What pride means to me: Ernie from Little Yellow Different

Who is Ernie?
Ernie’s blog Little Yellow Different has attracted fans world wide including comedian Margaret Cho and well, us. Be sure to dive into his archives to see his entry for the 2007 Gay Bloggies: it’s all about the marker porn.

Ernie in his own words
Ernie is a long-time blogger at littleyellowdifferent.com, and a short-time blogger at 8asians.com.

What does pride mean to you?
The coming out process is different for everyone. It was a long, difficult process for me; I knew that I was acutely different from the other kids when I was young and looked for resources on old school Internet services like Prodigy to try to connect with other people. When my father stumbled on an e-mail sent to a pen pal, he freaked out — screened my mail, sent letters to me in college urging me not to find “bad friends.” And it’s not like when you come out there’s a giant party where you instantly have dozens of gay friends that you can do the things that gay people do – I remember going to my first GLBT Youth Group when I was fifteen, looking around the room, and realizing in horror that I had nothing in common with these people except my sexuality. I’d like to think that going through those experiences has made me a better, well adjusted person now.

What does that have to do with pride? Pride, to me, is the moment where you can look back and realize that those memories are just that – memories. Equality laws are important, of course, but to me gay pride is about the journey itself; the progress that we’ve individually made with ourselves and our families. It’s a time when we can say to ourselves, “I’m a stronger person than I thought.”

What are you doing for pride this year?
I moved to San Francisco last July from the suburbs, and only four blocks from the Castro. You better believe I’ll be at Pink Saturday – the Castro block party the night before the parade – because, seriously, the overflow will be coming to me anyway. I’ve done a LOT of SF Pride Parades. If I don’t watch it on television (they broadcast the parade in San Francisco) I’ll probably just travel down to Civic Center to meet some friends afterwards.