Pride in the South Is More than a Celebration

Savannah Pride shows me why visibility still matters.

I’m Alexander Cheves, and this is LOVE, BEASTLY—a blog about sex, feelings, and manhood. It’s written mostly for men—gay, straight, bi, MSM, or just curious—but some readers are women, and some don’t fit into categories. Everyone’s welcome here.

This is one of my more personal essays. Heads up: these can sometimes include explicit content or emotionally triggering subjects.

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This was my first year working for Savannah Pride, a local non-profit organisation in Savannah, Georgia, that plans the annual Pride Festival in Forsyth Park. On the day of the event, I guarded a fence in the back so that no one hopped it.

It's still a little hard for me to believe Savannah has a Pride event. Pride, to me, is energy and sex. Savannah is a sleepy, conservative town on Georgia's coast—old buildings, cobblestone streets, oak trees, and statues of Confederate soldiers.

It's not as bad as the rest of Georgia, but not exactly a queer haven. As a port city, Savannah is culturally diverse, and with a large art college (the one I attend), the town has modernised quite a bit, with chic restaurants and shops and a growing international student population. A unique array of people compose its history— pirates, Jews, hustlers, queers, and trans people.

Time moves slowly here. You strike up conversations on the street. We pour cocktails at noon.

Our Pride simply isn't the loud, corporate spectacle of larger cities. It's a local artisan market with booths and vendors and a small stage where local musicians play. There's no parade, no march, no sex. But it's nice. Now that it's over and I can reflect on it, I am glad to have been a part of something, glad to have helped. I'll confess that I was, in the beginning, wary of getting involved. I know the drama that small-town gays like to stir up—and they did—and I wanted very much to avoid all that.

Many of my friends here have criticised the Savannah Pride board for putting up a fence and charging admission. In our planning meetings, I learned how much it costs to put on this event—to rent chairs, pay security, print fliers, hire performers, cover travel costs, pay for hotel rooms, and so on. I saw why the admission fee was necessary to make it happen. I tried to explain this to people when I heard them grumble about it, which was often. But in the months leading up to the festival, another conversation began among my friends: Was Pride still necessary?