What the hell happened to Pride?

I was having lunch outside the Mariposa County Superior Courthouse last summer when I spotted what I thought was a rainbow Pride sticker on a trash can.

Upon closer inspection, the rainbow framed a different word: Shame. “Mariposa Shame,” to be exact, modeled on the logo for Mariposa Pride.

With its festive font it took me a couple seconds to wrap my head around the intended message, its sheer stupidity and its unintended irony.

The anonymous provocateur — who I later learned plastered the stickers at other spots around town — apparently believes that shame, not pride, should be the internal monologue for gays, lesbians, trans and the non-binary people in our community. Well, bless their dark little heart!

I met my husband 30 years ago at a Pride event in Minneapolis.

On June 25, 2008, we got married in front of Mariposa’s historic courthouse.

Two of my all time favorite Pride events — in 2021 and 2023 — were held at the Mariposa County Courthouse on its preternaturally verdant lawn. Hundreds of people attended the celebrations. We even brought my mom, aunt and cousins. Allies may have outnumbered LGBTQ identified folks.

It was the kind of vibe that helped convince us we made the right decision to move here, not because Mariposa was any gay mecca, but it seemed like a place where you can build a future based on mutual respect.

And I still believe that. But something has changed.

The mood of the country, to be sure. There is a palpable sense of retreat in the LGBTQ community these days. Conservatives openly talk of repealing gay marriage. And the issue of trans rights, particularly around young people, has become incredibly divisive.

You see it at the local level, too.

Despite a petition with more than 600 signatures, the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors wouldn’t consider declaring June Pride month. Privately, some supervisors wondered what exactly they were endorsing with Pride, when county policy already explicitly prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.

A Mariposa Pride organizer told me that there wasn’t enough money for a large Pride event in Mariposa this year. Specifically, money to hire security.

So, I headed to Oakhurst last weekend for a Pride march and picnic at the Oakhurst Library that I saw promoted on Facebook.

It was organized by two local churches. The people were welcoming and friendly. To be honest, it felt more like a progressive church social than a Pride celebration. But listen, no one else was organizing anything, so give credit where it’s due.

Pastor Terese Allen-Rowe of Mountain Unitarian Universalist, a new congregation in Oakhurst, and Rev. Kim Schoelen of Grace Community Church in North Fork, told me they too sense something has changed: Many LGBTQ youth, especially those who are trans and non-binary, fear for their personal safety.

She pointed to a small group of “counter protesters” that had organized across the street at the Oakhurst Cemetery, who arrived with stereo speakers, a guitar, microphone and a tent for shade.

I went across Highway 41 to meet them, and found a small group of around eight adults and a few children.

They said they didn’t see themselves as counter protesters, but as a group of folks from various churches who just wanted to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

A nine-year-old girl wanted to know why the Pride marchers were ignoring them. “They were told to sweetheart,” her mother said.

Bless their hearts.

Turning these Bible thumpers into homophobic boogeymen gives them more power than they deserve.

For me it echoes a story from a few years ago about a Mariposa man who drove by a Pride event in his truck, outfitted with a Confederate flag, and either revved the engine and squealed his tires.

That’s weird, sure. But it’s not a threat.

Maybe he had a “Mariposa Shame” bumper sticker?

For the record, the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office tells me it didn’t receive any reports about threats connected to Pride events.

One of the organizers of the Oakhurst Pride event told me they are here to protect “the babies,” by which she clarified she means those who are just coming out.

It made me wince. Calling young adults or anyone “babies” infantilizes them and robs them of their autonomy. Quite frankly, it sounds a lot like shame, disguised as “safe spaces.”

That’s not to say the danger can’t be real. It was only a decade ago that a man killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

But fostering an ambient fear, from unspecified anxieties, can manifest into its own kind of shame, driven by the very people trying to help.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a trans teenager at Mariposa Safe Families who told me horror stories about being bullied at Mariposa County High School. For this teenager pride — self respect, dignity, personal worth — turned out to be a matter of survival.

That’s why I find it so disappointing when I hear an older generation of gays and lesbians, comfortable with their achieved status and 401Ks, who are dismissive about “all this gender stuff.”

How quickly we forget our own history, and a Pride movement that traces its roots to the Stonewall uprising of 1969 in New York City. Riots sparked by laws against “cross dressing.”

Perhaps, that too is a kind of internalized shame in the gay community; an unwillingness to recognize the trans struggle as a reflection of our own.

But I believe LGBTQ advocates make a strategic mistake when they conflate tolerance with acceptance. In a civil society, you can demand tolerance, but you can’t force acceptance.

Recently, an old rancher told me the Mariposa Gazette needs to stop putting “gay things” in the paper. “It’s a Christian community and no one wants to see that stuff,” he told me bluntly. I don’t know how many people he speaks for.

But I told him the news is for everyone and I live here too.

And I’m not going anywhere.

Shame isn’t a word in my vocabulary, and it takes more than a bumper sticker on a trash can to rattle my cage.

Tom Lyden is a staff writer for the Mariposa Gazette and can be reached at tom@mariposagazette.com.