A lot of current LGBTQ discourse is stupid
I am sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that I absolutely despise tiktok because a lot of people on tiktok are “chronically online”. This usually leads to a lot of bad, interesting, or backwards takes being spread around like wildfire. And for whatever reason this sort of behavior has reached the subject of being LGBTQ and pride. I do not think all of this discourse is a new thing, not by a long shot, but it has just been popularized now since its now pride month. And since there is a lot of overlap between my audience and general tiktok users (thats not a bad thing, its a popular app) I will be talking about a few of the discourses currently going on and giving my takes.
The Kink at Pride discourse.
I have addressed this once before but I will do it again for the sake of clarity.
This particular discourse is centered on the idea that open displays of kink should not be at pride since minors also attend the event and as many of you know minors should not be around sexual content. It is also out of consideration for people who may not want to see kink displayed in public (this is mostly in relation to things like puppy play or people in bondage gear), people who are not attending pride who happen to be in the area (I have heard this a few times), and Asexual (again, I have also heard this a few times as an excuse). The jist of it is: kink makes pride events inaccessible to some people due to the nature of kink and thus people want it separated from pride in order to make it more inclusive.
This seems like a pretty cut and dry issue but its not. Its really not.
You see when we refer to ‘pride’ we are referring to a collection of events that all have the same general theme (LGBTQ rights, celebration of LGBTQ people and their accomplishments, and acceptance). And since we are referring to a collection of events and not 1 cohesive thing its to be expected that these events may differ in ‘age rating’. In this case its all about whats on the program and not about what YOU (the casual internet person) think pride should be.
Think of pride events like movies (or conventions if you will). Some events may be more ‘family friendly’ and only allow things that can be viewed/consumed by general audiences. Some events may be for general audiences but also have more mature sections that you can only view when you present some form of ID. Others are made strictly for adults (those over the age of 18) and do not allow or encourage the presence of minors at all. If you are a minor going to pride and go to an event made for ‘general audiences’ you probably will not see kink there and if you do, yes, you have the right to say something about it. But if you are a minor and go to an event that is more of a mix or that is made strictly for adults you do not have the right to say something since you should not be there in the first place. Adult spaces advertised for adults do not need to make themselves more accessible to people who are not adults. This would be like going to a convention, going to a mature panel at said convention, and complaining that the panel tackled mature themes.
And to further add ontop of this: wearing a leather harness or collar does not always equal some form of fetish.
Due to the rise of “alternative culture” and “E-fashion” several things traditionally worn by fetish practitioners (like leather collars, chains, and harnesses) have been adopted into fashion subcultures. Are the presence of those things sexual? No. It all depends on the context and how they are being worn. This does not apply to EVERYTHING made from leather or latex but I feel like that was important to bring up
And lastly: I understand the point of “having kink at pride sexualized LGBTQ people” and where those people are coming from. There is a problem where a lot of aspects of LGBTQ history and culture are sexualized. Hell, many LGBTQ people themselves are sexualized simply because they are LGBTQ. I have experienced it before and have seen it first hand. It is disgusting and never will not be disgusting. The prevalence of fetishizing lesbians, gay men, trans people, and the weird fascination with slightly masc nonbinary people is both extremely creepy and disturbing. But getting rid of kink at pride will not change the fact that this happens. It will not lessen its negative effects on the community nor will it weed out any bad people. Kink and pride are not synonyms, but neither are kink and pervert.
At the end of the day its all about how the event is advertised and who it is made for. Some events are for everyone, others are strictly for adults. 99% of the time your local pride event will tell you who the event is for. And if it doesn't, usually mature spaces are labeled. Not every event is ‘child friendly’ and thats fine. Not every event is adults only either. It all just depends on where you are and what the organizers were thinking and as shitty as that is, thats how it is.
Kink can exist at pride unless the pride event itself is advertised as otherwise. Please shut up now.
I always found this sort of dumb because it reminds me of this image:
It just feels UNGODLY petty. Why are we invalidating asexual people and aromantic people? Those 2 things are part of the LGBTQ spectrum wanting to not include those things at pride events or in the community because they do not feel ‘LGBTQ enough’ or because they could be ‘straight passing’ just feels... dumb. Just saying ‘straight passing’ as an excuse for excluding people just feels counter productive since there is no ‘right way’ to look or be LGBTQ. That is a subjective standard that is unreasonable to place on other people. I am not sure what more to say about it. I'm not sure why this exists in the first place. Just let people live.
The ‘new and improved’ pan flag
This is a fairly thing but I will try to summarize it the best I can.
So within the last few weeks somebody on twitter decided that the pansexual pride flag needed a redesign since its OG creator was apparently discriminatory towards lesbians, bi people, and trans people in some iterations of that story. They made a few iterations of this flag which I will include here:
But was this new flag warranted? No!
First off, the creator of this ‘new and improved flag’ was not a pan person. These new flags were not created by people who were pansexual themselves. Some iterations were created by pan people but the progenitors of this ‘new flag’ movement were not. They created these flags on the behalf of all other pansexuals (like myself) because supposedly these new versions are more inclusive to bi/lesbian people. But in reality it seems to be a panphobic attempt by terfs (yes they are pushing the use of this flag) to erase our history and flag.
And secondly, probably the most important part of this drama, the accusations against the the original creator of the Pan flag were unsubstantiated. These is no proof that the OG pan flag was in any way transphobic, lesbiphobic, biphobic, or any other form of exclusionary along with its creator. Most of these accusations are slander and formed from the fact that the OG creator of the pan flag supports kink at pride. WOAH, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! WE ARE BACK TO THIS AGAIN! This ENTIRE FLAG DRAMA was started by people getting offended by adults doing adult things at adult events.
And as I said before: unless the pride event you are going to says otherwise there will be kink at it. It does not matter what you think should be at the event, its about advertising. If you are a minor at an adult-oriented pride event you have no right to say you are uncomfortable because you should not be there to begin with. And now people are taking this already stupid thing, and making it dumber by trying to revise flags because the creators supported kink at pride.
If you like this flag for whatever reason... good for you. Use it. I really cant stop you. It does not matter to me if you do. But this ‘new’ flag was an extremely misguided attempt by non-pan people to right a nonexistent issue and FURTHER MORE us Pan people were never given a choice whether or not our flag would be changed. Why were we never consulted about our flag? Why were we left out of the redesign of our own flag?
Its dumb, every part of this is dumb. Its just a thing created by terminally online people (and terfs) who need issues to bitch about. Its just like with the kink at pride thing. This drama does not need to exist.
