tbh the way corporations profit off gay ppl is super shitty and we all know it but also seein like all the pandering must be so fucking wild to the legit LGBT elders. like imagine growin up gay in like the 1940s and now theres like, gay doritos
Okay so during my undergrad I was involved with my university’s Oral History program, and at one point I just checked out of our recorders, went to the Orlando Pride Day event, and got some interviews for our queer history archive.
And if you haven’t been, the Orlando pride event, at least recently, has become very??? Idk companies dominated, like a shit ton of companies having booths and passing out stuff with their logo in rainbow colors (including health insurance companies, which is Wild.)
So something I tried to ask everyone I interviewed was what they thought about how the pride event is so overrun by companies, and something I found super interesting was the generational divide in the answers? Bc a lot of younger queers were basically like “It’s fucking stupid, it’s a bunch of companies that don’t actually care about us and that we know don’t care about us taking a time that’s supposed to be a celebration of the queer community and instead turning it into a glorified advertising fest.” But a lot of the older people I talked to (there was one couple I talked to that was literally a part of Orlando’s very first Pride parade) talked about how like, they grew up in a time where society either pretended they didn’t exist or reviled them, like literally celebrating people dying from AIDs level of hatred. And so obviously, they were more likely to be like “Oh we love seeing all of the big booths and how many companies are here, etc”.
But idk what was cool was that it wasn’t a situation where the older individuals were like “Yeah, we’re so happy that the companies love us!” Like, they were just as aware that for basically the rest of the year, these companies don’t give a fuck about them. But it was more that the presence of the companies was this huge visual sign of how much things have changed in their lifetime. Like for them, the fact that companies felt like they should go to Pride events, and that putting rainbows and “Love is love” on everything would boost sales, was a reminder that they were excepted and even held power in ways that they literally couldn’t have imagined when they were young. And honestly they were happy that younger generations didn’t have this same view, that they were a lot more cynical and unhappy with the companies in their Pride, because it was a sign of how much better things had gotten for newer generations of the queer community? Like they didn’t have to compare everything to an impossibly low standard, they didn’t look at the world as it is today and feel fortunate just to be alive and be able to be with the person they love; they were able to look at the world and say “You know what, fuck this, we deserve better”.
Which is a super long-winded way of saying, OP you right, LGBT elders do indeed find gay doritos and oreos and everything else fucking wild
This isn’t just LGBT elders, either. It’s also LGBT folks who live in countries where we’re still ignored at best, reviled at worst, where the struggle to be seen as people still goes on. I know companies don’t care about us, but I envy the US and Europe for the fact that companies there feel it’s important, not disgusting, to be seen at Pride. I envy you all your widespread queer merchandise. I’d die to walk into a random shopping mall and be able to buy a pride flag or shirt off a shelf, just like that.
Don’t settle for the lip service companies are paying us. We need to push for better and for more. But don’t take what you’ve got for granted, either - and please don’t let things go back to what they once were.
And make no mistake: Conservatives STILL HATE THIS. Conservatives are pushing HARD to make it shameful again for companies to recognize us. The fact that I can walk into my local, small-town Target in a purple-but-mostly-red county RIGHT NOW and buy a shirt that says TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS (I didn’t, because they were sold out of every size except XS) – conservatives hate that. They’re currently, as I speak, signing legislation designed to discriminate against queer people in many states, but especially, specifically mine. I still hear people scoff and make disgusted noises and say terrible things when they walk past the Pride display in that Target.
So yeah, it kind of matters to me that somehow, the overall tone of the world has shifted enough that it is more profitable for these companies to be seen as “inclusive” than it is for them to give into the pressure of the people who are still disgusted by us. Companies having Pride displays isn’t going to change the world; it’s the thermometer, not the thermostat. But that means there are more people with us than there are against us. And for me, that’s a comforting thought.
