No I don't want a pride sticker thank you, I just want my pint of milk

[AutisticLegoLover]

I was asked at my local Co-op earlier if I wanted a pride sticker with my pint of milk. No, I don't. I just want to shop without pride this that and the other. It was the alphabet soup flag version. The overly enthusiastic young man was quite taken aback by my I certainly do not response but I am so fed up of it being everywhere and what does it even mean anymore? I'm all for everyone having equal human rights. That's it.
I've had so many emails from M&S, Waitrose, Co-op, and others all about supporting pride month. Vinted now flashes a rainbow heart before it turns red when I favourite items.
The young man in question above is far too over familiar and needs to tone it đown a bit from scarily wishing my teenager a pleasant existence to just normal pleasant customer service. I could have asked him what the sticker was all about and got into a discussion with him but that's not his job and I don't want to get banned 😁
The heat makes me cranky but I've seriously had enough of this now. Will it ever stop or will more and more be added to that rather full flag of many colours until the original meaning is completely lost? Will we ever be able to shop without identity politics coming into it?

thanks for that. Douglas Murray in fine ranting form

'Sorry love, you're not a celebrity, you're just gay!'

and Julie Bindel making very interesting points around how little Lesbians and Gay men really have in common, let alone the moveable feast of letters that comes after the 'B'

I really feel the tide is turning @FlamingMadKatie & a lot of TRA organisations are seriously pissed off about the lack of pride fanfare this year judging by some of the tweets.
I really commend the brands who are not virtue signalling this year.

and yet, and yet

I have met a handful of out gay men and lesbians through my career. assuming the numbers are correct (5% of men are gap, 2% (?) of women), I will have worked with far more, but I never knew because for whatever reason they never talked about their girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives.

I'm not sure we're quite where we think we are with regard to acceptance of homosexuality

argh, for gap please read gay

Thankfully MNHQ disagrees with you.

It’s the pink pound talking and it’s about money as ALWAYS.

Why do most groups get a day but pride gets a month and why do the shops and big companies jump for pride but not anything else?

Because it's very low effort, inexpensive virtue signalling. The whole "Pride is a whole month" thing seems to have originated from America in recent years.

I experience homophobia, but I really think corporate Pride is a hindrance to that rather than a help at this point.

The average person resents having corporate frivolity rammed down their throat in the apparent spirit of inclusion on a serious issue. The message is completely garbled now and helps no-one (except anyone who just wants to party, which is fine, but let's not pretend it's actually helping gay people).

And the conflation of sexual orientation and gender identity in lumping together LGB and T as one movement means that there is far less understanding among the general public of what homosexuality actually is nowadays than there was, say, ten or twelve years ago, IMO.

I find it weird that some pp on this thread equate discomfort with Pride and what is has evolved to be about with homophobia.

This unfortunately is the predictable result of forced teaming LGB with TQIA+++

I am a typical leftie liberal, huge supporter of inclusion and diversity and have a very diverse friends/family make up. I give hours and hours to voluntary responsibilities and am part of a group helping settle refugees in our area for example.

I feel very uncomfortable about Pride, about the regressive messages now given out, and about what joining in would possibly mean for my feminism and my support of my gay/bi/lesbian friends/family & colleagues.

It is precisely because I'm not homophobic, and believe that we need to be clear about the importance of biological sex for those who are same sex attracted, that I have significant issues with the Pride flag etc. It's exactly because heterosexual people have kinks - that are on full display and require public participation/validation on Pride marches - that I don't join in with in-person Pride events. If it was a rally for LGB rights to same sex marriage (not needed thank goodness), I'd be there.

Something has gone really wrong of you're not allowed to say "no thanks" to Pride things without being accused of homophobia. It's a stupid conclusion to draw, the same way that I don't regularly give money to the Donkey Sanctuary but that doesn't mean I'm up for animal abuse.

I’d agree with this. No bunting/ stickers where we are. LGB people just living their lives like the rest of us. Same sex attraction is normalised.

I don’t think pride really represents the LGB community anymore in the same way that stonewall has moved on to only really being concerned with trans rights/ other members of the alphabet soup even if it’s to the detriment of the LGB community.

I do wish we had a like button for posts like yours.

Homosexuality is not a « preference ». I have a preference for women with dark curly hair, but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to dating other women. However, being attracted to women in the first place is not a preference, I just am.

Do you want to talk about homophobia? Homophobia is telling a lesbian that all she needs is a bit of good dick to "cure" her, and make her see the error of her ways. I think most lesbians have heard similar, certainly the ones who are my age (50) and older have. Yet now, lesbians are told that TW are women, and its hateful not to want to date / fuck them and their ladydicks. Its the same explicit homophobia, but draped in a pastel pink and blue flag.

Yes, exactly this.

@SlicerAndEcho badly worded on my part maybe, but I still wouldn't describe it as a bedroom link as per the poster I was replying to which has since been deleted.

@SlicerAndEcho bedroom kink not link.

Quite.

As a lesbian I've been on several dates with transwomen who 'pass' in a few carefully curated still photos on tinder and who didn't think the fact they were biologically male was any of my business as a potential dating partner so didn't feel the need to let me know before meeting up.

I also know several transwomen whose formerly heterosexual relationships have now been rebranded as "lesbian" relationships and who joke about getting points for converting straight women to lesbianism (the way that actual lesbians might joke about it). They often complain about the trials of being a lesbian (despite only 'becoming' one five minutes ago) to actual lesbians who've endured a lifetime of abuse as both women and homosexuals.

There's only so long you can smile and nod politely before you realise the only way to maintain your sanity and integrity is to leave the LGBT+ community that was supposedly created to understand and support your needs as a lesbian.

@LonginesPrime that is awful & so deceptive. You poor thing, this makes my blood boil.

That's been the tipping point for almost every one of my friends - female and male.

The men were slightly later to the party - they'd heard talk about the cotton ceiling but didn't realise the extent to which 'unlearn your genital preference' had permeated. Then they eventually were confronted with being told that they were 'discriminatory' for only wanting to have sex with a penis, rather than a strap on (or a so-called 'front hole'). At which point they noped the fuck out.

I'm straight and always went to Pride at the invitation of friends, to support them. If I wasn't invited then I didn't go.

I feel this way too. The comms team at work join in because everyone else is doing it and so we should be seen to as well, and the graphic designer loves the excuse to use bright colours in our marketing. That's it. I'm not being flippant or dismissive of Pride, I know that's literally the only reason we join in.

But I just don't think that's enough these days if we can't demonstrably show how we offer genuine, necessary support to that community if and when necessary.

I wouldn't take a sticker from Co-Op either as that just seems annoyingly performative.

I love a sticker in principle (because mentally I am about 5 years old), but realistically what am I supposed to do with it? My clothes are too expensive to put stickers onto, my furniture ditto, don't even THINK of putting a sticker on my handbag... so really a sticker is just an environmental PITA and a waste of resource.

I don't really understand how some people are not able to see that it is Pride itself that is equating homosexuality to kink, not people rejecting that.

Pride, and the what here where is called the "Rainbow Community" says that Pride is about being Queer, and being Queer is about being something other than vanilla sexually, whether it is being a lesbian, being gender non-conforming, or having fetishes like dressing up as a baby. It absolutely now includes straight people who do these things.

The clear implication is that homosexuality is the same kind of thing as pup play or other fetishes.

That's a huge part of why so many LGB people now objects, so it's a bit rich to call anyone doing so homophobic for equating homosexuality with a fetish. It looks like another case of projecting which seems very common among those who support the queer paradigm.

I quietly 'came out' as bisexual a couple of years ago (i.e. discussed it with a handful of lesbian friends) then went back to my life. I haven't dated anyone in years and can just as easily not date women as men. I don't see Pride as remotely helpful to me as someone who in years gone by might have been able to use it to start to explore the lesbian scene. Now my perception is that the lesbian scene - as far as it still exists - is full of males.

Lesbian friends who are single say they now mostly date through word of mouth via trusted friends. I don't know any of them that are using dating apps.

We have an 'Everyone is welcome' sign in our Tesco and some bunting above what used to be the deli counter.
An extra carriage on the 14.08 to Manchester Piccadilly too,which was nice.