Mama said that when she was a kid parades were festivals to celebrate different times of the year, different holidays. She said felt that parades about gender and sexual orientation had been justified before because of the prejudice and cruelty they'd experienced as a group. They sought to combat that enforced secrecy with a public display. It makes sense, totally. Yet she thought that if we could simply agree that everyone has equal rights to food, homes, career, protection under the law - to live good lives with community respect - then perhaps parades could quietly go back to being what they once were. After all, nobody used to talk about sex at all, not any kind, with children until they hit puberty. These days it's hard to keep all that stuff from preschoolers. Anyway, the way she said it made sense, as if it's been a pendulum being pushed from each side, but if we learn to let go and love one another instead, we can leave it be.