I was sad to learn that there would be no 2022 Noho Pride parade and festival. The would-be organizers cited the difficulty in putting something like Pride together due to the enormity of planning such a big event in short timeframe, especially when COVID has made planning for anything in the last two-plus years quite difficult.
I was in high school when Northampton hosted its earliest Pride parades. As a current member of the LGBTQ+ community, I am greatly embarrassed to say that, when I was in high school, as a young, WASP male who hadn’t come to terms with all my gender and sexual orientation issues, I couldn’t understand why having a Pride Parade was important. I couldn’t understand why a lot of people felt the need to show their own individual “pride” by protesting, marching and fighting for their rights. I do now.
I don’t want to come of as a mean-spirited, heartless kid — that was never me and it was certainly not how I was raised. I’ve always cared for others and never put people down for who they are genderwise, sexual-orientationwise, religionwise, racially, ethnically, or any other category you can come up with. I just never understood the extreme importance of being visible in a positive way and fighting for equality.
Having worked in the very white, very male, career of engineering for 20 years out of college, and working in the very different non-engineering jobs I’ve had since coming out and transitioning to female, have exposed me to a virtual treasure trove of diverse people — and I couldn’t be happier with the experience.
Currently, I work in the field of mental health, and I value my relationships with my co-workers, many who live locally, but many are travel workers, from all over the country and from around the globe. Meeting all these people, as well as living my own transgender journey, has made me understand in no uncertain terms, why, showing your own personal pride and fighting for your rights, and the rights of others, is so critical in this fractured world. It has also shown me why it so important to honor and celebrate the diversity of others.
I marvel at the uniqueness of the people of this planet, and the more people I meet, the more people I want to meet. I want to travel to where my friends and co-workers come from, to understand their local culture, try their local cuisine, learn about their religion if it is different from mine, basically, experience the places that shaped these people that I admire and love.
As a transwoman in this society, nothing is handed to me like it was before my transition. I have to be more selective of where I go, who I make friends with, and to be ready for who knows what kind of reception from others — and I don’t think I stand out that much. As a white male, things were easier in many ways, but I never felt I took advantage of that privilege or others because of it, probably because being male never felt quite right to me.
So this year, even without the Noho Pride parade, a parade I marched in at least three times in the past half-dozen years, I will feel proud — a glorious pride, not a vain, self-serving pride. I have worked long and hard to reach this wonderful place in my life and I deserve to feel proud, as does everyone on this planet.
Mariel Addis is a native of Florence. She left the area for 16 years but returned in 2013 and loves being back in the Valley.