Not using booking.com anymore

[Anothercompanytoboycott]

Regular customer, noticed that they are using the 'new' flag. Lesbians are lesbians regardless of colour and pink does not define me.

What flag? And where on their site are they using it?

I'm sure they are trembling in their boots about their loss of your business! Well done, for not supporting their inclusiveness.

Lesbian erasure isn't inclusiveness. Its colonisation.

Whenever I hear the word inclusive now, I know it means the exclusion of women and girls.

I've just looked and the only flag I can see is the Union Jack!

@PandorasMailbox

Whenever I hear the word inclusive now, I know it means the exclusion of women and girls.

Same here. I just hear 'including males you don't want there'.

Which one - the rainbow y-fronts or the 12” remix version?

I don't use them because they're a bloody swizz.

@MishyJDI

I'm sure they are trembling in their boots about their loss of your business! Well done, for not supporting their inclusiveness.

Yeah! You tell 'em!

Inclusivity can only mean "let the men in"

It can’t be inclusive if it excludes a whole chunk of the population? Or maybe some people are just more important?

@PandorasMailbox

Whenever I hear the word inclusive now, I know it means the exclusion of women and girls.

Me too

Agree with all the comments above about 'inclusive'. There's nothing inclusive about excluding women and targeting lesbians because of their sexual orientation.
Ridiculous seeing so many companies jumping on this and for most of them it's got nothing to do with whether they genuinely support LGB or the T.
It's just someone in the PR department seeing 'pride month' come up on their promotions calendar and changing their profile picture. Maybe they'll even codge together a set of images and vague quotes for their official LinkedIn or instagram account. After that, job done til next year.

Is this about the football? On all the matches I've seen, they've got a banner that pops up from time to time on the advertising hoarding around the edge of the pitch. The trans flag is the most prominent in the display, with the company lettering covering most of the rest of the new Pride rainbow (yes, wannabe-edgy students, a chunk of the Establishment is clearly very much on board with you in what you're doing to your bodies - maybe you should ask yourselves why?).

Could you please explain what you mean by "they are using the 'new' flag", anothercompanytoboycott, and post a link and/or image if possible? I use them pretty frequently and just checked now - am not seeing any kind of flag anywhere on their site, app, Twitter account, email confirmations, etc. beyond the usual, standard country flag badges used to indicate language and location settings.

The way an effective boycott usually starts is that customers contact the company explaining what the issue is and asking them to change. I'd be happy to contact them if I saw an issue, but I really don't. Thanks.

I've messaged them and as Ivy said it is about the football. I'm not sure how I will get a picture but if you watch any coverage you will see on the advertising boards booking.com using the 'new flag.
Football often seems to make women unwelcome, they should be trying to include not exclude us.
Plus, they take the knee but then want to exclude people of colour from the uniting flag of the rainbow.

I can't find any flags except on the language menu.

I don't use them because you're more likely to get bumped if you've used a booking agency and the hotel is overbooked than booking direct (after having this happen to me and booking.com not giving a shit). You don't even get a cheaper rate either.

Thanks, Anothercompany, that makes sense now! Apparently there's been a row about use of the rainbow flag in perimeter advertising (as well as by players, fans, etc.) during Euro2020, because political statements are supposed to be prohibited. Some advertisers have gone ahead with it, but as far as I can see most (Heineken, Volkswagen, TikTok) are using the traditional flag - not sure why booking.com has opted for the overtly racist version.

How are women excluded by them showing support for LGBT people during Pride?

What a bizarre statement. No doubt you're also wondering when Straight Pride is (August btw).

Why is the flag considered racist? I tried researching but I couldn't find a simple answer.

@CrossPurposes

Why is the flag considered racist? I tried researching but I couldn't find a simple answer.

The poster believes that explicitly including PoC in the flag (black and brown stripes) makes it racist against white people.

Excuse my eye roll.

Why is the flag considered racist? I tried researching but I couldn't find a simple answer.

I thought one feeling around this was that black, Asian and other minority ethnic people were already included as the rainbow flag is supposed to represent everyone, so separating them out is "othering".

@TabbyStar

Why is the flag considered racist? I tried researching but I couldn't find a simple answer.

I thought one feeling around this was that black, Asian and other minority ethnic people were already included as the rainbow flag is supposed to represent everyone, so separating them out is "othering".

Careful, I don't think @yeahbutnaw is intelligent enough to understand that point. Maybe they could try listening to actual people of colour. We're telling you it's offensive.

@CrossPurposes

Why is the flag considered racist? I tried researching but I couldn't find a simple answer.

I'm just speaking for myself here, because I mentioned racism in a previous post --

The particular version of the Rainbow/Pride flag used in the booking.com perimeter ads at Euro2020 - which includes a brown and a black stripe after the stripes representing the rainbow (red-orange-yellow-green-blue-violet) - is controversial among anti-racists because it singles out "black" and "brown" people, who - if they are LGBTQ2IA+ - were and are already included in the community and represented by the rainbow flag and have played a vital part in movements for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, etc. political and cultural life and the fight for rights and recognition, locally and internationally, from the beginning, often at great (and sometime disproportionate) personal cost.

In most countries around the world, the majority of LGBTQ2IA+ people, including activists and cultural workers, are not white. It's patronising and presumptuous to add black and brown stripes to the (international and universal) rainbow flag now and call it "progressive". We were always (t)here, from the beginning - and are here, and will be here. Yes, please, talk up visibility of non-white people in, say, publishing or the art world or politics or media or wherever fair representation is still lacking. Yes, please call out racism. But this isn't the way to do it, adding in black and brown to the spectrum of sexual orientations. It's all a lot more complicated and difficult than that.

As I said before, I use booking.com and I like them. I'm hoping this is just a case of good intentions gone wrong. I'm absolutely not encouraging anyone to pile on!

As for the poster yeahbutnaw who alleges anti-white racism and anti-straight bias or lack of inclusion (? their posts weren't very clear), they'll have to speak for themselves; I'm not familiar with those arguments or that logic related to the "new" Pride flag.

Thank you @Malvarrosa for clarifying.