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.
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!
[posted 9:09am]
