Friday the 10th was UBC Thunderbirds Pride Night, where the T-Birds (a) played a home game against the Trinity Western U Spartans, and (b) celebrated the budding friendship between UBC and the Vancouver Gay Volleyball Association, of which I’ve been a proud member for over 15 years. There were both women’s and men’s matches, some fun drag games, and a 50/50 raffle with proceeds going to Qmunity. The gym was packed (I hear it was the best attendance ever for home vball games) and a great time was had by all.
Now let’s talk about the pride flags in the above photo.
From left to right, they are: genderqueer, trans, ace (asexual), the classic LGBT rainbow, bi, and pan. The rainbow flag’s been around for 40 years, but the other ones are much more recent: the bi flag dates from 1998, the trans flag from 2000, and all the other ones from 2010.
They’ve been popping up a lot lately, and I for one approve of this. I like that now we don’t have just one cool as hell flag but many, because the truth is we are many communities and identities. With overlap and common issues, sure, but the sooner we acknowledge and celebrate our diversity the happier we’ll all be. All these flags? That’s the the future, right there. LGBTQIA2S+, baby.
And hell, even the venerable rainbow flag has a future. Look at what Philadelphia did with their Pride flag, that’s got so many complacent white gays even as far as Vancouver all in a tizzy. Aside from the whole bullshit “Black Lives Matter is bad” or “the community isn’t about race” arguments, I’ve been told essentially that the rainbow flag is sacrosant and eternal and it’s sacrilege to modify it. But hasn’t the flag already been modified? The original design had eight stripes, and those have started appearing as well, in particular on the crosswalks at Bute & Davie. In the future I imagine different cities tweaking the basic flag template to suit the needs of their particular communities. And that’s okay. Waving a single flag will not unite us any more. Waving different flags will not split us any more than we already are.
Will these new flags last? Who knows? The trans and bi colours look like they’re here to stay. it’s too soon to say for the others, but either way that’s okay. The communities aren’t going away, and there will be other symbols.
Anyway, back to the game, and the many thirst traps working it on the court. The T-bird men’s team ended up losing to TWU, though it was super-close (13-15 in the 5th set). Women won after 4 sets, I believe. So that was kind of a disappointment, especially since our team flubbed a few plays and should have gotten more points, but c’est la vie.
On Sunday I left for volleyball extra early since I had a hankering to stop by Kits Beach on the way. And boy am I glad I did! The light was perfect, the view was perfect, and there were two couples of duckies enjoying the waves. Absolutely perfect.
Monday was Family Day in BC, and I was all ready to stay in and keep my lazy ass on the couch, but then I got called to terraform Mars. It’s a hella fun game, a bit tricky to learn at first, but I got in the swing of things easily enough, and it’s extremely replayable and full of possible strategies. Looking forward to my next session.
After a chilly couple days and a night of actual snow, Valentine’s Day turned out sunny and bright. One of these days I’m going to do a timelapse of those shadows falling on the Marine Building, maybe every hour on the hour. That would look awesome, I think.
Not photographed: a Valentine’s Day “speed-gaming” event at the Storm Crow. Not queer but open to all genders and orientations, just a bunch of people playing a bunch of quick games. I was nervous, kinda didn’t want to go, but I’m glad I came out of my cave. 10/10 would do again. Keplunk is a bitch of a game, though.