This year was Trans Pride Seattle's first return to normalcy after the pandemic—"normalcy" just meaning being scheduled on Friday of Pride Weekend like it always used to be—as last year, although the rest of Pride Weekend (Saturday and Sunday) was back to business as usual, Trans Pride got postponed until September. It was great to see it finally happening again at all, but having been postponed, it also wound up happening during one of the city's increasingly typical, late-summer gluts of wildfire smoke.

Having it in late June is thus a lot better timing . . . at least for now. (The entire Northeast recently learned a hard lesson about that.)

I was there for about ninety minutes. This time, Shobhit did not join me, because he went to a "Pride Shabbat" at Temple de Hirsch Sinai, hoping to speak to potential voters. I might have even found it interesting, and in the end I really could have gone to both events. But, I had been hoping Shobhit could join me after his event, but then he wasn't up for walking all the way up to Volunteer Park, and I was headed home maybe half an hour after the shabbat was supposed to have ended.

Trans Pride has abandoned their old tradition of a march from before the pandemic, which I think was changed by the behavior of our police department in the 2020 protests. They even have a small FAQ section on their website that addresses this: Trans Pride Seattle has historically held a march as part of our event. After making the difficult decision to not hold a march for TPS ’22, we were reminded of the benefits in not having any police presence at TPS (as is required by city law to hold a march) or navigate the red-tape of securing the necessary permits (which has historically sometimes been challenging for our small organizing committee). For these reasons, we have chosen not to organize a march at TPS again this year.

The other change actually started with last year's Trans Pride in September: a shift from Cal Anderson Park—which, incidentally, is one block from the East Precinct police station—to a mile further north, at Volunteer Park, which for years was where Seattle PrideFest happened after the Pride Parade on Sunday, before it was shifted downtown in 2006. Now, though, "Pride in the Park" also happens there in early June, so there are two annual Pride events once again happening at Volunteer Park, which has a long history with Pride.

Otherwise, aside from the organizers putting it on and the specific community it represents, it's actually very similar to Pride in the Park: rows of vendor booths in the grassy area faced by the Volunteer Park Amphitheater, which itself hosts a line of line performers.

Being there just by myself this year—the first time that's happened, at least at any in-person Trans Pride—I simply walked the length of each line of booths, taking photos of anything I saw interesting. In the end I got a 26-shot photo album out of it, actually a fairly mid-range number for my history with Trans Pride, and slightly more than I took last year in person, or in 2020 virtually. (Seattle Pride 2021 was also virtual, and that year Trans Pride was canceled.)

I did run into one person I knew while browsing the booths: Mitch, with whom I used to sing in the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus, between 2000 and 2004. He actually transitioned during that time, and is still with Amy, who has said on Facebook that "maybe" she'll join Shobhit's campaign contingent in the parade tomorrow. I did invite Mitch, but we were standing right at the Seattle Men's Chorus booth—where he was kind of pushing sales for their September performance with Patti LuPone—and he said he'll be marching with them, and also with Seattle Men in Leather. "So I don't know if he'd want me there anyway," Mitch said, inferring that he might be in a leather outfit not quite fitting for a political contingent, I was like, I don't know if Shobhit would actually mind—even though Mitch's instincts on that point are probably right.

I asked to get a selfie with him, and then moved on. I came across the Cupcake Royale booth, which was selling "Trans Pride cupcakes" the proceeds from which they were donating 10% to the Gender Justice League, one of the major sponsors of this event. That convinced me to buy one.

Once I ate the cupcake, and then walked the rest of the last line of booths, I sat down in the grass to watch the live performances for a bit. The punk band was actually pretty good, but I later left during a set of a woman singing a bunch of ballad covers because I was getting a little bored (even though she was a very good singer). That was when I went ahead and headed home, as it was about 7:30 and it seemed clear Shobhit was not likely to come and meet me.

There was one other peculiar element to Trans Pride this year: prominently placed signs in several locations, saying This is a mask mandatory event. And yet, among vendors, volunteers and attendees alike, I'd say nearly half the people there were not bothering. On the upside, I suppose, that still means a slight majority of people did have masks on—at a time when a tiny fraction of people in this city are ever wearing masks anywhere otherwise anymore.

So: did I wear a mask? Nope. But not out of protest or anything; I actually would have! I even had my shoulder bag with me, and I went in to find the masks I usually keep in there—but had forgotten they were in my jacket pockets, and it was warm yesterday and I left my jacket at home. I even would have picked one up there if any booth I saw were just handing them out, but the only booth with masks I found was selling designer masks, and I felt no obligation to buy an expensive one.

And besides, I had really mixed feelings about this clearly unenforced mandate anyway: this was an outdoor event. Granted, when transmission rates were high, health department recommendations suggested masking even outside in crowded spaces, which this very much was. On the other hand, walking through small crowds from booth to booth would also mean very brief exposure to any particular person. So, I guess my point is, it's pretty easy to find sources stressing that the risk of outdoor transmission is not zero, but if everyone has done their due diligence and gotten all available vaccinations, the risk is far lower than in any other circumstance.

Of course, it's even lower than that with people masking. And, I actually thought I had brought a mask with me, as I usually do keep one with me, and I would have worn it when I saw those signs, so I was a little bit self-conscious about walking around without one. But, soon enough, I decided not to worry about it. No one seemed to be judging anyone about it, anyway; the signs largely served their purpose in getting a huge number of people to wear masks anyway, at a rate higher than I have witnessed at any event since probably 2021.

[posted 7:26 am]