27.6.18

Guest Post - Pride is not for you

Today the blog welcomes Nick (who you may know from twitter) who wanted to share his (strong) feelings about a recent newspaper article about Pride, what it means and what it's for. And straight friends, I have news, it's not for us....

Here's what Nick has to say ...


It’s 2018, LGBTQ+ people have way more rights than ever before. At least in the UK and many parts of the so-called West, elsewhere our existence is still a legal question sometimes punishable by death. Here in the UK homophobic crime is still prevalent. Personally I probably get roared at in the street about once every six months. And I’m lucky, to the untrained eye I can sometimes pass for straight. Our camp brothers, butch sisters and trans comrades often don’t have that luxury, and for them it is far more difficult.

But we’re good right?

No we aren’t, and the need for Pride remains. Pride was born out of a bloody battle for equality, from vilification, chemical castration, ostracisation, the AIDS crisis, lost jobs, lost lives, and more.

Pride is now many things to many many people. From dikes on bikes, to fabulous drag queens, village groups to corporate giants, baby gays slowly making their way from Narnia to aged battle scared queens. This is incredible and I love it.

But Pride is NOT for Liam Payne to say how his son makes him proud and want to be a better person. Bully for you, you utter knob, he should do. That’s your job, you’re a Dad. In the Evening Standard piece that opens with his mug and the headline:

Liam Payne says having son Bear has ‘changed everything’ as he speaks out in support of London Pride: ‘He’s making me a better man’

You actually have to get to paragraph four before any LGBT person is mentioned.  Instead we get a roll call of the great and the good who are also ‘proud’. Get in the sea.

Pride in it’s origin was not about  our children making us want to be better people, doing well at uni, or anything else in the heteronormative world people are proud of. It was saying ‘We’re here, we’re queer and you can get used to it. We are proud of who we are despite the fact you kick the shit out of us.

So Liam, the Evening Standard et al can fuck right off.

Now I’m absolutely in love with my straight ally friends, and I know we would never have achieved equality without them. I also love them because if interviewed about Pride in London and asked what made them proud, they’d say that the people they love can live their best lives now. They’d reference pride. They wouldn’t make it about them. Because they bloody get it.

Anything else is stealing the air and experiences from a large group of people who are on the receiving end of more violent crime and hate than you will ever know. We are more observant of the world around us and vigilant because many of will still double check our surroundings before holding hands with a loved one. Yeah still, and it’s 2018.

Finally giving the headline to a straight-white-rich-able-bodied-man, perpetuates the idea that not being a racist/homophobic/misogynistic/disablist arsehole is something to be lauded. Are you fucking kidding me? Not being these things is human decency 101. It doesn’t deserve a medal. If you can’t manage all of this you have work to do to catch up.

So Liam et al, I appreciate what you’re doing, the campaign you’re supporting, but no one likes the dickhead that rocks up late to a party and then makes it all about them. If you do decide to make it all about you, expect to be shitting glitter and not in a good way. After all, as the overused meme says, anyone who says hell hath no fury like a scorned woman has never met a mildly inconvenienced homosexual, and at pride there’s thousands of us.

As usual I welcome comments. Or pop over to twitter and tell Nick what you thought.

He's not always this angry...

https://www.instagram.com/bainser/

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