Bethany Cintron - Take That, Homophobia!

 

I'm a little nervous. I'm be honest. So, I was a 15-year-old bisexual feminist who was figuring out who she was. I was always open about who I was. So, if anybody asked, I was straight up and I told them. I never really felt like I had this space to sort of be who I was. It was always suppressed and just very minor. I remember telling people, and they always gave me this look like, “Well, you don't look gay.” I never really knew what that means. Like, “What does it mean to look gay?” 

 

But I remember finding out about the PRIDE parade in New York. For those who don't know what the PRIDE parade is, it celebrates the LGBTQ community. I remember finding out about it and I was so happy. I was like, “Here's my space. I'm going to go there and I'm going to have so much fun.” It looked great. Like, it's one of the biggest PRIDE parades in the US. I was so excited to get there. 

 

So, I remember trying to get there, but something coincidental will always happen. Like, it would just start raining and my mom was like, “You're not going to go outside. You're going to get sick.” Or, it was my cousin's graduation party and we had to throw him a party. We didn't even get him any cake, which sucks. So, I was there for what? [audience laughter] Or, my friends didn't want to go with me, so I would have to go alone. Whatever friends, they ended up not going. So, I was like, “I didn't want to go alone. I was too nervous.” So, I ended up not going.

 

Year after year, it didn't seem like I was going to be able to get there. In junior year, I joined the Gay Straight Alliance in my school, and I ended up becoming president of it. As president, I proposed that we should go to the PRIDE parade together. I was like, “Oh, yeah, we just go together. It's going to be great. We're all going to have fun.” Like, “It's funded by school,” whatever. So, everyone's like, “Yeah, let's go.” We created a group chats, we had messages, we had Facebook events. It just seemed like it was going to happen. Like, I was ready to go. 

 

The PRIDE parade is in June. So, April came up, May came up and then finally it was June. And all of us were super excited. June 25th was our day. I remember June 12th, I was sitting in my room and it was-- My dad always used to play the news in the living room. It would just be playing and I would be listening. Not really listening, but just in the back of my mind. I remember hearing, like, a live report in Florida. So, I got up and went to listen to it with my dad. I saw that it was the Pulse nightclub shooting. It was a gay nightclub in Florida, and 49 people were killed in a hate crime. 

 

I just remembered feeling terrible. Like, we're so close to this date, and someone just goes and kills people in cold blood. I just felt horrible. I already knew what was going to happen. This was going to be my thing, this thing that was going to prevent me from getting to the PRIDE parade. The next few days, I went through my messages and my Facebook events, and people were dropping out. It switched from going to not going. People were like, “Oh, something came up.” Or, my mom said, “I can't go anymore.” Or, some just flat out said like, “I'm not going because I'm afraid it might happen here. What if someone uses that as motivation to attack the biggest PRIDE parade in America?” 

 

Again, I wasn't going to go. I felt so disappointed, because I knew that I was going to go away for college. I wouldn't be in New York, so I was going to miss this event. It was just another year of me not going. I went to my mom, because my mom is my best friend, and I told her-- I was just crying to her, and I was like, “Mom, I feel terrible. I just really wanted to go. I'm not going to go and I'm just so frustrated.” She says, “Relax. If no one's going to go, I'll go with you, because no one's going to prevent you from loving who you love.” 

 

It was set. June 25th, it was me, my mom and my three close friends, and we were on the train going to the PRIDE parade. We watched the dull colors of just the streets in the city transform into these magical rainbow colors. There was like people boarding, and they had rainbow outfits, crazy outfits, frilly, puffy everything. It was just great. They were making their own way to the PRIDE parade. So, I was getting more and more excited getting there. I remember we got to the streets of Manhattan. It was packed. It was impossible. Like, there was bars everywhere. You would have to walk three blocks down just to get to the block that you were right by. 

 

I had my own rainbow outfit. I had a rainbow Star Trooper shirt. I had a flag that I wrapped around my neck, like a cape that I bought for $15, which I realize now is really expensive for a flag. I had a rainbow bandana. I was so excited. I went from the back of the crowd to the middle of the crowd to the front of the crowd. Next thing I know I'm giving high fives to people in the parade. I'm seeing all these big floats. I'm getting stickers and fans. It was just great. I was having so much fun, and I just wanted to scream like, “Take that homophobia.” 

 

I remember taking a whole bunch of pictures on my way back from the PRIDE parade. I was on the train, and I was looking over at the videos and the pictures and I saw this whole idea of looking gay. There were so many different kinds of body types, hair types, everything, skin color. I just realized that there was no particular way to look gay physically. Looking gay was showing support for what you believe and showing support for your friends, showing just like being there and being confident in your identity. And I realized that day we were all proud to look gay. Thank you.