Anyone else feel Pride is really toned down this year?

[Moonandstarz]

I was shopping yesterday evening in my local shopping centre & besides Primark & Schuh no other stores had a pride window display or even a sticker on the window. Flying Tiger had rainbow merchandise on the window but not specifically pride.
Precious years we had rainbow crossings in the car park, rainbow flags everywhere. Nothing like that this year.

In my opinion this toned down pride is much more inclusive & is signalling everyone is getting on with their lives & co existing. May just be my area but I found it very refreshing.

It’s the hijacking by insane trans groups, that are threatening women’s safety. Your average garden homosexual wants nothing to do with them either. It’s all rather sad that such a positive movement has ended up like this.

Yes. The Pride day when it was a huge event had much more impact.. Pride month seems to have really watered the down the awareness... It just doesn't have the same effect as the huge one day event.

I expected to be hit with all sorts of rainbow displays yesterday at my shopping centre bit it was just like a normal month.
Refreshing to see plenty brands like River Island with nice white crisp window displays without a virtue signalling rainbow in sight. Good on them not jumping on the bandwagon.

It would be a shame if gay individuals felt uncomfortable displaying pride flags, or attending celebrations, out of fear.

I agree. Pride should go back to what it was, which was a celebration of gay people's freedom to live as they want and a recognition of gay rights. I'd be quite happy to see the TQ+ bit dropped along with the corporate virtue signalling.

There's been a few notable efforts from corporates this year - Innocent's "Yay for Mermaids", the British Library's sex-changing fish and Oxfam's hideous video - but the backlash has been equally notable. I suspect companies no longer see Pride as a risk-free way of making themselves look good.

It's always about the money, so I think @Zodfa is dead right. Every business and every local council is feeling the pinch at the moment. Does have rainbow flags or pride displays in the window bring extra people into your business? I doubt it. I'm guessing it's purely a financial decision.

@Confusedmumannoyedson Twitter?!? Ha! As far as I can tell, the only people who use Twitter nowadays are comedians, writers, gender critical people, and tra people.
Twitter is NOT the general consensus 😂

The gay friends that I have spoken to avoid Pride like the plague. They don't feel the need to celebrate themselves as they are ordinary people with ordinary lives. Pride is a very different beast from when it first started.

It's like Christmas. Starts too early and goes on for too long. People lose interest. There is only so much 'awareness' that people need. I mean, who isn't aware that some people are gay?

Stonewall has lost it's way and is floundering now. No one knows who they support these days or what they are doing for same sex attracted people.

Look at the Pride flag. It was a beautiful rainbow. Now that rainbow is being edged off the flag by the ever encroaching alphabet soup.

TQ+ are alienating people with their demands and lack of engagement. Unfortunately LGB people are being dragged down with them. Stonewall have done so much damage over the last ten years.

@CovertImage yes me again. And I disagree

I saw there was a big Eid push in lots of shops earlier this year. I think they just make decisions based on marketing potential.

Every lesbian I know and some gay men have removed themselves from LGBTQetc and prefer to be seen as LGB and I think it seems to becoming quite common amongst the older members of the homosexual community. Rather than a conscious effort to reduce Pride stuff everywhere I'd say its more likely the people doing most of the grunt work and organising things have removed themselves as it's all about trans, kink and MAPs now.

That's what I said upthread. Friend & family of mine in the lgb community know they are valued & loved. They are enjoying their lives & are very accepted & always have been. They hate all this attention being heaped on them & can very happily coexist & muddle along with the rest of society without the commercialism of the rainbow.

There's a really nasty homophobic undertone to 'they don't feel the need to celebrate themselves as they are ordinary people' - did you mean to imply that other gay people who do attend Pride must be 'celebrating themselves' and therefore not 'ordinary'.

This rhetoric all feels very familiar from the 80s and 90s: it's the same old attitude that 'the gays' are showing off, shoving their 'lifestyle' in people's faces, etc. etc. If only they'd just keep it all behind closed doors, eh?

But you have to realise that for some people, Pride is about a little girl seeing that there are other little girls with two mummies. Or it's about not being the only gay person you come across in a day. Or it's about remembering friends who died of AIDS or family members who couldn't come out.

The backlash against Pride on MN is always dressed up as being about TRAs, but I think an awful lot of it is rooted in perfectly standard homophobia. It's about separating the 'good' gays (the ones who don't attend Pride and are nice and ordinary) from the 'bad' gays.

@SarahAndQuack I don't get that tone at all from the post! Lgb people are ordinary people with ordinary lives. Many of them (my friends at least) live ordinary, boring lives like me & are very content.
I hate my birthday & avoid celebrating like the plague as I don't enjoy the fuss.. I don't see the need to celebrate myself & the fact I'm a year older.. That's just me.
Live & let live.

Don't be daft, lots of us are LGB or have LGB family members. Wanting to just get on with your life without fanfare is perfectly acceptable. Those who want to parade can do so. Nothing homophobic about either of those choices.

I completely agree.

I think the legitimate pushback against extreme TRAs has emboldened a lot of people to start coming out with homophobia again using the former as cover. This thread is a case in point. It's insidious and it's horrible to see.

What on earth has your birthday got to do with it?

Pride isn't a birthday party.

Why do you think gay people who go to Pride are not ordinary, normal people? Is it because they are being visibly gay?

Point me to the place where I said it wasn't acceptable to want to get on with your life without fanfare? Oh, that's right, I didn't say it.

The homophobia lies in saying that gays are just fine - but only the ordinary, normal ones, who don't parade it.

These are the mythical 'my gay friends,' aren't they?

Birthdays are about celebrating ones self! You mentioned pride about celebrating themselves which they are more than entitled to do as are the lgb who choose not to!

What makes it ok to be so aggressive and rude?

I'm entitled to express an opinion, and I did it politely. If your level of argument when someone disagrees with you is 'fuck off,' then perhaps you need to work on that.

"Crap, my homophobia has been called out and I have nothing else so I'm going to resort to outright abuse".

Did I? Sorry, quote me, I can't find it.