BBC Pride article

I just read this, I thought it was a nice balanced article. Yes it doesn't delve deeply into the trans issue but it openly acknowledges that people have different views on this and that that's one of the issues with Pride. I don't think we always need to take a side - acknowledging that people have different views on an issue can sometimes be enough.

Read that this morning and thought there is a gradual starting to shift, although nothing like balanced or actually getting to the issues.

You'd need insight and experience to know what they're getting at: that trans 'we want everything, all the time, right now' and trampling over and excluding/ ripping stuff off everyone else in the LGBT+ all the time is becoming a serious downside that has turned off many who were previous supporters and enjoyers of Pride (the whole baseball bats in barbed wire, blood stained t shirts, and the stuff about hanging lesbians who won't give men straight sex on command just about finished me), and that's before you get into the political visibility of 'we don't want women and gay people to have rights' and the death threats/peeing everywhere.

But it's a foot in the right direction I suppose. A beginning of other narratives the general public hear alongside the waaaaah everybody hates us for No Reason At All narrative, which is what will come from the usual TQ political sources.

I never understood the corporate obsession with Pride with flags decking out shops etc.

It has never happened for any other causes anti-racism, anti-sexism etc

I have no real idea what it is meant to achieve

It’s basically identical to the short programme on Radio 4 that was on recently.

Very much avoiding the elephant in the room of trans identified men insisting on access to female spaces despite the law, and how much conflict the has produced. That, and the demands for affirmation and for everyone to act as if we believe someone has really changed sex when we know they haven’t.

It puts many people in an uncomfortable position of having to be inauthentic and lie. People are not happy to be forced to do this.

Pompous:

"As a young man, I eventually left Ulverston to live in Manchester. But this summer I took a trip back to my old hometown for their Pride festival, a tradition still in its infancy.

The once-familiar cobbled streets looked so different to how I remembered them, lined with cheering locals clapping and filming on phones as a procession bedecked in rainbow flags swept past, led by a brass band playing upbeat gay anthems. It felt a world away from Manchester's famous pop stars and stages covered in corporate logos."

It is labelled as an "in depth" article because it is padded out with this kind of nothing-waffle. I'll stick to the Times!

This article is going to be shared by me with a few younger people I know.

For teens and people in their early 20s they don’t remember a time before rainbow washing and corporate pride so can’t understand why I don’t whole heartedly think pride is A Good Thing and want to travel to various cities to be part of the crowd, who I suspect are largely not part of the LGBT+ community anyway.

Any reticence about Pride events can so easily be labelled as bigotry.

So I find this article helpful in that it summarises some of the issues. It could have gone way harder on the financial corruption and safeguarding issues that some prides have been involved in, but at least it is a conversation starter that may start some critical thinking.

Thought it was an interesting and fairly balanced article on the issues facing the movement and particularly the complexities of including the trans element

That whole article just felt so pompous. The thing with all the flags in shops and rainbow straws etc is that the vast majority of people just ignore them. It doesn't change anyone's view of Lgbt people (i mean if someone is homophobic, rainbows won't change their mind) and it doesn't make anyone more likely to buy the coffee. So what's the point of spending all that money on the stuff?

Can you explain why being GC makes you anxious in Manchester? I travel there for work sometimes and yes I'm vigilant whwn walking at night (as I'd be anywhere) but if a man is going to attack you he won't ask for your views first...