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

I think you need to try turning off your phone, get out in nature or something, if a sticker is going to trigger you like this.

I'm gay and I feel the same - I support equality and inclusion but for me, Pride in recent years seems to be more about straight allies being bussed in by the bank they work for and experiencing a fun day out in fancy dress waving a flag.

It feels like straight allies have taken it over and ruined it, and I think that's partly due to the corporates pouring money into it (thereby gaining control of the messaging and vibe) and partly due to the corporates telling their staff they need to be better allies by throwing themselves wholeheartedly into Pride celebrations so that the main consumer base of pride is straight people. No-one's realised that most of the gay people have left and it's now just a big piss-up for straight people to celebrate their own selflessness and inclusivity.

@Crikeyalmighty Disability/homelessness/mental health issues aren’t “sexy” or Insta-worthy, but I agree that they’re worthy of the attention given to the rainbow brigade as they sadly affect many many more people.

The Daily Mail, the Telegraph & the Times have been brilliant lately & are really questioning & reporting properly on the TRA ideologies. Good on them not being silenced & they are reporting what I want to read so I will support them in turn.

Nope lots of the high street have no virtue signalling in sight this June!
River Island, Next, H&M to name a few I saw locally & they also have nothing pride related online. Good on them, not necessary anymore. Lgb is normalised.
Can we have a neurodiversity month instead? Many young children would like to see their differences celebrated & it would make them feel more included in the community.

It’s really interesting to hear that some LGB people are now steering clear of the movement. I couldn’t agree more with the PP who said “where I live, same-sex relationships aren’t stigmatised” or something along those lines.

I’d decline the sticker, too, for the reasons people have given above for avoiding the P movement now, and I am also heartily sick of the sight of the number of rainbows in my email inbox added by companies jumping on the virtue signalling bandwagon. Just sell your milk / flowers / clothes / whatever. That’s all I want from you.

@Meadowfly exactly how I feel too - I'm afraid the constant obsession of the media and press with the Trans community is ridiculous. I have no issue whatsoever if someone wants to be so but It's a pretty small niche getting massive attention - all the time and I feel it distracts the message of LGB - I understand why some now are no longer interested in Pride-appears to be taken over by a load of pantomime Dames rather than ordinary homosexual couples of all ages . Can you imagine what good could be done if this amount of positive attention was given to disability or mental health or drugs awareness or the housing situation etc- guess it doesn't make for quite so colourful fun looking pictures.

To be honest, I wish we could just abandon labels completely. Have people identify purely as themselves in whatever way they present. I think labels are divisive and confusing, especially for young people trying to find their place, wondering before they even know who they are, what box they fit into.

It's being force fed innit !

Very OTT in a lot of places .

Yuko - explain please. Do you not understand that it is possible to be entirely accepting of same sex couples at the same time as not wanting to see men (straight or gay) dressed in fetish wear and to particularly object to children seeing it?

If the LGBT crowd quite rightly expect normalisation then don't go around constantly expecting to be made a giant fuss of.

I agree with this. We have a single day for most things to be celebrated or recognised, be that international women's day to autism awareness day to mother's/father's day to Down syndrome day. Why is pride any more special than any of those, why the massive month long gig? I'm too young to have seen a time when being gay was socially unacceptable, but I fully understand that was so, and pride was born in retaliation against that. Makes perfect sense. But now when the vast majority do accept being gay is perfectly normal, and rights have caught up so gay marriage is legal and so on, why do we need more than a day to celebrate and recognise this group?

This thread is proof that many homophobes have co-opted the absolutely understandable anger of liberal feminist gender critics about TRA aggression and misogyny to peddle their own regressive hate.

My brother & his wife are quite lefty & thought it would be a great introduction to inclusivity (virtue signalling!) to bring their dc to a pride parade in a large town last year. Dc were 11,9, 6 & 4...
They experienced all you mentioned above & it was a real baptism of fire for the kids & judging by the 11 year olds comments afterwards it's had a very negative effect..
I can't understand why parents bring their kids. My gay friends have a baby & said they would never bring their child to pride. They have a good community of same sex families who also don't support Pride so they don't feel their child is missing out on anything

Exactly.

This thread is dripping with it.

@IWilloBeACervix politely decline a sticker then. The op was being homophobic so I stand by my point.

Longstanding Pride attendee - from the older days before it became popular as a corporate effort.

Lots of people I know have stopped going. Initially it was lesbian friends who dropped away, but interestingly it's now the gay men I know. All of whom say the same - that it doesn't represent them anymore. Many of them used to be Stonewall donors and active in grassroots efforts - so really committed to trying to make a difference.

You said no, that was the end of it. Why are you trying to cause a stink?

I would suggest that most of us are fully accepting of LGB, what I object to is all the other stuff. I think that is what the OP is complaining about; the whole 'queer' thing, whatever that might be, the pansexual thing, oh I don't know too many to think about on a Sunday morning. It's adding more stuff and including those who like a bit of BDSM and are included in parades etc.

@brainexplorer exactly the same in my area. Same sex couples are very happily immersed in the community & lgb is completely normalised & it is mainstream. My area has a vibrant lgb community but this year pride is non existent. No rainbows, buntings or rainbow crossings. Town life is continuing as normal.
Well done to the local council & local businesses for making the decision.
I imagine the lack of virtue signalling makes for a much more comfortable June for many lgb who just want to go about their business like everyone else.

????? How is being able to have a relationship with someone your own sex a kink?????

If Pride were still mostly about gay men and lesbians, you might have a point. But it clearly isn't.

But the pride stuff that we see isn’t just normal, boring people who happen to be attracted to members of the same sex. That’s pretty much accepted by everyone now. The pride we see now seems to focused on trans stuff, rainbows, colourful hair, sexualised (sometimes pretty obscene) costumes with chains etc and men dressed as dogs, and imo that isn’t something that most people want to ‘celebrate’ nor should we be expected to. If anything it risks increasing homophobia and by putting homosexuality together with fetishes and cross-dressing undoes a lot of the efforts of people who have worked to show that being gay isn’t a fetish or perversion.

I would write the same post as the PP now accused of homophobia because I understood exactly what they meant. Pride is no longer about gay love, it is precisely about kinks which are being paraded and shoved in our faces. Grown men in mankinis, dressing up
In weird costumes, a huge presence of drag, wearing woman face and the like. I am not celebrating this. I know a few gay couples which do not act or look like this and I will always support their relationship (not that they need any support, they are perfectly content and live their lives). Pride, on the other hand, has stopped being about that.

Obviously you weren't unreasonable to decline a freebie at the til.

I am beyond over rainbow tat everywhere though. Where I live, same sex relationships are not stigmatised, so the pride movement does feel a bit redundant and every company I've ever ordered from sending me email about it with a rainbow version of their logo is doing my head in.

Pride is no longer about LGB people. Everything to the right of the LGB(except the misnamed ‘intersex’) is about heterosexual people with kinks. Otherwise they’re covered by the L, G and B.

Maybe the pp was being homophobic with that statement, but when it’s the kinks that are being pushed and celebrated, rather than the pride, it will create a backlash.

The problem is the T ideology is homophobic. By insisting you can self identify as the opposite sex those that are exclusively same sex attracted get relabelled as transphobic, genital obsessed, bigots etc.

Its no wonder a proportion of LGB people would rather form their own group on the basis of sexual orientation.

The widening of alphabet soup umbrella seems to include a number of kinks that rely not on consenting adults but the general public for validation.