Pride doesn’t represent me

[Vegansausageroll]

Just been watching Joe Lycett’s big pride party.
It was all sexualised smut. It’s ‘furries’ , kink, drag, sex and innuendos galore. This isn’t all what pride is about! It’s supposed to be about our sexuality and our rights and not being ashamed of who we are. But there is no representation for young people like I was! I want people to be themselves and express themselves but it all just seems so extreme now!

I’m a middle aged gay woman. I like books and countryside walks!

I am very worried about equal rights and the way they are, once again, under threat.
I have nothing in common with the people that now dominate ‘pride’. The last woman’s group I went to has long been shut down, as have the lesbian groups I used to attend back in the day. I’m worried gay youth are being sent a message that their sexuality must be linked to a certain type of ‘lifestyle’ when many of us just want to live a regular life the same as our straight friends - the only difference is the sex of our partners 🤷‍♀️.

I think you need to fact check this. MPJ was not one of the key players in the Stonewall riots, nor was she trans, at the time she was just a full on male drag queen, she transitioned years after. She admits she arrived AFTER the riots started.

As fit the other drag queen who is also credited as trans and being the cohort of MPJ, witness statements ha her fast asleep on a park bench during the riots!

This is just another line of Stonewall’s blatant revision of history.

Actual lol 😆

All drag queens refer to themselves as she/her, that doesn’t prove anything. AT the time of the riots MPJ was a man.

YANBU. As a bisexual woman in my late 40s, I feel I have no place in that revolting circus.

Old bi woman - I first went in the 80s.

Last went in 2002 - it was extremely corporate & not particularly interesting / basically a music & retail festival in a park in London, but with slightly more leatherwear.

None of my gay & lesbian friends go now, though I know a couple of trans people who do, and quite a few straight local politicians.

I see stuff like this & think it’s not particularly welcoming.

mobile.twitter.com/LaluchaDora08/status/1543289319988887557?t=rerZuKNVlxKe5UnsDiCq6A&s=19

@Sazzasez The London Pride is basically a music festival with lots of corporates. It has been like this for years.

A month .... it is a long time... And so I think it is getting counter productive to the cause

Pride is now 'blokey' and 'kink' - is the description I'll take from this!

There is not one Pride. There are multiple Prides.

It's a bit like all the secualised dances and drag type make up that many young girls are wearing these days. And all the surgery, fillers etc.

I'm not gay but my gay friends (I'm in my 50s) are in relationships like me. Have jobs, a mortgage, dress normally, go out for dinner, have hobbies, like gardening, sport, go on holiday, are married or in long term relationships. They have attended some pride events and I haven't heard them speak against them.

Yeah most of the people I know who go to Pride are straight. I have an uncle who likes to post edgy pictures of guys in the parade wearing teeny little underpants, my gay friend would probably faint if anyone associated him with that.

The people who run it in my city are not, they are a bunch of jerks who try and have books they don't like removed from the library.

I think of it now mainly as a sex festival. Which I think is inappropriate for a public space. What's more disturbing though is that it feeds into the idea that gay men are obsessed with kinky sex and have poor social/sexual boundaries, and that the organizations, at least over on this side of the pond, makes the claim that they represent the political interests of homosexual people. Which they really don't.

Pride for me is still about oppression that members of the LGBTQIA+ still go through, and it is still a celebration to those who fought and campaigned for our rights. Whilst the UK and many other countries provide safety for members, there are still countries who provide the death penalty. We need to continually fight this, not become complacent and show how proud we are to be who we are. I hope that eventually the 11 remaining countries who do give the death penalty will eventually get the picture 🏳️‍🌈

Whilst straight I have a number of gay (male and female friends).

I used to attend Pride with them until about 7 or so years ago when we all noticed it wasn't about celebrating, normalising and advocating for gay rights any more.

Rather, it had become a commercialised carnival dominated by "the normalisation" of fetishises and eradication of sexual boundaries - including that of same sex attraction- in favour of "identity".

We don't go anymore and all of my gay friends feel utterly betrayed by Stonewall and Pride.

The people I know who do go (and revel in it) are now hetro (and whose FB feeds show the "same" pictures of them dressed for the Jubilee/Pride celebrations with painted Union Jack/pride flags on their cheeks and dressed in red/white/blue or the rainbow).

It's just another social media event/day out without any meaning at all.

Really interesting thread OP. As a straight woman, I don’t really know what Pride is actually about. But interesting that this thread is going round in circles about Marsha P Johnson and only two posters highlighted some real issues gay people face (pensions, medical appointees, next of kin). So it does seem that the bigger conversation is “who are we, who do we want to include” as opposed to “these are the problems we face”.

As an outsider looking in, it seems the message of inequalities that need to be fixed are being drowned out by the trans debate, while a significant chunk of the community just want to get drunk, have fun and celebrate being gay rather than protesting anything. (My brother is a young gay man living in London who seems to fall into this category; I’ve never once heard him mention any inequalities but he does seem to be hungover a lot after Pride events.)

So if Pride is a celebration… I don’t think you are likely to feel represented if you’d rather live a quiet life than celebrate anything. If Pride is a protest… I can see why you’d feel sad at not being represented. Because, as above, the protest has been drowned out.

I suppose the thing is, if it's just a big party drinking thing, why all the donations from city councils or displays in libraries and all the rest?

I do not need to read your theory or your history books (just because a book says so does not make it true). MPJ has clearly been chosen as an example by those whose, politics look to erase trans and non gender conforming people

Breathtakingly bad take: I won't educate myself in facts but will blindly accept things I'm told by people who weren't there and aren't experts because I prefer their version of events. By all means takes different view on Pride to the OP but you can't rewrite history to suit your narrative.

I've been going to various prides since the 80s and still go to the small ones. The big city ones are shit, purely about profit.

unfortunately out rights as gay people are precarious. We've just seen with roe vs wade how rights can be lost. Not to mention backwards countries where women and gay people are openly persecuted.

so I will continue to support local prides because I don't want to lose my hard won rights and I want my tribe to remain visible. I don't have to agree with all participants but my voice and views matter too.

Totally agree. Nothing wrong with Pride being a party too but the way it is doesn’t represent just us “every day” lesbians. There was no info at all on a family area until a couple of days before. Personally don’t understand the whole drag queen thing, it’s basically caricaturing women and I don’t understand why people think that is funny or ok.

Pride used to be a march, not a parade. It was about demonstrating that we weren't ashamed to be homosexual, we were literally proud to be so. I used to go when it was still rather risky to let your friends and family know you were taking part in, and when the day always ended with exhortations from the stage not to walk to the tube station alone as you'd be beaten up.

Now - meh. It's full of straight people who claim to be "queer" (ie they are culturally appropriating a term that is not theirs), and people who think "kinky" = "gay". I don't have anything in common with either of those groups, and indeed think both of those groups make things worse for actual gay people.

Also, the idea that I have to have PERMISSION to march in the road at an event that I, and everyone else who was there when it was risky to take part, helped to create? And that this permission is granted - or not - by a bunch of people who hate lesbians? No thanks. They can fuck right off.

Fighting for the human rights of lesbians, gay men and bisexual people is something that can be done at any time. This current manifestation of Pride is a distraction from that important work.

Also as much as we have many many more rights than the people that came before us there are still issues. I spent 9 months having every medical professional I met ask if my wife was my sister during prenatal appointments and in hospital for birth. Had a very polite and lovely registrar panic because she hadn’t registered a birth to married same sex parents and she didn’t know how to fill in her own form. Have people correct me when I say wife they keep saying partner, each time back and forth like they are gently correctly a child who has misspoken. Don’t get me wrong I loved a pride party and had my fair share of drinks but the actual point of pride is not just to celebrate but to raise awareness of issues that can be sorted.

You’re definitely not unreasonable. My son (28) is gay and doesn’t buy into these marches as the people who attend don’t represent him either. It’s almost like people expect gay men or women to behave in a certain way that makes it obvious they are gay, whereas the majority do not fit the image these events display

My gay friend refers to himself in the feminine (he’s not a drag queen). Very much a man not wanting to be anything other than a man but has referred to himself as a duchess LOL. Never met a drag queen who didn’t refer to themselves or other drag queens who didn’t use “she” (not that I’ve met loads).

I'm all for adults doing exhibitionist shit with each other if it makes them happy. Late night Channel 4 has always been about that. It's when there's the switch from adult stuff to "and this is for kids too and you're a bigot if you don't agree".
Also, drag is womanface . And it's for adults too.

Seen quite a few pictures now from events around the world of men calling to attack and kill women.

Who is pride for now then?

I'm not sure if you understand asexuality. Some asexual people do have sexual relationships, but have a much lower sex drive or are only sexually attracted to a person they have a deep emotional connection with.

That describes an awful lot of people as well as most teen girls, due to societal pressures. That sounds completely normal.

It also describes many menopausal women.

So I'll be swapping my place in pride when I manage to get a script for testosterone to sort by zero libido out? 🤔

This tripe is offensive to anyone on countries where they'd be hung for same sex marriage (I have a friend who was given asylum for just that).

As far as I can tell, pride is just about not being a white straight male.