Your bad faith PRIDE questions answered!
Q: Hasn't Pride gone too far?
A: People have been asking this since Pride started! They didn't want us to exist, let alone to dance in the streets. If we let those who dislike queer people dictate how palatable Pride must be, then there won't be a Pride. In short: No.
Q: You already have equality. Why are you still banging on about it?
If that were really true then you wouldn't be so mad about us being visible. I spent my childhood terrified that I would be hated forever, second-guessing every word and gesture, and that was just in the UK. Even if it really were all over, I'd be well within my rights to spend my adulthood celebrating coming out the other side of that.
Q: You're just gay. Why are you including trans people? Isn't that a different thing?
One very short answer is that you treat them now the same way you treated us twenty years ago and that they don't deserve it any more than we did. The longer answer is too complicated for anyone clueless enough to ask this question to understand. Solidarity between the marginalised has always been important. There is space for everyone of every age, race and nationality in the LGBTQIA+ umbrella and you will not divide us.
Q: What about the children?
A: What about them? They're fine! When I was five years old, I made friends with a girl of the same age, and the adults told me that she was then my girlfriend. Isn't that much stranger than telling a kid that they can date or be whatever gender they want when they're older? Nobody is forcing children to be queer or have surgery; stop reading the Daily Mail.
Q: Why do you have to ram it down our throats?
That's a very violent image. Is this something about which you fantasise regularly?
Every book, film, tv show and song I ever found growing up was far louder about heteronormativity than I have ever been about queerness. I would have benefited greatly from being told that there was a happy life for me out there somewhere, and that I wasn't alone. Nobody ever came to save me, but I can make it easier for others, and being visible is a part of that.
A: It sounds like he was a nice guy. He was included in a book that was written by a lot of different people a very long time ago, which was translated countless times over the centuries by the wealthy and powerful to suit their own requirements. Some small parts of some modern versions of that book say some fairly unpleasant things about people like me. There's no record of Jesus talking about us at all. It's fine if you believe in what is written in there, but you don't get to use it to threaten or control anyone else.
Q: Pride comes before a fall.
A: That's not a question. And you seem to be referring to the alleged sin of pride, more akin to arrogance, vanity and contempt for others than what we're discussing here. When queer people refer to pride, what we mean is the opposite of shame, which is what you have tried to make us feel since before we were born. I am very proud that my loved ones and I have survived you.
Wishing a lovely month to everyone in our community. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️❤️
