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On Sunday I marched in the Vancouver Gay Pride Parade with my boyfriend. That sentence sounds all wrong to me. First of all, I marched metaphorically, as I was being pushed in a manual wheelchair. Secondly, although I was with my boyfriend, I'm bisexual and I have a girlfriend as well. In fact, I'm actually a rare bird, a Kinsey 3, which means I'm 'pansexual.' No, that doesn't mean I'm attracted to pans or Pan, it means I'm attracted to all genders and combinations of gender. Gender really doesn't matter to me, I've dated men, women and transgendered people. It's all good to me.

So, my boyfriend was there, but he was escorted by myself and his other girlfriend, who happens to identify as a bisexual lesbian. Boyfriend also gets teased a lot for being gay in everything but what he does in the bedroom. So I figure he's queer enough to march in the Pride parade, or at least queer enough by association to escort his bisexual girlfriends.

My friend Ms. Pet was there making signs with crazy disability and sex political slogans. She carried a "Depraved Disabled Dyke" sign and made a sign for me that said "Kinky Queer Cripple" on one side and "Bisexual Pride" on the other. The disability slogan didn't get much of a crowd response, but the Bisexual Pride slogan sure did. Quite a few women nodded, smiled, gave thumbs up, and cheered when they saw my sign.

Our group had a number of disabled folk, as we were marching with the local LGBT centre, which includes Chronically Queer, a group for LBGT folks with disabilities. I discovered last year that one can be every bit the crowd-pleaser from a wheelchair as the bipedal marchers. Last year I was marching with Bi Girls Vancouver, and I was really excited about it. Marching with a government centre just didn't have the same emotional impact, so I was more casual and last-minute about things.

Scratch was having a bit of a rough time navigating the crowds after the parade and pushing the chair at the same time. He became very frustrated at how oblivious people were at noticing the wheelchair. It also annoyed him that people were so painfully slow in getting out of the way for us. I'm so used to it that I don't even notice it anymore. I'll go out on a limb here and say that folks with disabilities have developed patience and endurance for that sort of thing. I became a little annoyed with Scratch for not actually giving people time to get out of the way before barking at them, and I told him so. I'm pretty used to having to say 'Excuse me' a couple of times to TABs before they moved out of the way.

Scratch was also frustrated because we couldn't run to catch the bus, although he did try. I was not impressed. In fact, I had a raging panic attack when he ran pell-mell with me in front. I was horribly afraid I'd go flying out of the chair at any moment, which was a possibility. I told him sternly that he is never to run with me in the chair ever again.

Scratch says he needs some time to adjust to me being in the wheelchair. He doesn't have a problem with it, but it's hard for him, watching me be marginalized because I'm using a wheelchair to get around sometimes. He had the same issue when I started to use the canes. He says it made him crazy watching people get in my way, not stepping aside for me, blocking off entrances and sidewalks, and treating me like I'm invisible in general. Welcome to our world, sweetheart.

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