Most nights, the sculpture garden and gathering area of the Bakersfield Museum of Arts is a tranquil setting, designed with contemplation in mind, but on the first Saturday of this month it was home to a seed of Bakersfield’s cultural evolution.
Families, drag queens, businesses, young teenagers, ACLU spokesmen, and people looking for an entertaining time within the community congregated for the second annual LGBTQ Pride Day. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Questioning (or LGBTQ) festivals, such as Pride Day, promote “our groups, and our issues,” in the words of one main organizer, Whitney Weddell.
What are these issues? One obvious one that was heard repeated is that Bakersfield’s reputation for conservatism and rejection of minority groups has trickled down from policy-pushing into public persecution, and here was, finally, a safe place to do what others take for granted, simply going out in public with your partner, or not having to “hide” yourself. Simply, a place to exist free of fear.
Samantha Barnes, a Bakersfield College student, recently moved here from San Luis Obispo and found our city to be “closed.”
“I am out here to explore the gay community,” she said. “It is difficult to meet others in Bakersfield. The information is not out there. It’s very open where I lived before. Here … well.”
Sheila Roth, of the Bakersfield chapter of Parents, Families, & Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a support group, is a psychotherapist and UCLA graduate. “The Assembly is just not supportive,” Roth said. “It’s the (same with) the City Council and the Mayor (Harvey Hall), who rescinded his proclamation for Gay Pride after saying he would give it, as he had in years past, because the Religious Right calls up.”
Roth said the gay community must, “Face the (consequences) of economic, emotional, religious and family condemnation. It leads to depression and lack of closeness with your family, if you can’t tell them who you are, or they reject you or limit contact, (for example) well, you can come for Christmas but your partner can’t.”
Before you begin to think that Pride Day is solely about politics or issues, the fact is that the vast majority attending were simply enjoying the sights, the sounds of the bands and performers, and speaking with friends old and new. This is where the seed of cultural change was encapsulated. Teenagers, who were absolutely comfortable with themselves in a way that would make most caste-conscious students jealous, espoused their causes and cares in detail.
“Myra” a high school junior, had this to say on the subject of Bakersfield and the gay community. “One day we are going to be as omnipresent as the persecuted groups who broke through before us, women, blacks and Hispanics, and others. Then the moralizing hate-spewing crowd will cower and see what they really were all this time, just people who were scared to turn the mirror on themselves and see where the real problems lie.”
On another spectrum was Sandy, a Bakersfield College student and mother, who attended with her girlfriend, Rachelle. Their children played nearby joyously, and seemed to quite enjoy the drag show. “It is really positive,” she said. “This community, the event is very family-oriented. There are other families just like ours. It is nice that we can bring our kids to an event like this and people stop to say how they’ve grown.”
The drag show is a staple of the event. The theme this year was Disney characters. “Malevolent” the sorceress from Snow White, serenaded the crowd and a few children who came close to the stage for a better look. The children laughed and clapped in delight, without a trace of condemnation or venom. I imagined asking these children, “When you grow up, who among you will damn those who merely wished to be themselves and love another human being?”
“Yolanda” was walking through Central Park, which is next to the museum’s grounds, with her young daughter. She had been walking around, taking in the “different” sights, as she said, and as we spoke she struggled to use the word “gay.”
In response to a question, she said, “I have family members who are … you know … gay.”
The word gay is said by her in a quieter, hushed tone … conspiratorially, as if we are two heterosexuals discussing outsiders in our midst. Later, she recommended a book by Alice Walker, who wrote “The Color Purple,” and it seemed the irony escaped her. A black woman recommending a book that furthered the understanding between groups, and yet she had trouble even mentioning another minority by name.
“BreAnne,” a West High student and leader of their Gay/Straight Alliance chapter at that school, said, “For me, personally, I love the fact that it is not just gays, and it’s not just straights. It’s everybody, and that’s how it should be, in school and in the world.”
She had words for anyone who faced discrimination, also.
“The dean at my school is good at fighting for our rights on campus. But my advice to others is to explain yourself and the problems with others before they get out hand, and tell them what you want to do about it. Don’t wait until it can’t be fixed,” she said.
Weddell and Roth are pioneers in Bakersfield in a sense that will, as history has shown often, go unnoticed in the long run except for their effects, which will be noticed throughout every home in town some day. The next generation will carry this work on, in its own way, as evidenced by the organizing and expectations of those, who being only children, in one sense, are now capable and astute enough to demand both a voice and equality.
Rebellion is seldom as serene as the sensibility of these children, teenagers with a few years between them and legally voting. Their major impact will not be on ballots, but on the consciousness they have raised and those around them. There’s truth in the simplicity of the statement I overheard by the ACLU booth: “We are what we are because of love, and we’re going to win because of that.”