Pride month

[Hyperions]

Has anyone noticed a dialling down in PRIDE logos on business websites today?

"Firstly, no one in a relationship can mention their family life without also mentioning their sexuality; it's just not seen as notable when straight people do it. When I mention my wife, I am announcing my sexuality, and while I and many others don't find it notable, many straight people do. It's never other gay people who think they can ask intrusive questions just because I have a wife (most straight people I come across don't either, but the ones who do are always straight). So the 'straight people don't care if you're gay' argument doesn't always wash.

It's also very naive, and rather silly, to claim that 'straight pride' is the same as 'gay pride'. The experience of gay people in society, even now, is very different from the experience of straight people in society. Young gay people who go to gay pride to meet other gay people and feel comfortable holding hands with their partner should not be treated with the same derision as the men in fetish gear should be treated with." Thank you for this @IdgieThreadgoodeIsMyHeroine. I am quite frankly appalled by some of the comments on this thread.

It is akin to all the MRAs that claim that feminism is no longer needed because we now have equality.

It is one thing to say that the concept of pride has been taken over by corporations and degenerates. It is quite another to say that lesbians and gay people no longer face prejudice and their sexuality is not treated differently to heterosexuality.

I would expect better from women, who ought to have more of an awareness of how dangerous society can be for an oppressed group. One example from my own life: the day that I marry my fiancée will be the day that I will never be able to set foot in my home town ever again. I will probably never see my GPs again. I will no longer be welcome in the homes of most of my family members. I will not be able to guarantee mine or my wife's safety so it will not be possible for us to ever visit. She will never meet most of my family. Now tell me again how prejudice is all over and we all need to get a grip?

"It is a regular accusation that LGB people responding in this way to the hostility they face want special treatment or attention. Many people claim not to care about someone being LGB, so long as you keep it in the bedroom where it belongs. That completely ignores the context in which LGB people have been forced to hide who they are, and the harm that such repression inflicts." @TicklishLemur this "keep it in the bedroom" nonsense is so infuriating. Straight people don't keep their sexuality in the bedroom-why should we?

And by sexuality, I am not talking about sex. I am talking about relationships. About walking hand in hand down the street. About buying a home together. Talking about what you did at the weekend. Getting married etc etc. All of these acts signify one's sexuality. Do all these posters not do any of the above with their DHs or BFs? Because all of those actions are directly linked to their sexuality. Why don't they hide all of that and only exist within the confines of a bedroom in their own relationships? It's so homophobic.

And in the same way that a lot of the women on this forum would rather that other types of women were not seen as being representative of all women (someone like, I don't know, Katie Hopkins or Myra Hindley), it would be nice if they appreciated that the likes of furries and gimps do not represent all gay people.

It is one thing to say that the concept of pride has been taken over by corporations and degenerates. It is quite another to say that lesbians and gay people no longer face prejudice and their sexuality is not treated differently to heterosexuality.

yes it’s quite obvious that homophobia is still very strong from the ‘well I don’t mind what they do behind closed doors but I don’t want to see it in public’ in response to seeing two men or two women
kissing to men and women being assaulted for being homosexual to the ‘backs against the wall chaps’ “banter” in response to gay men in sports clubs. It happens and it’s something I never have to worry about. I’ve never been abused for being straight.

Thank you @Theeyeballsinthesky ❤️

Sadly it seems some people’s opposition to homophobia only extends to the cases where it is perpetuated by gender ideologists. That is not true solidarity with same sex attracted people, it is just anti-TRA.

Queer now relates to queer theory - it is about the breaking down/destroying of social norm not being gay. Being gay could be part of queer theory but it goes far further than that - every big significant queer theory academic includes paedophilia as part of the boundaries to break down. Those who consider themselves ‘queer ‘ might not individually think this but it is where the theory logically leads to the extent that this has been stated repeatedly and publically by its proponents.

"Most people go about their daily lives and while family life will get some mention, most of the time sexuality won't except in the context of dating. Is there a need to elevate the concept of sexual orientation to something different than that? Why would there be?"

@TempestTost: do you have a DH or partner?

If you do, and I ask you how your weekend was, and you were to say "me and my DH went to the garden centre." That's you mentioning your sexuality. Getting married or living with someone is you declaring your sexuality. Holding hands when walking down the street is you declaring your sexuality. Do you not or have you not done any of these things? Because if you have done any of these, you are declaring your sexuality. The fact that all of the above will seem so normal and not worthy of mention is exactly the point.

So unless you hide your relationship with your DH/partner, you don't live together, you don't hold hands or show affection in public, you never talk about him, and you only show love and affection within the confines of your separate bedrooms in your separate homes you have absolutely no right to ask lesbian and gay people to do that. Heterosexuality permeates every single aspect of public discourse to the point where you clearly do not even notice it. So why should we hide if you don't?

Thank you for your posts LaurenOlivier

as the mother of a beautiful gay man i appreciate them

Well if you're queer for not wanting sex on a first date, you're not alone I'm sure.

When they pushed for LGBTQ+ sex education in primary schools was when my gay friends hit the roof. They are older , grandparents in some cases . They stopped attending pride when it went furries and children. One is a university head of department and is appalled that the education authorities fell for mermaid, stonewall etc.

Yes, exactly, and this is one example of where a perfectly normal want is now defined as a "queer" sexuality, and this is why I have a real issue with "queer" because it is mostly heterosexual people claiming to be part of this LGBTQ+ community.

And for this "demisexual" idea, again you have to question who came up with it as it basically says that wanting casual sex is the default and anything else is "queer".

Don’t disagree, but it isn’t relevant to any of the points we have raised is it? I haven’t seen any responses promoting queer theory, only asking that people stop denying homophobia and how offensive it is for them to use an ideology that inflicts harm on LGB people to do so.

Yes, I was being sarcastic, because I don’t think trans activists are being realistic about how societal change happens. Lesbians and gay men have changed societal attitudes, and are much more accepted than they were when I was a lad. It took a certain amount of activism and a lot of patience, as far as I can see. Over the last few years, I have seen precious little patience, and an awful lot of being told by activists how wrong we are and how right they are. Complete agreement with their worldview is demanded - I never saw that with LGB activists before 2015 or so.

So not only is there far more “in your face” Pride stuff than there used to be, but TQ activists are pushing for rights that no-one else has. And they are getting pushback, not only on their bad faith interpretations of the Law and their attempts to get their worldview enshrined in Law, but on their pushing their worldview on people who are pretty tired of rainbows / “progress” flags / pronoun demands everywhere. Personally I think they are really overdoing it.

I hadn’t realised til I saw this on here. It explains why, when we were sat outside a coffee bar in a park today, there were a couple of people with rainbow coloured hair and lanyards approaching tables with a bucket, asking for donations. I had no clue who they were and why they wanted money from me. I just shuck my head. I honestly don’t care about peoples sexuality. I’m totally indifferent to it. And I don’t want someone forcing a bucket under my nose to donate to the cause where I would question why do they need donations?

Plenty of us were absolutely in your face but this whitewashing of gay history by a straight man is typical. Rights were fought for with great difficulty and we were persona non grata to society. I don’t agree with gender ideology because of the harm it inflicts and the request for more rights for other people, unlike the fight for equal treatment of lesbian, bisexual and gay people. But I see your dog whistle homophobia of gays being too in your face for refusing to conform and be a good little homosexual.

Yes, and similarly because I have some “feminine” characteristics, that means I must be non-binary. But I know I’m a man.

I should add that I thoroughly disapprove** of homophobia (as in being nasty to a gay couple holding hands, for instance) and transphobia (as in being nasty to a man who is wearing a dress) and all more extreme or violent expressions of intolerance. On the other hand, I am not prepared to sacrifice my, or other people’s, boundaries on the grounds that someone tells me I am wrong to have those boundaries.

** This does not mean that every time someone is a bit mean that they need to be denounced publicly.

I've always personally thought that Pride does may harm than good as it draws resentment and it promotes stereotypes. I know not everyone attending a Pride parade is in bondage, but the tiny minority of men that go wearing it inevitably become the most photographed and it sends a negative message.

I don't like that Regent Street is festooned with the Pride flag, whilst homophobic attacks have seen an increase in London. Police would rather be at the parade than actually stopping the attacks. More money spent on virtue signalling than actually fixing the problem.

The backlash to it is growing, but these events just grow out of fashion, Macmillan Coffee Morning, Movember, Christmas Jumper day etc have decreased in popularity and media presence in the past few years. The same is happening with Pride, and companies are realising that rainbow themed items aren't big sellers.

So I'm not surprised that with Pride comes greater homophobia, it just seems an inevitable consequence.

I was working in a school last week with teenagers. The amount of openly homophobic comments I heard from teenage boys was shocking. The thing is, the rainbow flag, drag, and every kind of pride celebration is rammed down their throats (pardon the image!) all year round, so they're rejecting it. It's not just that kids are being told that they should treat everyone equally and with respect, as I would instruct them to do, but that they have to cheerlead every aspect of LGBTQ+ culture without question, year round, at all times, and that if they question anything then they are bigots. For me personally, I never had a problem with drag until I saw it being pushed everywhere online, on every tv channel, down the pub, in libraries etc. Then I started to wonder why men parodying women - and usually punching down at working class women - were being celebrated far more than women themselves, and why it was deemed appropriate to have these men perform at every opportunity, including in front of children, when much of the time their acts are not only misogynistic and highly sexualised, but also just not very funny. I think there is such a thing as a female sense of humour, as well as a gay male sense of humour, and whilst of course there is a crossover and I adore many gay men and comics, a lot of gay humour I just don't find very funny, because it's specific to gay culture and experiences that I don't relate to and don't interest me. Similarly, these straight teenage boys will be questioning why being LGBTQI+ is lauded as something of a higher status than being a heterosexual teenage boy who has stereotypically male hobbies and interests, and wondering why they should be cheerleading aspects of LGBTQI+ culture if it's something they can't relate to and have no interest in. Lacking maturity, they will come to associate all LGBTQI+ people with the activism and will resent and turn against those of another sexual orientation in general. Of course they are going to rebel against what they are being dogmatically instructed to do by their teachers and others in authority, they're teenagers.

We have bowls of pronoun badges in the student union.

The only people I’ve seen wearing them are some wokey staff. No students. Not one.

It's also hip dysplasia month.

What I meant was that LGB activists in my youth and middle age were tactically far more aware than the current generation of activists. They had the sense to see that they could win arguments through debate. They didn’t force language change to anything like the extent that today’s activists are attempting, and it happened over decades not a handful of years. I remember well the nastiness to gays in the school yard, for example - that’s why “queer” is so unacceptable to many older gay men. Despite the anti-gay sentiment, they won people over. There is no doubt that it took a lot of energy and must often have been painful, and I agree that there is still awful behaviour around. I don’t see so much winning people over now from the trans lobby groups, precisely because their demands are not so reasonable.

I suppose the pretty successful tactics of the pre-LGBT Stonewall and other organisations won’t work for those who can’t win a debate because they don’t have good enough arguments.

Really? When I looked around secondary schools for my DC and saw LGBTQ+ noticeboards in the corridors, I had a little weep thinking about how much better things were than in my schooldays when any hint of non-heterosexuality meant bullying from pupils and teachers, when Section 28 was in full force so LGB kids didn't get any sex education, when teachers in same sex relationships had to hide their relationships from colleagues as well as pupils. One of my best friends is a teacher and she still doesn't mention her family life to her pupils because it was so ingrained in her early career that she couldn't.

I'm really pleased that sex and relationship education covers a wider range of pupils these days, that teachers are able to help kids who experience abuse within a same-sex relationship or homophobic bullying, or grooming, that parents in same-sex relationships are able to play a full part in school life, and that it is no longer acceptable for school staff to bully and harass their pupils on grounds of sexuality.

You're talking about secondary, my friends primary school.

Thank you for your measured response. I’m sorry if I was overly aggressive but I must be honest that the phrase in your face is like a red rag to a bull for me. It instantly evoked memories of being expected to hide, of being one of the bad lesbians who was inadequately feminine, and being treated with suspicion and derision for not being willing to conform with sexist and homophobic attitudes.