Legalize it

NY state just legalized gay marriage! I went to Stonewall to capture the festivities leading up the decision, to see the angst and anger or elation and expression. The moments leading up to it were tense, as you can see in the video, and when they finally passed the vote, the bar, streets, whole village exploded. I've seen pride festivals, gay legislature passed, crazy street parties, this was those and more. There was a thick NYPD presence and the city showed it's diversity by the many bystanders that had little to no idea why tons of GLBT people were losing their minds in the streets. The energy of excitement and liberation was there, the weather, mood, music, everything represented clouds opening to bring in a refreshing new glow to a city. There were many glowing couples tonight, part of a discriminated against people who just were allowed another step towards being recognized as equals, many steps to go, but this is a big one. This happened in California, everybody got excited, I was there at the rallys and parties and then it was all taken away, I hope it'll stick this time.

There's a humid smog that resonates over the city this time of year, but tonight was crips, clean, a beautiful June night. There's many people who can breathe a little easier tonight, knowing that a chapter in the fight for legally expressing their love has come to a close. It's another 30 days before it goes through and there's always more bumps in the road ahead, but tonight is awesome, and a majority of New York lawmakers managed to do the "Love" movement a solid tonight. Very exciting, now let's find the next fight (gender rights maybe?) and get behind that with all 100,000 jiggawatts that our community can produce when we unite. Transday of action was cool, lots of different agendas, sign waving and speeches, a nice little march around city hall, but the numbers weren't there yet.

The Drag march was also a bit of a drag, it was more about burningman-esq freak-outery than rights and legislation, and that's cool, just more of a crazy party than anything. It's interesting to see beautiful girls who haven't started and have no desire to transition, just hot made-up men, alongside transpeople, cisgendered people and genderhackers. It's inspiring to see people get down in a unique way, but does pride have the same effect as burning man, when folks go crazy for a small part of the year and then going back to conforming as soon as the playa is washed off or the glitter fades? Who knows, NYC is so terribly diverse that its best not to judge folks off of appearances... wait, that's an awful thing to do anywhere.

Tonight was awesome, I'm exhausted, enjoy the video :) Trans Day of Action and Drag March videos coming soon, I feel like I took part in something historic, I'm totally giddy right now as I sit down at the computer to edit the video you see above. More stuff soooon!