FFS disability is now on the pride flag

[sashh]

I'm livid. I'm disabled and I do not want to be represented on the LGBTQ+ flag.

Also this quote: Dayna Halliwell (she/her), Content and Engagement Manager at Evenbreak, led the collaboration and organised the Pride visit. She said: “It was very moving and amazing to see the reaction of disabled people in the audience. You could see the joy on their faces of being represented in the parade.”

https://blog.evenbreak.co.uk/2024/07/02/new-disability-inclusive-pride-flag-unveiled-at-london-pride/

Probably as well they don’t considering stepping out onto one is the same as stepping out onto an unmarked part of the road - cars are under no obligation of expectation to stop.

Exactly - what on earth does being disabled have to do with who you're attracted with? It's painful, forced teaming.

Yes.

I'd point out however this has always also been true of gay and lesbian people.

The flag is now hated by many, but even before all of this, there were plenty of gay and lesbian people who thought it was kind of dumb, or even counterproductive.

There really is no such thing as a unified gay political movement. The closest you;ll get is the desire for removal of laws that resytcit homosexualisty and the ability to share things like pensions, be next of kin.

Even same sex marriage has never had real unanimity in the gay community.

Identity politics is just very limited.

Then you are not imaginative in the slightest

So just a vague and all-encompassing term meaning:

“I am special and not a boring normie, and must let you all know how interesting I am with my oh-so-slightly-risqué reclaiming of the word queer. No, I can’t clearly explain its meaning to you because you’re too dull and uncool to get it (and not because it can mean anything I like).”

Why does anyone need a micro-label?

Late to the party, I recognise- but I find it really strange how people assume this is an attempt to "make disability a sexuality" rather than one person/group making a flag to represent LGBT+ disabled people? When people see the logo for LGBT+ doctors' group GLADD do they assume GLADD are trying to argue that being a doctor is a sexuality? Of course not. I don't see why that same understanding doesn't apply to situations like this.

That is to say, I think this particular flag design is misguided at best and ugly at worst, but I don't see why a group representing LGBT+ disabled people shouldn't represent themselves at Pride. LGBT+ spaces are historically difficult to access for disabled people, this sort of awareness-raising usually aims to improve accessibility at gay/lesbian bars, gay bookshops, Pride events and the like, which seems a worthwhile cause to me as someone who is both disabled and a lesbian.

So by that reasoning the only reason he trans but if the flag is to represent gay people who are also trans. Straight people who are trans aren’t included???

Well, that entirely depends on how you view and define the LGBT+ community, I think. I know many of this board disagree with me, but because I typically refer to the LGBT+ community as opposed to just the LGB community, trans people are already included in my definition. Therefore, the progress flag (as much as I personally dislike the way it has overtaken the classic pride flag, but that's another discussion) was originally intended to raise awareness of trans people within the community, who have often been ostracised even within LGBT+ spaces, and by my (and many others') definition that is all trans people. I don't think that intention rings true today, as it seems to have become the standard flag for pride events, but I see what the designers were hoping for when it was first created.

Surely it means it's to represent disabled LGBT people? ,😕 Nothing more complicated than that.
If you are like "I'm already represented by being LGBT, why do I need the fact I'm disabled too on there?" then fine, just ignore it then.
Clearly some people have said that they want to feel represented there as well, and so what if they do?
Everything doesn't always have to be about you (edited to clarify in the general "you" sense that is)

So why are trans people included in the same group as gay people? What do they have in common that others don’t. That is the very basis on which groups are formed. The group has something in common that others don’t share. What is this?if you’re saying only gay Transpeople are included in the flag why are they all now including themselves - which is it?

Surely it means it's to represent disabled LGBT people?

Why have you grouped LGBT together? Why does it not only represent Trans people who are LGB? What about the circle? Is on only ‘I’ who are L, B or G? Or is it ‘I’ who are T too, or all ‘I’?

But that isn’t the message that is put across. If you’re going to create a flag to include groups you need to define what it is to be a member of that group. This involves deciding what all the members of that group have in common - that is being gay by your reasoning. Yet that doesn’t seem to apply to Transpeople. Therefore you are drawing people into the flag who dont want to be there. Stick with the characteristic of the people in that group which isn’t shared outside it.

The combination of groups was born of what is now a pretty outdated attitude from homophobes (and transphobes, though the term didn't exist at the time- and I mean people who genuinely hate and discriminate against trans people, not feminists with legitimate concerns) that the two groups were effectively the same.

Since most transsexuals up until the last few decades were biological men who wanted to be seen as women, and many of them also dated men, there was a tendency to group the two together underneath the same, generally offensive, terminology. Homophobes had a tendency to associate gender non-conformity and transsexuality with homosexuality, especially when it came to effeminate gay men, butch lesbians, and transsexuals. These days I think the two groups have broadly different aims, goals and commonalities, and I do see that reflected in separated groups sometimes, which I think is important when it comes to the political aspects of the communities especially.

Pride does seem to serve as a general gathering for everyone LGBT+, which I think has its place. It's important to me that it isn't the only place, however, and that more exclusive gay, bisexual, lesbian and trans groups are an equally vital part of maintaining our communities.

(I realise I lost my original point a little there, which is that the teaming of LGB and T was originally enforced by homophobic outsiders, and at the time banding together made sense.)

I’m left handed. People don’t realised how hard it is to live in a right handed world, and where the very language that is used about us is reductive and abusive. Sinister, cack handed, maladroit, gauche etc etc. Nobody puts us on a flag. But we smile through the pain.🙂

I think the pride flag needs to get back to its roots and concentrate on what it once was.

Absolutely, yet people are dismissive when I point out if ‘neurodiversity’ is diversity of thinking then that should include left-handers.

Trying to explain about left handed playing cards is a pain.

I'm not left handed. But I find I do a shit load of things left handed. Including card games.

I do. A very likely scenario.

At the women’s rights event I went to, only the masked trans rights lot were holding pictures of guns. The women’s rights lot were just chatting politely amongst themselves.

But surely, as you say, the Transpeople were homosexual they were an ooh eeady included. They weren’t a seperate group. They were suffering discrimination because they were gay.

And for horses - weren't police horses spooked by one of these things a while back?

Interesting. I still think a majority of people associate this flag with sexuality. As it should be.

Most would rather just use their country flag.

Ever since they put that Dad's Army arrow on the flag, it's read to me as saying everyone should be sexually available for TW.

🤣