It's all connected. Corporations began marketing gay pride themed merchandise. An increase in "I-identify-as" populations began to flood gay bars and events, where outward appearance (marketed as "gender expression") became heavily emphasized.
Commercial visibility and marketability does not equal human rights progress.
Ability to consume does not equal citizenship to an oppressed group.
Biology, (referring to sexual orientation and sex) is not a brand you can buy into or boycott out of.
Corporations selling rainbows do not reflect our values.
The churning out of new "all inclusive" pride flags to pledge allegiance to is not indicative of liberation.
A historical homosexual slur being sold by the multi-billion dollar media obfuscates predominantly lesbian relationships ("queer women", "queer relationship") and retraumatizes many gay and lesbian people.
Gay pride only extending to people able to purchase detracts from the meaning of gay pride and distracts from the struggles of the most vulnerable. It positions the most privileged within marginalized and oppressed groups as those who represent the whole.
And associating body modification, aestheticism, and "expression" with self identity turns the lived experiences and material realities of entire subgroups of people into niche market categories that people who aren't even a part of these groups can identify into and out of based on social trends.
Biology becomes devalued, overshadowed by the social and manufactured "genders". Infinite genders means infinite target audiences. Lived, material realities of certain groups of people become materialism.
Human rights movements are becoming human rights industries, with the wealthy more directly capitalizing off of the exploitation of the poor, of the homosexual, of the female, of the immigrant, of the dark skinned, of the mentally ill, of the disabled, of the sick, of the marginalized and oppressed.
Don't buy into it.
