By John Lapsley
Boston isn’t New York. Has anyone mentioned this to you? It’s also not Paris, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, less weird than Portland, less international than Montreal. And as a bored-looking man repeated several times at a recent Armory disco night, it is decidedly no Berlin.
It’s easier, period, to define something by what it isn’t: particularly something as expansive and inchoate as a city, or a movement, or an identity. It’s a set of tastes. I’m not sure what, precisely, it is, but I can confidently assert what it is not.
A few hours into Boston Pride this year, my partner put her finger on what was so different from the last few times we’d gathered en masse on the Common. Those had been protests, filled with, I’m sure, many of the same folks we saw at Pride, but gatherings that were oppositional by definition: we are against the killing of our neighbors, the targeting of trans kids, the brazen corruption of our government. But for once, my partner noted, “it’s nice to be gathered for something.”
Showing up for Pride, for acceptance, for our queer community, was like remembering a muscle we’d forgotten how to use. We’d gotten so used to showing up to defy, to oppose, to try and shout something evil back into hiding. It was a welcome change – not superior, just a different and pleasant flavor – to be joining for something positive & declarative. Instead of “here’s who we aren’t”: here’s who we are. Here’s what and who and how we love.
Working behind the BRC booth let us witness this specific pleasure in micro. We had (and have) stickers, pins, frogs, dinosaurs, flags in the full complement of Pride swatches. All morning, we got to see hundreds of delighted little “aha!” moments as someone found themselves – their specific tastes and joys – reflected among the pins.
We also got to witness the fluidity of these identities and tastes. “I’m not sure which one I am!” one younger Pride-goer angsted to their parent, who reached for their wallet and gently replied, “Then get a few.”
Opposition (barring a miracle) will continue to be the headline of these years for our community. There’s much more, right now, to be against, and when so many others seem indifferent, or numb, to the cruelties of 2026, it is vital for our defiance to be loud, public, and in numbers.
But in her defense, Boston – while no San Francisco! – makes it just as easy to show up for something you love. You can sing along with hundreds of strangers at a concert, stretch along with those same strangers at Death Metal Yoga, dance with your community at a Bi+ night, cheer and whoop and holler for drag & burlesque shows that, adjusting for scale, rival any multi-million-dollar stadium production.
It’s a balm for the soul to tap that collective effervescence, to cheer for what we are, rather than what we’re not. It was a revitalizing treat to watch someone affix, amid the Against Fascism and Melt ICE pins, a grinning Bi-ceratops.