22 june 2019
Today was my city's Pride festival.
I went with my fiancee and got dressed up a bit. I had intended to get up earlier than I did so that I could go get some more clothes (I really wanted a skirt, headband, and purse), but I slept in and then realized that Pride started an hour before I had thought. I ended up going in my regular jeans, a nice shirt I got from Walmart, and wearing my breast forms.
I had a good time, though it did take me a bit to get over some of my worries/feeling out of place. I guess there's still (and probably will always be) some degree of feeling like I don't belong because I don't feel like I've done enough. I don't really help any others out and kind of just keep to myself. But I remind myself that that's okay, and there's nothing I need to do to "prove" I'm LGBT enough.
The parade was nice. We weren't able to go very far forward, sticking mostly to the end of the parade, so that meant we missed out on some of the floats (they turned right before where we were, but people walking kept going past us).
Amusingly, we got handed a bottle of lube from some of the people walking. At first I wasn't sure and thought it might be hand sanitizer, but nope, it's personal lubricant.
After the parade, we went to the actual festival which was nice. We like festivals already, but it's kind of fun to see everything adorned in rainbows and all kinds of LGBT-friendly stuff.
One thing that makes me a little sad is how many "free (mom|dad) hugs" people there were, and that it's such a widespread thing that some people would want a hug from a parent-figure because they aren't able to get one from home.
During the festival, after about 30 minutes, it started pouring down rain. We ended up seeking shelter in a few places for a couple of minutes during the heaviest part. We also looked at some dresses and shirts and bought one, but unfortunately, it was way too small on me. It's a real shame too because I really like how it looks and think it would suit me well.
We saw some old friends from high school. I was pretty sure one of them is trans but they introduced themselves with the name we knew from high school, so I hope they didn't feel like they had to do that with us. I can understand wanting to not fully out yourself to old classmates, but I still hope we didn't make them feel out of place.
Other than that, we stayed for around 45 minutes total at the festival and then got back in the car and came home.
A friend is back in town for the day (different than the one I do game nights with once a week), so we went to a coffee shop and caught up. This is the one I came out to a few weeks ago, so we got to talking about Pride and everything, and it was nice to get to talk about some of this stuff with someone in person.
He brought up a good point: I don't really have any trans friends IRL. I used to but now I really don't and a part of me finds that a little sad. Not so much because I need to surround myself with other trans people and make everything about being trans, but that I'd like to be there to offer support if they wanted. Since I kind of keep holed up at home a lot, then I don't really get a chance to fulfill that role.
Overall, I had a pretty good day. I think I'm going to go have dinner with family at one of our favorite restaurants, so I think that will be a nice way to close off the day.