Kansas City PrideFest, 2024

 

I attended the Kansas City Pride Festival, which took place June 7-9.

The festival was a lot of fun, but I did experience a few inconveniences along the way.

 

The cost of my hotel stay increased significantly compared to last year.

 

 

I ran into difficulty when I arrived at Theis Park on Friday, the first day of the festival.

A security guard informed me that I couldn’t enter with my backpack, because only small or transparent bags were allowed.

I had to walk several blocks back to my hotel, at which point, I decided it wasn’t worth making the trek to the park and back again for a second time that evening.

The new security rules weren’t shared with guests before they arrived at the park. 

 

I later learned changes were made to festival policies after a mass shooting earlier this year, following a Super Bowl victory parade for the Kansas City Chiefs.

One person was killed and more than 20 were injured during the shooting.

 

 

As I waited for the pride parade on Saturday, I realized, to my dismay, that a porta-potty, conveniently placed a block away from the parade route, had been removed.

The porta-potty had been present during previous years. 

I find it likely the restroom had been overseen by a different organization than the one that organized the pride festival.

I wanted to use a restroom right before the parade began, but I had to wait until the parade was finished.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to cut my parade watching short to find a restroom.  

 

 

 

I recorded video of the Pride Parade, which featured interesting floats and lots of colorful pride flags.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I published a separate video of a Pro-Palestinian Protest that took place at the end of the parade. 

I discussed the protest in a previous article. 

 

 

 

 

 

After the parade, I went the festival, where acrobats from KC Aerial Arts glided gracefully through the air. 

I created a video of some of their performances, which were set to music. 

 

 

 

 

 

I created a video of some of the entertainers at the festival, which you can watch on YouTube.

Kerri Colby, a trans woman who competed in RuPaul’s Drag Race, performed on stage. Her performance was sexy enough that you might not want to watch the video if you’re at work.  

 

 

As always, I paid attention to the pride flags at the festival.

The rainbow and progress pride flags were very common. The Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag made a few appearances as well.

Pansexual, bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary pride flags were also very common, but not as widespread as the rainbow flags.

There were several lesbian and genderfluid flags, but they weren’t as common as the flags mentioned above. 

If you want to learn more about these flags, and the identities they represent, you should check out an article I wrote about the flags that appeared in this year’s Little Apple Pride Parade.

I plan to discuss the less common flags from this year’s Kansas City Pride Festival in a separate article.

 

 

I observed a few memorable outfits and accessories.

I noticed a skirt in the colors of the genderfluid flag, and a rainbow skirt.

I noticed a few people wearing shirts that read, “I turn mascs into bottoms.”

I also observed someone in the parade displaying a parasol in the colors of the trans flag.

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, I played Palette Quest, a table top role playing game, similar to Dungeons and Dragons, at the festival's gaming tent. 

Our Dungeon Master, Sarah Sackett, created the game, herself.

In the game, another player and I brokered peace between a town and a flock of nearby crows.

 

 

 

My Pride Outfits

 

 This year, I painted my nails in rainbow colors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, I wore a shirt with a rainbow phoenix that I purchased from Second Wind, a worker-owned company that reviews video games. 

The shirt works quite well as a pride outfit. 

 

 

In this close-up photo, you can easily see my transgender button, my pin of a dragon cradling a genderfluid heart, and one of my genderfluid earrings. 

You can learn more about my LGBT button collection in an article I wrote earlier this year. 

I took a photo in front of the butterfly lights with my rainbow Lambda Legal fan. 

At the end of the day Saturday, I took a selfie as I got ready to leave the park. 

 

 

On Sunday, I wore my colorful butterfly shirt. 

 

 

 

 

I posed for a picture in front of the butterfly lights wearing my butterfly shirt, while holding my nonbinary fan off to the side. 

 

 

 

The Drive Home

 

On the drive home, I was surprised when one of my tires blew out on the Kansas Turnpike on I-70.

I pulled over to the side of the road, and called 911 for assistance.

Thankfully, an officer was dispatched to replace my destroyed tire with my spare.  

I was glad to receive the assistance, but I was quite bewildered during the whole experience.

I paid for a new tire to be installed the next week.

 

 

I had fun during the trip, but I definitely ran into unexpected difficulties along the way. 

 

 

If you read this far, you might enjoy my article about last year's KC Pride Festival.

 

 

Israel’s War in Gaza

Pro-Palestinian activists protested Israel’s war in Gaza at the end of the Kansas City Pride Parade. 

The protestors accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The protest took place in Kansas City on Saturday, June 8. 

 

 

 

 

I broadly agree with the message of the protest.

I particularly liked the chant, “Biden, Biden, we’re your line — No more bombs in Palestine.”

 

This was the first Pro-Palestinian protest I’ve seen in person.

Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza have taken place across the United States.

There was a Pro-Palestinian protest in Manhattan, Kansas, but I didn’t see it myself.

 

It has been a while since I’ve covered world news and foreign policy on this blog.

From 2011 to 2013, I covered developments in Bahrain, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria.

More recently, I’ve been focused on other topics, including LGBT Statistics and domestic US Politics.

 

Even though I don’t plan to devote ongoing coverage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I do want to provide some context about its current iteration.

 

 

 

A Cycle of Retribution

 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict stretches back decades.

The conflict appears to be a never-ending retribution spiral.

One side commits an atrocity against the other side, and the other side retaliates, causing the first to retaliate, and so on, and so forth, forever. 

 

I don’t have the patience or motivation to try to parse every atrocity committed, or alleged to have been committed, stretching back indefinitely into the past.

Instead, I intend to provide an overview of the current iteration of the conflict, fully aware that any full accounting of the deadly dispute would require far greater detail. 

 

I encourage you to use this article as a starting point for your own research into the war, but be careful not to put too much trust in any source that appears to portray one side of the conflict as purely good and the other as purely evil. 

This conflict just isn’t that simple.

 

 

 

Hamas Attacks

 

The current phase of the conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of which were civilians.

The attack began when Hamas fighters broke through the militarized border between Israel and Gaza. 

Under the cover of rockets fired from Gaza, the fighters indiscriminately killed people in streets, homes, and at a music festival.

When the attack took place, Hamas governed the Gaza Strip. 

Hamas is regarded as a terrorist organization by several governments, including the United States.

Hamas took about 250 people hostage during the attack, including civilians and soldiers.

Exact numbers are sometimes difficult to determine due to the nature of armed conflict. This is often referred to as the “fog of war.”

 

 

In terms of casualties and national trauma, the Oct. 7 attack against Israel is similar to the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, where Al Qaeda killed almost 3,000 people in 2001.

After the 9/11 attacks, the US responded at times in unwise or immoral ways, including by torturing suspected enemy combatants, and invading Iraq, a country with no connection to the 9/11 attacks.

It should come as no surprise that Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attacks with atrocities of its own.

 

 

 

Israel Responds

 

Israel responded with retaliatory attacks on Gaza.

Days after the Hamas attack, Israel cut off the supply of water, food, electricity, and fuel to the Gaza Strip, creating a humanitarian crisis for the civilians who live there.  

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced the “complete siege” with a declaration that, “we are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Israel advised residents of northern Gaza to leave for southern Gaza in preparation for an Israeli ground invasion.

Israel began a ground invasion of the Gaza strip in northern Gaza, before invading southern Gaza, where Israel had told Palestinian civilians to seek refuge.

 

 

In late October, during remarks on the war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked a passage from the Old Testament that has long been used by far-right Israelis to justify killing Palestinians.

Netanyahu told Israelis to, “remember what Amalek has done to you.”

In the Old Testament, God tells King Saul to, “attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

 

 

Israel’s war in Gaza has been ongoing for the past nine months.

In March, the United Nations Satellite Center estimated 35% of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed, severely damaged, or moderately damaged in the war.

On July 5, The Lancet, a medical journal, estimated 186,000 people had died from Israel’s war in Gaza, which is about 7-9% of Gaza's population.

 

 

 

International Law

 

Proceedings are underway in international courts regarding the conduct of Israel and Hamas.

 

In December, South Africa brought a case against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in its war in Gaza.

In January, the ICJ instructed Israel to prevent its military from committing acts which might be considered genocidal, to prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and to enable humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.

It may take several years for the court to reach a final verdict in the case.

 

 

In May, Karim Khan, A prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, filed applications for arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli leaders.

Khan has accused three senior Hamas leaders of criminal responsibility for the following crimes against humanity: extermination, murder, rape, torture, and other inhumane acts.

Khan has also accused them of the following war crimes: taking hostages, cruel treatment, and outrages upon personal dignity.

 

 

Khan has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of the following war crimes: starvation of civilians as a method of war, willfully causing great suffering, murder, and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.  

Khan accused Netanyahu and Gallant of the following crimes against humanity: persecution, other inhumane acts, and extermination and/or murder - including in the context of deaths caused by starvation.

 

 

 

US Complicity

 

The Biden Administration has repeatedly aided Israel’s aggressive war in Gaza.

 

In December, the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve weapons sales to Israel, on an emergency basis.

The emergency determination allowed the administration to bypass congressional review for the foreign military sales.

Such determinations are rare, but not unprecedented.

The Biden administration bypassed Congressional review for two separate military sales to Israel in December.

 

Biden advocated for Congress to pass a bill that would include military aid to Israel.

In April, Congress passed a foreign aid bill, which included billions of dollars in military aid to Israel.

Biden signed the bill into law.

 

 

 

Powerful Editorial

 

In December, MSNBC Host Chris Hayes called on Israel to end its war in Gaza and for the US to stop enabling Israel’s war.

It’s a powerful, careful, and nuanced take on a difficult and sensitive topic, and it’s one I recommend watching. 

 

 

 

 

 

The US Presidential Election

 

I disapprove of Biden’s enabling of Israel’s War in Gaza.

That’s why I voted for Marianne Williamson in the Kansas Democratic Presidential Primary in March.

Biden had already secured enough delegates to win the Democratic Party’s nomination, but I wanted to express my disapproval with Biden’s response to the War in Gaza, nonetheless.

 

I plan to vote for Biden in the general election in November.

Biden will be running against Donald Trump, who engaged in a sprawling attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election, a free and fair election that Trump lost fair and square.

Trump’s illegal schemes included using fake electors to forge documents that claimed he won states that he had lost, pressuring his vice president to refuse to accept legitimate electoral college votes, and riling up a mob to attack Congress to prevent the certification of Trump’s electoral defeat.

Trump repeatedly praises dictators and still refuses to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

I dislike Biden’s support for Israel’s aggressive war, which I believe can be fairly described as a genocide.

But Trump is a threat to the American republic. 

There are many, many other reasons to oppose Trump.

 

Other than his handling of Israel’s War in Gaza, I believe Biden has been a good president.

To me, the choice in November is clear.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t call out Biden for his complicity in Israel’s war in Gaza, which is a criticism I believe he has earned.

 

 

For anyone wanting to follow the developments in the War in Gaza, I’d recommend Human Rights Watch, which has been fair in its commentary since the beginning of the war. 

 

Little Apple Pride, 2024

 

Manhattan, Kansas, held its pride celebration on April 20.

I recorded this year’s Little Apple Pride Parade.

 

 

 

Manhattan, New York, is known as the Big Apple.

Manhattan, Kansas, is known as the Little Apple.

 

 

I observed signs with the following messages in my video of the parade. 

• Real Men Wear Hello Kitty (1:50)
  
• Queer Jew for a Free Palestine! (2:24)
  
• Jesus didn’t reject people. Neither do we. (3:23)
  

 

 

I took photos of Aggieville, a business district along the parade route, before and after the parade. 

 

 

 

 

Here's the outfit I wore to the pride celebration. 

I purchased a shirt with a rainbow phoenix from Second Wind, a worker-owned company that publishes video game reviews. 

The shirt works quite well as a pride outfit. 

 

 

 

I wore a button with a transgender symbol in the colors of the trans flag. I also wore a button of a dragon nestling a heart in the colors of the genderfluid flag. 

I wrote an article about my LGBT button collection earlier this year. 

 

 

 

I painted my nails dark blue for the celebration.

 

 

 

 

Pride Flags

 

Many colorful pride flags were displayed during the Little Apple Pride Parade.

Here are the flags I noticed, along with brief descriptions of the identities they represent.

As always, it’s worth bearing in mind that not everyone defines these terms in the same way.

But pride celebrations create a wonderful opportunity to spread awareness about different LGBT identities.

 

Let’s begin with the rainbow flag and its descendants.

 

 

 

Rainbow

 

A group of gay activists created the first rainbow flag in 1978.

The flag flew in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade in June 1978.

Originally, the rainbow pride flag primarily represented gay people, but over the years it has come to represent the LGBT community as a whole.

The Los Angeles Times has published a great article about the creation of the first rainbow flag.

The current six-stripe version of the rainbow flag was adopted in 1979.

 

 

 

Progress Pride

 

 

Daniel Quasar, a nonbinary artist and designer, created the Progress Pride Flag in 2018. 

Nonbinary refers to someone with a gender identity that isn’t exclusively male or female.

The Progress Pride Flag represents the LGBT community as a whole. 

In addition to the stripes from the rainbow flag, Quasar added triangular stripes on the left of the flag to represent certain groups.

The white, pink, and blue stripes represent transgender people. The black and brown stripes represent people of color. The black stripe also represents people living with AIDS, and those who have died from the disease. 

According to Quasar, the arrow created by the new stripes symbolizes forward movement, while recognizing that progress still needs to be made. 

Intersex Inclusive Progress Pride 

 

 

 

The Intersex Inclusive Progress Pride Flag was the first flag that appeared in this year's Little Apple Pride Parade. 

 

Valentino Vecchietti, a British Intersex Activist, designed the Intersex Inclusive Progress Pride Flag in 2021.

Intersex refers to people who have physical traits different than those traditionally considered male or female.

The Intersex Inclusive Progress Pride Flag also represents the LGBT community as a whole. 

 

The design adds symbols from the Intersex flag to the Progress Pride Flag.

Specifically, the flag adds a purple circle and yellow triangle to the base of the triangular stripes on the left of the Progress Pride Flag.

 

Vercchietti founded “Intersex Equality Rights,” an organization that advocates for the rights of Intersex people in the UK. 

 

I discussed the history of the Intersex flag, which was created in 2013, in an earlier article for Meticulous Musings.

 

 

 

Powercat Rainbow

 

 

 

The Powercat Rainbow flag was the final flag in this year's Little Apple Pride Parade.   

 

The powercat is a symbol of Kansas State University, whose main campus is located in Manhattan, Kansas.

This flag represents pride in both K-State and the LGBT community. 

 

The Powercat Rainbow Flag also appeared in last year’s Little Apple Pride Parade.

 

 

Next, let’s take a look at the flags that appeared in this year's Little Apple Pride Parade that represent specific LGBT identities.

 

 

 

Bisexual

 

 

Someone who is attracted to men and women.

Although, to be clear, bisexual people can be attracted to nonbinary people as well.

 

 

 

Pansexual

 

 

Someone who is attracted to men, women, and nonbinary people.

For all intents and purposes, bisexual and pansexual are synonyms.

Some people just prefer one term over the other.

 

 

 

 

Transgender

 

Someone whose gender identity is different than the gender they were assigned at birth.

 

 

 

Lesbian

 

 

 

A woman who is attracted to women.

Bisexual women sometimes describe themselves as lesbians. 

Trans women who are attracted to women often identify as lesbians. 

Nonbinary people, who are attracted to women, sometimes identify as lesbians as well. 

 

 

 

Asexual

 

 

Someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction.

 

 

 

 

Nonbinary

 

 

 

Someone with a gender identity that isn’t exclusively male or female.

 

 

 

Genderfluid

 

 

Someone whose gender identity or expression changes over time.

 

 

I discussed these identities, and their flags, in two in-depth articles on Meticulous Musings, Sexual and Romantic Orientations and Gender Identity and Biological Sex.

These articles were part of the first season of LGBT by the Numbers.

 

 

 

I noticed three flags representing identities I haven’t yet discussed on Meticulous Musings: demigirl, demiboy, and two-spirit. 

 

 

Demigirl

 

 

 

Someone who is partially female.

 

This identity can be most easily understood by imagining a continuous line with male on one end, and female on the other.

Some nonbinary people identify with the midpoint between male and female.

Demigirl would be halfway between female and the midpoint on this spectrum.

 

 

 

Demiboy

 

 

 

Someone who is partially male.

 

This identity can be most easily understood by imagining a continuous line with male on one end, and female on the other.

Some nonbinary people identify with the midpoint between male and female.

Demiboy would be halfway between male and the midpoint on this spectrum.

 

 

Salem created the demigirl and demiboy flags on Tumblr in 2014.

Salem, who is agender, created the agender flag on Tumblr in 2014 as well.

 

The 2024 Little Apple Pride Parade was the first time I have seen the demigirl and demiboy flags in person.

 

 

 

The Gender Census is an annual online survey of people whose identity falls outside the gender binary.

Among other questions, the Gender Census asks respondents whether they identify with various identity terms. 

 

Cassian, who administers the Gender Census, is currently processing the results of the 2024 Gender Census.

Demigirl and demiboy weren’t listed among the checkbox terms available in the 2023 survey.

But they did appear in the 2022 survey. 

 

In 2022, 7.7% of respondents identified as demigirls, and 7.5% of respondents identified as demiboys.

Neither of these terms were among the top 20 identity words chosen by respondents that year. 

 

I discussed the results of the 2023 Gender Census on Meticulous Musings. 

 

 

 

Two Spirit

 

 

 

A Native American who is LGBT.

The term Two-Spirit was created in 1990 during the Third Annual American Indian Gay and Lesbian Conference in Winnipeg, Canada.

The term was adopted in part to replace a word used by anthropologists to describe LGBT Native Americans that was widely considered offensive due to its history and origin.

Two-Spirit Native Americans might also use an identity term from their tribal language to describe their sexual or gender identity as well.

 

 

 

Flags for Sale

 

A vendor at the Little Apple Pride Festival sold pride merchandise, including pride flags.

I noticed two interesting flags for sale.

 

One featured a snake with the slogan, “Don’t Tread on Me,” set against the backdrop of the rainbow flag.

 

 

 

 

Another rainbow flag featured an eagle sitting on a cactus devouring a snake, which is a symbol found on the Mexican flag.  

 

 

 

After the parade, several confident and energetic drag performers put on a show at Wefald Pavilion in City Park.

 

You can learn more about upcoming pride events by following Little Apple Pride on Instagram.