Today in: “Pride isn’t for gay people anymore”: I went to the website for the Pride event in the big city near me. You’ll never guess what I found.
We acknowledge and honor that the Stonewall Riots, the historical origin of Pride, were in response to police harassment of LGBTQ+ people, especially those who were trans, nonbinary, and people of color.
That sounds super incorrect. For one thing:
… so no, there were not a bunch of heckin’ cool smol bean enbies at the Stonewall Riots. There weren’t really any trans people as we understand trans today - they were transsexuals, so they were also usually gay.
For another thing: it was not solely in commemoration of the Riots. Pride was also a demonstration for equal rights.
But let’s see who Boston thinks Pride is for now:
“Memorialize the queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color…, activists at the forefront of the 20th century lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, plus… movement.”
So we can’t, by this standard, memorialize Brenda Howard. She’s called the Mother of Pride, but she was white and Jewish and didn’t call herself queer. She was very outspoken about being bisexual.
Or any of the other founders of Pride, who were also white, and half lesbian, half gay men. Some are still alive, so I get not being able to “memorialize” them, but really, you can’t spare a breath for them?
How about Barbara Gittings, described as “the mother of the LGBT civil rights movement”? She’s dead, but again, she’s white, and she was a lesbian, not “queer.”
Or Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer?
How about Gilbert Baker, who sewed the first rainbow pride flag and said it covered everyone? It didn’t need to be subsumed by every niche demographic, it was for all of us.
Who are these mysterious QTBIPOC who seem to have done all the heavy lifting, to the point where they’re being fetishized and commemorated at a massive Pride event like Boston’s? Why don’t we know their names? Who are the few intersex individuals who don’t mind being callously lumped in with a group who uses them as a “gotcha”?
The names that come to mind when I think of today’s activism include Eli Erlick (confirmed rapist), Chase Strangio (fights in court so boys can change with girls and play in their sports and children can receive net negative life-altering drugs and surgical procedures), Elliot Page (poster boy for sadness), Dylan Mulvaney (he thinks he knows what a woman is), Erin Reed (scare-mongering nutjob who can’t read a legal bill to save his life)… and then I’m out. Who else falls into this stunning and brave category?
Also, anyone find it a little unpleasant that these “queer” people have now superseded the “LGB” people mentioned as an afterthought in the second part of the paragraph?
Whoever this Pride’s for, it’s not for LGB people anymore.
72 notes
·
View notes
Mallory Souliotis announces her retirement from hockey. She retires a two time Isobel Cup champion with the Boston Pride, a PHF foundation award recipient, and five full seasons of professional play as one of the best two way defenders in the PHF.
69 notes
·
View notes