Comments

1

I entirely approve of Mr Savage's title, which, given his situation, was entirely appropriate.

The only people who don't belong at Pride are the Gs - we should have a same-sexer event, and we're probably able to make it happen. And at least we'll learn from history.

2

Of course children of queer parents should attend Pride. How sad all this bull is going on.

3

On the question of labels and letters, I will note that it is possible to form two acronyms from one of the more common variations of the alphabet soup - BLAGTIQ+ (I like this one for its invocation of the colloquial verb ā€˜to blagā€™) or QuILTBAG+ (which might appeal to the craftier members of the community - Iā€™m a baker, not a seamstress). Either way, at least both are proper acronyms, and not a random assembly of letters no one can remember.

4

There are assholes in every group (with the exception of the group "people who aren't assholes"), and people who are part of groups who have been mistreated by the mainstream are, sadly-if-understandably*, more prone to this particular kind of boundary-policing assholery. "Drop dead" is probably a but strong, to some extent, they're lashing out because they're still hurting and insecure ("hurt people hurt people" etc.). I recommend kindness all around; sure, tell them they're being ridiculous and Pride was never meant to be a queer-only space, but do so with some sympathy. Unless you think they're cynically exploiting a marginalized identity to just revel in their most antisocial tendencies - self-aware assholes like that are often beyond help, and ostracism may be the overall least-harmful response in that case.

*When a particular group membership has been the basis of mistreatment, but you manage to make it something great despite that, of course you're going to be more likely to resent members of the group of which most of the people who have mistreated are a part when they show up and - seemingly - suddenly want a part of the awesome thing you built in the face of adversity. Of course, neither marginalized nor privileged groups are monoliths, and the PARTICULAR people showing up at pride (except the corporations pinkwashing their images - fuck those guys) are most likely to be the particular members of the privileged group who weren't assholes and may even have been allies who helped build the awesomeness.

5

Agree Dan, I wouldnā€™t want a guy with a hipster beard eating my pussy either.
Itā€™s not that hard to remember LGBTI+

6

Which is hypocritical of me given I donā€™t shave. Itā€™s the kissing of men with hair around their mouths which to me is unpleasant. I do like some sideburns. The Blues Brothers were on recently and I like their sideburns.

7

What does it matter who walks in Pride. If itā€™s bringing disharmony then drop worrying about it. No one carries a LGBTI+card.
You mean just gay men Mr Venn. What about the Lesbians, they are gay also. Then the bi and trans people must be included, the intersex too. There is safety in numbers. And your purist line gets a little disturbing.

8

"If you're making a list of people who don't belong at Pride be sure to put your name right at the top because your ass doesn't belong at Pride." Amen! However, this is a great sentiment but I can think of people who don't belong at Pride. Opposite-sex couples trying to unicorn-hunt lesbian or bi women. Gay bashers. Bible thumping protesters.

"It's always the sympathetic heteros who wanna do away with labels." Again, great quip but not quite true. Many Kinsey 1's and 5's want to do away with labels, because they don't feel bisexual enough to round up to bi or pan, yet they feel disingenuous claiming to be straight or gay. Sympathetic straight people want to do away with labels -for other people-, as we've seen, for instance, in these comments:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/05/28/40325940/she-loves-her-husband-but-worries-shes-gay/comments
Dan's right: this attitude of "why do you need a label" may come from a heart that's in the right place but is not helpful for us queers trying to understand ourselves and express our place in the world.

Straight caller: Wow. Dan is gay. If he wants to "pander" to his own demographic then let him. We non-gays are actually lucky he's deigning to address our problems! The gays owe you nothing. So there was one episode you couldn't relate to -- what, do you want your money back? (That sounds snarkier than I intend, because he does sort of seem to get it, as much as a straight-privileged cis man can, perhaps.)

9

Neo Nazis and the cops who protect them do not belong at pride. Sincerely, a bi girl in an interracial relationship who left Detroit pride for her and her partner's safety.

10

Years ago I talked to a lesbian friend about my sexuality and gender issues. She was the first person I really spoke to about this because I thought she would understand, but she didnā€™t at all. She kept insisting I was straight, referring to me as straight, and making fun of me for it even when it wasnā€™t relevant and even when I told her Iā€™m not okay with it. Sheā€™s the kind of person with thinks her difficult childhood justifies her actions. This year, on Facebook I saw she was one of the many people insisting straight people donā€™t belong at pride. I wanted to confront her about it but I havenā€™t spoken to her in years so I didnā€™t. I know sheā€™s insane and doesnā€™t represent the LGBT community but other than this post I havenā€™t seen the community do much to stop gatekeeping behavior. Itā€™s weird how people think they can determine someoneā€™s sexuality or gender just by looking at them.

11

Actually - on an evolutionary basis promiscuity favours women far more than men. Genetically, women should have babies by as many different men as possible to widen the gene pool. We donā€™t nowadays because we want to do other things and pregnancy can kill us. But ego psych guy is talking out of his tight misogynistic arse.

12

BiDanFan @8, your list of who should NOT be at Pride is one of the big reasons I go to Pride (other than adorable dachshunds in rainbow hats and bow ties, thank you lovely lesbian couple for that charming and delightful experience).

Iā€™m a boring white middle aged cishet lady. Like most middle aged women, we learned early that thereā€™s safety in numbers. So my job is to be on the outside of the crowd sitting between the joyful array of happy humanity, between them and WBC assholes, wearing pink glitter. Let the assholes yell at me, that way theyā€™re not abusing someone else. And let them be intimidated by just how many people are there so the queers can have their equal space in the public sphere...itā€™s easy to pick on a line person or small group, much harder to be an asshole to a cast of hundreds or thousands.

I do wish there was a ā€œQuiet Side of Pride,ā€ which is where all the introverts, quiet types, and folks freaked out by big loud crowds can hang out under a rainbow tent and chill, while the louder types similarly did their thing just far enough away to keep the noise to Bob Ross levels.

13

Oh, also the main reason women donā€™t have one night stands, apart from violence, is that we typically donā€™t come during them. So why bother? Men have said in multiple editorials and forums that they couldnā€™t care less if their partner orgasms during a one night stand. Surveys have also shown that these selfish assholes expect blowjobs during one night stands but wonā€™t reciprocate because itā€™s ā€˜too intimateā€™. So again - why would any sane woman bother? Unless you havenā€™t had sex for a very long time thereā€™s zero incentive.

14

Iā€™ve never been in any defence forces, yet I could march on our Veteranā€™s Day.. ANZAC Day to us, because my grandfather died in WW1.
Children of gay parents, whatever their age, are front line people. They lived thru the bigotry as children, they should be leading Pride marches.
If a few straight people, with no ill will towards the LGBTI+ community, have the urge to march alongside as allies, what is the problem.
The kink community though, doesnā€™t sound like they want to join as allies, they want to come as kinksters, which takes the focus away from what Pride is about.

15

Straight people do not get discriminated against because of their choice of sexual partners.
Which is what I understand Pride is all about. A show of solidarity by those who love differently to the expected norm and have been and still are being discriminated against.

16

Dan, if you're legally liable for harm that would come from connecting two readers together, aren't you just as liable for harm that results from your suggestion for how they can meet, and for suggesting they use the medium you yourself provide? You might wanna check with your lawyer to see if you have a "fiduciary duty" to withhold such suggestions. A court of law could interpret it as a de facto introduction. (You're a smart guy and I assume you've already cleared it with your legal team, but I'm shocked if they're okay with it.)

17

I don't have an opinion on it really and it's not my place. Anytime a parade is full of corporations, it's a bit dull and seems to have strayed away from any community or creativity. Last time I went to the official pride parade, it seemed like it was mostly just corporate floats- boring. Then there are the cops too- walking around and waving. Why in the world would I want to see cops walking around waving? In uniform even with their patrol cars with rainbow stickers. Seemed weird to me.

In Houston, I was I remember how much Pride freaked out my grandmother every summer. She said from her apartment she could see naked men. NAKED MEN I TELL YOU. I don't think she was telling the truth because she'd have needed binoculars to see Westheimer from her flat- but it's odd to remember how people felt then now that it's such a family event.

In high school and college I frequently went to pride because it was near downtown in June and what am I supposed to do: stay inside all day since I'm straight? I used to work and live in that area in college, the music scene and bar scene was there. At that time, it felt part artist coalition, part gay rights, loads of advocacy for AIDS orgs. Pride felt more grassroots then- a lot more creativity in my opinion- everyone lying and working in the area got involved in someway, and the festivals beforehand were more adult themed and the actual parade was after dark which made the streets feel like a nightclub. So even though it's not my scene, I can see some nostalgia for a cool thing that has passed and been engulfed by corporate and het-norm family values like everything else. But trying to stay in the ghetto isn't an option either, I'd think, and I have faith that humans will continue to find new ways to be expressive.

18

Karia @13: I have found that men who are horny are typically very willing to go down on you, once you make it clear that if you don't get off, they don't get off. :) But yes, good point, made by several of us in reply to the main column.

19

Ms Lava - The Ls have agency; they must decide for themselves. Feminism may mean more to them than same-sexerism.

One wonders how many of the errors of what the Cool Kids (though I decidedly do NOT man the same so-called ones who appoint Mr Shapiro as their philosopher of choice) seem to be calling the GRSM stem from Gs and Ls having kinda-sorta been able to co-exist in shared spaces. Mr Horstman is looking at the attendees instead of the cause.

20

I refuse to use the term ā€œcisā€, as itā€™s made up by the gender theory sorts to describe about 99% of the population. I look and act like a man, I was born with a penis, so the simple English word ā€œmanā€ is perfectly clear. I donā€™t make my every sexual desires publicly known so whether Iā€™m het / bi / gay or wide open is really not a topic for conversation unless Iā€™m interested in sex with you.
That said, I donā€™t make friends with people who feel a need to categorize me or others for their gender alphabet Reddit.

21

20 tim browne - refusing to use ā€˜cisā€™ must make it hard to follow Roman history. Where would Julius Caesar have launched his attack on Rome if not from Cisalpine Gaul (Gaul on this side of the Alps). Cis (on this side) Is the opposite of trans (on the other side) in Latin.

22

@bidanfan - oh yes and most of my regular lovers have been very keen on it! I think Iā€™d read something that pissed me off that day.

23

@tim Browne

Being angry at the word cis is no different from the heteros who used to get mad at being called straight.

24

I'd rather have corporations put floats in Pride than ignore the issue entirely, or (non-existent god forbid) be hostile toward it. When I worked at B&N (until five days ago), many people expressed thanks for our corporate-mandated book tables for Pride Month, Women's History Month, Black History Month, etc. (I do wish they'd had at least an endcap for Jewish History Month, but alas.)

People over corporations, certainly, and I can see there being a feeling of loss for the grassroots-type origin of Pride, but surely the more the merrier, no?*

Disclaimer: While I think I'm biromantic and heterosexual, I round myself up/down to straight and claim only allyship with the LGBTQ+ cause. My opinion is my own and not representative of membership to any group.

*This sentiment assumes they practice what they preach and, like my father's company, engage in internal diversity/acceptance training, advocacy, progressive benefits and HR policies, etc., in addition to public support. Hypocrites do not good allies make.

25

Ms Muse - You don't know why B&N disbanded its same-sexer section(s), do you? Borders never did. It seemed like coming full circle from the time when Waldenbooks first gave us a small shelf with a tiny number of titles. I assumed it was a declaration of Operation Assimilation Complete, and of course it didn't work. Who could find new titles or authors one didn't know about that way? At least I got an example for my anti-assimilation arguments out of it.

26

@25 I'm not aware of the history here (I worked for B&N for about a year, and nothing changed in that time except changing Teen Fiction back to Young Adult Fiction); all I know is that there is an LGBT+ section in Social Sciences. It's for nonfiction, and novels with gay characters would be mixed in with the fiction section.

27

Pan Sapien @21 -- ditto South African geography, for that matter. We have the Transkei and Ciskei (referencing the river Kei) regions down here, and the prefixes are very useful on a road trip, natch. ;o)


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