Diary

The summer is the time for gay parades. I had never been to any gay-pride event, so it was time for a change in this! Two weeks ago, Julia and I happened to be in Amsterdam for a weekend just when the annual gay parade was planned.

The Amsterdam gay parade consists of a lot of boats that go all the way along the Prinsengracht around the ancient center of the city. Most of the boats have been decorated and the people on the boats have all dressed themselves for the occasion. Some groups start the preparations for this months before the event and they get very beautiful results.
Of course the main color used on most of the boats is pink. And on board we saw a lot of guys dressed as girls and also some girls dressed as boys.

Some boats were decorated in very special ways. One of them had an inflatable love-doll on it that stood 25 feet high. And they had to deflate it time and time again because she needed to pass under the bridges! There are at least ten bridges along the route of the parade and every time this poor inflatable girl had to arch her back as if she was doing a giant's limbo-dance.

There were also boats that were about supporting an organization or getting across a point of view, like the Amnesty International boat: "Gay rights are human rights" and the AIDS fund boat.
In this category there was also a boat on which everybody was holding up a sign with a text starting "I want to kiss again..." How about "I want to kiss again in Iran"

The boat from Shell company was very remarkable. It had a great banner saying: "Shell colleagues celebrate Diversity & Inclusiveness" It turns out that Shell organizes get-togethers for gays and transsexuals within the company! That sounds like a fine example of acceptance on the job!

On the last boat we saw Boy George. I don't know whether it was really him or just a very good imitation and that doesn't really matter. I like his looks because he is not a transvestite, but still he is about as feminine as a boy can get...

It took several hours for all the boats to pass and in the end I began to feel quite cold. I don't envy those guys who have to stand half naked on one of those boats. And for them it was not over yet, because they had to sail the full length of the Prinsengracht, all the way to the Amstel where they would all get together.

Such a parade is fun to watch, but I do have some objections to it.

On the boats we saw lots of "Bearded Beauties". It is easy to understand why this is the case. These people want the world to see they are gay, but that doesn't show! So that's why you see a lot of transvestism on these boats.
To the general public this can be confusing. It may strengthen the prejudice amongst the public that all transvestites are gay. It may even give the impression that most gay people are transvestites. And that is not the case!

But on the other hand it is just a nice party and we wouldn't want to spoil that. I enjoyed it very much and so did the hundred thousand people who came to watch it, not to mention the millions of people who have seen it on TV!


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