I always supported gay rights, and the right to marry. But somewhere along the way for Gen Z it became…almost required. If you don’t find a way to put yourself under that umbrella you’re basic, right-wing, oppressive, something to be ashamed of. This has resulted in the complete ridiculousness of my daughter calling herself a gay boy and her boyfriend calling himself bisexual (since he’s dating a “gay boy”). In other words, two straight kids pretending to be gay so they can fit in socially and avoid criticism. Hmm, it seems like pride was supposed to prevent people from having to pretend to have a different sexual orientation in order to fit in?
So pride, which I used to have no problem with, now makes me feel like I got punched in the gut and I wish I could just hide under a rock until it’s over.
Not long ago I desisted and realized that I’m probably as lesbian. I feel super lonely during pride month, because it’s like not for lesbians anymore? And I feel like I have too controversial views to exist in lgbt spaces
I went to pride parades a couple of times in the early 90s. My favorite part was they were led by Dykes on Bikes-the butch lesbians on their motorcycles. Saddest thing about what has happened to the pride parades is the lack of lesbians.
when I attended pride in my city in last decade - as ally first, then with bi flag (never brought trans flag, because I thought it’s less important identity for occasion) - I didn’t see dedicated lesbian representation, when I think of it. I saw gays, trans, aces, lgbt organizations, political parties, commercial stuff, more gays, but not lesbians. I previously saw pride as political event for community I barely belong to, now I want to meet my people… and suddenly it’s not for me.
I’m resentful and have a negative knee-jerk reaction to it. Who decided people’s public identities could or should be defined by what kind of sexual intercourse they enjoy? And who decided kids should learn all about this in elementary school? Why are we pressured to believe, and urging kids to believe, the absurd — the impossible — that boys can be girls and girls can be boys? Or that our own and our children’s religious beliefs and identities must be trampled and marginalized in favor of this new paradigm being imposed on us by our government? It’s completely insane.
As a member of the first three letters, I can honestly say I've never lived in a more oppressed time. My community is long gone, taken and warped by people who don't respect my sexuality, and attack my same-sex attraction. Sad times!
As a gay man who lived in Toronto for over 30 years, it is pretty shocking to visit during pride month and walk around the gay village and note the impact that postmodernism has had on what I used to think of as my “community”. Trans 🏳️⚧️ crosswalks now outnumber rainbow 🌈 crosswalks. Big businesses (especially the banks) have the diversity flag colours now, the old rainbow flag is not “inclusive” enough I guess.
I used to live in Boys town, Chicago and the parade went right down the street half a block from my house. It always conflicted with Latino fiestas, but I would chat about it later with neighbors. It was one day, kind of fun, kind of silly, always a desire to build understanding. The memes on Facebook about wishing homophobes and transphobes an uncomfortable month just make me very sad for our country.
I posted this on X a while back, but have been thinking a lot about this experience this month. You know how sometimes you notice something but you aren’t quite sure what it is except in retrospect?
Back in the 90s some friends and I ran an art gallery in London. We experimented with all sort of things including the Sex Crimes show (a comment on Spanner) and Hot Pussy and God is Queer (work by the late John Graham and Brigitte Hosea) - which I loved because it was silly, erotic furniture. Queer didn't mean quite what it means now. being gay had become more or less normal and mainstream. It wasn't perfect obviously but there was this feeling like it was going to be different for the new generation.
But there was this group of people who kept turning up at Pride and the gallery blathering on about "we're here, we're queer, get used to it". And I remember thinking, " okay... you're here, you're queer, we're used to you and now, you want a medal?
In retrospect, I think what happened is that gay activism stopped being about rights and started being about the demand for recognition. Or rather it became queer activism.
I do feel like we almost had normalcy. We had got to the point where it didn't matter if you were gay or straight -- but now we're all so damned weary of the politics of LOOK AT ME! I'M SPECIAL!! It just set humanity back so far.
It used to be really easy to support pride. To many people in my generation, homophobia simply did not make sense. But now? I feel like Pride with a capital “P” consumed us all. And it’s horrible.
My trans id’ed autistic daughter and I take a daily walk together through our small town of 10k, same route every day. It’s a way we stay connected, gets us away from devices, to enjoy nature and greet our neighbors. June means walking past the enormous two story high pride flags draped all across our community center and now, we have to traverse two sidewalks unveiled last week with trans pride colors. They honestly look terrible, I wonder if the workers sabotaged the installation and according to kid, the colors are all mixed up, ha. We move next Friday abroad and I can’t wait to get out of this place. I’ll be curious to see how Pride month is handled where we’re going but I suspect trans flags won’t be flying so freely everywhere there. And did anyone else notice Pride is auto corrected to be capitalized too?! 😩
I do feel like pride is oppressive— kids are made to take part in all manner of pride activities at school in our very blue Brooklyn neighborhood. One Muslim 5th grader told a friend that her religion didn't allow her to do the Pride coloring sheet handed out. I fully support LGBTQ rights but will not be participating in any of the Pride stuff with my family, it's too much.
I remember that they tried to implement it in New York 20 or 30 years ago and failed. Parents said ‘heck no!’ and tossed it out. So I guess they retreated and regrouped and this time people were either ready for it or unprepared to fight.
Yes, the first thing I noticed that there had been a tiny pride parade around our town was the two year old toddling along carrying a trans flag in her hand. Seriously?! Our kids were indoctrinated but this next generation … I pity the parents.
I'm tired and exhausted with it. I was an early supporter of gay marriage and voted for the right people, joined a GSA thing, spoke out, wrote letters to the paper, watched movies about gay issues with someone who was gay, etc. And then at a certain point I started getting messages that as a straight woman I was hopelessly cisnormative and out of touch, called a "breeder" for having a whooping total of 2 kids and taking good care of them, berated for having dyslexia and struggling to remember the overly long and constantly changing nonsensical acronyms they come up with (even LGB is hard, for whatever reason LBG comes more naturally to my mind). I mean I don't expect to be celebrated for doing the right thing but I also don't expect to be nitpicked and derided in return. And then I learned that if I read certain books I would be bullied and cut off for it. So I fought for their right to marry but in return I have to give up my freedom to speak because I'm not LGBT and my opinion isn't valid, I have to give up my right to read what I chose because it's so harmful to them, waste time memorizing acronyms (and flags apparently) and tolerate derogatory nicknames and allow myself to be bullied for them to make up for the crimes of other straight people? I did not fight for their rights to be treated this way in return. This is a great way to lose supporters (and they are losing supporters).
I know a lot of the older members of the LGB see the problems with this movement and feel just as disconnected and burnt by it and many have suffered a lot more than I have from how it has shifted and I have empathy with them and don't blame them. But those who have gone along for the ride or taken the movement over and morphed it into the monstrosity it has become have left me feeling ill used and slapped in the face. The backlash is starting, and part of me welcomes it but another part worries it will go too far and gay marriage rights will be at risk once more, which I don't want to see. And this has really frustrated me so much with progressive movements. In their arrogance they think that they will always have the upper hand and push for more and more extremism and forget that the pendulum will swing and do not prepare for it.
(I am a straight woman) I recently listened to a lovely story about the recovery of audio tape of a radio show for the gay community in Texas during the 70s which included recording of pride. It reminded me of the important history of Pride and why the LBGT movement was founded. I remember going to the parade in NYC in the mid 90s and feeling joyful at participating in a mostly grassroots community event. In the early 2000s I got to sit on a float in SF for my husband's employer and it was fun but disturbing to look out to see some of what was happening and the co-opting by corporations. Then I was a performer in pride in 2019 in San Francisco, and while I loved performing with my group and wish I could do it again, I felt disgusted in participating in the crass commercialisation, over sexualization, misogny, pornographic, trans ideology dominant, college girl cosplay event. That was my last time going to pride.
I support the LGB community, but Pride Month has been hyjacked by activists, and I can't get behind it anymore. I don't see anything positive about it now. It has just become a month to survive.
What was once a march for civil rights is now a months long hedonistic celebration of sexual fettish and an allegiance ritual to a burgeoning transhumanist religious cult.
Could you imagine if we celebrated Black history month with parades of tricked out SUV's, hookers hanging out of sunroofs, barely visible through clouds of "the chronic"? Crackheads on leashes being paraded through the streets by gun toting "gang bangers" with gold fronts and braids? Of course you can't. Because a "characterization parade" is offensive.
Last year I was at a restaurant in the Village for Pride. I asked for the ladies room and I was booed and jeered at. "Watch your language, its pride bitch!" Remind me... what are you so proud of?
The United States has entered into a duel with a dangerous dystopian fantasy. If we do not choose sides and fight this war of ideas we WILL be overrun by a nihilistic gender cult, poised to commit a genocide of biological reality.
The children are watching.
They are our last line of defense. Its not enough to fight gender ideology in communities and classrooms, we must indoctrinate our own children with the language and history of reason and truth before its too late. We must preserve the very idea of the human condition, tethered to the earth by our bodies. We must constantly remind our children who and what we are as a species, lest we cease to be human at all.
Pride month is a good time to hold underground classes on biological reality and coercive language. If Afghan women can risk their lives to teach girls to read, we can risk our reputations to teach kids the birds and the bees.
Tesco’s have a trans inc pride flag on their online grocery app, Southampton Fed funnel ferries are also flying a huge flag for their boats to Isle of Wight, bloody Oxfam with bunting (!) a local cafe is opening to celebrate LGB bloody TQ etc….. at my daughters school they highjacked black history month….it is everywhere….. and with the audacity to have the word LOVE 😱
I always supported gay rights, and the right to marry. But somewhere along the way for Gen Z it became…almost required. If you don’t find a way to put yourself under that umbrella you’re basic, right-wing, oppressive, something to be ashamed of. This has resulted in the complete ridiculousness of my daughter calling herself a gay boy and her boyfriend calling himself bisexual (since he’s dating a “gay boy”). In other words, two straight kids pretending to be gay so they can fit in socially and avoid criticism. Hmm, it seems like pride was supposed to prevent people from having to pretend to have a different sexual orientation in order to fit in?
So pride, which I used to have no problem with, now makes me feel like I got punched in the gut and I wish I could just hide under a rock until it’s over.
Not long ago I desisted and realized that I’m probably as lesbian. I feel super lonely during pride month, because it’s like not for lesbians anymore? And I feel like I have too controversial views to exist in lgbt spaces
I went to pride parades a couple of times in the early 90s. My favorite part was they were led by Dykes on Bikes-the butch lesbians on their motorcycles. Saddest thing about what has happened to the pride parades is the lack of lesbians.
when I attended pride in my city in last decade - as ally first, then with bi flag (never brought trans flag, because I thought it’s less important identity for occasion) - I didn’t see dedicated lesbian representation, when I think of it. I saw gays, trans, aces, lgbt organizations, political parties, commercial stuff, more gays, but not lesbians. I previously saw pride as political event for community I barely belong to, now I want to meet my people… and suddenly it’s not for me.
I’m resentful and have a negative knee-jerk reaction to it. Who decided people’s public identities could or should be defined by what kind of sexual intercourse they enjoy? And who decided kids should learn all about this in elementary school? Why are we pressured to believe, and urging kids to believe, the absurd — the impossible — that boys can be girls and girls can be boys? Or that our own and our children’s religious beliefs and identities must be trampled and marginalized in favor of this new paradigm being imposed on us by our government? It’s completely insane.
As a member of the first three letters, I can honestly say I've never lived in a more oppressed time. My community is long gone, taken and warped by people who don't respect my sexuality, and attack my same-sex attraction. Sad times!
As a gay man who lived in Toronto for over 30 years, it is pretty shocking to visit during pride month and walk around the gay village and note the impact that postmodernism has had on what I used to think of as my “community”. Trans 🏳️⚧️ crosswalks now outnumber rainbow 🌈 crosswalks. Big businesses (especially the banks) have the diversity flag colours now, the old rainbow flag is not “inclusive” enough I guess.
I used to live in Boys town, Chicago and the parade went right down the street half a block from my house. It always conflicted with Latino fiestas, but I would chat about it later with neighbors. It was one day, kind of fun, kind of silly, always a desire to build understanding. The memes on Facebook about wishing homophobes and transphobes an uncomfortable month just make me very sad for our country.
I posted this on X a while back, but have been thinking a lot about this experience this month. You know how sometimes you notice something but you aren’t quite sure what it is except in retrospect?
Back in the 90s some friends and I ran an art gallery in London. We experimented with all sort of things including the Sex Crimes show (a comment on Spanner) and Hot Pussy and God is Queer (work by the late John Graham and Brigitte Hosea) - which I loved because it was silly, erotic furniture. Queer didn't mean quite what it means now. being gay had become more or less normal and mainstream. It wasn't perfect obviously but there was this feeling like it was going to be different for the new generation.
But there was this group of people who kept turning up at Pride and the gallery blathering on about "we're here, we're queer, get used to it". And I remember thinking, " okay... you're here, you're queer, we're used to you and now, you want a medal?
In retrospect, I think what happened is that gay activism stopped being about rights and started being about the demand for recognition. Or rather it became queer activism.
I do feel like we almost had normalcy. We had got to the point where it didn't matter if you were gay or straight -- but now we're all so damned weary of the politics of LOOK AT ME! I'M SPECIAL!! It just set humanity back so far.
It used to be really easy to support pride. To many people in my generation, homophobia simply did not make sense. But now? I feel like Pride with a capital “P” consumed us all. And it’s horrible.
Honestly? Dreading it every day…..
My trans id’ed autistic daughter and I take a daily walk together through our small town of 10k, same route every day. It’s a way we stay connected, gets us away from devices, to enjoy nature and greet our neighbors. June means walking past the enormous two story high pride flags draped all across our community center and now, we have to traverse two sidewalks unveiled last week with trans pride colors. They honestly look terrible, I wonder if the workers sabotaged the installation and according to kid, the colors are all mixed up, ha. We move next Friday abroad and I can’t wait to get out of this place. I’ll be curious to see how Pride month is handled where we’re going but I suspect trans flags won’t be flying so freely everywhere there. And did anyone else notice Pride is auto corrected to be capitalized too?! 😩
I do feel like pride is oppressive— kids are made to take part in all manner of pride activities at school in our very blue Brooklyn neighborhood. One Muslim 5th grader told a friend that her religion didn't allow her to do the Pride coloring sheet handed out. I fully support LGBTQ rights but will not be participating in any of the Pride stuff with my family, it's too much.
I remember that they tried to implement it in New York 20 or 30 years ago and failed. Parents said ‘heck no!’ and tossed it out. So I guess they retreated and regrouped and this time people were either ready for it or unprepared to fight.
Yes, the first thing I noticed that there had been a tiny pride parade around our town was the two year old toddling along carrying a trans flag in her hand. Seriously?! Our kids were indoctrinated but this next generation … I pity the parents.
I'm tired and exhausted with it. I was an early supporter of gay marriage and voted for the right people, joined a GSA thing, spoke out, wrote letters to the paper, watched movies about gay issues with someone who was gay, etc. And then at a certain point I started getting messages that as a straight woman I was hopelessly cisnormative and out of touch, called a "breeder" for having a whooping total of 2 kids and taking good care of them, berated for having dyslexia and struggling to remember the overly long and constantly changing nonsensical acronyms they come up with (even LGB is hard, for whatever reason LBG comes more naturally to my mind). I mean I don't expect to be celebrated for doing the right thing but I also don't expect to be nitpicked and derided in return. And then I learned that if I read certain books I would be bullied and cut off for it. So I fought for their right to marry but in return I have to give up my freedom to speak because I'm not LGBT and my opinion isn't valid, I have to give up my right to read what I chose because it's so harmful to them, waste time memorizing acronyms (and flags apparently) and tolerate derogatory nicknames and allow myself to be bullied for them to make up for the crimes of other straight people? I did not fight for their rights to be treated this way in return. This is a great way to lose supporters (and they are losing supporters).
I know a lot of the older members of the LGB see the problems with this movement and feel just as disconnected and burnt by it and many have suffered a lot more than I have from how it has shifted and I have empathy with them and don't blame them. But those who have gone along for the ride or taken the movement over and morphed it into the monstrosity it has become have left me feeling ill used and slapped in the face. The backlash is starting, and part of me welcomes it but another part worries it will go too far and gay marriage rights will be at risk once more, which I don't want to see. And this has really frustrated me so much with progressive movements. In their arrogance they think that they will always have the upper hand and push for more and more extremism and forget that the pendulum will swing and do not prepare for it.
(I am a straight woman) I recently listened to a lovely story about the recovery of audio tape of a radio show for the gay community in Texas during the 70s which included recording of pride. It reminded me of the important history of Pride and why the LBGT movement was founded. I remember going to the parade in NYC in the mid 90s and feeling joyful at participating in a mostly grassroots community event. In the early 2000s I got to sit on a float in SF for my husband's employer and it was fun but disturbing to look out to see some of what was happening and the co-opting by corporations. Then I was a performer in pride in 2019 in San Francisco, and while I loved performing with my group and wish I could do it again, I felt disgusted in participating in the crass commercialisation, over sexualization, misogny, pornographic, trans ideology dominant, college girl cosplay event. That was my last time going to pride.
And don't get me started on the BDSM fair that happens in my neighborhood every September.
I support the LGB community, but Pride Month has been hyjacked by activists, and I can't get behind it anymore. I don't see anything positive about it now. It has just become a month to survive.
Pride was a march, now its a parade.
What was once a march for civil rights is now a months long hedonistic celebration of sexual fettish and an allegiance ritual to a burgeoning transhumanist religious cult.
Could you imagine if we celebrated Black history month with parades of tricked out SUV's, hookers hanging out of sunroofs, barely visible through clouds of "the chronic"? Crackheads on leashes being paraded through the streets by gun toting "gang bangers" with gold fronts and braids? Of course you can't. Because a "characterization parade" is offensive.
Last year I was at a restaurant in the Village for Pride. I asked for the ladies room and I was booed and jeered at. "Watch your language, its pride bitch!" Remind me... what are you so proud of?
The United States has entered into a duel with a dangerous dystopian fantasy. If we do not choose sides and fight this war of ideas we WILL be overrun by a nihilistic gender cult, poised to commit a genocide of biological reality.
The children are watching.
They are our last line of defense. Its not enough to fight gender ideology in communities and classrooms, we must indoctrinate our own children with the language and history of reason and truth before its too late. We must preserve the very idea of the human condition, tethered to the earth by our bodies. We must constantly remind our children who and what we are as a species, lest we cease to be human at all.
Pride month is a good time to hold underground classes on biological reality and coercive language. If Afghan women can risk their lives to teach girls to read, we can risk our reputations to teach kids the birds and the bees.
Tesco’s have a trans inc pride flag on their online grocery app, Southampton Fed funnel ferries are also flying a huge flag for their boats to Isle of Wight, bloody Oxfam with bunting (!) a local cafe is opening to celebrate LGB bloody TQ etc….. at my daughters school they highjacked black history month….it is everywhere….. and with the audacity to have the word LOVE 😱
Nobody can comment on this article. I’ve never seen this happen with WaPo articles:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/sports/the-fiercest-political-clash-in-sports/2024/06/06/77be527b-372e-48f1-bd16-07479e344ba9_video.html
Here is the full article. https://wapo.st/3RfCm2R. But yeah, no comments