so those were actually really fun to watch.

Beyond that, I just spent some time making the card I'll give to Tess at her graduation tomorrow night. It was a pretty productive evening, all told.

— छह हज़ार बावन —

06272025-13

[posted 12:32pm]