The first time I went to Pride, I lied about where I was going. I drove about an hour from my parents’ house in central Massachusetts to the periphery of Boston’s subway lines.
In the station parking lot, I swapped my modest khaki shorts for a bright red pair with a much shorter inseam and boarded a train heading downtown.
When I emerged into the city, I found myself, for the first time, surrounded by a crowd of mostly queer people. The rainbow colors of balloons, floats and Pride-goers’ clothes stood out against the muted tones of Boston’s City Hall Plaza.
The novelty of what I was experiencing revealed that this was not possible everywhere, and certainly not in the town where I grew up.