My 7-year-old son, Henry, loves for me to paint his nails. Last summer, when we were still sheltering in place, we came up with some great layering of a pearl undercoat with a pink glitter top coat. But the evening before he was meant to start summer camp, he came to me with fists clenched, hiding his fingers and vainly trying to keep tears from falling, and said, as if he’d learned something he thought I shouldn’t have been keeping from him, “I know that sometimes kids make fun of boys who wear nail polish.” He asked me to remove his sparkles.
Henry had spent the first 5 years of his life in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where he was entrenched in diversity and surrounded by the resources to promote it. He had attended a dual language public school with a diversity book club and took free art classes that taught children to mix pastels of any skin color, and in both school and in the neighborhood he saw a myriad permutations of family and self-identification.
Though he was regularly called “she” and my “daughter” because of his long hair and long eyelashes, assumptions were usually followed by an apology for the assumption and he seemed free enough of judgement or prejudice that he didn’t care what anyone thought about his gender or personal style.
When we first visited Middletown, when we found the house that we now live in, and wondered if we wanted to leave the city, we were encouraged by the ethnic diversity that was manifest every time we went to a store or restaurant. There seemed to be an incredible amount of interracial relationships and families and friendships, evidenced every time we went to Buffalo Wild Wings or Target or the YMCA.
But it wasn’t until the nail polish, that I realized that, though we’d managed to move somewhere manifestly ethnically diverse, we no longer seemed surrounded by the resources that promote gender diversity and inclusivity, nor did we seem to be interacting with much more than a gender-normative community.
I was gutted when Henry was scared to be himself and reminded that if Henry was uncomfortable, Henry, who was born into a nest of entitlements like race and wealth and geography to keep him safe, Henry who was only scared of the consequences of enjoying nail polish, then we needed to do more to share what we know about inclusivity and expression with our neighbors in our new home and go further out of our way to meet and learn from neighbors with different experiences.
I emailed Drag Queen Story Hour and asked if I could help start an Orange County chapter of their powerful, inventive, and nurturing format. I made plans to build a stage in our backyard so that we could put on Free to Be You and Me or something that someone would teach me was more on point than my 50-year-old hippie references.
And then Harold Card donated his property to the Town of Wallkill, more suited to education and history and performance than our backyard, and I learned that the town’s supervisor was a veteran of PS122 and The Kitchen and The Chocolate Factory and he and I shared a network of talented, experimental, and respected friends and colleagues. We were quickly carried away by the idea of Old Rockville’s inaugural event being a Pride celebration and giving sanctuary and welcome to our LGBTQIA+ community.
My enthusiasm always runs ahead of my resources, past a blur of reason and prudence. So I am going to need your help making this happen! I will ask you for volunteers, I will ask you for equipment, and I will ask you for money. But I want so much to bring us all together on June 12 and on many occasions in the future.
I asked our performers to write down what Pride means to them and Mishti said, “For anyone who hasn't been to Pride, it is actually the most inclusive event you can imagine! It is truly about joy, love, and community. It is for anyone who has felt left out for ANY reason...which, let's be honest, is all of us!”
Our entertainment for the day is epic. Julian Fleisher is hosting our lineup that kicks off with David Driver & The Riot Squad, followed by Adrienne Truscott, Alex Nolan & Mishti, Drag Queen Story Hour’s Angel Elektra & Shay D’Pines, a go-go dancing class with Anna Copa Cabanna, Nicki Starr and The Haus of Star Drag Show, Joe McGinty & Hally McGehean’s Upping My Numbers with Paige Siegwardt, Liz Asaro, Katia Floreska, Connie Petruk, Chloe Kostman, Anna Copa Cabanna, Alyson Greenfield, Lizzie Edwards, Shannon Conley, & Julian Fleisher, and a rousing finale with Shannon Conley & Supersonic Blonde. We will also have a moment of silence to remember the 5-year anniversary of the devastating Pulse Nightclub shooting.
Above is a collage of the house at Old Rockville and all our performers that Harold Card and I worked on together to promote and commemorate this first and important event. We are kindreds in analog and I think his lettering is everything.
I hope that you will join us on June 12. I also hope that if you have extra means that you may contribute to get us started building something here for the LGBTQIA+ community.
Thank you!
Love,
Hally
90-year-old Harold Card and his dog, Frisky, envision the stage for Pride in Sunny Field.
Old Rockville Pride takes place on Saturday, June 12, from 12-6pm at Old Rockville, 74 Van Burenville Road, Middletown, NY.
What to bring to Old Rockville Pride: picnic blankets, beach chairs, sunscreen, bug spray.
What not to bring to Old Rockville Pride: alcohol, tents.