Photo by Just Jack on Unsplash
(ID: A picture of the inclusive pride flag, an arrow with blue and pink stripes for the trans community and black and brown stripes for POC, pointing down toward the rest of the rainbow flag. End ID)
As Pride Month comes to a close, we all have much to consider.
There is certainly something to say about brands’ performative allyship for profit this month every year, but it’s more complex than that, with both the good and bad.
Corporations are not made up of a hivemind of evil capitalists - they are businesses run by networks of real people. Real people who have their own thoughts and feelings and opinions on how their corporate entity functions. Do you agree with everything that everyone in your job has ever done? Do you really think, the same person who wrote discriminatory practices into the hiring manuals, is the same person tweeting about gay pride this month? Maybe the social media manager is a tech-savvy millennial glad they can spread a little queer positivity in a corporate job they hope is a stepping stone to a better future. You can never know.
Many companies are happy to tout allyship during pride month, without actually dedicating themselves to any real change for LGBTQ+ employees in their workplace. This deserves a critical eye.
But it is not the end of the story.
Something that gives me hope is actually in the commercialism we are seeing here in America. For the most part, corporations will not back a social movement that they don’t confidently believe they will profit from. This has led to the commercialization of pride month - but in the oddest way, it’s a mirror of the change in our society. The tide is turning, in progress’s slow but unyielding march. Thirty years, twenty years, even ten years ago, corporations did not believe homosexuality and transgenderism was accepted enough in this country to be profitable to support. Expressing support for the LGBTQ+ community would bring about negative reactions, and tanking profits as a result.
As the cultural milieu shifts, it is not a coherent or linear process. Progress waltzes a few steps forward, a few steps back - occasionally staggering in sprints one direction or another. But somehow, we’ve gotten here - where being gay is not secreted in whispers, but plastered on shirts and memorabilia, front and center on display in many big-name stores across America. This is a sign of the changing attitude toward LGBTQ+ acceptance in society. It’s not the same in every corner of every town, but the fact that corporations feel it is safe - and even profitable - to support LGBTQ+ acceptance, is actually a promising sign of the cultural shift.
Corporations don’t just act according to cultural shifts though - they also contribute to it. From the politicians they back behind the scenes, to the commercials they play on every media, they impact society in their own way. Their pride month marketing, however performative, still sends a clear message in normalizing and supporting queer and trans people across the globe. Those who support it feel uplifted, and those opposed see it as a monumental foe against their bigotry. Every rainbow logo and cheesy tee shirt slogan still shows a change, a voice, an impact.
There have been countless efforts through the history of humanity to ban, punish, and hide those who do not conform to gender and sexuality norms. Yet, without fail, we continue to exist, and grow, and build from the ashes once more. The love of our people is a natural thing, and eternal - we carry it forth as a billion ancestors before us did, no matter their circumstances. We are not one political movement, one type of person, one single mind. We have always been here, and we always will be. Every attempt against our people has, and will, fail in the ways that matter most. We are not a fire to be put out, or a movement to be stopped. We are a billion hearts and minds across every plain the Earth holds. We cannot be extinguished.
And that is certainly something to be proud of.
