[freya]

Here in Rochester we celebrate in July -- so as not to have to compete with Toronto which has an awesome, huge pride that many folks in Western NY attend. Our Pride actually is also a full week of events and usually pulls crowds of >5000 for the Parade/Festival (on the last Saturday) and the picnic (Sunday). For a city our size, its' pretty big and very well done......although, of course, there is a lot of drinking, so it's probably not the greatest idea for anyone who's newly sober.

I kinda have some ambivalent feelings about it all now because we used to be very active in a lot of it and actually did some of the planning/orgainizing work for the parade and festival for 4 or 5 years, but now it's pretty much all been taken over by the local gay community group, which uses it to make money, which, to a certain extent is OK, but problematic from the perspective that that organization is pretty narrowly focused on mainsteaming/assimilationism......which, really, is just disturbing to me.

But, it is big and it is fun...especially for anyone who just wants to have a good time and really doesn't know or care about the politics beneath it all.

freya