TNG Reader and GWU grad student Chad submitted this interview.

There is a sensation, just before you come out… At least there was for me.  A tinge of anxiousness, a wave of exhilaration, an inextinguishable urge for action as you dedicate yourself towards vocalizing an identity.  And yet, a gripping hesitation coincides.  Passing through that hesitation is my favorite part of the queer experience.  It is in that space we all must make a decision about our lives.  Do we embrace that which we truly are, or do we cling to a different idea of what we think we should be?  At their root, feelings are ungovernable.  But how you decide to react to them, to yield to them or subvert them, is your own volition.  We encounter this space when we first come out to ourselves.  We revisit it again coming out to family, and again coming out to coworkers, new friends, acquaintances. Passing through it each time reinforces that powerful part of the human condition which connects our diverse community:  resolve.  It is with this resolve that we develop the strength to be ourselves, to live unashamed, and to love whom our hearts desire.

It was a Saturday morning, June 28, 1969, around 3AM, when a large amalgam of LGBTQ individuals came collectively to this point of hesitation.  For almost a decade, New York City officials had targeted gay bars for police raids in a campaign to drive these establishments out of the city.  On this particular Saturday, a private club in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn, known by police to be frequented by homosexuals and to be operating without a liquor license, was raided by police at 1:20AM.  This was the third raid held on bars in the Village within two weeks.  Once inside, police lined the 200 patrons against the walls and began arresting anyone without identification or dressed in drag.  Outside, a crowd began to draw.  As the cops began filing people out in handcuffs to patrol wagons, the mood began to change.  Some 500 people were now gathered outside.  Police backups were having a difficult time getting through the narrow, one-way streets past the crowds.  Police escalated their use of force, on-lookers began to heckle…

And then that moment came.

Pissed off, and probably a good deal intoxicated, the group of gays, lesbians, and transvestites whose community had been so long mistreated and targeted for eradication, decided to fight back.  In a flash of rage, confusion, and liberation the ragged community gathered in the streets, resolved to stand against social repression.  A shit-storm ensued.  Bricks and bottles were thrown at police, a parking meter was ripped down and used as a battering ram, the Stonewall Inn itself was set ablaze.  In the middle of the chaos, lines of young men began to form to taunt the cops, singing “we are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees above our nellie knees.”

The Stonewall riot, or more aptly the spirit behind it, is what we celebrate each year in June during Pride festivals.  We celebrate the decision all of us have made to live an open and queer life, a decision which takes a lot of courage and support.  Here in the District, Capital Pride is about to kick off (June 5th – 14th).  I encourage you all to go out and enjoy the diverse array of Pride activities offered this year, and t reconnect with the strength of our community.  To get you in the spirit, Dyana Mason, the Executive Officer of Capital Pride Alliance, Inc. (the organization in charge of planning and executing this year’s Pride festival), was gracious enough to talk with us about Pride.  See the full interview below, and check out the official webpage of Capital Pride here.

The New Gay:  This is the first year that Capital Pride Alliance, Inc. (CPA) will host DC’s Capital Pride. Can you give us some indication of the scale of this undertaking?  How much time goes into planning Capital Pride, and what is the most difficult part of this process?

Dyana Mason: Capital Pride is organized every year by a planning committee and hundreds of volunteers donating literally thousands of volunteer hours to help bring the events to the community.

TNG:  MetroWeekly reported that you began your position as Executive Director of CPA in March of this year.  Was it difficult to jump into the project just months before the start of Pride?

DM: I was incredibly lucky in that most of the planning was already done by our Board and Planning Committee chairs.  Since then, my role has primarily been to facilitate, and dot the “i’s and cross the “t’s” and make sure we bring everyone a great 10 days of events.

TNG:  Will you continue to serve as Executive Director of CPA after the festival this year. In your MetroWeekly interview you expressed an uncertainty with the permanence of your position.

DM: I agreed to a short-term contract with Capital Pride to help with the 2009 events, parade and festival and that is my focus.

TNG:  On the website, Capital Pride Alliance puts forth the mission statement of “supporting, planning, implementing, and assessing the annual Capital Pride events and related activities….”  How does the organization go about assessing the Pride events?  What markers do you use as measurements for success?  What are the avenues for community input into this assessment?

DM: Organizing Capital Pride is really a year-round process.  Once our events are completed, Capital Pride Alliance will begin plans for Pride 2010—DC’s 35^th—and we will make sure an honest evaluation of this year’s events are conducted.  For the first time, this year we are partnered with Destination DC to conduct a visitor survey at the festival, and we expect to glean some interesting feedback from that about how to continue to improve Pride and bring the events the community would like to see.

TNG:  Are there new events that have been added to the 2009 Capital Pride, due to feedback from previous years, that you would like to highlight?

DM: The one aspect of Pride that I am most excited about is our affiliated events program.  Working with community partners, regional, and national organizations in the Metro DC area, as a collective group, we have organized over 35 events for Pride week, celebrating “Stonewall at 40: Generations of Pride. Celebrate & Remember.” Events include a museum exhibition of the Kameny Papers Project by the Velvet Foundation, outdoor film screenings of classic LGBT cinema by One In Ten, a concert about the effects of crystal meth on our community by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, a Town Hall with local experts to find solutions to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region, health fairs geared toward the transgender community by the Whitman-Walker Clinic, and so much more.  This really is a Pride organized by the community for the community!

Additionally, as the LGBT movement continues to progress, we celebrate Capital Trans Pride as an official event of Capital Pride, including a day-long festival-within-a-festival, happy hours and other events for the trans community throughout the 10 days of Pride. We also celebrate our LGBT moms, dads and their kids by bringing back the Family Section of the festival.  Finally, we celebrate Capital Pride’s 34^th anniversary in the heart of Washington by organizing an incredible outdoor Closing Night Party on the National Mall at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gardens.

TNG:  What about this experience have you been most proud of?

DM: As a community, we have accomplished so much in the 40 years since the Stonewall Riots, even with as much that we still have to do. The sheer number and diversity of events, plus our close partnerships throughout the local LGBT and allied community—including our elected officials—and that we can do all this in the heart of our nation’s capital, is a testament to how far Capital Pride and the LGBT movement have come.

TNG:  What obstacles have you felt most vulnerable to?

DM: Broadly, I’ve been most surprised by the sheer number of events we are organizing for Capital Pride—everything from cultural and educational events to parties and the festival and parade.  But as I like to say, “That is a GOOD problem to have.”

TNG:  A Pride festival has the difficult task of trying to represent an extremely diverse community. And do you feel these aspects of our community are adequately represented in this year’s events?

DM: We are extremely proud with the diversity of the events and activities that we have so far on this year’s calendar—Just take a look!—and I think there really is something for everyone.  We have worked hard to be intentionally diverse from the moment CPA began organizing its board and this year’s events.

TNG:  Are there special safety concerns that your organization has to plan for during this event, such as protection against hate crimes during the festival or a contingent “gays gone wild” exit strategy?

DM: We take the security and safety of our guests very seriously. In partnership with our (very supportive) elected officials, our partners in the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit of the police force and our community partners, we work hard to develop a strong plan prior to the events.

TNG:  An important part of pride is outreach to individuals whose hometown life is not as gay-friendly as our experience here in the District.  Towards that goal, does CPA offer free/discounted booths at Pride to service organizations such as suicide prevention hotlines or youth outreach programs?

DM: Capital Pride is lucky to draw attendance from up and down the mid-Atlantic, not just Washington, D.C.  To that end, we offer discount pricing to nonprofit organizations—at about 50% the cost of the price paid for commercial vendors.   We also encourage smaller nonprofits to team up and secure a booth together. For one registration price, organizations get a “fully equipped” booth with a tent, table and two chairs.

TNG:  Our community has come a long way in integrating itself into normative society since the Stonewall riots.  As we celebrate our past this June, and the people who have fought to bring the LGBTQ movement to where it is today, which issues do you feel are the most pressing for us to fight in the immediate future?

DM: The goal of Capital Pride is simply to continue to celebrate the visibility and voice of the region’s (and the nation’s) LGBT community. We know for a fact that individuals come to Pride and leave refreshed for the continued work ahead.

TNG:  Is there still a need, at this late time, for volunteers?  If so, where should I direct readers to sign up to help out?

DM: Yes, we are always happy for more volunteer help! They can write to volunteer@capitalpride.org or go to www.capitalpride.org and click on “get involved.”

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