Asked to march in the Gay Pride Parade to represent the Center, I agreed, innocently accepting the task of walking along one flank of the route with a donation can. With John Briggs’s Proposition 6 threatening our livelihood, I had become involved as a community activist at the urging of my boyfriend, a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center.
I embraced my newfound freedom, oblivious to its inherent dangers and soon to discover with the Briggs Initiative that I had not really left my fears behind. At age 25 I had just moved from the insular confines of rural Western Pennsylvania to Southern California, leaving behind my fears and bursting forth from the closet, as it were, with the first tentative steps of one whose life was about to change profoundly. Nearly a decade had passed since Stonewall and our safety was still measured by the dimness of the lights and the rotation of a mirrored disco ball suspended above the dance floor. This essay was chosen by editors in reponse to the #FirstTime prompt: What was your first Pride experience?