Is the Long Beach Gay Pride Parade only worth it if you’re gay?

Despite minoring in women’s studies at Cal State Long Beach and ranting feministically in the Daily Forty-Niner, it was only a few weeks ago that I had my first drink at Que Sera. Surprised? Apparently, you’re supposed to be. But although my feminism does not—and has not—made me a lesbian, even my very queer friend Elizabeth told me I was long overdue for a visit to Long Beach’s most iconic girl bar. Now that I’ve been to the Que, I think everybody may have been right: It is a pretty good place to study women.

It was a slow night, all the better for keeping the whiskey sours coming, and the conversation, too—although a loud-looking band was ominously setting up a drum set and guitar effect pedals. Elizabeth and I sat at a long table near the unlit fireplace and chatted with a couple named Annie and Heather, along with their self-proclaimed-lesbian-but-really-gay man friend, David. Talk turned to the Gay Pride Festival, which kind of figured: Long Beach’s festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this Saturday and Sunday.

But Elizabeth and her friends announced they won’t be going. Or rather, they will—next month, when they’ll be going to San Francisco for its Gay Pride Festival. They’re skipping the one in Long Beach.

Why travel 400 miles to Northern California instead of traipsing four blocks through their neighborhood?

“Because San Francisco’s Pride Festival is more queer than gay,” said Heather. “Like me.”

“Me, too,” chipped in Elizabeth, who I’ve known for awhile without knowing that . . . not that I know what that means.

Queer instead of gay? There’s a difference?

Yes, said everybody at the table—and difference is what the difference is all about.

“The queer community is considered more diverse than people who are in the straight or strictly gay community,” Heather explained. “It’s transsexual or bisexual or kinky or people who are into leather or whatever.”

Queer, then, is a non-categorical term, one that kind of purposely evades being pinned down—although in another context, being pinned down might be something that a queer likes very much.

“I prefer to call myself a ‘queer,’ because to me, there is no clear definition of the word,” said Elizabeth. “I predominantly have relationships with women, and I don’t see myself with a man—but I am not closed off to the idea of it. I like the idea that I can fall in love with anyone.”

This has created some tension, at least according to the little group at the Que Sera roundtable—“There are a lot of gay and lesbian people who are not supportive of people who are outside those mainstream types,” said Heather—and it’s why they’re not going to the Long Beach Gay Pride Festival. They say it’s not queer enough for their comfort.

“Queer people are still not accepted by many in the gay community because we don’t fall into any specific category,” said Elizabeth. “Some people feel uneasy when they can’t label others or place them into a particular group.”

Nobody at the table could provide any specific instances of discrimination. They said it was more of an attitude they detected. But they insist it is present at the Long Beach Gay Pride Festival, and that it’s what is driving them to drive to San Francisco next month. Up there, it’s really queer.

“And to be in a festival which is more accepting of all lifestyles is more liberating to us,” says Heather.

Everybody nodded, presumably in thought, although maybe to the beat of the band, which had just started playing. Either way, nobody spoke for awhile.

“Plus, the price is kind of a turn-off,” Elizabeth said, finally. “I mean, the Long Beach festival costs about $20. Up in San Francisco, it’s free.”

Tags: lgbt, Long Beach, pride parade, que sera, queer