published IN PRIDE TORONTO’S 2010 PRIDE GUIDE
June 2010
More from Pride Toronto:
My first time: Prominent Torontonians share their first Pride experiences
For Kevin Levesque, attending Pride for the first time at 18 proved a liberating experience. Now known as Miss Conception, a popular Toronto drag performer, Levesque was scared his parents might discover he’s gay if a news camera happened to capture him at the festivities back in 1998.
But after a friend spontaneously pulled him into the parade, Levesque’s worries faded and he embraced the party atmosphere.
“At first I was scared but then got to feel the music and the crowd and let loose,” he recalls. “Somebody hands me a tambourine and it's all over from there. I had the best time of my life and I was proud to be gay.”
Levesque is one of millions who have attended Pride in Toronto over the past 30 years, taking in parades, parties and performances. Though Pride-goers all recall a little something different about their first time, they tend to agree one on thing: it was memorable.
Irene Miller also fondly remembers marching in the parade as part of her first Pride experience. Miller and her husband have marched in the parade with PFLAG for the past three years, in support of their now 28-year-old son.
“It was such an amazing feeling to carry to the signs down Yonge St. saying ‘We love our gay son,’” she says, noting the strong connection she feels with the crowd.
“The first year we marched there was a police officer who was doing duty at the side of the road, who came up to my husband, who was carrying a sign that said ‘We love our gay son,’ and hugged him and said, ‘I wish my dad could have done what you’re doing,’” Miller says.
“You’re touching people, you’re showing them families can and do support you.”
For Deb Pearse, now a morning host on Toronto’s PROUD-FM, attending her first Pride 20 years ago meant enjoying a “big gay party.”
“I don’t think I knew it was called Pride if it was called Pride,” she says. “We went to Church St., where we partied outside on a beautiful weekend afternoon.”
Over the course of the weekend, she says, her perceptions of gay people changed from what she had believed in her hometown of Peterborough.
“One thing that sticks out to me is my own stereotypes of what gay looks like were being broken down,” she says. “My stereotype in Peterborough was kind of just preppy, well dressed [men]. [In Toronto] I was seeing guys in very short cut off Adidas shorts and I hadn’t seen a gay guy like that yet so my own stereotypes were being totally deconstructed.”
Though Mayor David Miller had attended Pride as a private citizen for years, he has particularly fond memories of marching in the parade for the first time as Mayor in 2004.
He says he was struck by the amount of people who came out to embrace principles of justice and respect for all, which he recognizes as the defining spirit of Pride.
“What I really noticed . . . was how many families were there of diverse backgrounds,” he says. “People who were participating in Pride looked like Toronto. And it made me so incredibly proud.”