No I don't want a pride sticker thank you, I just want my pint of milk

The way I see it is, if you’ve got banks and other massive corporations backing you and pushing your agenda, how oppressed are you??
for a whole month? Plus all the other parades and remembrance days.
Pride parade in my city is in august.
Women get one day, which is often hijacked by trans women or just lame men asking when men’s day is (it’s in November)
We do have black history month but that’s more in schools libraries and museums not banks and corps.
what visibility to disabled and neurodivergent people get?
What inclusion do single parents and other people with caring responsibilities get in the average workplace?
I’ve worked with and am friends with lots of LGB people, I’ve never discriminated against them and they seem to have the same rights as everyone else in this country at least, there’s work to be done in other places, stonewall and the like should be focusing their efforts there instead of widening the umbrella so much that it includes so many straight people as to be meaningless.
That’s without going into the fact pup play, age play, fetish and trans is problematic for gay people and women’s and children’s rights.

TBH, I don't want to be inundated with stuff about firefighters and breastfeeding for a month, when I go to buy a pint of milk or socks.

And I'm married to a volunteer firefighter and spent around seven years of my life breastfeeding, and have helped support other women.

It's just all too much. I don't need shops telling me what to do or what is important.

I find it very interesting that the people who turn up to scold the posters here for being phobic and unkind are so quick to turn nasty.

Speaks volumes.

And there we have it. Operation 'let them speak' in action.

All minorities are equal. But some are more equal than others.

I couldn’t care less if you find it offensive.

You what? I don't even know where to start....

How is words to be used in their intended way 'colonising'? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

No one is being banned. It was a request for consideration to be shown, which people are free to ignore (as you have).

Whatever your views on the word, It's still not a good look to use mental health issues as an insult.

But you do you.

Please don't misuse the word trigger like this, it's offensive to those of us that have mental health issues. It doesn't mean 'get a bit cross/ upset'.

No, it means to set something off. It's always meant that. It is also colloquially used to mean 'to provoke a strong emotional reaction in someone'. You don't get to colonise words and ban people from using them in a perfectly valid way which has been used for ages.

I would’ve loved a pride sticker a few years ago but the TRAs have ruined it. I feel quite triggered by it all now. To me it represents the oppression, bullying and erasure of women.

It's a bit disingenuous to say 'it's only a sticker, calm down'.

Clearly its not the sticker, but the message that the sticker carries that is the issue for the OP and others.

I guess the argument is, if shops are going to dole out political stickers, why stop at pride? Why not ' vote Labour' or 'down with Brexit'.

Or perhaps that would be inappropriate for a shop?

Please don't misuse the weird trigger like this, it's offensive to those of us that have mental health issues.

It doesn't mean 'get a bit cross/ upset'.

Really boils my piss when people casually minimise mental health issues, especially as an insult.

I suppose I should add that from a marketing point I understand it. In terms of selling rainbow merch. Because gay people tend to have more disposable income than straight people, especially into their 30s and beyond.

I've got to say that the universal corporate Pride-washing is weird, yes.

Some people like to have sex with members of their own sex. Fine, whatever. Nothing to do with me.

I'm not sure why we should celebrate it. I'm not trying to be obtuse there, I genuinely do not know why. Homosexuality is a neutral thing like heterosexuality. Who gives a monkeys.

If we spent a month celebrating breastfeeding, and putting engorged nipple designs on things, or on childbirth, and putting placantas on things, it'd make more sense. Or, I dunno, a month celebrating firefighters. Or brain surgeons. Because these are difficult things to do that contribute to the formation of new life, or enable life to continue.

But a whole month celebrating the fact that people have different sexual preferences? I honestly don't get it.

I was actually responding to a post earlier in the thread as the discussion had widened from the original OP. But you do you.

Good lord. It's a sticker.

I have zero sympathy for people who think that it's acceptable to call gay men bigots, for not wanting to have sex with transmen. For telling lesbian women that they need to unlearn their genital preferences because they don't want to have sex with transwomen.

There's definitely homophobia in the air when you're telling a man that his preference for penis rather than vagina is discriminatory, or vice versa. However that seems to get largely swept under the radar, because it doesn't suit the narrative of the right-on SJW crew.

There is plenty of racism in the world.

However, I hope we don't get an "anti racism" month that would be taken over by the far left calling for "reparations", discriminating against white people, and "defunding the police".

Because I doubt that helps the situation.

A lot of the people that throw out "homophobic", "transphobic", just can't tolerate a different opinion to their own, or understand that anyone could have a (reasonable) different perspective.

Which itself, you could say, is a sorry way to live.

Unsure how anyone can truly believe that there's no homophobia ect....

There is a neurodiversity week in the UK already- in March- my employer does quite a lot internally around it.
There is also a neurodiversity month (April) but not sure that is in the UK, maybe only USA.
Perhaps those who are neurodiverse or have neurodiverse children could ask shops and councils to be more visible with this in the same way they are/ have been about Pride if they think it's useful?
I don't see why the two things are mutually exclusive.

Now THAT I could get behind. 100%

I'm not homophobic, never have been.

I'm not even transphobic - it barely touches my life, tbh (in that i know 2 trans women, one of whom suspects I'm very GC - I'm not - and doesn't contact me any more - but i never see a trans person out "in the wild" as it were)

I am TRA phobic though. (and MRA phobic which kind of taps into that)

I couldn't get mad about this.

It was just the offer of a sticker. No attack. No requests. No demands to take one.

Nobody is stopping you from going about your day.

have now read the Guardian article. It's... interesting.

The people behind the boycotts are in the minority: research from the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Glaad shows that 75% of straight people feel comfortable seeing LGBTQ+ representation in media. That fact has not stopped Pride 2023 from turning into a marketing minefield. Experts have noted a quieter Pride on the corporate front, in no small part due to the Bud Light and Target case studies.

as PP said - there is a difference between seeing LGB(TQ+) representation in the media. That is fine. And i get why advertising often seems to be over-representing minorities (when even my DH notices that there are nearly no middle aged white men on TV advertising any more, we are really into new territory, he barely registers ads).

But when it's Budweiser misreading their target market? The target for Bud Light is surely women and people who want to reduce their alcohol intake who want to drink a "beer". (it is Bud Light here) So why do you look at the internet and see someone who is being complained about right left and centre by women and think "yep". And then be confused about a boycott?

I also get why Nike might want to introduce a range of sportswear for trans people - they exist to market products that you didn't know anyone wanted or needed. So why have a range of "women's wear" where you could have instead used a few models of both sexes and then a trans man/woman or two and launch "inclusive sportswear"? that way people who are into that will be happy, and others will continue to buy their overpriced wo/menswear. It's not rocket science.

I do suspect that it is marketing graduates who have gone through college/uni cancelling everyone who doesn't agree with their ideology, and still believe the rest of the world is with them. Whereas most of the rest of the world literally don't have pride/trans issues on their radar until Bud Light or Nike pisses them off.