Helen Regis

Observer
DragonCon Parade
There's something else maybe that we haven't quite spoken out loud today that has to do with the way that parades and festivals and maybe actually science fiction itself as one of the themes of Dragon Con is by taking us out of ourselves or of our ordinary every day, it makes it possible for us to think about how the world can be different. And I think on a really deep level science does that too. Thinking about how things work can also help us to think about how things can work differently. Things don't always have to be the way they are now, which is sometimes an incredibly hopeful message for us to have. And certainly, that applies to... Yeah. So a parade like Pride that takes potentially out of the closet or out of heteronormative just to use the jargon or space. It might help us to think "Oh, no, I can actually be who I am." Our culture, what could actually be different than what it is now. Maybe there can be a little more of an open community culture around who we are. And I think parades and festivals do this in a variety of ways by taking us out of our everyday ways of being and thinking about what can be. So I think that's inherently powerful,