It’s Pride Month and that means demonstrations in support of LGBTQIA+ equality, memorials to those in the community lost to hate crimes and HIV/AIDS, and big damn parties celebrating that people who identify as anything other than the established “norms” of sexual orientation or gender exist.
And that we’re proud of it.
Pride Month began as a response to the Stonewall Riots in June 1969.
After a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, activist groups began to rally together and organized protests held in the nights after the riot.
In November of that year, a national day of demonstrations was proposed for the last Saturday in June, to commemorate Stonewall’s watershed moment.
Over the decades, the events grew and spread out, eventually turning “Gay Pride Day” into “Pride Month.”
The “pride” part is important, because members of the LGBTQIA+ community have always been pressured to feel shameful for their “abnormal” sexual orientation or gender identity.
Pride Month is a time to say that no, shame and closets aren’t the answer and everyone should be proud of who they are.
Pride Month is also about fighting for rights and equality for all people in the community.
But, as usual, there’s a portion of the cisgender-hetersexual community that doesn’t seem to understand what Pride stands for.
Much like white people decrying “Black Lives Matter” or men complaining about International Women’s Day, these people just don’t seem to get it .
(For the record, International Men’s Day is November 19. So can we stop with that particular complaint? Please? )
And so in 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, someone decided to hold a Straight Pride parade.
Because reasons ?
According to organizer Mark Sahady, the idea is meant to be satirical and “poke fun” at the “identity politics” of the political left.
One more time for the back of the room: Cisgender-heterosexual people are NOT being oppressed.
It’s not “identity politics” when lives are at stake and basic human rights aren’t being met.
This is a majority of people hogging the pool, refusing to let a minority group enjoy the water too, and then getting upset for being “left out” when that minority group decides to build their own pool right next door.
“When’s Straight Pride Month?” they ask. Straight Pride Month is 365 days a year.
It’s in September when a transgender girl is beat up outside the bathroom. It’s in January when a gay teen dies on the freezing streets because his parents threw him out. It’s in May, when an asexual woman is the victim of “corrective rape.”
And it’s in June, when a drag queen is attacked and murdered on their way home from a Pride event.
Got any parade floats that celebrate that, Mr. Sahady?
Thankfully, social media is letting him know exactly how they feel about his “satire.”
Stunts like “Straight Pride” fundamentally misunderstand the point of events and demonstrations meant to fight for fundamental rights and freedoms that the majority of the community already has .
Sadly, Boston has granted a permit for the Straight Pride Parade after Sahady filed a discrimination complaint.
However, the city has at least ensured that it won’t be happening during Pride Month, but rather in August.
Which gives plenty of time for counter-protests to be planned.
But really, Smash Mouth said it best.
The organizers of the event are going to try to hide behind the excuse that it’s all a joke, but when human lives and rights are in the balance, a member of the cultural majority doesn’t get to joke about these things.
It’s that simple.
h/t: The Washington Post
