Anyone else sick of still seeing Pride logos everywhere?

[Divoc2020]

I don't have a problem with Pride, and its role in raising awareness etc in the way that many campaigns have awareness days/ weeks etc. I can remember when it used to be a week, then it became a month (June). All fine.

But I've just seen John Lewis still has its Pride logo on its Facebook page, as does one of our local council pages and the Twitter feed of a group affiliated to the local police.

Surely the point of a month-long campaign is that it is, er, a month and then you revert back to your usual branding, or else the impact is lost?

I have to confess, some of this is a design and marketing issue for me, as the Pride versions of high street logos are usually appalling - the John Lewis one being a case in point!

That’s all very well until some people decide they want to take away the rights of another group.

To simplify: female people's rights only matter when they are of advantage male people. Female rights that only benefit female people? No.

Yes, this is so true in many arenas actually. When something is truly only for females, and males will not benefit from it at all, then that is when you will find the support for it diminish significantly.

Maybe we just need an ‘exclusion’ flag since the inclusive one is getting so large

Curious? You mean a flag for heterosexual, white, non trans people?
Apolgies if that's not who you mean, but who else is "excluded?"
Why? That sounds exactly like the "where's our Pride Day for straight people?" argument.
Why would I feel excluded by a flag that's nothing to do with me, doesn't take anything away from me or make me feel left out or hard done by as there's no white straight non trans flag?

I always got the impression - so whenever there was a woman-only group, club, holiday/getaway or class and a man said they wanted to join because it was unfair on then as it was only for women, that they did this purely out of spite, and didn’t care if the woman only group or space closed down because they didn’t really want to join. They just wanted to ‘show those women’.

I remember seeing a woman only spiritual retreat get blasted (this was a few years back) because it was women only and I think they did end up sighing and opening it to everyone (so the original customers wouldn’t want to go anyway).

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains

Maybe we just need an ‘exclusion’ flag since the inclusive one is getting so large

Curious? You mean a flag for heterosexual, white, non trans people?
Apolgies if that's not who you mean, but who else is "excluded?"
Why? That sounds exactly like the "where's our Pride Day for straight people?" argument.
Why would I feel excluded by a flag that's nothing to do with me, doesn't take anything away from me or make me feel left out or hard done by as there's no white straight non trans flag?

I meant it in a way that this one flag is setting itself up to represent a hell of a large ‘community’ (who don’t necessarily want to be included). It’s just getting stripier.

Perhaps someone could add an extinction rebellion logo to this and have done with it all forever!

(Remember when ‘exclusive’ was a good thing exclusive night club/fashion house, news exclusive etc? Seems so long ago! )

Ummm - xr have already added it to theirs.

The new flag - who came up with this and how did it get so much traction so fast?

Yes I wondered that.

LGB?: fine. The rest of the alphabet-soup?: there are some dodgy organisations in there and the supermarket ought to think carefully about who they are associating with.

My thoughts exactly, Senua

Do I have issue with companies using the pride logo outside June? Nope, absolutely not. We still have a long way to go with normalising sexual orientation differences. So what if a company is saying they’re supportive of LGBT rights? I’m cynical enough that i feel they do it to look good, get money etc, but I’m sure for LGBT closeted people, seeing that visibility is great.

I’m curious if the OP’s frustration is from a ‘stop shoving it down our throats’ perspective or from a perspective about the controversy surrounding the supposed hijacking of the logo and brand identity that others have mentioned on this thread?

I’m cynical enough that i feel they do it to look good, get money etc, but I’m sure for LGBT closeted people, seeing that visibility is great.

Exactly, surely if you're lesbian, gay, bi, trans, seeing people more inclusive is a good thing?
With you though on some companies probably only do as seems trendy!
I've heard "shoving it down our throats" viewpoint in RL though. Still out there. Thinks why is Pride a thing? Why not just get on with it and do your own thing, no need to shout about it ram down throats!
Um, because me and my husband could go anywhere hand in hand and be fine, assuming not always be the case if I was a lesbian doing that though?
Pride needs to be a thing until being gay or trans is seen as just being you and not "wrong." All equal. For want of a better word

I think pride is not really what it onve was though sadly.

No longer about people getting together and showing the world that nothing bad has happened because 2 women who love eachother got married. Its become something....else...

I remember when it was something you thought long and hard about before attending. If someone was taking photos or filming - would your mum and aunty Mavis see it? Would your boss see it? Your classmates and teachers? Would there be fallout?

Now it’s bring your kids! See the people dressed in bondage gear! Let your children pat the human doggies! Witness men dressed as babies...

And there is no way a photo like that can be taken out of context either, it's a child with a grown adult who is displaying his sexual fetish in public.

The thing is, what kind of man wants to even be around children when they are practising their fetish in that way? Like, I get it, you like dressing up as a dog for sexual pleasure, that's fine, you do you, whatever. But why don't they feel uncomfortable around children when they are dressed like this? There is literally only one answer to this question and I just cannot believe this is being allowed to happen in plain sight to be honest.

Wokewashing, like greenwashing, is something one should regard with suspicion and ask what shoddy practices these corporations are attempting to deflect attention from by engaging in such branding exercises.
Wokewashing is a good word.
It perfectly sums up the superficial tokenism done to look good on social media whilst doing very little in the way of meaningful actions to be inclusive.

@SerenityNowwwww

I remember when it was something you thought long and hard about before attending. If someone was taking photos or filming - would your mum and aunty Mavis see it? Would your boss see it? Your classmates and teachers? Would there be fallout?

Now it’s bring your kids! See the people dressed in bondage gear! Let your children pat the human doggies! Witness men dressed as babies...

I don’t understand your point. It sounds like you’re saying the fear culture of being outted by way of attending is preferable to nowadays where kids attend? What point are you trying to make?

No - I was pointing out the differences between 80s pride and now.

It was a political statement because there were still rights to be fought for, not a jolly day out. You thought long and hard and took a deep breath, not just throw in a pink wig and feather boa and ponder whether to wear the studded leather bikini or puppy outfit.

It’s become something very different - not about rights and injustice anymore but now it’s about fashionable trends. Women were more than welcome.

I think maybe she means we have lost the middle ground.

The place where no one is is worried to be "caught" and where suddenly you were amongst others just like you and you can hold your partner's hands and not be yelled at and abused . And families could meet other same sex families.

Now we are in a place where children's charities call anyone who complains about staff uploading explicit videos, homophobic and the only way to prove you aren't a homophobe or a transphobe is to act as if its perfectly normal to wear fetish gear in public and pose for photos.

Sorry X post

There has been a change in emphasis, from, we are all the same in every important way, to, we are different and need to divide into our tiny constituent groups and everyone must accept whatever my little group thinks and does.

I heard an interview this morning on the radio which I think reveals a lot of what people are thinking with all this expanding flag business. One town near me has a rule that limits flags on municipal flagpoles to official ones of the municipality, province, or county. The Pride people are trying to have this changed so they can fly the Pride flag - and there is an implication that the policy is bigoted.

They interviewer the Warden of the municipality who basically said, they had decided only to fly these official geographical flags to make sure they were really including all, so for example they had refused to fly the Red Cross flag when asked.

The immediate response of the interviewer was, "But the Pride flag is all about inclusivity". And she gave the poor man, who clearly wasn't used to radio interviews, rather a hard time. But it really struck me that she did not seem to even comprehend the difference between something that represents every person within a geographical boundary, and something ideological.

And that for many, Pride may not mean anything much related to sexuality, either.

@ThatsHowWeRowl

To simplify: female people's rights only matter when they are of advantage male people. Female rights that only benefit female people? No.

Yes, this is so true in many arenas actually. When something is truly only for females, and males will not benefit from it at all, then that is when you will find the support for it diminish significantly.

I read a blog recently from Dr Jessica Taylor, she talked about how every time she speaks/writes about violence against women she is bombarded with “what about men” comments, some of them highly abusive.

However when she writes/speaks about men’s issues (she set up a charity to help men’s mental health with her husband), she never (and she points out it really is NEVER) gets comments saying “what about women”.

Sorry, forgot the link: victimfocusblog.com/2018/01/03/stop-asking-me-what-about-men/

Dr Taylor has hosted a reprint of a really good piece by Jessica Eaton.
I don’t think Dr Taylor has a husband.

Oops, my mistake. I guess I just saw “Jessica” and assumed it was her piece!