Flamboyance, mainstream mix
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
When it rains on your parade — which it did occasionally yesterday morning — it can be disheartening. That is, unless your parade's the one that ran from Ala Moana Beach Park to Kapi'olani Park, in which case the moisture only added to the gaiety.
A Gay Pride Parade participant with the stage name Sister C marched in the annual event for the first time. The parade was an opportunity for such things as visibility and assimilation. But for Sister C, it provided an opportunity to have fun.
And that is what the 15th Annual Gay Pride Parade and Festival was all about. Having had the courage to come out of the closet, this bunch wasn't about to come in out of the rain.
"For some people, this is about visibility and making a statement about 'We're here and we want the same rights as everyone else,' " said one parade participant, identified only by the stage name Sister C.
"For other people it's about assimilation — 'See, we're just like everybody else.' Me, I'm here just because I want to have fun."
Sister C was decked out in a stunning rainbow-splashed gown of netting, spangles and flowers. It was Sister C's first time in the Honolulu Gay Pride Parade.
Others have been around since the beginning.
Bill Woods, who organized the first Gay Pride Parade in 1989, said it has grown much larger and colorful since its start. Noticeably absent, he said, is the bystander hostility level.
"The first go-around, people came and plastered signs in Kapi'olani Park in the middle of the night. Thousands of them. And they were just terrible. And we spent the whole night tearing them all down.
"Now, we have this one little religions group right down here, and a few people along the route, and that's about it. Ninety-nine percent of the screaming and yelling and fun is positive from the audience."
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
In fact, the parade these days is marked by mainstream elements. The 40-some units in the parade included the Royal Hawaiian Band and members of five religious denominations.
The festival at McCoy Pavilion included a display of quilt components from Hawai'i for a national AIDS project. Hawai'i's 200-plus panels are among about 45,000 from across the nation.
"What we're striving for is the day when we won't have to have this parade," said event chairman Ken Miller. "The only reason we do it is because society deems it so bad to be gay. We really need to put an emphasis on who we are.
"When you look at our community, you find that there are a lot of people who are hiding. We do this for them. Because when they see this, it gives them a little more hope."
He said the image usually associated with such an event is that of drag queens marching through the streets. That stereotype is perpetuated by the press, he added, which invariably focuses on the most colorful, outrageous elements of the parade.
After the parade, the festival — with two swimming pools, dual stages, double wet bars and 65 food and education booths — took place at McCoy Pavilion. There, many no longer were donning their flamboyant parade apparel and were virtually indistinguishable from everyday folks.
Which is what they are, said Suzanne Vincent, who was working the Na Koa Wahine booth for women.
"Because we're gay, or bi, or trans, or whatever, doesn't mean we're any different than anybody else," Vincent said. "We look just like everybody else. We love just like everybody else. We want to get married and have children just like everybody else."
Miller estimated that of the 400 or so people who participated in the parade and festival, approximately 20 percent were what he called "allies" — relatives, friends and supporters who are straight.
One such person is Pat Pa'akaula, former chairwoman of the Hawai'i chapter of the NAMES Project, in which quilt panels are made to honor those who have died from AIDS.
Pa'akaula was wearing a T-shirt depicting the quilt panel made for her son, Kaipo Hokuokalani Pa'akaula, who died of AIDS in 1994.
"He's the reason I'm in all of this," she said. "I talk about my pre-AIDS and my post-AIDS life."
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
It is the story of two different people, she said. One was a quiet, introverted woman whose knowledge of AIDS was that it's a fatal disease. The other is a qualified expert on the subject who fearlessly speaks her mind to all who will listen.
Tiane Kaponokealoha McNeiel-Cockett, one of the youth grand marshals of the Gay Pride Parade, performed a hula in tribute to the voyaging canoe Makali'i during the Gay Pride Festival at McCoy Pavilion. Tiane performed with Ka Pa Kanaenae O' Kaua'i Iki hula halau.
The second woman began to emerge on the night before Thanksgiving 1985, when her son called from Los Angeles and began the conversation with these words: "Mom, I don't know how to tell you this, but I have the AIDS virus."
Initially, she thought her life had ended.
"I really did," she said, fighting back the tears even now. "I remember going to bed and saying, 'God, I can't deal with this. I just can't.' "
She continued to ask God what to do until one day about a week later, while flying back to Hawai'i after visiting her son, "it wasn't like a voice out of the clouds, but all of a sudden I just knew — I would get involved. I was to be a part of this."
A decade after her son died at age 38, she's still involved. Like others at yesterday's parade and festival, she said she has no choice.
Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
