Kent Pride rises above the bigots: ‘We’re a vibrant, fabulous community’
After news broke yesterday of anti-gay flyers being distributed around Margate ahead of Kent Pride this weekend, Sink the Pink organiser Amy Zing got in touch with Attitude to deliver a message: One ugly flyer does not represent the community of Kent. Read on…
Margate made the news yesterday because of one small minded fool with a photocopier, but there’s a whole vibrant community of fabulous queers down here ready for Kent Pride this weekend… and we’re all laughing together at the disappointing graphic design and font choices of the flyer in question.
Did you know Margate has a long history of being a legendary Gay-Londoners-On-Sea destination? With iconic nightclubs and music venues all along Margate’s sea front? With the Turner Contemporary, the recently reopened Dreamland Pleasure Park and the fast train from London, Margate is enjoying a well deserved revival, with artists and gays leading the way.
From incredible restaurants run by lesbians, to club nights run by drag queens, and other bars, theatres and spaces specifically for the LGBT community, the spirit and support between friends and businesses in Margate is beautiful. Everyone is enjoying the quality of life that seaside towns offer, with an arty edge not unlike Hackney 10 years ago.
This weekend, I invite you to come down to the seaside, for a number of reasons:
-Jonny Woo’s film Dressed as a Girl is screening at the Tom Thumb Theatre on Friday night
-There is a march for Kent Pride on Saturday at 11am starting at the Cliftonville Lido (grab a coffee from Forts on the way and check out Plinth and Haeckels)
-Grayson Perry’s exhibition at the Turner Contemporary is free and fabulous
-Dreamland Margate has all the rides and candyfloss you need to get giddy and provides enough Insta-moments to keep your #TBT fuelled for weeks
-My Sink The Pink crew are taking over the Dreamland Roller Disco on Saturday night from 8pm, with shows from Jonny Woo, Bourgeois and Maurice, Jonbenet Blonde, Jacqui Potato, Rodent Decay, Louie Banks and many local Kentish queens, with DJ sets from Little Boots, Kris Di Angelis and me – a fine line up if I do say so myself!
I am so proud to call Margate my home. I have been surrounded by accepting, supportive, caring people since the day I arrived. I will certainly not bat an eyelid if one small minded bigot who is yet to be educated (which, by the way, I will happily do) pipes up. I believe in strength in numbers. By standing together in large numbers, we are powerful, a collective, a community. We become the norm. This feeling and reality is very powerful. My friend Dinah calls it Queering the Norm. This is what will happen this weekend.
I have sometimes been asked, who am I as a ‘straight girl’ to stand and support this community? I say to this, who am I not to? Who are any of us not to walk alongside our LGBT brothers and sisters ? All I have ever been greeted with by this community is unconditional tolerance and love. Straight allies and queers alike, we have a duty to walk on pride marches, because in every progressive, vibrant, thriving community, there is a small-minded bigot hiding in the shadows.
We are here to lead by dignified, peaceful, love-filled example , so that we can all exist together in harmony.
See you at the weekend babes!
info: Visit the Kent Pride Facebook page.