This post was submitted by Philip Clark.

I was confused two weekends ago as I tried to park near my favorite coffee shop (Soho Tea and Coffee, for the historical record). A suburban boy, I drive into The City at least four times a week, but never seem to have the legendary D.C. parking problems everyone complains about. This time, however, was different.

I finally understood why after parking blocks away and hoofing it past P Street Beach. The gaudy symbols of the pride movement – rainbow flags, rainbow stickers, rainbow banners, pink triangles a lot of the assembled company probably didn’t even know the story behind – and the assemblage of all kinds and variations of kids told me what I needed to know: Gay Youth Pride Day. So they’re holding it at P Street Beach now, I thought. That’s different.

You see, I remember being at the first two Gay Youth Prides, in 1997 and 1998, when I was just a high school kid in Arlington, attending SMYAL on a regular basis and dealing with being the one mostly-openly gay male at my school. Back then (as though the late ‘90s were so long ago), Youth Pride was held directly in Dupont Circle. The first was ridiculous fun, a real “hey, kids! Let’s put on a show!” atmosphere. There really wasn’t any Internet; advertising was almost entirely word-of-mouth. Camille Paglia had spouted out denouncing the event, and though most of us had no idea who she was, it didn’t mean we didn’t want to tell her to fuck off. Reporters wandered the Circle, searching for kids they could interview or, even better, who were willing to be filmed talking about how they felt. Rudy Galindo, at that point the country’s leading ice-skater, delivered a low-key speech while everyone cheered and jostled to see him. There was a tremendous camaraderie as kids from Maryland and Virginia streamed in to join the party. This was not our everyday lives. This was radically different.

The next year wasn’t such a blast. More money appeared to be flowing and going into advertising. Even the program seemed changed. I saved each one, and flipping through them now confirms what I felt at the time. The rough paper covers and matte finish had gone slick and glossy, extra advertisers swelling it by four pages. The atmosphere at the event was much more commercial, booths for retailers bumping up against those for youth and community services. Even the crowd seemed somewhat older, more adults mixing with the kids. I turned up my nose and didn’t go back for Year Three, off to search for something different to be part of.

The premature curmudgeon I was at 17 has apparently lessened his hold on me in the last decade. After college, I went into public education, first as an English teacher and now as a school librarian, working constantly with kids. But even though I was the sponsor for the Gay-Straight Alliance at my last school, I have never felt like I have a good handle on how the new crop of gay kids negotiate their lives. From the number of throwaway uses of “that’s so gay!” that I hear in the halls and the number of times I have to call students out for expressing anti-gay sentiments, I suspect it’s still a difficult passage. Gay characters showing up on TV shows or celebrities coming out of their ivory closets are laudable changes from when I was in high school, but I don’t think they do much for gay youth on a practical level.

Running so unexpectedly across Gay Youth Pride again made me pause. I stepped down from the road into the crowded meadow a bit warily, expecting the commerciality that had driven me off to reappear in all its glory. Of course, it was there, but I quickly realized that wasn’t the point. I wound up amazed that, as a teenager, I had reacted to it so strongly. The kids milling around were all smiles, obviously energized at just how many other people like them had come out of the woodwork for this cool and sunny day. The urban and suburban kids were still bumping elbows, the racial diversity and harmony was still amazing and comforting, the music was typically loud, and who really cares whether they know the history of the pink triangle yet? There’s time to learn all that.

I found out that what gay kids need has gone unchanged since I was one of them ten years ago. They need places to congregate, talk and laugh, pin a rainbow on for what may be the first time, and just be themselves with each other. What adults need to do is to provide those places, be the role-models and mentors, and then step back and let the kids grow. While we create the community we want to experience, we should remember our obligation to make it a welcoming and healthy one for the next generation of gay youth.

Image from MetroWeekly’s coverage of DC’s 2008 Youth Pride Day.

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