BBC Pride article

[CervixSampler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj63jyl09jxo

An interesting read. Manchester is my nearest city. I’m not a fan of the ugly, dirty place where I feel anxious as a GC straight woman. There does seem to be less overt support in terms of fewer pride flags flying. I think Lloyds bank was fully window dressed in rainbow colours in June, as was possibly the Halifax if I’ve remembered correctly. The Lego store has had a Lego progress flag at the back of the till for weeks. I’ve not seen anything in Starbucks though. Last year they had rainbow straws. I’d like to shop without politics and don’t see why banks and building societies need to get political. The money would be better spent supporting local LGB charities imo. And Tunnocks giveaways.

Possibly but I think these corporations saw it as publicity and there are diminishing returns doing the same PR every year.

They just got bored

Agree. I actively avoid places with the flag especially with the pink and blue “trans” additions. Always gutted if I have no choice but to enter a rainbow-bedecked store or bank. It’s blatant cynical corporate bandwagon-jumping.

"I think Lloyds bank was fully window dressed in rainbow colours in June, as was possibly the Halifax if I’ve remembered correctly."

Halifax are owned by Lloyds so that would be probably be correct. They're currently in the process of getting rid of the Halifax name and rebranding everything as Lloyds.

It probably took off with business because it was an easy way to appear in stonewalls lgbt friendly business index. Use marketing money to put up a few flags in store and sponsor a float in the parade.

The lack of enthusiasm could be to do with business disappearing from the high street or their profits reducing and pride costs increasing.

I think there is something in the idea that someone had a vision of a month of pride being a new public celebration.

I read this a few hours ago and it felt like the author was told to try to make it “balanced” - the trans bit didn’t really say anything.

And yes it was very much lacking in mention of any of the fetish stuff, a glaring admission, and seems to add to the impression that it’s trying to be normalised.

I live in rural East Anglia, close to where I grew up. There was a gay pub (not a pub that did gay nights, a gay pub) two or three villages away from the late 80s or early 90s. There have been out gay couples in the area for at least as long.

Admittedly we're not a million miles from a mainline station that runs into London - but Crewe?

Pride in men in fetish gear and pup masks twerking for kids - yay

Pride in your road/village/town/city/country - boo, you're all racists.

Wholly agree about not buying into the whole 'someone I disagree with is an actual threat' malarkey.

Most of this at local level isn't people wanting to stop these events from happening. It's a mix of people's experience having been trained to recognise Pride as:

A lot of this is really inappropriate in public.

This has become a corporate jolly.

This is a movement quite seriously unpleasant towards women and gay people, openly, including excluding anyone who dares to not agree with this - Pride now is actively hostile to people who wish to be openly homosexual. And to women and women's equality.

This is now dominated entirely by one political, partisan and quite extremist political view that is hostile to other views, actively seeks to remove women and gay people's legal protections and equalities, and really has quite a number of issues with child safeguarding that should be questioned

and therefore, this shouldn't be funded from local government and tax payers - because LAs have no business involving themselves in the above.

Many are becoming less keen to go or to involve themselves

And the symbol of involvement and support for it is no longer a neutral, entirely positive, lovely thing.

I agree with all these points. I was mostly criticising the idea that as a GC woman I am anxious when I go to Manchester.

Let's not play them at their own game. We can make legitimate criticisms without pretending that having an opposing view to the zeitgeist makes us unsafe.

Being a woman around selfish fetishists makes us unsafe, yes. But I'd argue that the women inside the fold (the so called transmen, the non binary women) are much more unsafe than we are, even if they don't acknowledge that.

Oh no, not rainbow straws! Visible support for minorities against people who attack them for inherent characteristics they cannot change! Monsters.

Felt very similar to this in NYT last year - trans issues have divided the movement and it's supporters as they also want women's rights to be kept. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html

There's visible support and realising you're watching a man dressed in a mask and thong pretending to be a puppy, while floats promoting HSBC and Starbucks pass by.

Being a woman made me more sympathetic towards minorities under attack from bigots.

Calling trans people "fetishists" is ignorant nonsense, and deeply harmful. It is why trans children ssuffer so much sexual violence, especially at school.

They're viewed as hypersexual because they've transitioned - narrow-minded adults having told their bullies that the sole motivation for being trans is sexual.

Trans men and nb people are affected by bigoted messaging just as much as trans women are. They know exactly how vulnerable they are to cis male violence, and don't feel safe at all.

Violent cis guys view trans/nb people as socially acceptable to attack - and consider raping them a victimless crime. 'Gender criticals' contribute to that by dehumanising, sexualising and vilifying trans/nb people. All hate has consequences.

I think there are at least two things being missed by this article.

The first is the public sexualisation common to many Pride events. Sex stuff has always been a part of Pride but didn't used to be at daytime events with children present and welcomed. Fetish stuff should be kept to night time and private events and people are rightly uncomfortable.

The second is the fact that sponsoring Pride can now be a big risk to a business on several fronts as it invites scrutiny and attack.

The Leftist LGBT activists attack for pink washing and not being fully on board with the Omnicause.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62597165?app-referrer=deep-link See also Queers for Palestine who protested the most recent Stonewall conference outside the venue.

Then you get poor publicity from people who either disagree or who are sick of the constant messaging. Plenty of examples of this e.g. Budweiser losing sales after the Dylan Mulvaney ad, Wickes COO telling people they should buy their paint elsewhere if they are gender critical, Target in the US lost a lot after an argument over Pride displays.

If making a public statement gets you criticism from both sides then why would they bother? Better to say nothing.

Exactly! The article actually says at one point that the events are less supported now because people are becoming less inclusive. Completely missing the actual truth of the matter that Pride events are exclusionary and people will no longer collude with this.

No one called trans people fetishists, stand down dear

If you actually read and understood the thread, you'd know that's a random straw man you're attacking ther.e

I'm going to reply to this post twice, because one of the topics is too serious to be anything other than a standalone post. This is the other one.

By your own account you aren't a woman, you are NB. So I'm very confused whete this "being a woman" comment came from.

Obviously, I think you could speak as a woman, but then I'm someone who finds the whole gender identity thing just old school sexism in a fresh flag, and I also know you categorically reject the basis on which I would see you as a woman.

So I am genuinely interested to understand what you, someone who identifies as NB and embraces TWAW/TMAM, mean when you say "being a woman".

Did you just mean "when I used to think I was a woman"? Or do you think you as an NB person have something in common with women, and if so what? It can't be your AFAB body, clearly, because that's got nothing to do with being a woman (TWAW, TMAM) - so I'd love to know what you meant by your comment.

We aren't making a big thing out of Guy Fawkes being hanged (he jumped off the scaffold to avoid being drawn and quartered - brave man), we are celebrating the rule of law over disorder and constitutional propriety over factional revolution, which is what the Gunpower Plotters thought they were about since they wanted to overthrow the Protestant monarchy of James VI and I (which is why Catholics may have a bonfire but no guy). What was almost certainly going on is that they were really inside a plot to out dissident Catholics that was organised by Robert Cecil. Anyway, we celebrate because it reminds us that generally speaking revolution, in England at least, has gone by stages and peacefully (apart from the Civil War which caused more loss of life per capita than any war until WWI and is why a lot of people who know don't like Charles I a lot).
But you are right, we don't have any celebrations. The Whitsun walks have gone as has Whitsun (thanks to Ted Heath), Easter parades, Palm Sunday parades all have disappeared. We need something to celebrate but Pride with fetish and trans activists is probably not it any more.

You really, genuinely think people who disagree with your virws on gender think trans children are "hypersexual" and that "raping them is a victimless crime" - WTF???!!!

NO.

You are literally the only person I have ever heard make that claim. I've never seen anyone suggest "hypersexuality" something that just comes with a trans identity, or that - fuck, I can't even type it it's so abhorrent, they think the other thing you said.

I am cutting you shitloads of slack here because based on what you've disclosed in other posts I see whete this is coming from. But this very much feels like you are projecting some direct personal issues you are dealing with onto the wider public discourse.

What happened is vile and inexcusable and I in no way minimise that.

However, this does not make it acceptable for you to claim that anyone who disagrees with your belief that men and women are mental rather than physical labels is a fucking rape apologist/enabler.

Are you trying to suggest that because gay couples existed, everything was hunky dory for them in the 80s!? I can think of a few reasons why the 1980s was not a particularly happy decade for gay people.

I agree that Crewe is effectively a suburb of Manchester, and that the efforts to paint it as some sort of Royston Vasey backwater is stretching reality, but I’m not sure what your point about East Anglia is. I am as GC as they come but there is plenty of anti-gay sentiment hidden amongst the common sense on these boards which I won’t ignore.

I agree about the OP being ridiculous claiming she is unsafe in Manchester because she is a sex realist.

I'm pissing myself laughing at someone describing Crewe as a suburb of Manchester. Look on a map, people!

I think Bonfire Night also survived because it tapped into something very basic about that time of year. It, and Halloween, are all about facing the coming dark in various ways, and simultaneously coming to terms with death and evil and defying it with fire and light and fun.

Oh wow - I'm usually pretty good with this seeing the same festivals under different guises stuff, can't believe I'd never seen the link between Bonfire Night and Samhain bonfires before. Thank you!

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Halloween